Last Post for This Time in Mexico

Hey everyone! Emily here. This is our last post before we are home for the summer. We'll be working our little tails off so we can get back and continue serving in Mexico.

Every year before the memorial the congregations get together and do a big clean up and paint the Kingdom Hall. In one day we painted the entire interior and exterior of the Hall! It was a lot of fun.


Dane and Luis Alberto confer.





One of the congregations lovingly provided lunch for everyone.



Oh Juaquin, so silly.

Some of us sisters at the memorial: Lyndsay, Emily, Joan, Gladice, Tiffany and Myra



One of the local beaches – “Tenecatita” is good for snorkeling. It has a little bay with nice coral and beautiful fish.





While there we collected a little family of hermit crabs from the beach. They have been our buddies for a couple months now :-)


Once a year a local restaurant has an anniversary discount so we were able to treat ourselves (split with our buddies the Kuhns) to something more upscale than our favorite street tacos. They have this wonderful steak called “Arrachera”. Very tender and juicy with a wonderful flavor.



The hammock is an enjoyable place to study for meetings.


One of our local beaches has a shipwreck. It was interesting to snorkel around.

Here you can see the shipwreck closer and a whale spotting!


We had a sister (Serenity) visit our congregation from Las Vegas, NV area. We spent some time with her while she was here and she was a delight. We took her out to the Comala area while she was here. She was here for a month thinking that would be all she could do. She had such a great experience that she arranged with her employer to take a leave of absence from work next year. She’ll be back this fall for 5 months and hopes after that to return again for a year or more.



Handmade Ice Cream & Sorbet. Very delicious!





A common road sign in Mexico - any guesses as to what it means?


One of the sisters in our congregation teaches English at an Elementary school. Emily had a fun time going and showing some of the classes pictures of our friends back home and sights around Oregon. She got to share some of the things we do throughout the year. In the summer helping to build Kingdom Halls and in the winter the students enjoyed the pictures of all of us in our ministry work bundled up for the cold and then retreating to different cafes for coffee and snack.



Here they sing us a song they learned in English


The older students were very sweet and provided lunch for everyone.


The Lopez family decided to move to a city close to Mexico City where the need for help is even greater than in Manzanillo. There is a congregation there that only has one elder. They will be sorely missed but they are going for a good cause.


They did a moving sale before they left.


Emy had one last talk. He did a great job reading a chapter from Job.


Emy and Roger like helping Dane with the magazines


We did a little slumber party for the young girls in the hall.


We did “crazy make-up”. I let the girls do mine



– they succeeded – I looked like a zombie.


Going in the ministry in April brought us many fun sights.




We've never seen goats and Egrets hang out like this before





Joan and Karina in service. Don and Joan are needing to move back to the US to help take care of Joan’s Mom. They’ll try to come back next winter for a couple of months but we will miss them a lot.


We were very intruigued and hoped it was a huge smoker for meat. We learned this is how they make charcoal for cooking.

This Senor is making churros.

This horse was wandering in the neighborhood.

Many people have fruit trees in their yard. This family had a Yaka tree.

Sometimes we’re out until 8 or 9pm because that’s when some people are available to study.


We got to do one last day at the beach with the Lopez and Munoz families.





Dane had fun dunking the kids

And then they had fun dunking him! His foot is still kicking - He's OK.





Armondo and Damaris’ wedding went beautifully. We haven’t gotten the professional pictures back yet but here are some we messed around with.



After the ceremony Damaris needed a snack

On the way to the reception...




The traditional meal at Mexical weddings is “Birria” made from goat or cow meat. Soupy stuff for a formal occasion.

Damaris gets advice from Grandpa




After the ceremony Damaris put on her dancing shoes!

The dancing was a blast. At one point they brought out huge bunches of balloons!

This family was very hospitable. We stayed with them the night after Armondo and Damaris’ wedding and the next morning they cooked us breakfast before we left. Dane and I are still very limited in our Spanish. Mexican people love to connect so they will find a way even when we cannot communicate freely. They will try to find something in common we can relate to each other in. It often involves things like movies and music because we share those in both cultures. After chatting for a bit we discovered that we liked some of the same music – folk music of the 60’s. They played different songs they liked as we ate together. Sitting at their dining table singing Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Blowin In The Wind” all singing together was not an experience I had anticipated when we moved to Mexico. What an unexpected treat that experience was.


For one of the Going Away dinners for the Lopez family we went to an Italian Restaurant.






We had the Lopez family over for one last meal of “Barbacoa” style beef. The next morning they were on the road.





Dane is making us screen doors for the front and back – when the rainy season gets here we’ll really need them.


One of the families from the other Manzanillo English congregation had some families over for dinner.

They have a brick oven and made some of the best pizza I’ve ever had.


One last sunset.


In order to use our airline miles we had to fly out of Puerto Vallarta which is a few hours away by driving. It worked out beautifully because Luis Alberto has family there which they haven’t been able to see in 2 years. We all piled in our car and drove up.

We stopped along to way to pick “Cirruhella” similar to a sour plum.



Thanks for joining us on our adventures in Mexico! It has been fruitful and enjoyable to be able to serve Jehovah here where the need for assistance is great. We both have encouraging Bible studies that we had to turn over for the summer. We're looking foreward to coming back to them.

I have a study with a mother of 3 who is being suprised at the false teachings she has been taught. She is enjoying our time and even her 12 year old son grabs his copy of the Bible Teach Book and sits with us every time. He may be getting his own study soon.

[Dane Here]: I have one with a man who runs an Aborottes (Mini-Mart) out of his garage. He lived in Tri-Cities Washington area for 8 years. He now has a family in a small town just north of Manzanillo and has responded to the message in English. We are in Chapter 2 of the Bible Teach book. He is coming to love that Jehovah is the real solution to Mankinds problems.
My other study is with the Canadian I mentioned before. He is grabbing onto the message the Bible Teach book has. He really enjoys having this spirituality in his life and sometimes gets choked up at how important it really is for him. I look forward to coming back to him and continuing our study.

Currently we have our return tickets to come back to Mexico September 7th for another 9 months. We're putting the details in Jehovah's hands. We hope you have a great summer and we’ll resume our blog when we get back down South.

Much Agape,
Dane and Emily