Friday, December 5th, 2003

Today was the day that we were going to go to Coronado. We all were in anticipation of this. I had been getting up very early in the morning so that I would not be in the way of the others getting ready for the day. While the rest were still sleeping, I would take my shower and then turn on the morning news. This particular morning, I decided that instead of Maritza cooking breakfast for everyone, that I was going to do that. Moises Junior had been getting up early with me because he slept in the living room. He needed to go to the store for something, so I went with him and bought instant pancake mix and instant biscuit mix. We were going to have scrambled eggs, pancakes and biscuits for breakfast. Every morning, two loaves of french bread were delivered to the house. We would eat this bread with whatever meal we were having. Maritza would then put the leftover bread in the oven inside of its plastic wrapper. Well, needless to say that I am not used to looking inside the oven to see if there is anything in there before I turn it on, and I turned it on to cook our biscuits. This caused the plastic to melt all over the leftover bread and to drop onto the bottom of the oven. We got the bread out, but as the biscuits were cooking, I started a little fire in the bottom of the oven. Moises was able to put it out without a problem and the biscuits didn't taste any different for the experience. Nevertheless, Maritza got to have a morning off. So we had a good start to Friday morning.

As we drove over to Coronado we sang some devotional songs in the van. It was a very good experience. We would pick a song to sing in English and then we will pick a song to sing in Spanish. If we knew either song, we would sing along in our own language. We arrived at the building and found everything well. We were able to take a tour of the lower and upper part of the building. The lower part of the building is where the church meets and is currently being rented. The upper part of the building is not currently being rented. It appears to have been someone's residence at some point in time. There were four big rooms and a bath room upstairs, but no kitchen facilities. We dropped off the Bibles and song books that we had brought for the church here and proceeded to the house of Alejandro Tortos Campos. He had taken the day off to assist us in handing out tracts and announcements of the gospel meeting to the community around where the building was located. We met in his house for a little bit and then we went on to Eduardo and Carmen's house to meet them for a moment and have a little rest. Eduardo was working but Carmen was there.

After we visited with them for a while, we left to go get some lunch. We ate in a restaurant in downtown Coronado. It was all typical Costa Rican food. It was very delicious. I couldn't pass up the plantains. After lunch, we went back to the area of the church building, split up into three teams and began knocking doors in that area. We handed out several tracts and invitations in this area. We should note here that not as many people own cars in Costa Rica as in the United States. So, many people walk to where they are going. We were able to give several invitations to these walkers as well.

After we handed out the invitations, we went back to Eduardo's house and took a break to prepare for the evening study. While there we had coffee and some refreshments. Larry preached Friday evening on the subject of the cases of conversion and the plan of salvation. He did an excellent job. The translator that we had at Coronado was named Carlos Ulantes. He is a professional translator for Truth for Today. He did an excellent job translating for us while in Coronado. Coronado is not his home congregation. He worships in the town of Atillo which is a ways away from Coronado, but he, his wife, and daughter came up to support the meeting effort. We were very much encouraged by brother Carlos.

After the evening services, we drove back to Tres Rios with a bus load of people. We had twenty-people in a twelve passenger van. We dropped several off at bus stops along the way. We then stopped at Pizza Hut for supper. Larry, John, and I had told Maritza that we were going to cook Friday and she said that would be "OK!" So we stopped at Pizza Hut. We ordered four large Pizzas and six pitchers of soft drinks. It was all gone by the time we were done. Everyone was REALLY hungry. After this we went home for the evening.

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