Monday: This morning my friend and I were up early to chat, then all of us had breakfast and coffee around around 8:30/ 9:00. At 10:00am I departed for home at the north end of town. I finally arrived around 11:30 and headed straight for the shower. Then I treated myself to a 30 minute rest in the sun on my rooftop. Then, I got to work. I scrubbed the house, cooked some food, packed a few things, tried to catch up on a few emails and RBC work and started my "to-do" list for the next couple of days. Where was the time going? Next, I made dinner for my friend and I and then I cleaned up before crashing in my bed tonight.
Tuesday: Today I met up with some friends to go preaching in the Mariscal area of town. We met so many friendly English speakers.
One experience in particular stood out. While doing a "quick census" (focusing on the open businesses to leave the invitations), we came to a coffee shop. (Pause for excitement). I pointed out the chalkboard sign, which read (among other things) "We speak English". I suggested we go in, and we found the place to be empty, save for the two baristas working there. The told us they had the best coffee in Quito (a theory which we tested and was also later confirmed by a coffee connoisseur friend of mine).
As we explained what we were doing in Quito, one of the baristas seemed intrigued. So we decided to have a cup of coffee and invited him to sit and continue the discussion further. He poured himself a coffee and sat down. We talked for about 20 minutes, during which, the cafe began to get busier. At one point, another patron who had been listening to our conversation, jumped in to play "devil's advocate" after one of the barista's comments. We were surprised at both his interest and support of a particular point we were discussing.
As more people began arriving at the cafe, the man we had been talking with asked his co-worker to let him know if he needed his assistance. The man's wife then came over, introduced herself, and then suggested that he get back to work. At the same time, however, the customer who had previously chimed in our conversation came back and he sat down to join us. Though he had recently converted to Islam, we found him to be quite open-minded and pleasant. We left him with invitations to both our local meetings and the District Convention as well as a "What Does the Bible Really Teach?" book, which he assured me he would read. We were all so excited!
We rejoined the others in our group, then I took our visiting sisters to a popular lunch spot for foreigners (The Magic Bean), then I walked a few blocks to meet up with some of the friends to purchase our bus tickets for the following evening. After we had our tickets, I went back to the restaurant where I had left them and ordered a salad for myself. We then took them to the bus stop so they could go home and the one sister and I headed up to the north for my study.
I stopped by to pick up some cake since it would be the last time I would see them for a couple months, but regrettably, they were not home. My friend and I then walked several blocks to her sister's house and spent a couple hours there with her sister and played with her niece and nephew (they were so adorable!) while her sister finished sewing a beautiful wedding gown for a friend of hers. Around 6:30, we took the bus back home. On my way home, I stopped to pick up a few items my friend had brought back from the States, then I continued to walk home.
I walked in the door at 8:00 and I headed straight to the kitchen to make some dinner as I was starving by this point. Then it was time for just a little computer work (mainly catching up on this blog) until my eyelids became so heavy I couldn't keep them open any longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment