Camargo and Igarayo!

Hello everyone! :) I hope everything is going awesome for all of you and you are happy serving our loving God. Sorry it’s been so long since my last post, a lot has happened, where do I begin?! This past weekend Paula (my roommate), Lena (a really good friend from my hall) and I escaped the city life and traveled to Camargo to visit some friends we have that are serving there. Camargo is about 3 ½ hours outside the city, a little bit colder, really dry with about 6,000 habitants. For years there was only a small group of brothers in Camargo but now there is a small congregation of 20 publishers and have a beautiful little Kingdom Hall that one of the sisters donated. They also have many small towns outside of Camargo as part of their territory, one of which is Igrayo. 9 of the 20 publishers live in Igrayo. After a very bumpy two hour ride and a half hour walk crossing a few rivers the 8 of us arrived in Igarayo. The brothers go the first Sunday of every month to conduct a meeting there and always take the opportunity to preach for a few days so that is what we did. :) It was awesome to be able to be part of it! One of the sisters there named Panchita has brought 12 people in the truth and has never even been part of a congregation! There is no denying that as Jehovah’s people we have his spirit helping us every step of the way. The publishers in Igarayo are very zealous and often conduct their own meetings but to see their strength and endurance all these years without the support of an established congregation really deepened my love for our brotherhood and encouraged me to never take for advantage the privilege we have to be in a Christian congregation. It also deepened my love for Jehovah, he never lets even one of his faithful sheep out of his sight and loving care, not even for a minute, no matter how far out in the country they may be, he watches and guides them….amazing. The sisters are so hospitable, feeding us breakfast, lunch and offering us numerous places to stay the night. One sister even gave us her rooster to eat for lunch….it was alive when we left in the morning haha….We cooked over a fire, slept on straw beds, fell in the mud, accompanied them on their studies, jumped in bales of hay, looked up at the millions of stars, laughed, sang, gained friendships that will last a lifetime and preached to the ends of the earth!:) There is nothing that could have made us happier! I also view this trip as a very large blessing from Jehovah because I had been feeling kind of down when we found out that foreigners are no longer being assigned as special pioneers here in Bolivia, there were quite a few of us that had made special pioneer service a goal. But while we were in Camargo we learned that there is another town that the branch wants to make part of their territory that has 3x the population of Camargo and has never been preached. The five of us have made a plan, put it in prayer and left it in Jehovah’s hands but if it is his will and we see his direction we are hoping to move there and start a group next year. There is always work to do and it’s such a privilege and honor to be able to have a small part in the outworking of Jehovah’s grand purpose and loving search for honest hearted ones!

I miss you all very much! Love you! See you in a month! :)