just a few more pictures

We delivered a few last minute Christmas packages this past week.  We were able to see a few of our sweet missionaries along our way.  Here are Hermana Muro and Hermana Acor.  We took a quick tour of  their apartment.

And our fabulous Zone Leaders in Manzanillo

Elder Enriquez and Elder Lozano 

Finally, we happened onto this sweet man

and his burro heavily loaded just walking

along the road.  He stopped to smile

and nodded for us to take his picture.

Autlan Branch Conference

We had a wonderful Branch Conference last Sunday in Autlan.  It has been a glorious day and a perfect drive there and back. We left at 7 am to drive along that twisty curvy road.  Elder Case told me there are 285 turns and curves along that road. 

We appreciate so much the hospitality and kindness of  Branch President is Avina and his councilor President Silva.  Their sweet wives made a delicious lunch for us, which we enjoyed under the shade of a large tree behind their church building.
Elder Case, Elder Palilla, Elder Perez, and Elder Hernandez are the Elders serving there.  It was nice to spend the afternoon with them  We even popped by to visit their apartments.

I love this quote wall, which I understand

has been started by other Elders, and has

 been here a long long time.

Leadership Training and Christmas Celebration

We have loved meeting with our 3 areas encompassing our 9 zones for our quarterly leadership training.  We tagged our Christmas Celebration after our training in each area. 
 It has been fun fun fun to be with our missionaries and have a good time together and feel the Spirit of Christmas, which is the Spirit of Jesus Christ.  

We have felt, perhaps stronger than ever before the feeling of love and endearment with our sons and daughters here, as we have sung these sacred Christmas hymns, laughed at their funny, musical numbers, and dried our eyes as we watched again the short video of Luke 2 and heard President Clayton give his closing devotional. 
It has been a memorable time with each of our 186 missionaries.

We have taken a plethora of pictures... So so many!  What to add to our blog???  What to leave off??  Let's see....here goes!  :)

Our first Christmas celebration was with the Vallarta, Tepic and Santiago zones

 

Getting ready for the gift exchange.  The 40 peso limit was awesome :)

The Elders exchanged ties and the Hermana´s gave treats, and accessories

to each other.  There were lots of sweet gifts given, and clever ways to 

wrap them all up!

The funnest part was the story telling how to pass

the gifts back and forth.  

Moving the gifts a la derecha, o hacia la izquierda.

Back and forth the gifts went until the story ended

and the gift you were left with was yours.

Such a fun time together!

President reading a Christmas story

First musical number

The assistants put together a short video 

they entitled Twice in White, highlighting

our missionaries with their new converts 

on baptism day. Then the video unfolds pictures 

of our missionaries  with the faithful individuals

 and  families who have prepared to go with them

 to the Temple.

We gave each missionary a copy of the video.

Pictures!

Santiago Zone

We were doing fine until President took an important phone call...and threw us all off :)

I love Hermana Dominguez´s face...

Vallarta Zone

Tepic Zone

All three zones together

you think you´re all set, and you  turned around 

just in time to see this...  :)

ok, here we are :)

a generational picture 

Vallarta heading back home on the bus

Santiago in their van ready to get back as well

Next we have our Christmas Celebration with our 

Guadalajara, Union, and Independencia zones

getting ready for the gift exchange as well

We love these missionaries!

We had each lunch catered and they all did a fabulous job

These Elders are enjoying their comida.

musical numbers

then a Christmas story

all the zones together

                         All us Sisters together

                           Union Zone

                                    Lomas Zone

Independencia Zone

Our final Christmas Celebration

with Guzman Colima and Manzanillo

the gift exchange

getting ready to perform their musical number

President Clayton 

Pictures!

first with Guzman Zone

Manzanillo Zone

Colima Zone

all of us together

Thanking our wonderful lunch crew

Merry Merry Christmas to all!