Malta - Week 22

Transfer week, Halloween, and some amazing food!

Due to the MissionWide Conference, transfers were postponed for a week.  On Monday and Tuesday, we made trips to the airport to drop off and pick up the missionaries. 

We said good-bye to Elder Warner.  He and his companion, Elder Borjas were here for only 6 short weeks before they were transferred back to Italy.  It's called whitewashing, when both companions are transferred at the same time.  Elder Borjas was transferred to Rome, so he left last week during the MissionWide Conference and we took Elder Warner on Monday morning.

We had a couple of hours until the next missionaries were to arrive, so we stayed at the airport to wait.  During that time, we ran into 3 mission president couples who were coming for a Leadership Conference in Malta.  It was fun to talk to each of them.  

These are the mission leaders for the France, Paris Mission.  Emma Crowe from our ward back home is in their mission.  We enjoyed visiting with them and hearing about the wonderful work Emma is doing on her mission there.  We took this picture to send to Emma.

Elder Zepeda from Las Vegas and Sister McIntyre from South Jordan Utah arrived on Monday.  Pictured above: Steve, Elder Wilding, Elder Zepeda, Elder Stewart, Sister McIntyre and Sister Vedovi.  

The other two new missionaries, Elder Parkes from Portsmouth, England and Sister Bennett from Laie arrived the next day.  I neglected to get their picture.  But we love Elder Parkes' English accent, and we think they will all be a welcome addition to our mission!  We now have nine missionaries in Malta!

Monday night's English Class was much smaller than usual.  It seems like with the time change and it being so dark at night, our class is a lot smaller than usual.  It is really dark at 6:00 PM, so it doesn't seem as welcoming to go outside.  We don't mind too much because the small group allows us to give individualized attention to each of the students in the class. 

For Institute on Tuesday night, we decided to try something new.  We ordered pizza from a small pizzeria down the street and served that instead of pulled pork.  It's a lot less work for us and it seemed like everyone enjoyed it just as much.  I made some homemade cookie bars for dessert.  They are made from a cake mix and taste pretty good.  For some reason, everyone loves these!

Another small group for Wednesday night English Class.  

Thursday night was Halloween, and I didn't know whether to expect any Trick or Treaters.  I saw and heard a few kids outside, but no one came to our door.  We have pretty heavy security here, so it would be hard for them to get in.  But I thought maybe some of the kids from our stairwell would stop by, so I bought a bag of candy just in case.  No one came.

Friday night, our Branch Mission Leader threw a big Costume Party.  We didn't come in costume, but about half of the people did.  The Latinos really know how to party.  There were some fun games, lots of food and a lot of dancing. They go crazy! There was a good time had by all!

I brought these cute little gummy burgers and the kids loved them!

Last Saturday, Salem Sherif, a cute little man from the intermediate English class offered to prepare a Libyan meal for us. He arrived at the church with the food already made and arranged it in serving bowls. We assumed he would join us for the meal, but instead, he simply set the table, presented the food, let us know it was ready to eat, snapped this picture with us and left.  I had concerns about the quality of the food, but to my delight, it was exceptionally tasty.

The following day at church, we welcomed visitors once more from the leadership conference. This time, it was only the leaders' wives. They mentioned that the men were conducting their own Sacrament Meeting at the hotel, but they chose to get a Bolt (like an Uber) as they were eager to attend another service in our charming little branch! We were delighted that they had enjoyed their initial visit so much and were thrilled to have them back again for another week.