Thanksgiving and other fun stuff

I still can't get over the Fuen beach. Such beauty!  I am so grateful to be able to spend time there. And I have so much more to be grateful for too. The week before last we were visited by one of the 70, Elder Kearon. It was a totally wonderful conference - very inspirational. I am so blessed to have such a great mission president, President Deere (and Hermana Deere too), and to be able to be taught by a spiritual giant like Elder Kearon and Sister Kearon too. A great day.

President and Sister Deere, Elder and Sister Kearon,
and Pres. and Sister Himenez, Pres. Deere's councelor.

An interesting side note - many years ago our branch president was a ward mission leader and the sister missionaries serving his ward in England came and told him about this fantastic new investigator they had found... they were sure he would be baptized, and in fact were sure he would one day be in the bishopric... or bishop... or even stake president.  Sure enough, that was Elder Kearon! Small world. He was so nice and so grateful too. He must have thanked us at least 20 times, and in fact thanked and shook the hands of every single missionary (including this one). And he has inspired me to "attack the day!" and start it with more diligence, which if you know me is a tremendous accomplishment :).

I also feel blessed to be able to associate with such awesome "seniors". We just got two new couples into our mission. This is Elder and Sister Redd, who will serve in Cáceres, helping with the branch up there. The other is the Frosts. She is the new mission nurse, and he is working with the JAS (YSA) program. He worked as a veterinary pathologist in his "other life". It'll be fun to get to know them!

This last week the Málaga Zone got together for Thanksgiving. Those missionaries are amazing cooks!  One companionship of Elders started a couple weeks before-hand to perfect their roll-making skills. It took a number of tries (forgot the yeast, too much sugar killed it, too much grease, etc), but they got it down and killed it - the rolls were AWESOME!  And so were the other dishes.  I brought cranberry sauce that turned out pretty good too :)




These cute little girls (I got to hold one and President Deere is holding the other - mom is holding their brother Asher) are in our branch. Their mom just found out yesterday that they are identical, even though they were in separate sacs. It was so fun holding a baby again!  And I was the envy of all the Hermanas (younger missionaries can't hold children).

More of our great missionaries in the Málaga mission waiting for the rolls to get there so we could eat (it was worth the wait!)

On the left, the ¨Thankful Tree¨, and right - our office couple the Coombs and office elder, the Deere´s son, and (beyond him) one of our Ayudantes (APs).



Our after-dinner food coma (ignoring the bottle) :)  It was all delicious and very hard not to stuff ourselves!  For once there was leftovers - the missionaries might have actually gotten their fill for once!
It was a GREAT couple of weeks! And I'll end on one more picture of Fuen's beauty :)