Friday December 31

 

Today we had to take the elder who was leaving over to the airport.  

There was a motorcycle lying on its side in the parking lot. Last night the wind blew harder than ever and I suspect the wind blew it over.

We got him off and with the.one elder from Portugal returned home. I made breakfast and then we stayed and studied.  We had a nice lunch with some members and even went shopping for a heater and a dehumidifier. It was strange the mall was jammed with people but the parking garage beneath had empty slots. We returned to the apartment and started supper until time to go retrieve the missionaries. Two arrived soon to be followed by another to allow two to go to the other main city. Christmas decorations at the airport, and a large model of an old seaplane.

We fed hem tacos and talked until time to send them home. We went to bed only to be woken up by the fireworks going off at midnight. They do New Years up big here also. We love you all.

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Thursday December 30

 

Well again it rained, but the real bad part was the wind. I thought Pingree had some winds but these would rip roofs right off. Since we received word of more missionaries arriving tomorrow night we needed to do a bit of shopping so we could feed them supper. The real advantage was the walking indoors. We came back from our trip and left to make visits and eat lunch. The elder who is leaving is close to some of the members and wanted to say goodbye.

Next was lunch.

Chicken and potatoes roasted in the oven, very good. Rice with mushrooms and corn, good. And everyone’s favorite octopus boiled with potatoes. The potatoes strangely are more difficult to eat the the octopus. They take on it’s flavor and are just a little awful. The food by and large was excellent and I have ate octopus several times and will continue to do so. For desert cake and bananas. Grandma and I shared a conjoined banana here are before and after shots.

We stopped for a bit of shopping on the way home then did some organizing for the new elders to have a list of people to visit. Now it really started to rain and blow. We have these electric shutters that roll up and down to cover the windows and we had to close them to keep it from blowing the windows open. I call them blast shields and the name seems appropriate. Long busy day. We love you all.

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Thanks to everyone for the comments. I check every day, so you know I appreciate them.

Wednesday December 29

 Today was not the busiest of days. The weather was bad and I ended up not going for a walk all day. We stayed in and it was very hard to want to do anything, so I didn’t. N the evening we had an activity which had few people attend. Afterwards we had the missionaries come help eat more leftover soup. We worked at learning to use some of the stuff on our phones and talked about things. The on missionary is being transferred and not only do we get a replacement, but 2 more to work in one of the other towns. Glad not all days are like this. We love you all.

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The last time we went to the continent I forgot this picture of the 1000 year old olive tree.

Tuesday December 28

 

The people here use these mossy looking plants at Christmas to make wreaths and such. Anyway I was up and finally got to go for my solo walk again. It was really windy, but is 66 degrees. While walking I was very warm qnd passed most people in. Layers and wearing neck scarves and even gloves. We had district meeting so while we were out we drove down to a souvenir shop so I could buy a nativity set grandma wanted for a late Christmas present. One wall of the shop had an old black and white mural of the harbor area many years ago.

There has been a lot of changes. We had district meeting and then we went home while the elders took the car hopefully for the last time. I cooked and cleaned,. The repair man came and we sort of have hot water. We need to have the landlord fix the vent pipe different so the flame doesn’t blow out. We next had a lesson at the church. We came home and fed everyone soup made from the leftovers from the food cooked in the volcano. We are headed for some more rain and with the one elder being transferred in 2 days not as much will be happening. During this time of holidays and chaos sometimes the blog will suffer. Hunter called his district is in quarantine as one tested positive for Covid. Got to be tough. Luckily he gets to call us any time he wants while we are missionaries also. I hope grandma can help him endure as I don’t always have the best advice. There is a senior couple on the other acorean. Island. They don’t have a car and think it’s exciting to walk everywhere. The husband served here in Portugal and is one or two years younger than us. They seem better prepared and having a better attitude than me. A couple of pictures from yesterday.

Well not much exciting today but we did get things done. We love you all.

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Monday December 27

 Today I was up and preparing food for cooking in the  hot pots in the volcano area. I put together a huge pot off pork, beef, chicken, two types of sausage, potatoes, two types of sweet potatoes, onion, and carrots. Grandma made a banana bread for on top. After a quick cold shower we were ready to go. We drove to Fiurnas and got the food in the ground.

Now all we need to do is wait. Going into town we looked around. We have been here several times before so a lot of the things we have seen before. We stopped at the steampots downtown and they had the best nativity and life of Jesus display I have seen.

I liked the one of the wolf, but there were so many someone did a lot of work. I liked the lampposts at the front of the blog. The look old very mary poppins. This was all to do another young adult activity. The car with them in arrived and they wanted us to follow them as we were going into a parking lot they participated in a minor car wreck. I used the word participated because there was some fault both ways. Not much damage and no one hurt so on our way. We spent some time touring the town then back to the park where the food is cooking. After many games of uno in the wind the time to retrieve the food was here.

The food tasted good, probably could have come out 2 hours sooner, but good. The banana bread was good. There was a lot left over. We ate gathered up and returned to the church to do the dishes as they have hot water. We changed and headed out to make some visits. Quite a day. We love you all.

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