assembly and updates

we've had a busy november:
- special assembly day in english in quito
- CO visit
- circuit assembly in spanish in otavalo


a few highlights:

- the special assembly day in english was amazing.  we understood all of it without even trying!  it was really refreshing to be fed spiritually in the language that reaches our hearts.  and we weren't even a little bit tired or headachey afterwards.

- there were 415 in attendance at the english special assembly day.  there are 3 english congregations and 2 groups in ecuador.  many in attendance were gringos like us, serving in a spanish hall, but looking to get the assembly program in english.

- at the english special assembly day there was an incredible experience given by an australian brother. he and his wife were working towards the goal of moving to where the need was greater.  then they got pregnant.  they decided to come here anyway with their super adorable little boy.  they would travel back to australia to work and save money when needed.  as many of you know, about 2 years ago the provision of the missionary visa was no longer available, which made it very difficult for many to stay in the country, as obtaining residency can be difficult and costly.  like many others, they returned home to work and save.  meanwhile they had a 2nd baby.  one day an envelope was delivered to their house with no return address.  in it was a bank check made out to them for the exact amount of money they needed to secure residency here in ecuador.  they're now here, hopefully for a very long time.  this experience really touched the hearts of most in the audience as we could almost all relate to the struggles of obtaining residency, and we have all seen some friends have to leave because they couldn't do so.

- we had about 50 pioneers for the month of the CO visit. about 30 are regular, and 20 were auxiliary for the month. we have about 130 publishers in the hall.

- at the spanish circuit assembly we had 16 baptized, and 3 were from our hall.  one was a little boy, jacob, he's about 12 years old.  his mom was baptized about a year ago, and his dad has started coming to the meeting pretty regularly. the other two are a married couple who have been progressively studying since we've been here.  they have 4 boys and all have been regular at the meetings for a long time.  we remember the day that the husband came to a meeting with newly trimmed hair, no more ponytail! it's been such a wonderful experience to see them progress, to work with them in service, to see them get baptized.

- we had 1409 in attendance on sunday afternoon.  our circuit has just 865 publishers so you can see the potential growth for our area with 544 others in attendance!  two of those in attendance were my bible student, patty, and her adorable little 7 year old daughter, emily.  i was beyond excited to have them come.  emily was really good, she sat quietly and followed along in the bible with my friend camille, whom she was sitting next to.  at one point when camille didn't look up a scripture, emily said to her "didn't you hear the chapter and the verse?" and she told camille what scripture to go to.  patty's only in chapter 3 of the book, but she is always home at the set time for our study, and she is coming along well.

- we had an announcement at the assembly about the january 2015 international convention that will be held in quito.  we will not be attending in quito, but all of the circuits in the country will be tied in locally (19 locations throughout the country) so we will be able to benefit from the convention.  i couldn't get my pen out fast enough to write down all of the 6 countries that will be providing delegates, but i did hear 4 of them:  USA, Barbados, Spain and France.  there will be 1 governing body member coming.  there will be 3,000 delegates, mostly from the USA.  we met a local brother who is in charge of organizing the greeting at the airport, and he took down our information, so we may be welcoming brothers and sisters from around the world as they arrive!  we'll keep you all posted on that, but we're super excited at the thought of being involved.

- we met a super cool young couple who are serving as special pioneers in a town called san jose de minas.  it's about an hour from otavalo if you go the 4-wheel-drive route over a mountain, or 2 hours if you go the paved way towards quito.  they've only been there 2 months.  there are just 14 publishers in the group, and this brother is the ONLY baptized brother in the group.  the town they live in has a population of about 7,000 and there are 2 other "pueblos" nearby, for a total of 14,000 population to preach to.  we haven't ever been out there but it is very country.  sounds a lot like intag.  she's tall and gorgeous and she was really dressed up beautifully at the assembly, and we said to her "you don't look like a country girl"and she was like, "no, i'm really not!"  she is columbian, and her husband is ecuadorian.  they were living in quito as regular pioneers when they were asked to go to minas.  they have not attended the special school for couples nor gilead.  we hope to go early next year with another couple in our congregation to visit and for the brother to give the talk at their kingdom hall.

- we have friends in cayambe, which is just about 20 minutes away from us.  cayambe is privileged to have a special pioneer couple.  the branch sent a brother up to cayambe for a week to visit the congregation and encourage the special pioneer couple.  the bethel brother gave a special talk on sunday, and there were over 240 in attendance.  cayambe congregation is made up of about 80 publishers.  there were so many people there, that they had to set up a tent outside the kingdom hall in the parking area.  they set up a television so all those who could not fit in the kingdom hall would be able to see and hear the brothers talk.  therefore they joke that they probably had even more in attendance, since most of the neighborhood would have heard the talk!