My Little Corner of the Universe

Man, it's cold out there!





it feels good

"If you were thinking, you wouldn't've thought that." - Michael 'Squints' Palledorous, The Sandlot

We visited the South Spanish Congregation last night due to their great privilege of being the host congregation for the Circuit Assembly. The district overseer, brother Greg, gave his talk called ‘Llevemos una vida sencillo e equilibrado’ (‘Living a simple and balanced life’). He brought out beautiful points and illustrated very well the need for a balanced and simple life.He illustrated it with a balance. According to Matthew chapter 6, we first place on one plate of the balance spiritual things. Then, to balance that off, Jehovah puts the needed material things on the other plate. So now it is balanced. Oh no, but wait! What if we start adding more material things on the material plate? Again, it is now unbalanced. As the brother emphatically expressed, it is up to us to put more on the spiritual plate to even up the scale, not Jehovah. So in that case, we would be adding to our load, not easing it up. So the main point of it all is that if we have a simple and balanced life, we will obviously enjoy it more fully.

And we got to meet our new circuit overseer, brother Lopez, who is another great brother from what I hear.

Anyway, there were many other points and illustrations he used, but this is the main theme of circuit assembly this weekend that will talk about “[storing] up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes, and where thieves do not break in and steal” and keeping the eye simple (Mat.6.20, 22). We’ll be looking forward to that, no doubt.

Ok, now here’s a joke: A duck walks into a bar…

Jerry (or Gerard as he likes to be called) doesn't have an ordinary pet. Instead he owns a wooden dog. It doesn't even have a real name, poor thing. It is called 'Jerry's Dog'. BUT it does have an interesting characteristic that likens it to the real thing. He can take it for a 'walk' due to that it has wheels and a leash. So, there you have it, boys and girls. If you don't want the responsibilities that come with a pet, get a wooden one.

And THEN, you can do what you can't do with a real dog, enjoy the thrill of riding it!

How is everyone doing this fabulous Friday morning?

Now check out these 62 interesting facts:

1. A cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.

2. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

3. A snail can sleep for three years.

4. All Polar bears are left-handed.

5. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.

6. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

7. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

8. Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

9. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

10. Butterflies taste with their feet.

11. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, dogs only have about ten.

12. Cat's urine glows under a black light.

13. China has more English speakers than the United States.

14. Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants.

15. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

16. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

17. Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

18. February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

19. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

20. If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck.

21. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

22. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.

23. If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white.

24. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

25. In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

26. In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

27. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

28. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

29. Marilyn Monroe had six toes.

30. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.

31. More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.

32. No word in the English language rhymes with month.

33. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

34. On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.

35. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the '30s lobbied against hemp farmers, they saw it as competition.

36. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

37. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

38. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

39. Shakespeare invented the word "assassination" and "bump."

40. Starfish haven't got brains.

41. Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

42. The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

43. The average human eats eight spiders in their lifetime at night.

44. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.

45. The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

46. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

47. The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

48. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

49. The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.

50. The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."

51. The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.

52. The sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.

53. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.

54. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

55. The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

56. The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.

57. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.

58. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.

59. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

60. You are more likely to be killed by a Champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

61. You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.

62. You share your birthday with at least nine million other people in the world.

[You are now about 4.7% smarter for reading this.]

This was during the district convention last year. Well, not "during" the convention, but at the hotel. We have always liked mid-air pictures, especially Ruben here, leaping on the unsuspecting and totally clueless poor fool we call Ross.

This past weekend we went to Ft. Worth, Texas for my dad's wife's mom's sister's daughter's son's uncle's wedding, or simply my mom's cousin's wedding.

It was a lot of fun, seeing that part of my family again. Seeing my cousins that are now much older. This is one of my cousins, the beautiful Veronica.



Ross was especially happy.


[more pictures soon!]

Prevaricate (prih-VAIR-uh-kayt), intransitive verb:
Def: To depart from or evade the truth; to speak with equivocation.

[Previous Wonderful Words:
Plethora, Pervicacious, Neoteric, Malcontent, Cognoscente, Multifarious, Propitious, Luminary, Felicitous, Implacable, Optimism, Assiduous, Serendipity, Serene, Loquacious, Duplicitous, Mellifluous]

Mi hermano, el Chulo!

The question was: What would happen to Satan and his demons if Jehovah decides not to (although he will) destroy them after the millennium?

Well, first we have to ask ourselves, "Who is the source of life?" Psalm 36.9 states that Jehovah is that source. Obviously He has severed that source from Satan and his angels. And since spirits are a higher and more powerful form of life than we are, they live longer. But without Jehovah being that source of life for them, they would eventually die. They are not immortal. It's interesting that other than Jesus Christ, 144,000 humans will be given immortality; they will be self-sustaining. Jehovah won't be their source of life anymore. Jehovah is THAT convinced that they will remain faithful for eternity! And that shows the great humility of the billions of angels, who have been around far longer than the anointed, to see these humans get immortality.

What would happen to Satan and his demons if Jehovah decides not to (although he will) destroy them after the Millenium?

My brothers and I visited the second half of the Circuit Assembly today. Ours is scheduled for the beginning of December. So we got a taste of what is to be mentioned in this year's program. It was, as always, very encouraging. We got to see and listen to our new district overseer and the visiting circuit overseer, which is, by the way, an MTS grad. It was very awesome. And the talks were about storing treasures in heaven, and not on earth (Matthew 6.19). The public talk was about how we can survive Jehovah's Day of fury by storing and accumulating treasures in heaven, doing His will, staying away from the spirit of the world, imitating Jesus, who imitated his father, Jehovah.

What about the campaign? The worldwide campaign of distributing the message "The End of False Religion is Near!" ended today. Eagerly we await to hear all of the experiences that brothers and sisters from all over the world have had on this special work. It's interesting that we are starting to hear a lot on the topic of the 'end'. This tract, the talks given by the c.o.'s in the congregations, the main theme of the District Convention we had last year along with the new publication, and the year text for next year show that the Governing Body are very much convinced that Jehovah's Day is very near.

Year text for 2007: Zephaniah 1.14 - "The great day of Jehovah is near. It is near, and there is a hurrying [of it] very much."

Texto del año para 2007: Sofonías 1.14 - "El gran día de Jehová está cerca. Está cerca, y hay un apresurarse muchísimo [de él]."

Sí señor!
Give me an 'S'. "S!"

Give me a 'P'. "P!"

Give me a 'U'. "U!"

Give me an 'R'. "R!"

Give me an 'S'. "S!"

Oops. I kinda forgot that I haven't posted the answer to the question.

The question was: When will faithful humans be granted immortality?

Actually, that was a trick question.

The Greek word for ‘immortality’ is a·tha·na·si´a, which basically means “deathlessness”. According to the Scriptures, only a certain number have or will have the gift of immortality. Of course, Jehovah would be one, since He is the “source of life” and cannot die (Psalm 36.9; Psalm 90.1,2; Habakkuk 1.12).

Jesus was granted immortality after his resurrection (Romans 6.9).

And finally, the 144,000 Kingdom Heirs are granted immortality when they die here on earth (1Corinthians 15.50-54).

So that is a total of 144,002 who will ever be immortal.

Faithful humans (who are not of the anointed) will never receive immortality, but everlasting life here on an earthly paradise (Psalm 37.29; Revelation 21.4).

Today's text was beautiful, wasn't it? (Well, they all are, actually.) The "faithful and discreet slave" comments: "God is responsible whenever one true worshiper helps another." So when we extend our hand to help another of Jehovah's servants, it is Jehovah who is using us to strengthen and encourage that one in need of it at the time. Truly, our "help is from Jehovah" (Psalm 121.2).

This was after the meeting one night. I went to say hello to Oseas, one of the Muñoz kids. I sat him down on the seat and he kinda ‘slid’ to the floor, in a slow-motion fashion, face down. It was the funniest thing. I thought about picking him up, but he looked too funny. So he just stayed there, long enough for me to make a ‘kodak moment’ out of it. Then I picked him up, naturally.

When will faithful humans be granted immortality?