Curtis Mission to Malta

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year! A Christmas Miracle We instructed all our children not to send us any packages this year due to the unreliable mail system in Malta. Most of them obeyed, however, Shane ordered something for us on Shutterfly. Last week, while we were in Rome, he sent us note indicating that it would be delivered that day. We were not home and did not receive a notice, so we were worried about it being returned, as this often happens here. After tracking the package, we found out the address was incorrect. Shane made significant efforts on his end to locate it, and we did a lot of work on our end until we finally reached someone the UPS office.  We immediately drove to the UPS warehouse by the airport and upon entering we saw dozens of disorganized piles of packages with no front desk, so we approached the first worker we saw and showed him our tracking number. I was skeptical about how they could ever find our package, but five minutes later he returned with the...

Zone Conference in Rome, the Branch Christmas Party, the Christmas Sacrament Meeting and more!   Our week started off by celebrating Elder Parkes' 26th birthday. We took all the Elders out to lunch to celebrate. I made my famous white chocolate lemon bars for him!  Monday night's English Class! Zone Conference Attending this Zone Conference presented numerous challenges. Initially scheduled for last Thursday, it had to be postponed twice due to a holiday in Rome and a then a transportation strike. On both occasions, we booked nonrefundable airfare and had to cancel. It was rescheduled for Wednesday this week, and while booking my airfare for the third time, I accidentally booked the wrong flight. In the USA, cancellations are allowed in the first 24 hours, but Ryanair does not permit cancellations even within five minutes of booking, so we had to absorb the cost of that as well. Fortunately, Ryanair is inexpensive, and for two of us one way, was only 60 euros. Thus, forfeiting...