Week 2

Hi everybody!  Week 2 has been great.  Jenni and I have been starting lots of studies, and we have been getting much encouragement from the local brothers and sisters.  The people here are still receptive to the truth- just like they were last wk! Jehovah has been helping us along the way tremendously.  For example,  another sister, Arley, and I did some of my visits on a Saturday. Just FYI if you don't have a photographic memory finding your returns might be hard. That being said I hadn't a total clue how to find mine, yet Arley and I managed to find them all.  In fact, a very nice man in the village helped us find my last call of the day. As we were walking along, I saw a woman bringing out some chairs from her home and she called us over. "Hey," she said. "I was waiting for you."  It was my study, Sherly, who we were looking for.  We sat and talked for over an hour during the study.  At the beginning we had prayed that Sherly would feel comfortable to ask us questions.  Before we left, she asked us why god permits suffering.  In fact, we seen that she had already been reading the book before we came and had her book marked for questions she was particularly interested in.  Arley invited her to the meeting. Although she attends another church where she lives, she said that in time she would make the effort to attend a meeting at the kingdom hall.  This is very impressive since she lives across the Haiti border, and the kingdom hall is here in Pedernales, DR. Meanwhile, Jenni was preaching with Nicolas.  He has become a good friend of ours who is zealous for the ministry. But he likes to take all the doors=) After a few times, she asked him in Creole if she could speak at the door when there was a woman. He didn't believe her when she said she had a field service presentation in Creole, but after giving a demonstration he gave in.  They continued and did a couple more studies.  One of which was Jenni's: a young girl who had to hold her crying baby brother the whole way throughout the study, yet still payed attention to what she was being taught.  I sometimes can't believe the appreciation I see here for the good news.  Its so different from what we're used to.  Oh yeah, side note.  During a study with another sister during the week, a young girl had a cat.  I asked her if she had given the cat a name and what her family called it. She said, "We call it the cat."  That was funny. 
Many more great things happened.  A whole congregation from Santo Domingo took a road trip here to Pedernales.  The hall was filled to the max for the mtg sat night.  Everyone was bustling with excitement just to be there together.  The sisters invited Jenni and I to the cafeteria for food and drinks, so we tagged along. Can you imagine a whole congregation of ppl walking down the street at 10 o'clock at night. Fun stuff!  Along the way, Jenni remembered that there was another need greater, Martine, who'd arrived earlier that day. We passed by her apt and seen her looking out over the town from her window. She told us she hadn't eaten the whole day on the bus ride from Santo Domingo.  She had been wondering what in the world she was gonna do for food when Jenni called up at her to come with us.  She threw on some clothes and off we went.  Only with Jehovah's ppl can everyone be so free and open to go along with perfect strangers right?! We had a great night.  And guess what. One of the brothers had made all the food arrangements so it was free! Aaahh. Nothin like free food and good company. Well that was that. We exchanged info to keep in contact and now we heave new friends here. 
Today is Sunday.  Martine spent the afternoon with a few of us sisters. We showed her all the good stores to go to and now she is happy.  We came back home to meet up with 3 girls who study with Valerie(the sis we live with).  Martine started zealously talking to them about Jehovah. This was very encouraging because she had a very long hard day the day before.  You'd know what I'm talking about if you ever had to ride five hours on a guagua(bus, not to be confused with the ones in the states). In the meantime,  Jenni and I made Dominican spaghetti. MMmmmmm delicious! We ate and were satisfied.
But wait, don't go.  If there's talk about food, you always have to follow it up with a good bug story. One night, after a long and tired day, Jenni walks into the bathroom to get her face wash.  What do I hear next?..."Oh my gosh. Ashley." Well that's right. You know what it is. The biggest, nastiest flying cockroach you ever seen in your entire life.  Somehow I got stuck with the job of doing away with the roaches. Don't ask me how that happened because I am deathly afraid of those things.  Everyone in the house here decided that there is no way that God made those things. They definitely came from Satan! Anyway, the thing tried to go back down the drain,  but I killed it with some spray and it died next to a glob of hair.
The End.