Malta Week 24

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Another Good-bye, Three Cities Harbor Tour and our YSA's are off to a Great Start!


It was a rainy day as we said "Good-bye" to Sister Martinez.  It is so hard to have another missionary leave us!  Sister Martinez had to cut her mission short by two months because of Visa regulations in Italy.  She has been an amazing missionary, and we were sorry to see her mission end so soon.  But we are so grateful for the time we had with her.  She is from Columbia, but she will be returning to Italy where she lived for a short time before her mission.  I will miss hearing her sweet voice calling out, "Seester" followed by a warm hug each time I see her.  But we are happy for her to move on to the next chapter of her life.




Monday's English Class was amazing!  We love our cute students!

It was an interesting night at Institute.  We decided to try something different and move the class to the smaller classroom upstairs.  It was nice to have everyone together in a smaller area and not so spread out. When we started class at 7:00, it was all men and me (pictured above).  The class doubled in size as the night went on, but we still had a huge percentage of men vs women!  The lesson went well, the room was great, and we had pizza and my famous mint cookies for refreshments and social hour afterwards.  

On Thursday we had to meet a young man in our branch to help him get signed up for school.  His school was in Valletta, so when we were finished, Steve and I decided to spend some time in the Capital City.  We meandered around the streets and then went down to the Harbor, where we took a private boat tour in a Maltese Fishing boat around the Three Cities.  

It was a picture-perfect day to be cruising in the Valletta Harbour. 























Our Captain and Tour Guide
After a delightful cruise around the harbor, we decided to skip the stairs and pay  to take the elevator back up to the Upper Barrakka Gardens.  As you can see from the picture, it was well worth the 1 Euro for the elevator!

A few more pictures of the harbor from Valletta.



Enjoying lunch at a little outdoor cafe.



Wednesday Night English Class
I love it when our students all pose so perfectly for the picture!



The sunset was gorgeous tonight!
(Picture taken from our balcony.)


For the last several months, we have felt the need to focus on the Young Single Adults in our Branch.  We have over 60 YSA's in our branch and only about one third of them are active. We reached out to the Europe Central Area Young Adult Program Specialists for training and advice. We have some new and very enthusiastic YSA Leaders, and after weeks of planning, we had our first official YSA event last Friday! It was a great time! We gathered at the church, walked to the Cake Box for gelato and pastries, and then returned to the church for games. We are thrilled to begin hosting activities for our YSAs and eagerly anticipate many more in the future!





After running another church errand on Saturday, we found ourselves in Sliema, so we ate at our favorite restaurant, Fortizza and then took a walk along the sea.  We came upon this sculpture and snapped a quick picture.  It was a beautiful day to enjoy this gorgeous island.



Sunday:  We were so excited to have our first ever YSA Sunday School Class!  The YSA Leaders planned the lesson, and the room was so full, we couldn't fit everyone in!  Naomi, our teacher did a fabulous job teaching the lesson.  She had us all break out into small groups and discuss different scriptures and then come back and share.  Everyone loved the opportunity to be together and share their thoughts about the scriptures.  We received several texts afterwards saying how much everyone loved the class!  

Comments

  1. SamanthaNovember 26, 2024 at 7:48 AM

    Congratulations on the YSA successes! The harbor boat looked adorable. And that elevator is crazy!

    ReplyDelete

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