A smokin cold shower

Well our meeting attendance was back down this week- I think we had 14. And Justin gave the talk this time, and most of our bible studies weren't there to hear it. We were a little bummed. But oh well, this is only the beginning phases. At our meetings in Oak Ridge we aren't real advanced with technology. We use an old ipod shuffle for the music. And being a shuffle, as you younger people may understand, means that if you are singing song 130, you have to click the thing 130 times to get to song 130. It's crazy. But anyhow, our old shuffle didn't work for us when the meeting started. So we had to break out acapella style, I have to say we sounded pretty good. That was a neat experience, just hearing everybody's voices. It sounded really pretty. We sang "I want to" and "Jehovah is our Refuge". By the third song they got the shuffle working, which was fortunate, because I looked ahead to see what it was, and couldn't figure out the tune to that one for the life of me. So, we are going to download all of the Kingdom songs to our Ipod, and be taking it with us to the meetings now for our music. Thanks to Teri! Oak Ridge will have dependable Kingdom melodies again. I bet you didn't know how importantly your gift would be used:)

We have been getting cold showers now for about 2 or 3 weeks. Let me tell you, it may be hot here, but getting a completely ice cold shower still does not feel good. Especially on a rainy day when it's only 78 out, you don't think to yourself- Ummm, a 50 degree shower sounds really refreshing right now. You see, most places don't have hot water tanks around here. So everyone just buys these big shower heads that have a heating element right in them. Now they work great, when they're working. When we first arrived, ours needed a new part to make it heat up. So we went without for about a week. But then I finally had enough, and told Justin I was going to die if I had to get another cold shower. So he got the part, put it together, and all was good, for about a month. You see, these things are a little bit of a hazard if you think about it....It takes electricity to heat the shower head up, and then you have the water running through the shower head....You get the point. So maybe if they are done completely well and properly there would be no troubles, but ours looked a bit like a hack job. And for the whole month it was working, you would get shocked every time you touched the metal shower knob....Not a good sign. So, for the last couple days before it blew, we were smelling burning when we showered...Definitely a bad sign. Fortunately when it finally started blowing up and smoking, Justin was in the shower and not me. Ha Ha. He came running out of the bathroom with a towel on, over to the garage shutting off breakers. I feel bad saying, but it was kind of entertaining for me. So, now we have been without heat for awhile, and I take the shortest showers I have ever taken in my life.

 

One other noteworthy thing I keep forgetting to mention. To all you gluten free people back home, you are the only ones that will truly understand how cool this is. Our grocery store on this little island in a third world country has an awesome gluten free section! It just started about 2 weeks after we got here. Because when we first went, I looked all over and didn't see anything. But then the one day a few weeks later- there it was! A huge section all of it's own. Pasta, flours, cookie mix, brownie mix, crackers, and so on. It is better than Giant or Walmart back home. I can't believe it. Crazy right? So, I am not dying down here from food deprivation or anything. So we are doing good and anxiously awaiting the arrival of our dear friends Chris & Heather on Saturday! Our next post should be interesting, I'm sure......

This pup found a good napping spot