Friday, September 12, 2008

Wonderful Illustration

Nice illustration:
There was this man who wanted to get into the paradise. He saw this shop ahead of him called ' Paradise ' and walked in and asked the man standing behind the counter 'how can I get into paradise?' The man said, 'No Problem man,' and gave him a 'five foot' plank and took him to the back of the store. He then showed him a long narrow winding road and told him that he had to carry this plank all the way, and when he got to the end, he would be in paradise. So the man started on his journey walking up this narrow winding road. He walked for miles and miles and the plank that he was carrying started to get heavy, so he broke off a foot of the plank and continued walking. He now had four feet of this plank left and as he progressed on his journey, the plank once again started to get heavier and heavier. He broke off another foot. He was now left with three feet. He continued on his journey as he came closer, he saw this sign that said ' Paradise '. Now in order for him to get into paradise he had to cross a cliff that was ahead that had a 'five foot' gap!

The moral of the story is that Jehovah has arranged five weekly meetings per week to take us through to paradise. If we miss one, (the one foot that the man broke off) or even two, (the other foot that he broke off), then we are missing a lot of meetings. This is not the time to be slacking off no matter how tired we are on meeting nights. It is going to get harder too. Next year we move to three meetings on one night; if we miss that day, we will be missing 'three meetings! So let us all strive to be at each meeting, no matter how tired mentally or physically we might be. I want to see you all in the 'paradise.' So let us continue to fight the fine fight. We are too close now, can't you feel it?

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Sam

Wooolah! i finaly get back to to my blog. almost a month havent write my thoughts and feelings.

Uhmmm... nothing much right now. My life is so busy right now, and its funny, now i have to buy a notebook calendar which I need to write down all my schedule per day, and write the field service hours that I made. Before I used to log in all the information to my celphone. Now i find that its more effective to keep up in schedule using paper and pen.

Two months ago, i find this bible text which everyday i always think of this whenever i feel down:

"The blessing of Jehovah—that is what makes rich, and he adds no pain with it."—PROVERBS 10:22

What makes this bible text is really true is when I prayed to Jehovah that take little by little the some of the unecessarry things that I should not to worry. It take a while to happend its, but now, I feel its fullfilling. Not thinking negative things and too much worrying for the little things, give way for time for my personal study and focus on the spiritual goals.

And ofcourse I also want to thank my brothers, I know i'm the oldest but they taking in charge of the responsibility that supposed to do. Now I feel more freedom ... but its weird because right now. I enjoy to stay at the house during weekends, which I usually dont want to do before. Maybe because I start to look for the things inside the house that I need to do. And I start to look after my niece, which everytime i see her, she blow me up coz she is super smart... Sam , sarangheyo!


Here are some of the basic questions, that she can answer it correctly and 75% fluently.

What's your name? "My Name is Samantha Mackenzi Santiago Rivera"

How old are you? "I'am two!" ... she was born July 13, 2006

What's your Mom's Name ? Jean .. and your Dad's Name? Lance

Where is Uncle/Auntie / Grandparents ____ working at? ..... a lot to remember

What's the name of your stuff toys? Shenna, Violeta, Eric, and Dora

I continue observing her and I found out that she also has some of my traits, ehem... (im proud) She act like a boy, but she love pink (I love VS Pink) . She love to make herself fall on the edge of the couch, jumps and push up. She always wanna tell stories what she did everyday and talks about what she saw on the book. I see that she enjoy more listening on guitar than violin. Believed it or not , I cant imagine she has a very sharp photographic memory for age of 2 years old.

Last Friday, since that day finale of "My Girl" ( Rhea! me and Sam watch it too :)) I can't wait for 8:30 pm to watch it on TFC. So when im baby seating Sam, we watched it on the computer at pinoychannel.tv. She enjoy watching it and after that we went to the park for a walk. When we came home all of my brothers watching the finale of "My Girl" on the ... then Sam keep bugging her uncle sayings "Same!!! its same on the computer, Uncle!".. and she point out the pc. I was laughing coz she says it a lot of times to them, and i told to my bros that we already watched it via internet.


One thing when we tell to her the "My Book of Bible Stories" and she can mention now the name of some the characters on the book. And today she turn the pages of the book at Solomon's wisdom, and she shout " Oh gosh! Don't cut the baby!" (I cant remember what chapter is), and then we start story telling on Solomons life.

There are more fun moments everytime im with Sam. I just amazed, because maybe i under estimate her capability since she is only two. She loved to listen and imitate the words you says. I guess when im communicating to her, she can understand and speak both tagalog and english, because most her sentenced are combination of Taglish.

Alright, i gues i got so much kwento's about Sam. Yeh, it has a lot and some of its, should be capture by video. hahahah! never mind! I dunno wanna miss the thing.... just to watching and talking to her.

Gudnite!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Santa Maria Family Trip

At last! me and my whole family got a chance to get together in a road trip. But of course we always have road trip every Monday and Saturday on the way to hall, which its only take 1 hour to Oceanside... I get used to it for almost 4 years :)

We drove going to Santa Maria for Kuya Roy's public talk and to visit our friends there. It's a different expirience, I thought I can handle the 3 hours driving, but I can only seat at the driver seat for one hour. Here are the photos that I wanna share to you it's a long trip so I got tons of picture of views.

The road and stop over going to Santa Maria:
I love this picture, sooo cute:)
Still filing up gas...
Mom and Dad... we just watched "Nacho Libre" at the DVD



After 3 hours of travel, we ate lunch at Serna's house and head to their kingdom hall


Fresh vegetables and frutis at FOODMAX, the best price I've ever seen!



Me and Mahina played basketball while waiting for food...
(see how we throw the ball on the ring)



Barbeque and Videoke at Serna residence




Night walk at Pismo beach Pier...





more photos at :
http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/aa30/riverafamily_album/2008/08%20August/Santa%20Maria%20Family%20Trip/?start=all

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

District Convention 2008

Hellow!. wow it took me a long time to get back on track to write a blog for district assembly. I got distracted with so many things, and its hard to gather my thoughts and focus on my writings. Anyway, we enjoyed the three days conventions and we take a lot of notes...
Here are some of the notes that my brothers made (hahahaha!)....

Thanks my dear younger Abiath for accidentally deleting my pictures from my camera. I put your sorry note you wrote last (7-27-08 @3:30pm) here at my blog
You owe me dinner now....


But anyway, I'm glad my friends took pictures with me at the district assembly. Here are the happy moments during 3 days conventions.
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Del Rosario's and our friends:

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my sisters..

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my brothers...

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Sam's friends:


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Im glad that we have this conventions and we get a chance to know Serna Family and Amanda Rogers. Thanks for the happy moments you shared with the Rivera's we have so many funs and bloopers events, which everytime I remember it makes me LOL!! :)

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Saturday night (Irvine Spectrum) ...

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Sunday night At Ate Unice House. Me and Abiath missed this dinner... we're with the Malicsi at the Cowbow Restaurant where I ate the best beef stake, woahoahh!!. Thanks Abiath, you paid my dinner! yeyeh! You dont owe me now, but i still want a camera.


More photos posted at my photobucket :
http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/aa30/riverafamily_album/2008/07%20July/District%20Convention%20July%2025-27/?start=all