Date Night in Sin City (for less than $20)

Last Saturday (8/17) was brutal- 110 degrees with humidity and not a leaf was stirring because the air was totally still.

So we started off with door to door field ministry, doubtless losing weight from all the sweating, and then to Grouchy John’s Coffee Shop for cold green tea and other cool concoctions.

We tried a few returns, but nobody was home, so we called it a morning. What a relief to get the noose (necktie) off!

In this weather, you have to find somewhere cool to recreate so Shirley and I used our “Fill-A-Seat” membership to hit the “Legends In Concert” show at the Flamingo down on the Strip.

The Flamingo has been around since the 1950's

(Explanation: “Fill-A-Seat” sells an annual membership for $80 which gives you two free tickets to an assortment of top-notch shows during the year. Just using it one time pays for the membership. It’s the way the casinos fill up the audience when the shows are not sold out.)

Real flamingos at The Flamingo

The cool thing about “Legends” is that you always see different entertainers. This time it was Madonna, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Adam Levine, and of course, Elvis.



Vegas is such a Mecca for talent that even the smaller shows have very high production values and extremely skilled entertainers. And despite the moniker of “Sin City” quite a few of the shows are suited for a family audience. Not to mention the fact that entertainers you thought had died are alive and well here. (At least as portrayed by tribute artists.)

So we took in the 4 o’clock show to escape the heat of the day. We even had time to check out the “Habitat” at the Flamingo as you can see from the photos.

When the show was over, it was time to eat so we headed north on the Strip to “Tacos El Gordo”, the Vegas outpost of the Tijuana taco emporium. They’re open until 3 AM if you’re out late and have the craving for some tacos de sesos (brains). Personally, I normally just go with the roast pork.

Real pelicans in the desert

Shirley checks out the Koi

Here in the southwest there is such a strong Hispanic influence that getting authentic south-of-the-border food (my favorite) is never a problem. And you can even drink the water!

Tacos were only $2 each, so dinner was economical and the show was free.

After 29 years of marriage I think we’re finally getting this date night thing down.

Fake flamingos at The Flamingo

Nothing like a pool when it's 110

The Legends show & Donny & Marie share the theatre

Caesar's Palace is right across the street

Menu at Tacos El Gordo on the Strip

"God's Word is Truth" 2013 District Convention

“But what about us? Do we have the same faith (as that of Abraham)? You know sometimes we are presented with opportunities to expand our service to Jehovah. And sometimes it challenges our comfort zone doesn’t it? We’re settled in our easy chair and we can come up with reasons why we can’t move. Or we can tell others reasons why they can’t move. Well let’s not let that happen to us brothers and sisters. Let’s accept the challenge of whatever Theocratic assignment is offered to us. Let’s not get distracted as to the blessings. Let’s walk straight ahead according to the Truth.”

(Bro. Alan Shuster, United States Branch Committee, “God’s Word is Truth” District Convention, St. George, UT, 7/13/13)

Jesse & Shirley at the convention

We just got back from our 2013 “God’s Word is Truth” district convention in St. George, UT, and even though I’ve been to 50 or so  district conventions over the years, the latest always seems to be the best.

Oddly enough, there are no suitable facilities available for us in Las Vegas (a metropolis of 2,000,000) so these past few years we’ve been assigned to St George, which is a drive of about two hours. The facility is actually the gymnasium of Dixie State College, where we also have our circuit assemblies.

In the past we’ve been assigned to much larger facilities in Long Beach, CA or Phoenix, AZ, and it still feels a little strange attending a district convention that is the same size as a circuit assembly (around 3500 in attendance).

But the material is the same, and we were thrilled to have as special guest Alan Shuster from the US Branch Committee out of Patterson. The brothers from the Branch always give outstanding talks.

If you haven’t been to the convention yet, you can get an idea of what’s presented from the downloadable program on the jw.org site. As usual, there was something for everyone, but I focused in on the parts that addressed the goal Shirley and I have of expanding our ministry to serve where the need is greater.

 In the talk on Saturday entitled “Walk ‘Straight According to the Truth’”, Bro. Shuster discussed Abraham as a role model for us. How he essentially got up out of his easy chair in Ur and left his comfort zone to accept his theocratic assignment in a far-off land. Then he made a direct application for us in the quote at the beginning of this post.

Scene from Sunday's "Esther" drama

And what do you do when it’s 117°? (Hint: Service & Celine)

Gerrie & Shirley in the invitation work

Finally June is over, and it went down in the record books as the hottest June ever in Las Vegas.

We set a record of 117, which is really a misnomer, because the official temperature is taken at the airport and it’s much hotter in other parts of the city. At my house, I've measured in the 120’s in the heat of the day. But that still doesn't compare with nearby Death Valley, where it was 130!

After I gave the Service Meeting part Tuesday from the 2013 Yearbook which dealt with the experiences of our brothers in Myanmar walking 170 mile to the convention, fighting off leeches and all sorts of wild animals, there was no way to miss Saturday service when all we had to contend with was heat.

CJ, the friendly congregation secretary

Plus at 10 in the morning, the temperature has barely hit 100. The real heat doesn't roll in until around 3 or so, and by then we’re inside in the AC or outside in the pool.

So we went out, handing out invitations to the upcoming District Convention in St. George, UT, about 2 hours drive north. I don’t know where people go on Saturday morning, but we only found about 3 people home. Of course, we leave the invites at the not-at-homes, or we’d never get them out, and on a positive note, the people who were at home accepted the invitation graciously.

Since I like to deal with positives, the 5% humidity means you don’t feel yourself sweat. Meaning it evaporates so quickly off your body, you stay fairly dry, but constantly thirsty because all the moisture is being sucked out of your body. So we never leave home without a bottle of water in the bookbag.

Just another sunny day in paradise

Unfortunately, July is the hottest month of the year in Las Vegas so we’ll still suffer plenty of heat abuse, but on the bright side, summer is half over, and then we’ll have 9 months of generally pleasant weather to look forward to.

If our plans work out, this may be our last summer in Las Vegas before heading to our need-greater assignment. Right now, we’re looking very seriously at La Antigua, Guatemala, and hope to check out the lay of the land no later than next spring.

Typical Las Vegas territory. Note the lack of shade.

ENTERTAINMENT IN SIN CITY

Sometimes when we visit other areas, brothers will ask if there are really Witnesses in “Sin City” (Las Vegas). And if there are, what do we do there?

CJ & Gerrie

Well most of us work normal jobs (I’m an IT guy) and actually there are more than 70 congregations in a number of different language groups, so things are progressing well. Just another reason why some of us are planning on moving to different fishing grounds where the need is greater.

And because literally hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world fly here to vacation every week, there is any number of entertainment options.

Shirley & Jesse

Many of the friends work in the hotel industry so they often receive perks that they pass along, which means cheap (sometimes free) entertainment opportunities that tourists may have to pay 100’s of dollars for.

So it happened that last week we scored some Celine Dion tickets, who is in residency at Caesar’s Palace for the summer. Those who know me know that it’s not really my type of music, but Shirley and Gerrie loved the spectacle and at least it was nice and cool in the
auditorium.

Update: Finally we got a nice rain shower on Sunday, July 7. It was the first rain in 80 days. Yes, it’s a desert out there.

What do you do when it’s 115° (in the shade)?

Escape from the heat on Mt Charleston

In many areas of the world, daily temperatures of 115° or higher with an ultra-dry 5% humidity might cause widespread panic, but here in the Mojave Desert it’s business as usual.

So on Saturday morning, we grab our bookbags and head out for the meeting for field service. It’s at 9:30 am so we can get out to the field by 10 and hopefully not wake too many people up.

At that time of day, it’s barely even a hundred, and if you find any shade (always a dicey proposition) you quickly come to appreciate the Bible’s expression of finding comfort in the shadow of a rocky crag.

So generally we spend a couple of hours in the ministry and then search for ways to cool off. Some have pools or just stay inside with the air conditioning. But what many people don’t realize about the geography of Las Vegas is that less than 1 hour away lies a wooded, cool paradise.

Yes, 12,000 foot Mt Charleston and the Spring Mountain range lie just to the west. You can drive up to about the 8,000 foot level, where there is a pleasant lodge, and in the wintertime, an active snowboard and ski resort.

So Shirley and I just took our chocolate lab Phoebe and cruised up there Saturday, where the temperature was about 20 degrees cooler. We grabbed our packs and hiked up the Trail Canyon path for a few miles, enjoying the pleasant rustling of the Aspen, and feeling the air get steadily cooler the higher we went.

This time of year, the snow melt is over, so there’s not much for water, but as you can see from the photos, there’s plenty of greenery. In fact, one reason Vegas is so dry (and we haven’t seen rain for months) is that the Spring Mountains capture all the moisture that tries to come from California before it can get to our desert valley.

Aspen, Fir and cool air just an hour from Las Vegas

All we have to do is tough it out until the middle of September, then we have about nine months of cloudless, deep blue skies and pleasant temperatures. And we’ll enjoy those rare rainy days that give us our average of 3 inches a year- whether we need it or not.

We also give thanks that we don’t live in the nearby Death Valley National Park, where temperatures will hit around 130 in summer.

But it’s great to visit in the fall, as a future post will describe.

So what was there to do in Ibarra, Ecuador - 40 years ago?

It makes me feel like Methuselah to even write that headline. But time passes quickly, and who would ever have known that I would be looking forward to returning 40 years after I left? (Like Moses out of Midian?)

the positive side, I still have basically the same amount of hair (although it’s gray now) and thanks to diet & exercise I’m still within 10 pounds and an inch on the waistline of what I was back then. But it remains to be seen if I can keep up with the young brothers in a basketball game- especially at 7,000 feet altitude!

I saw a blog recently that spoke of an excursion to the waters of Chachimbiro, so I thought it might be fun to post my photos from 1973 to see how it’s changed- or maybe not so much. Some things in Ecuador change so slowly that I suspect the resurrected conquistadores will still find a touch of the familiar.

Chanchimbiro: The gringo on the right is me in my Alabama
Crimson Tide football jersey.

Chacimbiro

Chachimbiro

Chachimbiro

Chachimbiro

Chachimbiro

Ibarra: My brother Joe reads comics.
Yes, you rent them and read them in the  store.

Ibarra: Joe & I spent many happy hours in the pool hall.
I think a game cost 5 sucres (about 25 cents). And they sold
sandwiches and cokes too!

My mother washing clothes at our house.
OK- so maybe that wasn't really recreation.

Memorial Season in Las Vegas

Like Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, Memorial Season (the time we celebrate the Lord’s Evening Meal and commemorate the death of Jesus Christ) in Las Vegas is a special time.

Greeting one another at the Memorial

For one thing, springtime here in the Mojave Desert is the best time of year. Of course, it’s a given that the sun will shine practically every day, with nary a cloud to mar the deep blue sky. Temperatures are remarkably similar to Ibarra, Ecuador, generally around 70 in the day and 50’s at night. In fact, I keep a weather.com app open on my smartphone that continually shows the weather in both Las Vegas and Ibarra.

The only fly in the ointment is that with all the plants blooming, the air is full of pollen, and with no rain to clear it out, many suffer from watery eyes and sneezing due to allergies.

Because we have 5 congregations meeting at our Kingdom Hall (typical of Las Vegas, where the need is great for Kingdom Halls, but construction costs- even with free labor- is prohibitive), only two congregations are able to hold the Memorial at the Kingdom Hall. We at Silverado meet at the MacDonald Ranch community center which is comfortable and has ample parking.

We rent a nice facility to host the Memorial

The congregation distributed nearly 10,000 Memorial invitations in covering most of our territory and enjoyed an attendance of 198.

Then we had the Special Talk the next week with about 180 attending, and this past week enjoyed the visit of the circuit overseer, and as an added bonus, the district overseer as well. And next weekend we have our two day circuit assembly in St. George, UT. Then we get a bit of a breather until our district convention in July, also in St George (about a 2 hour drive from Las Vegas).

The video that the circuit overseer is showing is amazing (another full house- 190 in attendance) and there was not a dry eye in the house afterwards. The direction of the Branch is so clear- that if we can arrange our circumstances to do more, then the foreign field is the place to do it. Just seeing those brothers from Ecuador out in service made me want to hop a plane and leave tomorrow.

Jehovah wills, Shirley and I will be there next year when my retirement kicks in. In a few months, I’ll give my letter to the brothers here to send to the Ecuador branch for their recommendations of where we might best be used. I know I want to be in the mountains, so we’ll see what they suggest.

Here in the Silverado Congregation we have 120 publishers, 9 elders, and 4 ministerial servants. Included in those 120 are 16 regular pioneers, and the CO commended us for our strong efforts in the field. Of course we had an abundance of auxiliary pioneers so things were really hopping.

Congregation Picnic in the Park

It’ll be quite an adjustment for me to go to a congregation with few elders, but I’m preparing now by telling the other brothers not to anything and let me do all the work for a month or so. (OK- not really) But a few years ago when we split we only had 4 elders for a couple of years so I sort of got a taste of how to manage when the manpower is low. As the CO brought out, many congregations in other countries have only one or 2 elders, and some perhaps none at all.  But I’m going prepared to work, and I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.

The Yellow Banks Rose in front of my house blooms every April

“The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isa 35:1, kjv)

The Mojave Desert- one of the most forbidding places on the planet.

Joshua Tree- Symbol of the Mojave

In fact, the hottest temperature ever recorded on earth was 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.6 Celsius) at Death Valley (now a National Park), and summertime temperatures routinely pass the 120 mark. (Yes, it’s one of my favorite places to visit, but that will be the subject of a future post.)

The greater Las Vegas area boasts a population of around 2,000,000 people who somehow subsist on an average rainfall of 3.5 inches a year.

But here is the amazing thing: despite the harsh conditions, life flourishes here. In fact, if you sprinkle a little water on this sterile soil, plants will literally, as Isaiah 35:1 says “blossom as the rose”.

It’s a tribute to Jehovah’s mighty works that so many wonders of creation can be found in such an intimidating environment. There is ample wildlife- coyotes, desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, rabbits, and any number of birds and reptiles.

But is it suitable for humans?

Shirley and I have lived her for more than 20 years, and it will be sad to leave. We generally enjoy a climate with single-digit humidity and mild temperatures for 9 months out of the year. So while much of the USA is getting slammed with unpleasantries like blizzards, tornadoes  hurricanes, and floods, floods, we in the desert enjoy a winter, spring, and fall with temperatures averaging from 50-80 degrees.

Then comes the 3 to 4 month blast of heat, as if some giant oven was turned up to “high” and we’re the main dish. Fortunately, that’s why air conditioning was invented.

Cactus in my front yard with magnificent bloom

far as field service goes, it’s important to note that the high temps come in the afternoon. So yes, while it might be near 100 at 10am, the 4 per cent humidity makes it feel more like, say 90. And while you may sweat, it evaporates immediately. Newcomers quickly discover that you carry a bottle of water in your book bag and in your car, in fact, everywhere you go. Pioneers get most of their service time in during the cooler months and take it a little slower in the summer. Early morning witnessing starting at 5 am is popular, visiting bus stops, convenience stores, and parking lots.

Here in the Mojave, we are in a perpetual drought situation, so “lawns” in the conventional sense are not permitted (unless they were installed in the distant past). The nurseries stock drought-resistant trees and shrubs, and we water them with drip irrigation.

Nearly 10' tall giant Yucca bloom

For example, in my yard, I run my drip system for 30 minutes two days a week. This consumes very little water, and unlike a sprinkler which would just waste water the drip irrigation delivers water directly to each individual plant.

I took the photos of plants in my own yard for these photos so you can see for yourself the “desert blossom as the rose.”

Bloom of the Desert Willow tree

"Teddy Bear" Cactus in full bloom

Baja Fairy Duster

Yellow Mexican Bird of Paradise

Red Bird of Paradise

Literal Roses in the Desert

Beautiful Tiny Flowers on a Cactus

Who would guess that this beauty of creation would exist on a prickly cactus in a forbidding desert landscape?