Merry Christmas from St. Croix 2016
We worked hard for the past couple of years to save up for a vacation to Puerto Rico. We decided to not only visit PR but to take a cruise and visit some of the other islands in my mission.
We had some brutal fights both going and returning from PR. This is a picture of the sun rise while we were sitting in the New York Airport.
The kids did great for flying all night.
Our first evening in Puerto Rico we had dinner with one of the members that I knew in my mission. This man was a baptist minister until he met the missionaries and joined the church. He lost his job, friends, money, everything when he joined the church. He has dedicated his life to servicing and helping the missionaries.
The kids got authentic Puerto Rican food. They liked everything but the Flan.
A couple of funny things happened while visiting. There was a cat hanging out in the house. Briggs looked over and said, "Is that your cat?" Victor answered, "No, I don't know who's cat that is. He just started coming in a few days ago." The windows and the doors are always open at his house.
Luckily Victor speaks english so he was able to share his conversion story with the kids. While we were talking, Ila leaned over and said, "mom Im in Puerto Rico, When am I going to know Spanish?" She just assumed once she got to Puerto Rico she would know spanish.
We spent a few days just driving around the island to see my different mission areas. It was shocking to me to see how much everything has changed. There are so many business' and buildings.
We also spent part of a day in the rain forest.
We actually spent several hours trekking through some very unkept cemeteries to take pictures of the head stones. We decided to collect information that we could put into find a grave and billion grave for family history work.
We were able to come home with nearly 4000 pictures of head stones.
The cruise began on the 18th of December. The kids had lots of fun going to the comedy shows, magic shows, concerts, and an endless amount of food.
We went to St. Martin, Barbados, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St Thomas and St. Croix
Mom and Dad joined us on the cruise. It was nice having some more family around for Christmas. Christmas is just not the same without family and traditions.
We tried to squeeze in as much fun as we could before returning home. We had a lot of fun. I hope we can do something like that again some day.
Wow! What a fabulous trip. Also, congratulations on doing so much good along the way taking photos of headstones. I didn't know about that project but it certainly makes sense. I love the tour children saw your mission and met a convert. Great, great experiences.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great trip! You had a Florida Christmas this year. Nice and warm. So glad your family got to do this trip. Good work on the headstones!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun, amazing Christmas! Looks so warm and enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteThat's wonderful! Way to document graves too. Do you feel like your Spanish was still there and did you get much of a chance to use it?
ReplyDeleteI don't know why so many people like flan, it's not good. That is so cool that you were able to take your family to Victor's house. I am so jealous that you were warm on Christmas while we were freezing!
ReplyDeleteThat was such a restful trip. It has made it hard to face this cold.
ReplyDeleteWhat a FUN trip!! I'll bet it was so nice to see some of the people you taught on your mission and that your family could meet some of them. Its never quite the same when you go back though.
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