The week before Christmas

We had a special mission conference for the sister missionaries on Monday.  We started out at a very nice restaurant.  Hermana Quintanilla had literally a leg of lamb.

This was Hermana Dibb's main dish.  It is fish with bacon in the middle and a sweet fruit sauce on the top.  It was delicious.

Here are the sister missionaries.  Some of the really put away the food.  There are 18 sister missionries, Sister Dibb and Hermana Quintanilla.

Here are all the sister missionaries in front of the Christmas tree at the mission home.  We had a wonderful day of instruction and testimonies.

At the end of the day, we all had to have pictures with the mission president's family.  What a great family and special experience to rub shoulders with such wonderful children of our Heavenly Father.

It is hard to see in this picture, but as we went to visit a sister this week, this was at the top of the first flight of stairs.  It is a laundry room.  It is open and has a couple of sinks in the corner.  There are lines to hang clothes on.  By the looks of this, you would think Sister Villareal's appartment would be trashy.  She is an older sister, and her apartment is up a few flights of stairs.  (She drops the key to get into the building from her window tied in a cloth so she doesn't have to come down the stairs)  Anyway, it is really nice once you get into the apartment.

This is our nativity scene.  Each one of the sisters got this gift in a little box when we had our conference on Monday.  It is our only Christmas decoration.  We just couldn't see spending money on a Christmas tree.  There is one in our building as you come to the elevator and we lunches at homes of people who have decorations.  So it is OK.

Had to add this picture of the size of our "decoration".  It is sitting in our chair in the living room.

We had a family home evening with the mission president, his family, and the missionaries from the office last night.  After the lesson, we had pizza.  We had our district missionaries at our home in the afternoon to make Elder Dibb's cookies, then we had pizza and watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional on our computer. (In Spanish) Anyway, it was a pizza day.

Joshua (mission presidents son, 4 years old) eating pizza at 10:00 pm.