I had a talk with
Alyvia. Of course I was nervous, having a talk in front of the CO is
a nerve wracking thing. So I was trying my best to perfect it so it was worthy. But little did I know that wasn't the half of
it.
I bit before the meeting it started
pouring. I mean pouring. We got 6 inches of rain in only a few hours!
But no big deal we're used to it. This is rainy season. So we
get inside, drenched, and the meeting goes along fine, except for the
fact we can barely hear the brother's on stage even with the
microphones turned way up. Here all the houses and buildings have
metal roofs so the sound of those buckets of rain are not muffled out
as they pour above us. The drop ceilings help a little bit, but with
this rain we might as well have been sitting outside. On top of that
there was thunder and lightning constantly. Talk about scary, the
lighting was so close to us we could feel the static electricity from
it and you know how they say to count the seconds between the
lightning and the thunder to figure out how close it is, well this
thunder was practically occurring during the lightning. Its
ridiculous how close the lightning was gotten to us. Our house has
been struck multiple times and even my mom has been hit while sitting
near a window. But that's beside the point. The thunder did manage to
keep up alert since every time it would hit we'd all jump in our
seats.
Then right before my part. While Pete
was giving the council point for the number 1 part, the light went
out. Pitch black. So we sit there, they usually come back on before
too long. But they didn't. Now before I go on I'd like to point something out to those of you who haven't visited. In the states if the lights go out during a meeting what would you do? Well I would think the meeting would have to be canceled. But as we learned the first meeting we were here for (almost 3 years ago) that's not how they do things here. It common enough we just try to come prepared cause there's no stopping us. But with out the microphones its even harder to
hear. So Alyvia and I get up on the stage and a brother stands right
behind us using one of our two backup lights at the hall. It was
blinding, but at least I could see my notes. I was working on the
council point of sense stress, of course. Have you ever tried to show
sense stress while screaming over the rain? Its not fun. By this time
I had completely forgotten about the CO being there. Which is
probably best since I was nervous enough. But I made it through. And
almost everyone said they could hear me, but I think they were just
being nice.
The lights didn't come back on until
the middle of the CO's talk. We all moved up to the first two rows so
we could hear. A brother held the light behind him so we could see his
notes and so we could see him. The poor brother's arms I'm sure were
ridiculously tired.
But all's well that ends well. It
actually ended up being a very fun meeting. One sister from the
states said she kept thinking “They're stop the meeting now”
since of course you would have to cancel in the states, but we stuck
it out. The Spanish had
obviously been through this before. The next night we went to their service meeting and they had a light bulb with an electric cord
running from the top going out and plugging into a car battery, so
this way the people in the back of the hall could see. All of which was held up by a hanger. I wish I had a picture to show you all. It was hilarious, but genius at the same time. They also set
up the light for the speaker on a table so no brother had to stand up
there and hold it. Why didn't we think of that?
After this meeting the the brothers in
the English started brainstorming on how to prepare for next time we
have to deal with this. Let's just say next time I hope I won't have
a part.
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