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

A WEEK TO BE THANKFUL

I hope we never have to repeat the pace of this week.  After a big JAS activity on Friday night making Sharpie Tye Dye, we drove to Los Cristianos the next morning to be there for our JAS Luis, who received his mission call to Barcelona.  Then we took sister Nydegger and Phillips to lunch, fearing someone might leave this transfer, and it happened.  Sister Phillips went back to Madrid on Monday.  We cried a lot.  On Saturday night one of our JAS was baptized. I take cake for everyone when one of our JAS is baptized because I think it is important to have a social after and celebrate the event.

Our JAS group at Jorge's baptism.

Elder Christensen and Elder Eskelson taught Jorge after he requested missionaries from the internet.  I need to find out more of his story.

On Sunday the Mendoza family from the South came to dinner.  (I am not sure when I found time to cook).  Valerie is leaving for Utah in a week.  We have been helping her with her English for 6 months (3 by Skype)  She is enrolled in a 9 month English course at BYU.  We love their family dearly. When they left we went to Santa Cruz for FHE.

Then on Monday morning 3 of our island missionaries were flying back to Madrid as per transfers and the Missionaries wanted to get together, so I made breakfast for all of them.  I was on busy overload and forgot to take pictures.  Then we went to the airport and later picked up Sister Christian, who will be serving in Los Cristianos with sister Nydegger, and drove the two hours down and back. 

Then I started on Thanksgiving dinner.  We ordered roasted chickens from the African Market and I made stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, a vegetable dish, fresh rolls, cranberry chutney, pumpkin pie, chocolate pie and a carrot apple cake with my Grandmother's vinegar dip (my favorite)  Mike brought us sunflowers from the African Market but my real sunflowers are sisters Judy and Money.

This is our new elder, Bohne with the food but not the deserts.

Ready to chow down.  The missionaries had to eat, visit a little, and head back to work. They don't get many holidays. We wanted the missionaries from the South to join us but couldn't get permission.  Then on Friday night we had a going away party for Alejandro, who is leaving for a mission to Mexico next week, but he was hung up in Madrid working on Visa problems and didn't arrive until 10:30 PM.  We played ping pong and games with the group but had to visit with him when he arrived, and so we didn't get home until after midnight.  Then the next morning we went to Institute at 9:00 AM.  I take a snack.  (Thank heaven for leftover carrot cake)  Today I spent most of the day napping and catching up on blogs.  Thank you dear Heavenly Father for the energy to do all I need and want to do and for the awesome people we get to be associated with here.  

And I didn't even mention 3 nights of English classes and District meeting.

 

Mike ordered this HLJ ring (Spanish CTR)  to present to Alejandro before leaving to Mexico.

JAS SHARPIE TIE DYE ART

In keeping with our decision to have an art or craft project once a month with the JAS it has kept me hopping to come up with ideas.  Those months roll around very quickly.  Thanks to Pinterest I have been able to find some fun things.  Last Friday we did Sharpie tie dye art.   I ordered some pens and had them sent to Leif before he came to visit .  They were just in time for this month's activity.  Basically you draw a design on fabric and then drop or spray alcohol and the colors run and spread in interesting ways.  It was lots of fun.

Click on the slide show for larger pictures.

LEIF AND STEPHANIE VISIT THE CANARIES

Last week our youngest son Leif and his girlfriend Stephanie visited for 5 days.  We had a great time showing them the island and playing some cards.  (Stephanie was the champ)  We went to Anaga, at the top of the ducks head, which we hadn't visited before and it was beautiful. Click on photos for a full screen slide show.