Convention

                           REGIONAL CONVENTION

                                      Sept. 11-13, 2015

                            San Salvador, El Salvador

Sept. 10th, another day of traveling! This time for the LONG anticipated convention! We left Pana around 6:00am. We, Ashlie, Austin, Aiden, Mike and I were in Ashlie and Austin's van. Andy, Natalie, Neto and Jesse were in Andy's truck. This time we would have others to help us if anything came up on this trip! We had a nice drive, no problems, took our time with a few more stops along the way! Once we got into San Salvador, after about 7 hours, we split off from the other group. They were all staying at a hotel and we were staying with some of the friends that opened up their homes to us. We stayed at the home of Gerson and Stephanie Acevedo. He was away on a business trip to the states so we didn't get to meet him. :0( Stephanie is pregnant with their first baby, due in 3 weeks. It's a girl! She met up with us and showed us how to get to her house. Once we were there, she said that she was leaving the house to us. She was going to stay with her mom, while her husband was gone. Aiden was taken to another Brother's home for him to stay there. Stephanie said to rest up and they would be back at 6 to take us to get something to eat. Well it was more like 7:30 before they got there, but thankfully the pupusa place was just around the corner from the house! It took awhile to get our food, they are a very popular place, but that was ok because we were able to visit with about 12 other brothers and sisters that joined us! All 17 of us ate for about $2.30pp including drinks and got full! Can't beat a deal like that! Here is a picture of us at the pupusaria!

The sister sitting next to Ashlie is 92 years old serving in Nicaragua.

The place we were to have our convention is called CIFCO. It is an area where they have several buildings to host different types of events. It was about 10 mins from where we were staying. Here are some pics from our 3 days.



Outside of the building we used for the convention.

 

Inside

And yes it was air conditioned! YAY!!!

Mike was chairman Friday morning!

Just chit chatting! Brother in the center is Aiden, our M.S., next to Mike is Jesse and then next to Jesse is Andy, from our cong.

Natalie, Ashlie and myself

Austin visiting with Jesse.

Natalie doing an awesome job modeling our new release! :0)

Andy and Nat working hard to get that new release into the hands of the brothers and sisters! I want that job one of these days!

Mark and Alison Cooney working hard at the Publications desk. They were in our cong. They are now in Roatan Honduras.

 

 

Mike and I with Jared & Alvy Martin. They are the ones we stayed with when we were having the van worked on in El Salvador.

Mike and Daryl (No, I don't think he is about to punch him! Although it looks like it huh?)

 

 

 

Natalie, myself, Ashlie and Terri

 

Ashlie saw the young sister(Ayanna) on the left and pointed out to her that their dresses matched only different colors. And since Ashlie is a wee bit taller she had to add a little material to the bottom of hers.  Cute huh?

Ashlie, myself and Terri

By now you know who we are! :0)...

and these two!

 

This little girl had fun playing with Ashlie after the convention on Sunday!

 

 

 

What a wonderful 3 day spiritual feast! We learned that after this convention Nicaragua will no longer meet with us for convention, they will now be going to Costa Rica. So after the program on Sunday, several of us from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador sang Best Life Ever and 2 Kingdom songs to the friends from Nicaragua as a farewell gift. Sorry I don't have pictures!

 

 

After the Convention on Sunday we were invited to a get together. The brothers in El Salvador hosted many of the friends from Nicaragua, so they wanted to have a going away party for them. It was a lot of fun. Several of the young ones sang a Kingdom song and then...




This hilarious thing happened! And they also had dancing and good food!

We had a really good time and the brothers were so kind and loving! We left about 9:00pm to get back to where we were staying, heading out the next day for Pana.

Monday Sept. 14th we met up with the other car group to travel back together. We left by 10:00am. Again no problems at the border and so far so good with the van! Until...

We get to Guatemala City and another adventure begins!
We got into the outer skirts of Guatemala City around 2:00pm. We all stopped at Pricesmart (like Sams Club). Our group was in and out in 10 mins. We had to be quick so we made sure to get to the Post Office before 4:30pm. Since we weren't sure exactly where it was, we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time. So we departed and told the others we'll see them in Pana. Why did we need to go to the post office? Austin's mom had sent a package for him the first part of August but never got it in Pana. We found out it was stuck in Guatemala City, so we took the opportunity to get it while we were coming back through.  After all said and done, it took 2 hours to get their package! Ridiculous! Once they got their package, we were off to Pana. In the area of the post office they were having their Independence Day (eve) parades, so every street we wanted to turn on to get out of there was blocked. Pain in the back side! Finally we got out of that area! Now it is getting quite congested in the city because there were also many groups of runners with their torches and whistles running through the main streets. Another pre Independence Day celebration! UGH! We finally get to Chimaltenango, a town on our way to Pana, which is about 3 miles long, around 7-7:30pm. Traffic is HORRIBLE! We try to reach the other group by radio to see where they were. Guess where? Yep Chimaltenango! We all were hungry, so we met at Burger King! After eating, we got in the traffic line again. It was crawling, sometimes even coming to a complete stop! Austin, Mark and Neto decided to take a walk and see what was going on. They came back after a little bit to tell us it was a parade and it won't be over until 10:00pm. We had left Burger King around 8. Neto asked us if we just wanted to turn around and get a hotel for the night or keep going. We all just wanted to get to Pana, which we finally did at 12:30am! Fourteen stinking hours to get back! Three of that just to get through that town! The lesson in all of this? NEVER EVER TRAVEL THROUGH GUATEMALA THE DAY BEFORE INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

THE END