Sunday, October 13, 2013

Day with the Congregation

TToday we woke up around 8:30 a.m. and went to the complimentary breakfast.  Man... Was it amazing! It was buffet style.  Sooo many choices. Rices,salads,eggs made any way you want them, pastries,fresh cheeses, ... Ect.  Too bad I wasn't that hungry.  We had omelettes and French toast with syrup,raspberry compote and whipped cream.  It was good .  John went back for 2nds.  And they had orange juice, apple juice and mango juice as drinks.  The mango juice was exciting to me.
Our hotel is so nice , I'm not used to this. It's a 5 star hotel- called The Bellevue Hotel.  I'll send pictures later.  After breakfast we went back to our room and went back to sleep until about 12:30pm.

The brothers  picked us up for the meeting. The sister we have been emailing before we got here-Toti - arranged for them to get us.   It was an older sister and her grandson- He was about 20 yrs old.  He drove.  They we're really sweet.  The roads here are crazy.  Picture driving in NYC- without lanes.  And they drive on the other side of the road to pass a slow car and try to make it back in the right lane before the oncoming traffic hit us- barely making it.  Apparently they drive like this a lot and it doesn't phase them.  He was a good driver , but I would never drive here. Haha.  

So we made it to the Kingdom Hall.  It was about 40 mins from our hotel.  It was in Tagalog but most of the people spoke good English.  With some I really had to strain to listen and I still didn't understand , after saying 'what?' A few times I just had to nod my head and laugh.  They were all so nice.  It was overwhelming . It was like we were celebrities there. Although, some seemed more excited about seeing the new bible more than us.  Haha.  They took pictures of them holding our bibles.   Pretty much Everyone in the hall met us and thanked us for coming.  There were about 90 publishers there.  2 other delegates of the special convention came also.  They were from Dallas,TX. One was from a Tagalog speaking cong. In TX.  After the meeting, the cong. had planned on rehearsing for when they host the delegates for the convention.  So we got to stay and watch.  It was cute.  The kids sang kingdom melodies and the teenagers did traditional Filipino dances with traditional garb.  Now we can't wait to see what the congregation hosting us has in store for us as far as their performance. 
 (Side note- we met the family from the Feb.2013 Awake - the cover series about immigration . We got a picture of the little girls wih the mag. In hand. It was really neat)


After the meeting we went out to dinner with about 12 people-including us. Toti took us all to a fresh fish market. Toti is a bethelite and there were 2 other bethelites there as well.  So at this place there are booths and booths of fresh fish (some still alive) and you pick what you want and bring it to a restaurant right near by and they cook it however you want.  The restaurants have people on the streets who bombard you and adamantly try to coerce you into going to their restaurant.  The were practical yelling at us to come there.  Very interesting. Thankfully, our friends knew how to spot the freshest fish and knew the best restaurant to go to.  

The food was good, although I only tried one bite of a couple things.  Unfortunately, I started feeling really sick and hung out in the bathroom for a while.  Perhaps it was from the water.  Lesson Learned.  It was nice , cuz the whole table tried to take care of me and felt bad.  They got me soda and medicine and mangoes for dinner.   Meanwhile , John had some neat conversations with the Bethelite brother- Peyton is his name I think.  (Hard to remember all the names).  His parent's were in the Circuit Work, even after they had him.  So basically he grew up in circuit work.  During the week he stayed at a Brothers house so he could go to schools and during the weekend he went to wherever his parents were serving at.  

Around this time we were finding out what jet lag really felt like.  We were really tired! Then we finished dinner, said our goodbyes , got lots of pics and rode back to our hotel.  John had a nice nap in the car.  And we stopped at a pharmacy so I could get medicine for my sick tummy and some Gatoraid. 
The grandma went in with me and helped me get my stuff and helped me know how much to pay.  I felt like a little kid not knowing what I was doing at the cash register.  It certainly is nice to have the friends here to help us get around.  Now we are back at the hotel and have a long day tomorrow.  Have to wake up early .  It is our ministry day with the Congregation hosting us.  Looking forward to it.  So goodbye for now .  :)



That was at breakfast . I didn't try it.  Dang it !  Haha

John and the sister that took us to the hall

Toti and me 

The kids at the hall that sang for us - They sang Listen, Obey and be Blessed and Pray Anytime
That is inside their hall.  



Fishy fishay

6 comments:

  1. How do I fix that Craig ? Google + is new to me still

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  2. Tried to comment three times if this doesn't work I give up. The kids look really cute. Bet they sounded cute too! Know you are having a wonderful time. Looking forward to more posts on your blog.

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  3. WaaHooo! It worked !! What do you know?!

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  4. OH SNAP, Look what they caught. (AC humor for John.)

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