SCAVENGER HUNT - 2ND PLACE

See below for the information on the JAS scavenger hunt.  These are the photos from the 2nd place winners.

PHOTO SCAVENGER HUNT

We had a fun activity with our young adult group this week.  We have a recently Returned Missionary who served in Arizona.  He helps us a lot.  He served in a single’s Ward there and taught us how to have a photo scavenger hunt.  We had 3 groups with a list that contained things like:  Get a photo of your group in a reflection, someone with a mannequin, someone proposing to someone on the street. (if they say yes you get an extra 15 points)  someone with a shopping bag,  a yellow flower in someone’s teeth, etc.   You get the point.  They had about an hour to do it then we tallied up the points of each group.  I have posted the winner’s photos since they used our camera. I hope to get the other’s soon.  They had a lot of fun.  We had 13-14 JAS attend, with 8 missionaries and us.  We always eat after.  I never know how many will be there, so there are times when I have to depended on the "loaves and the fishes" and somehow it works out when we have a big group like this week.  

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This is our group after dinner.  The girl with the redish hair on the left is from the island of El Hierro.  She visited her member JAS relative Adriana ( on the left, back in blue) for a month during Christmas.  She attended several of our activities then.  The missionaries have been teaching her via Skype since and she is here this weekend to be baptized, which happened on Saturday.  She is the 3rd JAS baptism in the 5 months we have been here and we have a couple of others with dates. 5 of this group here are investigators.  

Elder Larkin, Elder Bohne and Legna (angel backwards)

JAS members, Yureny, who will be baptized on Feb. 5, Legna and Adriana, who has been a great missionary to her family.

We always have a spiritual thought before we begin the activity.  This is our JAS room and we really don't fit in here anymore.  There a few more pictures on the JAS site.

NEW BEGINNINGS 2014

Last week week the mission changed as it always does every six weeks.  It is hard to see missionaries go, but it is always exciting to see what will happen next.  
 

This is the airport group saying goodbye to Elder Lopez, Elder Ponsoda, Elder Christensen and Hermana Nydegger.  

 This is our new District, Hermana Money, Hermana Burgos, Elder Larkin, Elder Wilson, Elder Franson, Elder Bohne,  Elder Schmidtlein and Elder Bird

We had Karaoke night at our house.  It was wild and crazy.  The missionaries were not allowed to come because we had pop music.  The Hermanas came for a minute to be with their investigator.  They did get to eat and left. 

Natalia (in the middle) is getting a group hug before she leaves this next week for 3 months to be with her sister in Oklahoma and learn English.

Our new sister Burgos, originally from Ecuador, had never eaten Chili, imagine that.  She and sister Money are going to be great together.

CHRISTMAS IN PUERTO AND OROTAVA

Puerto de la Cruz and Orotava are about 20 minutes away from us.  We wanted to see their Christmas decorations so took a little drive up there one p-day afternoon.  There were lots of tourists on the streets of Puerto but not many decorations.  The waves were very high that day and we hear they increased to a dangerous level. A JAS, who lives in Puerto posted this picture on facebook. It looks a little unreal like tsunami level .

Orotava has a wonderful life size Nativity with all of the scenes that you might see during that time in Bethlehem.   Teide is beautifully visible from Orotava on the rare occasion when there aren't clouds around it, but we were a little too late for much light on it.  

ANAGA WITH HERMANAS

We wanted Hermana Judy and Money to see La Laguna Valley and Anaga before Kayla flew out on Wednesday, so on Monday, her last P-day, we made the trip.  It was a beautiful sunny day when we left but there was mist and clouds on the top of Anaga and on the ocean valley of Taganga.  We had a great day and a nice lunch at a seaside restaurant.  See the post below for more pictures of the area from our previous trip a few weeks ago.

HERMANA JUDY GOES HOME

Hermana Judy is a jewel of a woman and a wonderful missionary.  Spending the last 4 months with her has been delightful.  We will miss her greatly, but know she will move on to the waiting arms of her family and many good accomplishments in her life.  We look forward to seeing her again in the future.  Elder Gutierrez, serving in Los Cristianos, is also returning home to Mexico.  We met at the airport for final pictures and joyful and tearful goodbys. 

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS IN SANTA CRUZ

We took the young adult group Christmas Caroling in the city center of Santa Cruz a couple of weeks before Christmas.  It wasn't quite a flash mob but we did have some people on the street join us in singing some of the songs.  I didn't take my camera and wanted to take some pictures so on New Years Eve Mike and I decided to walk around the streets and go to dinner in the city.  We were shock that there were very few people on the street and no restaurants open.  We are not sure where everyone went for the evening.  Surely they didn't all stay home...nothing like America.    I did get pictures of their fun decorations and we found a Chinese restaurant open close to our piso.  The Chinese are the only capitalistic people in Spain. 

 

SNOWMEN ON THE BEACH

One of our JAS had the idea to make snowmen on the beach during the Christmas Holidays.  It was a fun day.  It was raining on an off while we were there but we were still had a good time and constructed some great snowmen.  The missionaries are not allowed to go to the beach in Tenerife because some Elders were swept away by a wave a few years ago.   By the time we were finished it was snowing steadily so we went to the church to have our picnic.  Mike constructed our snowman while I carried a little water and took pictures.  It was a good activity.