Malta Week 27

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Sad good-byes, happy hellos and Christmas parties that make the season bright!

After 3 transfers (approximately 4.5 months) we had to say Good-bye to Elder Wilding.  He has served with us longer than any other missionary, so we are going to miss him!  He has done a great job serving as District Leader.  We were fortunate that he extended his mission for one transfer, but he is now headed home to Idaho.  
When we loaded up his bags, we thought the largest one was extremely heavy.  They only allow 20 kg for the large bags here, which is 44 lbs.  He said he had weighed it, and it was fine.  He either had bad eyes or an extremely inaccurate scale!  When we got to the airport, it weighed 30 kg!  They charge 12 Euros per kg that you go over, so he was looking at paying 120 Euros for his luggage.  They let us go to an area with a table to sort things out.  I was surprised at what he had in his bag!  The huge Panettone Cake and the brownies that his companion make for him were two of the things I thought he should discard. But he wasn't going to let go of those!  We spent a lot of time shuffling things around, discarding a few things, making him wear 3 coats and moving heavy books to his backpack. He wasn't going to let go of those brownies!  He decided to carry the plastic container of brownies on the plane in his hands!  When we returned to the check-in desk, the luggage was still 2 kg overweight, but the agent had mercy on us and didn't charge us anything. Whew!

Monday Night English Class


Institute 

Stephanie is one or our amazing YSA's.  She has been living in Malta for several years and is now ready to move on. We will miss her!  I'll also miss having another blonde!  There aren't too many of us here!



More Good-byes!!!  Sister Vedovi and Elder Zepeda got transferred. This was Sister Vedovi's first area and she was trained here.  It was not easy for her because she doesn't speak English or Spanish, which are the predominate languages here.  It will be nice for her to go to Italy, where she knows Italian quite well.  Elder Zepeda was very sad to leave Malta after being here for only one transfer.  We're hoping he will be able to come back again.  He was such a nice young man.  He will be missed. 


It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  This is the Chocolate Cafe just outside our church.  I love how festive it looks!  


Wednesday Night English Class


We raced straight to the airport right after English Class to pick up two missionaries coming from Italy!  We are excited to welcome Elder McPhie, who is from California and Sister Alvarado.  She was raised in Puerto Rico, but her family is now living in Spain.  We are grateful to have them!

On Thursday, we picked up the final missionary who will be joining us for this transfer.  Elder Grinceri is from Perth, Australia!  We are grateful to have another Aussie joining us here in Malta!  He will be our District Leader.


Christmas Season is here, with two Christmas Socials this weekend!

I love this season!  It is so beautiful!  This picture is from the Point Mall.  Beck's live in Condos in the mall complex and she hosted a Relief Society Christmas Activity in her home on Friday night.



For the Relief Society Social, everyone was asked to bring some type of easy-to-make Christmas food.  So I brought something really easy.  The plate next to the water and sodas in this picture was mine.  I made brownies from a brownie mix. stuck a snowflake marshmallow on top and then I topped each one off with a green or red M&M.  They were festive and easy. The food that everyone else brought was quite amazing, but none of it seemed easy!


An amazing group of women!


On Saturday, we had our YSA Super Activity!  We went to the Valletta Fairyland for an ice-skating party. 

Beautiful Nativity outside St. John's Co-Cathedral

Steve and I arrived early and were surprised when a massive motorcycle parade unexpectedly came rolling down the street. Hundreds of motorcycles drove down streets of Valletta, one after another.





We were not crazy enough to go skating, but we had a lot of fun watching these kids!  They look very self-confident in these pictures, but they didn't start out that way!  All of them were pretty wobbly in the beginning.

We ended up with 19 in our group!  After asking someone to take this picture, we realized that several of them were missing!  Oh well!


Hot Chocolate tasted good after ice skating on this cold wintry night! 
(Cold in Malta means it's in the 60's with no sunshine!)


Valletta was beautifully decorated for Christmas!


A Christmas stroll up and down the streets of Valletta.



It was an enjoyable evening!  We think everyone had a great time!  Our YSA leaders did a great job of planning and organizing this event!  We love hanging out with these young people!


Sunday dinner with these cute Sisters!

To my delight, I got a call from Milana Hobby!  She is at home in Australia! We miss her so much here.  I'm grateful to stay in touch with her!

CIAO!

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