Jinotega

What a joy!  This place is awesome.  I am here visiting my friend from Trinidad who lives here permanently.  Jinotega is completely different from Granada.  It’s cold here at night and in the morning.  It is surrounded by mountains and has a slight hometown feel to it.

So far we have gone in service, started the track campaign and started a bible study.  I need to move here!  Too bad it’s too cold.  There are 2 Spanish congregations here each with over 100 publishers.  Yet the meeting attendance still gets up to 188 on the weekend.  I went on 4 of the 11 studies that my friend has.  The field is definitely ripe here.  Today we met the 5pm group and preached until after 6:30pm, it was completely dark when we stopped knocking on doors.  After greeting the householders with a “Buenas Noches”  we just kept the conversation going as if it weren’t nighttime.  (Hilarious if you ask me).  The food here is the same but Jinotega boasts a couple of swanky coffee shops.  Coffee is grown here locally.

In fact we went to a nature reserve yesterday, it’s owned by Germans and serves free range and organic meat and veggies in their restaurant.  The views here, in the rural territory are stunning.  Working with Spanish-speaking ONLY sisters has greatly improved my Spanish.  Chatting with some of the sisters that have moved here from the States, Canada and Scotland has proved to me how worth it it is to take the leap of faith and to sell your stuff and just move.  I’m seriously thinking about it….

Sidenote: There’s a sister here who makes Enchiladas and sells them 2 days a week to support her pioneering, YUM!!       

SideSideNote: It was a hot mess to get here.  The bus pulls out the station and informs everyone that we need to fork over double the money to make it to our destination because the road is blocked and we need more gas to get to Jinotega and it’s going to take an extra hour due to the back roads.  Then, the bus overheats.  Then we blow a tire.  Then it straight up breaks down!  In the meantime I befriend the woman sitting next to me who low and behold speaks English.  She has the Family Happiness Book and is trying to convince her husband to study.  In Matagalpa she helps me find a bank, watches my bags and gets her buddy to give me a free ride in a taxi.  I placed 4 magazine with her, a set in Spanish and a set in English. J