Malta - Week 38

Malta Week 38 - Another beautiful hike, another trip to Rome and another Baptism!!!

Monday Night English Class

I decided to try acupuncture for my arthritic hip.  The Chinese Clinic I went to had these beautiful Chinese Gardens.  This took us back to our China days!

Tuesday Night Institute

Words cannot describe the beauty of this island!  We took another hike with Torch and Gloria this week.  This one was to Il Mistra Bay with a close up view of St Paul's Island.

We have our baptisms at St Paul's Bay.  This is looking at the baptism location from across the bay.  If you look at the ramp in this picture, that is where we walk down to the baptismal sight.  See a closeup view in the picture below.

This is the island we see when we do our baptisms.  From this area, we were able to get a lot closer to St Paul's Island and the monument erected in his honor.  Our  goal is to step foot on this island before we leave Malta.

Roman Salt Pans

I am in love with these wild flowers!

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After our hike, we ventured into the village of Mellieha to have lunch at a little outdoor cafe.  I love these cute stairs with the Maltese fishing boat!

We entered this door and found this little shrine in a cave below the city.

Mellieha Parish Church

Wednesday Night English Class - Wow!  We had a good sized class and we love all our students so much!

On Thursday, we headed back to Rome to get our Permesso Cards.  It was unfortunate that we couldn't do it the week before while we were on the YSA Temple trip because they were closed on Thursdays and that was the only day we had free. The Whitings picked us up from the airport.  We love them.  It was so fun to visit with them on our ride to the apartment.  The Anglesey's had to go home from their mission early, so their apartment was vacant and we were able to stay there.  Sister Whiting brought us muffins!  She is so thoughtful!  While we like staying with and getting to know the other senior couples, it was nice to have an apartment to ourselves for a change.  However, there was no food in the house, and we tried to go to the little grocery store around the corner, but it was closed. But with the muffins from the Whitings and the water that was left in the fridge, we were in great shape!

The Youngs were kind enough to pick us up and take us to the Permesso.  We both took a number and waited outside in the cold until they opened.  When they called our numbers, Steve was first to go to the window.  They took his fingerprints and checked his ID and then immediately gave him his Permesso card.  Then I stepped up to the window and things did not go so well. They pulled out my card and had me check it for accuracy and then I put my fingers on the glass, and they could not get it to read my fingerprints.  I tried my fingers and my thumbs and nothing worked!  I did everything I could, but nothing worked.  I remembered that it was difficult when I did the original fingerprinting because I think my fingerprints have warn off over the years and I'm not able to use them for an ID on my cell phone either.  It was really cold that morning and I think my hands were too cold and not moist enough.  The lady at the window was super nice and she tried everything to make it work. She handed me a gel to put on, but it still, no luck. She told me to go home and put lotion on several times a day and then come back in a week.  I asked if I could stay and try again and she told me I had used up the maximum allotment of time to keep trying. She gave me the return date of the 28th.  Without disclosing the fact that I don’t really live in Italy, I told her it would be difficult for me to come back on that date and asked if I could come another day and she said, just come back on the 28th!  I was pretty devastated.  We ended up returning to Malta without my Permesso Card!

On the bright side, we had several hours before we needed to head back to the airport, so Sister Young and I got to go shopping in the mall.  It is really fun to go to the huge mall in Rome since our malls in Malta are so small, I just call them pretend malls!  We returned home on Friday evening dreading that fact that we would have to turn around and go back to Rome again the next week!

I took some pictures from the plane as we flew back into Malta.  We flew right over Mosta.  It was quite a site seeing how huge the Mosta Dome is from the air!

YSA Dance Party

Saturday night the YSA's had a super fun dance party!  Sister Hoyt and Sister Bennett taught line dancing and everyone really enjoyed it!  We had a great turnout with lots of members and friends!

Baptism of SANJU

The final highlight of the week was the baptism of Sanju!  Sanju is from India and I had to opportunity to help teach him one of the lessons.  He was so excited to get baptized!

It was a beautiful day at St Paul's Bay

This cute girl is named Joy and she always has a smile on her face.  She lives in Gozo.  It's difficult for her to come to church because she works almost every Sunday and has to take the ferry and the bus to get here.  We were excited she was able to make it this Sunday and join us for the baptism as well.

After his baptism and confirmation, Sanju bore a beautiful testimony. 

The group picture of everyone who attended the baptism.  

We're so grateful for the support we get from the branch members.

Missionary Group Picture

We feel blessed to be able to work with this great group of missionaries!