These last days have been busy ones with many late nights. Many of you know we were able to work on the drama this year. Our lovely Claudia played Jennine, the older sister with the walker. It was a stretch but she did amazing, altho that walker moved pretty fast! I was back stage assigned to Heather (Beatrice) to assist her with changing, having her props ready to go on stage and being sure she went out the correct side. The job was easy. Beatrice was thoroughly prepared and acted with such good "attitude". She made the perfect young wife and sister.
I had a demonstration on Fri afternoon right before the drama. I was the angry, unbelieving mother to Tiago. I am sure a different name was used at your convention. We all know I am not an actress, but apparently this is one of the gifts Jehovah can bestow. I managed to portray anger and hurt and authority, all in the span of 2 minutes! I didn't get the part until the Sunday before the convention and didn't practice with Tiago until Wed evening in fromt of the District overseer.
His comment was "the script says mother is 45" and my comment was "this is what you've got" and he said the message is what is important. In hindsight I wish I had said "what makes you think they didn't get it right" or perhaps "what gave me away? "
We have been practicing every Monday night for several weeks.
Our schedule this past week was to go to the convention site every evening and practice. Monday and Tuesday we practiced the drama 2 and 3 times and arrived home close to midnight. Wednesday was full dress rehearsal for the CO and DO and we got home maybe 11 o'clock and same thing on Thursday. We were really getting worn out but it was worth it as everyone said it went very well. I never knew how much time and energy were used to get to the finished product! I can't imagine the dramas from old times when costumes, beards, and those props like big rocks have to be made in addition to rehearsing.
We had many new ones at the convention from other countries...Bangladesh, Nepal, Iran, Canada and others. Our peak attendance was on Sunday with 454. We had some speakers from Bethel and a member of the branch committee gave some talks. Both of these brothers have been working hard on their english mainly because the governing body wants branch committee members to speak english. The brother I gave the demo for, Pedro, gave at least 2 talks and has been learning just a little over a year. Such a humble, kind brother. We will go to visit the branch in August, we hope. We had one young woman baptized. Her name is Jian and I include a picture of us together. The talk was so lovely as the brother used her name throughout. It was so personal, just for her.
What a wonderful and exhausting week it has been, but, all in all another beautiful day in Portugal.
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