First Impressions

Shame on me! We have the CO´s visit this week. An American couple is being training for the next 10 weeks by a Spanish couple. The Spanish overseer is giving all the talks. I was a little disappointed...he didn´t seem that familiar with the circuit work, or maybe it was just the English field. And the first meeting he asked us to take his car up to the car wash. Well, it ended up being this whole ordeal and B and I missed the entire CO´s talk!! We were grumbling about why couldn´t he do this yesterday, because it was taking unusally long and we were disappointed to have missed his first talk. And the American couple is only observing this week. He has no assignments. :(

Then this morning for the field service group it was a little disorganized. Both the CO´s and the PO were suppose to have the list of who volunteered to work with the overseers. And no one could find it so he just rearranged everything. So up until this point I was getting a weird vibe and wondering if the rest of the week would be as wonderful as I had been looking forward to.

I was placed in the car group with the Spanish couple. And once he told us his story boy did my conscience feel guilty! He was telling us how he has 11 years in the circuit work. Then he got married and his wife has joined him for the past 5. His whole family have not only been raised in the truth but served in full time service...His father use to be the CO here in Oaxaca in Spanish. He commented how he had just finished training another couple when the branch called and asked him to train another couple down in Oaxaca. And that it would be in ENGLISH! Little did we know this CO is actually a spanish CO and hasn´t spoken English in 25 yrs! He told us how he was hestitant but then reasoned well if Jehovah´s extending this privledge to me I know he´ll help me with the language. And after you consider that, man! His English is perfect and he is doing a great job! I was so quick to form my opinions, well his English isn´t great...he didn´t deliver the best talk...but that was the first talk his given in English!! WOW, again!

He has been very appreciative of B and I taking care of his car. He told us how he and his wife had driven 24 hrs from Mérida to make it down here in time. That he drove the first day till midnight, woke up at 7am the next and continued driving until 7:30pm and they were so exhausted! And he was embarassed to take his filthy mud splashed car out in service the next day so the only time he had was when he asked us to take it for him. Woops, again.

Then I got to work some with American CO´s wife. They´re recently married, 6 months. From Portland and Seattle, been in Mexico 2.5 years met each other here, dated a year and just got married. He´s 35 and she´s 32. Shawn went to to MTS 10 yrs ago, they made him an elder at 26, has 18 years pioneering and she has 14. They just asked Shawn to conduct the pioneer school and right afterwards, totally unexpected, the branch invited them to start training for the Circuit work. She is really down to earth. She said she always thought Circuit work would be nice but never actually expected for it to happen, b/c who is she? She´s nobody. She asked about B and I...we talked about what kind of weddings we had, how we had each met our husbands, pioneering, etc. We have alot in common.

And just for a perspective. There are only 3 circuits in all of Mexico English. So if they´re training them that means they´re most likely looking to form another circuit and they will head it up!!!

We also had our pioneer meeting today. We have 16 pioneers. And 36 publishers. He talked to us about how just the publishers service hours average is 22.7! The national average is 11. So our congregation is doing well putting in the time. That we´ve covered our territory two years faster than they expected BUT we only have 48 studies!!! He really stressed working on our return visits and focusing on making them disciples. He said out of 100 studies only 5 people actually get baptized! So with only 40 studies we´ll only add about 2 more publishers and how long will that take? So we need to step up the RV´s and concentrate less on covering our territory. Focus on the found interest.

He also spoke about how to count hours. In the OM book on page 86 it lists the areas where we do count time and areas where we don´t. The book says our time starts when our ministry work begins and ends with the last call of the day. Other essencial activities related to field service, such as getting ready for field service, traveling to the hall, the service meeting, and travelling to the territory are NOT to be counted as field service time. Neither do breaks for eating and drinking refreshments. Pioneer meetings, tours of Bethel, time it takes to get to the hall in the meeting can not be counted as time, contrary to some´s popular belief.

It was very nice and an encouraging day. I learned my lesson today! Not to judge too quickly. Give people the benefit of the doubt and a chance to explain...understanding a full situation is essential before making any assessment! Looking foward to an excellent week!

Here´s the pioneer pic we took from today.