Malta Week 4

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This week involved a lot of chauffeuring and hosting. We took four trips to the airport and had two different missionaries stay at our flat. Sister Paulo needed to attend a leadership conference in Rome, and her new companion, who had just arrived on Friday, couldn't be left alone. We dropped Sister Paulo off on Monday and brought her companion, Sister Christeche, back with us. Sister Christeche grew up in Argentina before her family relocated to Italy during her high school years. She is fluent in Spanish, Italian, and English. I utilized her language skills at the grocery store to help translate many of the products. I had incorrectly assumed that, being an English-speaking former British colony, Malta would have all its grocery products labeled in English. I was quite mistaken; all the products are imported from Italy and the labels are written in Italian!


We enjoy our morning walks and often pass by this church, but the doors are usually closed. This week, for the first time, we saw the doors open during our walk, so we decided to go inside. To our surprise, they were holding morning mass. The interior was beautiful. I couldn't take very good pictures because I wanted to respect the sanctity of the mass.  But I tried to be discrete as I took a few photos.








After cleaning the church, we stopped to get some pizza at a local street market.  Sister C. was anxious to try the Pastizzi which is Malta's best-loved snack!  They come filled with ricotta cheese or mushy peas.  We opted for the ricotta.  We were excited to try them, but we were not excited about how they tasted!  We won't write them off yet.  We'll have try them again at another pastry shop to see if they taste any better.


I had to make cookies for our game night.  We can't get chocolate chips here, so I had Sister C. cut up chocolate candy bars to add to my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I was anxious to see how they would turnout with the local ingredients here.  Most of the ingredients seem normal, but the brown sugar seems a little different.  My oven is so small and only has one rack, so I could only bake six at a time.   Despite the lengthy process, the cookies were a success, and they were a hit at game night!

Game Night

P-Day

We picked up Sister Paulo as she returned from Rome on Wednesday morning and soon realized that since we only have two elders and two sisters now, the mission rules require that if they want to get together, they have to have a chaperone on P-days.  So we are officially invited to join them for every P-day until at least the next transfers in 6 weeks or until we get more missionaries in Malta.

They wanted to go to an all-you-can-eat Sushi Place in St Julian's Bay.  We drove our car and they took the bus to meet us there.  The buses ran late and we waited for over an hour for them to arrive.  The restaurant felt bad for us and gave us free ice water.  (That probably sounds strange to anyone in the US, but in Europe, the cost of water is almost the same price as a soda, so we welcomed the offer for free water!)  By the time they got there, the kitchen was about to close so we were not able to eat there!  We wandered around St Julian's Bay looking for another option for lunch. 


The City Park in St Julian's Bay

Since it's a desert island, most parks don't have any grass here.  



We ended up having some great food at Wagamama





Feelin' the love!






It was a beautiful day and we thoroughly enjoyed wandering around St Julian's. 





Wednesday Night's English Class - We love our students!


On Thursday, we took Elder Dobbins to the airport.  He needed to be fingerprinted in Rome for his Visa.  Meanwhile, his companion, Elder Chandler, stayed with us. With a baptism scheduled for next week, we asked Elder Chandler to take us to the customary baptism location in St. Paul's Bay, where we took some sweet pictures. 


This is the Maltese traditional fishing boat, the luzzu.  The little engraved eyes on the front are believed to be a modern survival of an old Phoenician tradition and are normally referred to as the Eye of Orisis, or the Eye of Horus-the Phoenicians' god of protection from evil. Not only are they a symbol of protection but also of good health and are believed to protect the fishermen from getting lost while at sea or facing any kind of harm.

St Paul's Bay







St Paul's Island - It is believed that this the where the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked.









Another Luzzu out at sea


On our walk back to the car, we found this!  
A little piece of Texas right here in Malta!  Love it!!!





Saturday Night's English Class



We have the missionaries over to dinner every Sunday.  
This time, Steve wowed them with his Fork and Toothpick Trick!




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