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.  

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.