BLACKOUT

Due to a variety of interesting occurances, we´ve been without power for three days.I kind of like it, and fully intend to have Amish Night at least once a month when we get home.

I'm In Love!

We interrupt this week's usual broadcast to bring you A Very Special Episode of Sanguijuelas & Sacristanes. I've fallen head over heels in love with a fellow I met last night.

After service yesterday our friend Valerie came over for dinner. Just after we gave thanks for the food, her phone rang. Her mom had saved a dog off the side of the highway (People will sometimes drop their pets off on the highway when they are no long willing or able to care for them, apparently thinking that a quick death will be more excusable than a prolonged one.) He was scared, shaking, dirty, but inestimably sweet.

I don't think he was always a street dog. He was scared half to death and had more plants and debris embedded in his fur than actual fur, but he wasn't afraid of people, and after Valerie gave him a bath, and I gave him a haircut, he was nothing short of dashing!

He was supposed to go home with Valerie that night, to get some meat on his bones (he hadn't been fed for at least a few weeks) and to have a place to stay until her and her mom could find him a permanent home. Well...that didn't exactly happen as planned.

Like peaches and cream, we were pretty much meant to be together. I slept with him on the couch that night, and in the morning his tail was wagging and his eyes were bright. I took him to the veterinarian this morning to get the scoop. He's about five years old, flea and parasite free, and now sporting a shiny new collar and leash. I named him Falkor, after my favorite character from The Neverending Story. The resemblance is striking.

After examining Falkor, the doctor had to break the news to us. He has a congenital heart defect, an inherited problem that makes his heartbeat irregular and results in the occasional coughing attack as he tries to catch his breath. There's nothing that can be done - medication might mask the symptoms, but it won't solve the problem. He could have a couple years, or months, or less.

He is the sweetest, most loving chap I've ever met, and in the past 24 hours he's come a long way from the petrified pup we picked up off the streets. He's going to stay with us until I can get him fat and happy. Though I think we already have the happy part covered.

Sleepless in San Miguel

We're still here! Since we don't have to worry about planes, trains and automobiles anymore, we've happily settled into a routine that consists mostly of service, cooking tasty treats (especially Nick's excellent pozolé), and walking all the heck around town.

Also, standing artfully in doorways.

Occasionally, Nick & Zoe will scamper off to do totally unstaged shoots for up and coming attractions. This one actually looks like a still from an old movie. Grease? Footloose? Something starring James Dean? I don't know. If you know what I'm talking about, please tell me.

---

When we're not too spent from all the modeling, we go exploring on the weekends. The central jardin is usually pretty tranquil, but completely comes to life on the weekend. We went last Saturday.

There was dancing! Horse drawn carriages! Fireworks (of course)!

Girls tossing out carnations! (If you look closely you will see that my flower has no head. Nish.)

Mariachis!

Pretty señoritas!

Young people in love!

And Nick almost got abducted by aliens!

Tomorrow there is a huge celebration in the jardin that was just described to me as "Muy divertido, pero un poco peligroso." Translation: They shoot fireworks into the crowd. Perhaps we will skip it.

Believe it or not, one month has passed already. Three more weeks in San Miguel, a few days in Mexico City, and then a week in La Paz, Baja California. We're expecting two special guest stars - one October 6th, and one October 9th. Hopefully this will boost our Nielson ratings and we'll be able to stay on the air a little longer. If all goes as planned, we'll be hitting up two Special Assembly Days and one Mexico Bethel tour before our series finale in beautiful San Diego, California.

Since we've managed to stay put for a while, we've finally been able to cultivate interest in the territory, and made good friends in the congregation.

Linda J. & Cher E.

Steve E. & Nikolish

And of course, I am glad to have a way to do what I do best - teach children stuff and play with colored pencils. I had my second English lesson with Citlali ("Star" in Nahuatl) and Fransciso Jr. yesterday. Tempted as I am to teach them Olde English, ("Good day, good sir. How art thou?" How awesome would that be?) I'm sticking to our modern dialect and they're coming along nicely. They even learned a pretty snappy English field ministry presentation.

Their appetite for instruction is almost as large as my appetite for Mexican candy. At the end of our lesson, Fransciso was frantically trying to communicate something to me in Spanish. He wanted to extend our lesson by half an hour. When I unintentionally cut the half hour short by 116 seconds, he looked and my watch and desperately said, "Two more minutes, please!" I really can't argue with that. Darn irresistible Nahuatl children.

P.S. Go Chargers!

San Miguel de Allende!

Base Station San Miguel is up and running. We arrived last Friday night and (to everyone's relief) got a chance to wash our clothes, sip some pizza, eat some wine, and kick up our heels. Nick curled up at once with a teddy bear and made a nest. We were able to capture him in his natural habitat.
That brief moment of tranquility was fleeting. The house we are watching is home to eight cats, three dogs, a host of scorpions and mosquitoes, and any number of other creatures, including Edmund the praying mantis.

There are lots of street dogs in San Miguel, but the people here who have pet dogs treat them as nothing short of their own children. Coincidentally, a sister who went of vacation for a month left her dog with us as well - a 15-year-old miniature schnauzer named Fritz.

The picture of innocence, ¿no? No. The day Joan (the sister we're housesitting for) and her friend are scheduled to leave, Fritz makes a break for it. He somehow had eluded three levels of defense to escape the property - a metal gate, an iron fence, and a wooden fortress. Eye-witnesses saw him being picked up by a woman outside the house. People will kidnap dogs here for a small ransom, but she also could have been a Good Samaritan.

Nick and the brothers from the hall launched into action. Quickly, a REWARD ad was placed on the radio while others scoured the town. A few hours later, Fritz was recovered in the center of town, a 100 peso reward was rewarded, and our nerves were shot.

Therefore, when I went to wash the dishes that night and the sink exploded on me, I was fairly nonplussed.

---

San Miguel de Allende is home to the first English congregation in Mexico. The Kingdom Hall is beautiful, as is the congregation. Everyone here has a fascinating story. Most are retired Americans, with some Canadians and local Mexicans. All are full of vigor and valiant at heart - waging war on cobblestone roads that end expectedly and topes (extra large speed bumps) that can flip the wig right off your head. The town is decidedly beautiful.

Sunset in Centro

Zorayda at the Instituto

One night, Tara and I awoke with a start at 4 am. Some horrible noise was erupting repeatedly outside our house - or was it inside our house? My mind raced with possibilities - someone or something trying to baton down our door. A shootout in the middle of the street. The end of this system of things? I groggily called Nick upstairs on the land line, half dreaming. He assured me that they were fireworks, him and Zoe had been watching them from the roof since sleep was rendered impossible.

The next day, we learned that when someone (anyone) dies, no matter what the day or hour, family and friends will immediately assemble a barrage of fireworks and set them off incessantly until...they run out, I guess. The next day, a parade of people wailing, playing instruments and carrying oversize crosses will march through the street, setting off more fireworks. Exploding sinks or exploding fireworks, Joan gave us an all-purpose justification: "It's Mexico."

Most of the service mornings are spent canvasing in San Miguel, where there is a high concentration of English speakers. Some days, we go to further territories, like nearby Comonfort or Iturbede. There are less English speakers there, but a remarkable turn out of Bible students and interested people.

The rainy road to Iturbede.

Donde esta Zoe in the above picture? Tending to Fritz, who went out in the morning to do his business and came back with a scorpion (?) stung paw. Oh, Fritzoid. We can't escape the dogs. They're in our house, on the street, in our dreams, and on the roofs. They're everywhere. We can't escape them, and hopefully, ours can no longer escape from us.

---

We were waiting for one sister to finish a call when this man rolled up on his bicycle. He immediately dismounted and began reading his little blue paper. I could not help but think he was running lines for an upcoming audition. Extra Needed: MAN WITH MULLET. Behold - the most glorious mullet, if not most glorious man, in Mexico:

I don't know about you, but I'd hire him.

Prices here are all over the place - I've grown accustomed to the unbelievable cheap prices of Southern Mexico, but here, everything is different. Hairspray, dental floss, and peaches are luxury items. A cotton t-shirt can cost 500 pesos at the store, while I bought a pair of sweet leather cowboy boots on the street today for 20 pesos.

That's $1.47. Million dollar villas are short drive away from spacious houses that rent for $150 a month. There's a strange dichotomy between the lifestyle of the Caucasian people and the Mexican people. Amongst the locals, you can tell that many of the white people intend to stick together and refuse to learn the language or attempt cultural assimilation.

Amongst the brothers, the intermingling and love displayed is evident. The Spanish, English, Mexican Sign Language, and Nahuatl (indigenous language of the Aztec) congregations all meet at the same Kingdom Hall. In fact, when we showed up on Tuesday with no English brothers to direct us, the Nahuatl took us under their wing and into their territory.

We looked for people high,

and low,

and near,

and far.

It was fantastic! Most of the Nahuatl also speak Spanish, though it is a second language. And we also speak Spanish, though very much so like preschool children. Sharing that second language, we were able to communicate well enough with each other, not to mention the householders - for they would open the door, and whether they spoke Spanish, English, or Nahuatl, our bases were covered, we'd tell them the good news some way or another.

Afterwards, the family we worked with fed us as took us to the Tuesday market. There you can buy anything under the sun, and we bought most of the vegetation of Jehovah's creation.
I somehow made arrangements with the family to teach their two children, Francisco and Cithali, some working English, along with anyone else who comes and meets us at the public library. We had our first lesson last Saturday, and I was amazed at how quickly they learned basic introductions and how rapt their attention was. Zoe and I theorized that their simple lifestyle and lack of hyperstimulation could be the key to their diligence.

All of the congregations we visit want to know what our future plans will be. Are we coming to Mexico to stay? Can we stay and help them? Do we want to go get margaritas?

We are all in excellent positions to make excellent decisions, but only time will tell. Working in service, a precious bilingual sister tried to assess the situation.

"Chelsea, you are deciding if you are able to serve somewhere, perhaps in Mexico?"

"Correct," I confirmed.

"And your sister, Tara, she does not want the Mexico?"

I couldn't help but laugh. Perhaps Tara does not want the Mexico. Perhaps I do not want the Mexico. All I know is "a large door that leads to activity has been opened to [us]." I may linger at the threshold for a while.