Christmas week

Elder Dibb with Hermana Villareal.  She is older than we are and is "dyed in the wool" Catholic.  She is very nice and is interested in the true Gospel, but we are having a hard time convincing her that she needs to read the Book of Mormon.  We always have a nice visit and she shares her feelings freely.

Here is Andrea with her mother and brother.  They invited us over for Christmas Eve, but we already had an appointment with another family.  They invited us over about a month ago.  So we made some cookies and stopped by to visit for a few minutes before going to the other cita.  Andrea's mother gave us a bread that she had made.  She seems to accept us OK and Andrea is coming to Church again and we are teaching her.  We'll see how things turn out.

This is the family that we spent Christmas with.  There are 4 teenagers in the family.  Mother and Father are divorced, but they take care of "Grandma".  Up until about a year ago, she was walking and talking.  Now she just sits in her wheelchair and can't speak.  They have a nurse come in during the day to help care for her.  They are all so tender with her and include her in everything they do.

The three girls with "Grandma".

Loving Grandma.

This is the brother that takes such good care of his mother and sisters.

This is the mother in her kitchen, cooking "picana", the special Bolivian dish that they eat at 12:00 midnight on Christmas Eve.  It consists of beef, pork, chicken, and lamb.  It is a soup and you have a couple of big pieces of meat in the broth. Then you add potato, carrot and cheese.  They told us that usually it is much "hotter" but they stayed away from the picante because of us.

Here is the family with Elder Dibb, by the Christmas tree.

The table was set beautifully. Notice the Fanta and 7-Up bottles.  We forgot to move them for the picture.  After dinner at 12:00 midnight, they open presents from each other.  They don't have Santa come.

This is the blanket that Mindy had made so we can hang it on the wall of our apartment.  We love having all the grandkids right here with us.  It lifts our spirits.  We just need to figure how to hang it on plaster walls.

This shows some of the things our kids sent for Christmas.  It was so fun opening them and especially getting personal letters and pictures from everyone.  Elder Dibb bought me the roses and we are having suits tailor made for our Christmas to each other.  Dad has a nice blue tie that we forgot to put back with the other things.  And a couple of missionaries gave us a pencil and another "wide" Bolivian tie. Elder Dibb is not sure how to tie it so the knot is not so big.  He'll figure it out.

These are the earrings that Denisse (a teenage member) and her mother (Mirka- not a member, but we are teaching and have challenged her to baptism)  It was so thoughtful of them to get us a gift. They said that when they were shopping, they thought of us.

This is the wallet they gave Elder Dibb.  They said the gifts were to remember Bolivia when we have returned home. The gifts were fun, but were not the focus of our celebration this year.  We feel so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for the blessings that we have of being members of the Church of Jesus Christ.  We know that through the great blessings of the Savior, we can live with our Heavenly Father again and have our family with us forever.  Our testimonies have grown and we have felt the Spirit of the Holy Ghost guide and help us improve our lives.  Thank you to all of you for your love and prayers.  We need them each day and they help us know that what we are doing is a blessing to His children.