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Hello, Matthew. Goodbye, Camera

The ol' camera's working again.

Kinda. 

It turns on and beeps... and it even takes crummy pictures if you futz around long enough with the shutter release.  While irritating, this isn't a huge surprise since  over the past few months, photos have been coming out with washed out backgrounds, smudgy looking prints and then last week, the blasted thing wouldn't even turn on.  So I broke down and got me a new camera.  But not before attempting a few last shots today at the meeting. 

Lots of visitors today to listen to our speaker Matthew, who is visiting from Bethel.  I've tried my best to tweak the photos and these are the 5 that were salvageble.

Part of today's visiting crowd include the Choi's, Brian ( Matt's childhood friend) and Merlenna, Matt's parents and Alika (Mike's study).

 
Matthew and I

a gigantic California Supreme Pizza for lunch

Matthew, Brian and Alika

 

Mike and Ila (Matt's parents)


We'll see how the new camera does in subsequent posts.

Sunday Morning

Dear Rooster Crowing Outside My Window at 4:15am,

I hope you get run over by a bus today.

Twice.

Sincerely,

SB

A Great 2 weeks

I've supposedly lost about 8 pounds while on vacation last month.  This is, I'm sure, due to engaging in vacationy activities like: 1) walking up steep cobblestoned streets, 2) climbing hundreds of steps loaded down with backpacks containing dirty socks, postcards and spaghetti sauce mixes, 3)hiking up mountains, 4) hiking down coastal paths,  and 5) lifting heavy cones full of wonderfully creamy gelato up to our parched quivering lips. 

Okay, probably not the last one, but still.  An 8 pound loss is wonderful, no?  And that, my friends, is just the start of all the good news I have to share this week.

MORE GOOD NEWS:

The past 2 weeks have been such a wonderful whirlwind of good, encouraging activity, that my head's still spinning!  It all began on the 11th when Gary, our English CO visited us and we received a heart warming talk about Jehovah's impartiality (a.k.a. the Hoglah talk- snicker, snicker), reminders on how to maintain happiness despite challenges, and a motivating closing talk about using our time and energies wisely this deep into the time of the end. If you have not yet had your CO visit, you are in for a spiritually fortifying treat! 

{Hoglah, hee hee.}

On the Saturday of Gary's visit, a whole chunk of the congregation sorta suddenly just picked up and left town.  Had it not been the Spanish group headed to Kona for the Spanish Special Assembly Day, it might have been a cause for concern.  This particular exodus however was all good, since thanks to the new adjusted Circuit assignments, all Spanish Congregations and groups in the entire state were assigned to meet at the Kaloko Hall where there were nearly 300 in attendance.  There were 6 baptized and we even had a visiting speaker from Bethel.   And as if the day couldn't get any better, someone suddenly decided to treat us to dinner at Outback.  Toowooba!

Just a few days later, we were enjoying the company of Jose and Iris who are our new Spanish CO and wife. This was in fact pretty awesome since the Spanish Congregations in Hawaii have never had a Spanish-speaking CO before and doubly awesome because foreign language groups do not normally get a special visit at all!  Found 5 new people in the territory during the visit and started 4 studies!

Adding to all these layers of sweet chocolately goodness, was an invitation to the special meeting in connection with the Zone Visit this past Saturday.  We were tied into the program at Patterson and enjoyed an evening of experiences from around the branch territory and an eye-opening talk by Guy Pierce of the GB.  

So with all of the hip-hip-hurrah the past 2 weeks, why the lack of photos? 

THE BAD NEWS:

My camera has gone caput.

{sob.}