CHRISTMAS WITH MISSIONARIES

It has been a fun and spiritual Christmas with the Missionaries.  The 6 Los Cristianos missionaries came to Santa Cruz Christmas Eve for a little caroling, a devotional and Christmas dinner.  Being together feels like family.  I am continually impressed with these great young adults who have committed a good chunk of their young lives to teaching Christ.  Their days are very structured.  They don't have a lot of free time for fun, so they enjoy the time they have.  Because they are in the trenches, our goal is to make their job easier and more enjoyable any way we can.  I am happily cooking for them and they are very appreciative of all that I do.  Elder Anderson washes more dishes than he every imagined.  It is hard to explain the spirit these young people carry with them.  The 4 Hermanas stayed with us last night and on Christmas morning we all had breakfast together. I made 4 dozen cinnamon rolls and 16 missionaries ate every last one along with scrambled eggs with bacon, a crock pot full of hash browns and cheese, and hot chocolate. Some of them stayed for some cards after. 

The Crazy picture of all after breakfast.  They still know how to have fun.

DECEMBER WIND UP

After the big storm we wanted to see if we could see some snow on Teide from an overlook at the top of La Laguna.  It is only 15 minutes from our house.  The valley of La Laguna is amazingly green and lush from the rain.   We love this valley.

I will definitely paint this someday

Looking toward Teide, which is in the clouds on the right.

We waited for awhile and some of the clouds moved to give us a veiw of the top of Teide.  It doesn't look like much snow from this side.

We played games at FHE this week.  Our core group was otherwise occupied, but we had 4 great investigators and 1 recent convert and 8 missionaries, who are allowed to come if they bring an investigator.  They are working hard at finding JAS investigators lately.  We had a fun evening playing Jenga, cards and pingpong. There are more photos on the JAS site 

I have a pile of beach rocks from Los Cristianos, so I made each missionary a little Christmas momento.  It says:  Jesus - the Best Gift.  These great young people give that gift every day in amazing ways.  I put a Guanche (The indigenous people from the islands)  symbol on it and a greeting from us on the back.   The poinsettia is my only decoration. 

SNOW ON TEIDE

The rain continued until Wednesday.  But we have had off and on sunshine since.  The weather is cool.  We wear a sweatshirt or jacket all day.  We hear reports of some deaths and serious destruction from flooding around the island during the week of torrential rains. 

We saw a little snow on Teide when we arrived in February last year but not this much.

Friends from Los Cristianos, Marlen and Guillermo, went to Teide to get cold and build a snowman..

The JAS made Popsicle stick nativities with sticks sent by my benefactor Bro. Money.

Elder Fransen gets the prize for the most original.  See more on the JAS site.

On Sunday night the missionaries have FHE in the Santa Cruz Ward.  Now that school has started we get a smaller group and few children, but we meet anyway because some come and we always have a nice time.  We made prayer rocks once and they loved it.  Tonight it was Nativities made with popsicle sticks for the Christmas tree.  This is our group.

These are the Nativities they made.  Everyone likes to do something original.  We still love doing third grade crafts. 

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY

This has been a week of Torrential rains.  The island has been under high alert.  Because Tenerife is a desert island they are not used to this much rain, especially in the South.  We were in Los Cristianos for 6 months with one rain storm in February when we arrived and then nothing  until after we left.  There are dry washes everywhere here with little vegetation and they have been overflowing with mud and rocks going onto the roads.  Yesterday we saw a big waterfall coming off a ledge next to the freeway in Santa Cruz.  It was Elder Anderson's birthday on Wednesday, our district meeting day, and I made a cake and planned for a little celebration there, but we weren't sure we were going to have it.  The hour before our Zone leader said we were go so I was glad I had made the cake.  We ordered pizza and had our party after all.  24 hours later it is still raining.  The map looks like it might cease on Saturday.  At least it is not snow.  Here are some you tube videos that I could find.

 This is in Guaza close to Los Cristianos