It is hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone. Our firsts Christmas in the mission field. Before we put everything away for next year, we thought we would give you a tour of our home at Christmas time. When we take the tree down, we will take a picture of all the little ornaments you sent with the grand children's pictures. They were the best part of our decorations.

Where do we start?

Well, no one needs to feel sorry for us. We had so many little packages to open. What a fun morning We had jello pudding to photos. We love all those photos. I know Christmas is all about giving more than receiving. I hope we gave to the people of Colombia, more than we received. What a great blessing to be here in the mission field. We have loved every day here.

Christmas morning breakfast.

We had a wonderful Christmas breakfast thanks to Rob and Holly. They sent us two packs of Williams Country Sausage packets. We were in heaven. We topped it with chopped hard boiled eggs and a cup of ecco. What more could we ask for.

Our first nativity.

This was our first nativity are pesebre in Spanish. We love this. We are sorry they didn't make it to you kids in really good condition. We took this to our Bogota Christmas party. At night it is just beautiful.

Jerusalem pesebre.

I love this little pesebre. At night, it is really beautiful with all its lights. On the back wall, you can see two beautiful little frames that Holly made with pictures of their family. The large frame has the gift that was made by the parents of one of our Peruvian missionaries. His parents traveled on a bus six hours to bring it to us. There is along story behind this photo. I will need to share it will you some day.

Palm pesebre.

This little pesebre was a gift to us from our missionary couple that returned home the first of the month. There is a type of palm tree that grows a big pod and inside are hard things like nuts, but you don't eat them. The people carve things out of these very hard nuts. We had never seen them, but as it got close to Christmas we saw a lot of them. We have this on our coffee table in the living room.

Our entry way pesebre.

When people enter our home, they are greeted with our hugh Christmas tree and on this side table our little pesebre.

Close up of little pesebre.

This is a close up of our little tiniest pesebre. It is made of clay. We love all of our pesebres.

Oh yes, the "yellow tie dinner". This all started soon after we arrived in Colombia. We were in Bucaramanga for our Get Acquainted visits with the missionaries. Dad knew he had to speak in a priesthood training meeting, but he did not take a suit coat because his two assistants assured him no one would be wearing suits as it was too hot there. When we got to Bucaramanga, Dad was confirming with the stake president about the meeting and said he understood no one would be in a suit coat. Well, the stake president assured him everyone would be in a suit. Needless to day, Dad went to the mall and bought a new suit. While there two Elders came in and helped him pick out a tie. When he got back gto the hotel and showed me his bright yellow tie, I vetoed it and said it was too bright for a mission president to wear. Sooo, now Dad makes it a big deal with the missionaries that they can not get trunky until they ring our doorbell and Dad is wearing his bright yellow tie for the last supper with the missionaries.

Our success story.

These two Elders are both from Peru, and they will always be remembered as our success stories.

The church for the Madrid branch.

This warehouse serves as the church for this small branch. This is not a common church building here in our mission, unless you get outside Bogota. This little branch is right outside the city limits. We enjoyed our visit.

Madrid Branch chapel.

This is the chapel for this little branch. Upstairs is two other floors with classrooms. It really is quite spacious.

Inside the front door.

You can see the little door in the bottom right side of the door. This is not a common church, but for the time being it works for this little branch.

Baptismal font in the chapel.

This is the baptismal font in the Madrid Branch. It is right in the same big room that is used as the chapel. The front legs of the ladder is placed inside the font and the people climb up the outside leg and go down into the water on the other side.