Christmas Day 2008

Rather than join the other North American couples at the Lima MTC today, we entertained the office elders and the missionaries in our ward so they could have a nice Christmas dinner. We were their surrogate parents.

Here we are in our new Mission tee shirts with Elder Oliveros (the mission supplies clerk; from Guatemala), Elder Clark (the new incoming personal secretary to the mission president; from New Hampshire), and Elder Ebert (the outgoing personal secretary; from Sandy, Utah).


Here we are with the two assistants to the president, Elder Leiva from Arequipa, Peru, and Elder Davis from Houston, Texas.


And here we are with Elder Gurel from Austin, Texas, and Elder Shiflett from Arizona. They are hard-working, baptizing missionaries, who were assigned to Bolivia but are now in our mission after Americans were kicked out of Bolivia.


Beverly explains the food for the Christmas dinner to the missionaries: turkey, ham with pineapple sauce, potatoes and gravy, Waldorf salad, English trifle, green beans almondine, guacamole, salsa, chips, rolls, pies, and drink.

Beverly and Elders Ebert, Oliveros, Davis, Clark, Shiflett, Gurel, and Leiva. The elders really chowed down!

For Christmas, Santa brought Beverly this ceramic figurine of a Peruvian mother and her children. This adds to Beverly's collection of over 100 mother-child figurines from all over the world.

Santa brought Scott a ceramic chess set to add to his collection of sets from around the world. This one shows the Incas (llamas for knights, thatched-roof towers for rooks, etc.) vs. the Spaniards (horsed soldiers for knights, castle towers for rooks, etc.). This set immediately became one of Scott's favorites.

With all the piano playing that Beverly is doing, she needed some way to practice in our apartment, so Santa brought us this portable keyboard. She will use it to teach music lessons to Peruvian youth in the mission.

We ("Santa") gave the elders "stockings" (actually just Ziploc baggies) with US candy (Snickers, Milky Way, Twix, M&Ms, and Skittles). The missionaries loved this little gift. After food, photos, and fun, we read the account of the first Christmas in Luke (Lucas in Spanish) and then everyone bore a short testimony (in Spanish). We all testify to the world that Jesus is the Christ, our Redeemer and Savior.