Malta Week 40

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Malta Week 40 - A funeral, a hike in the forest and BUNCO!


We started the week off with a great group of students in our Monday night English Class!



Brother DeCarlo's Dad passed away and on Tuesday was the Funeral.  It was held in this Catholic Church.  It was a very different ceremony than what we're used to.  Nothing was said about the man who died, they just sprinkled his casket and served communion.  It was all in Maltese, so we didn't know what they were saying anyway.  Karen and JP came as well, so she translated a few things for me. 


There were several times throughout the ceremony when we needed to stand up.  We were grateful we had people in front of us who stood up, so we knew to stand up too.  The DeCarlo family was sitting on the front row and I noticed that they didn't know when to stand up either, but they didn't have anyone in front of them to show them.  Most of the time they stood up late after they figured out that they were supposed to.

The whole ceremony seemed cold and impersonal.  But we were so glad we went.  When we first arrived and we were trying to find a parking place, the whole DeCarlo Family was standing out in front of the church.  When they saw us, big smiles came over their faces and we knew that it meant a lot to them that we came.

After the service, the Branch members who attended: Pres Gallego, Baby Sienna, Marcela, Karen, Betty Ann, Steve and JP.  

Institute

On this week's hike, we took the whole Army of Helaman!  Maybe not quite, but we did have some valiant Warriers join us, all of the Malta Missionaries!

The hike started with the oldest tree in Malta!  Yup!  You're looking at it!  Pretty ugly!

It looks better from the top.




Our hike also included some ancient cave dwellings.


And, as always, some scenic views!

















We ended the hike in a forest, well, at least Torch called it a forest.  This is as close as it gets to a forest in Malta. 




Wednesday Night's English Class

Most of the rest of our week was spent playing catch up.  We got new whiteboards installed in the church and we're working on more improvements in the near future. It was nice that we didn't have to go to Rome again!  Four trips in one month's time was a lot!  
We had a great time on Saturday night.  The YSA's liked our first Bunco night so much they wanted to do another one!  This was our second Bunco night and everyone loved it!!!

BUNCO BUDDIES!!!!

CHIAO, CHIAO

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