We had an awesome Thanksgiving Dinner at President and Sister Mathews' home. They had been SO busy lately with trainings, travel, transfers, and a mission tour with Elder Kearon, that we couples decided it would be nice to organize the dinner ourselves and not assign anything to Sister Mathews so she could get some much needed rest. Of course, she didn't rest. She simply spent her time doing other things because she is way behind on getting ready for Christmas for the missionaries.
The food was excellent, with all the trimmings, and the turkey turned out ok in spite of the fact that the Alvarez' ran out of gas half way through the baking process and had to run the turkey over to the Mathews' oven to finish baking. We even had yams and stuffing, and rolls. Amazing! Especially when you consider that it's really hard to find some ingredients and spices here.
While the women washed dishes, the men finished decorating the Christmas tree. Great job, by the way!
President and Sister Mathews.
BRANCH ACTIVITY. Our first big branch activity was on Tuesday, November 1, the Day of the Dead in Catholic country (Memorial Day back home). The activity started with a couple of hours of visiting the less active and non-members and inviting them to the activity. Then there was a spiritual portion, with a hymn and prayer and a talk by the branch president.
The Young Women and Young Men sang a beautiful song. We love to hear the people here sing. They sing with all their heart, and they have good pitch and lovely voices. They love to sing! They know the hymns by heart and even without a piano or a pitch, most start the hymns on basically the same note. :) The Primary children also sang, but we had to leave to go get the food, so we didn't see them.
Hauling in the food. We fed about 100 people, double the amount of our Sunday attendance. We had yummy chicken legs, white rice with veggies, and mashed potatoes (Sister Alvarez' favorite), with ice cream for dessert. Yummm! The Alvarez went to fetch the food while they finished up the spiritual meeting and watched a church video.
Lovely and loving Primary girls!
Baby Cristiana. Sister Alvarez played babysitter during the activity. This baby sleeps through anything and everything!
Cleanup crew! This is Yasmin, Cristina's daughter, that turned eight not long ago. She is being prepared for baptism.
FLOATING BOOKSTORE. This was a Senior Missionary FHE. It is the largest floating bookstore in the world! This boat is called the Logos Hope. The whole crew, including engineers, etc., are Christian volunteers. They sell books at a low price. A portion of the books are self-help and Christian, but they have all kinds of books. We think they are sponsored by the Baptist Church.
On the ship, in the bookstore.
Andersons, Lunts, Carnells, Alvarez.
Ice cream for treats after the FHE outing. Enjoying each others' company. Blessed to be joined by Mathews.
CHURCH CALLING. Elder Alvarez preparing to teach Gospel Doctrine.
HOUSING TRAVELS. We went to the town of Pedra Badejo to deliver a new washing machine to Elders Estigarribia (Brazil) and Malula (Congo via Utah).
ZONE CONFERENCE. We had the largest Zone Conference that anyone can remember in Praia. We had all of the missionaries from the Island of Santiago (where Praia is), plus the missionaries from the islands of Sal and Boa Vista. This was because Elder Patrick Kearon, of the Seventy (and our Area President), was doing the mission tour. It was awesome! Elder Kearon gave wonderful, inspired counsel to the missionaries. This picture was before a lot of the missionaries arrived. We had about 90 missionaries there.
We were well fed, both spiritually and physically.
For the evening meal, the senior missionaries were invited to the Mathews' condo to visit with Elder Kearon. He is such an English gentleman, a very humble and loving servant of God. You may remember his last General Conference address about the refugees in Europe.
DRESSED IN WHITE. Elder Alvarez' first baptism as a senior missionary. This is Jessica. She and her sister Melina bring fruit to our place three times a week. Jessica just graduated from high school and is waiting for the construction of her next school to be completed so she can continue studying. As she started coming with her sister after graduating from high school, Elder Alvarez started talking to her about the church, and eventually she chose to listen to the missionaries. It was such a privilege for Elder Alvarez to baptize her yesterday. She is a pure soul.
This is Melina and her family with her sister Jessica and the missionaries who taught her: Elders Cosmo and Hingano.
This is Jessica and Melina one of the times they came by to sell us fruit. They have the most beautiful posture we have ever seen, typical of the women here. Maybe we should start carrying big tubs of fruit on our heads back home to improve our posture :)
HOME TOWN FOLKS!! This is Elder Gricius, from HIGHLAND, UTAH!!!!
And this is Sister Jorgensen, a new missionary from HIGHLAND, UTAH!!!! Highland is well represented here!
