It doesn't look like it but we are Back to Work!

 ! At the Parade!

                   Alejandro never smiles in a picture but he smiles all the time! Marcos just returned from his mission in Madrid.  He is making one of those crazy missionary faces.  Natalia is the life of the party.  She loves her nephew and brought him to the parade.                

The holidays are over and we are back to work! It was hard to get any work done because the people are on vacation and spending time with their families.  We had a good time over the Christmas, New Years and Three Kings holidays.   Christmas is the religious holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ.  Some families might give a few gifts to each other but Three Kings on January 6th is day day of gift giving.  This holiday celebrates the Wisemen that visited Jesus.  We were able to go, with some of the JAS we work with, to the parade in the city above us called La Laguna.  It is in an old part of the city where no cars travel and the streets are cobblestone in some areas.  The parade was a lot of fun with local marching bands, local dance groups and floats.  The Three Kings rode in on camels and their costumes were larger than life!  They throw candy out to everyone.  Many camels pulled trailers with wrapped packages with kids names written on them.  All the kids were very excited.  Some were singing "Feliz Navidad!"  It was really cute.  There was a tremendous amount of confetti flying! The next day we were making a hospital visit and we met the Three Kings in the stairwell in the hospital!  That was exciting!  

For New Years we had gone to bed about 11pm but we were awakened by large booms and fireworks going off in every direction!  We could see a lot from our apartment window but we should have been downtown because there was a huge display we got a glimpse of.  The traffic would have been terrible and we followed the mission rule of missionaries being in by 1000.  It was a good rule.

The next big festival will be Carnival.  That is in February.  We will be in Madrid hopefully attending the temple with some of our JAS kids.  That will be a much greater experience for us.  The temple is a very special place to get to go.
We really missed our family for Christmastime.  We were thankful for skype and email so we could touch base with all of them.  All the grandkids look like they are growing up so quickly.  We are always very happy to hear how well they are doing in school and in their activities.  There is no greater blessing for parents to know their kids are doing well and are happy and healthy! Thank you for the cards and letters too!

Our spanish is moving along.  Mike is able to talk on the phone very well now.  We study whenever we can.  Jeanne is able to communicate on a basic level but speaking is the last thing to come!  Listening, reading and writing seem to come first.
We are able to work with some great missionaries here.  We enjoy them all.  We think a few will be leaving us in the next few weeks with transfers.  We help them whenever we can.
We continue to visit people here on the island.  That is a good experience. We leave a little message and spend time getting to know them and let them know they are not forgotten.
Every Friday night we have a get together with the kids that can come. (the JAS)  They have a spiritual message then an activity like movie night, bowling, skating or just hanging out.  On Saturday they have their Institute class (Old Testament) followed by a dinner and sometimes an activity.  The kids are all excited for the opportunity to get together.  Some of these kids have been friends since they have been little so they know each other very well.  There is a lot of love there!  Everyone is welcome and everyone can always bring friends too. 
This missionary experience has helped us grow our cooking talents.  We are always looking for recipes and experiementing on the elders, especially.  So if anyone has some great recipes to make with basic ingredients please send them on.  There are no mixes here so everything is from scratch.  Peanut butter is hard to find and if you do it is Peter Pan and is expensive.  6$ for a small jar.  We just found out we could get coconut at the candystore!  Chocolate chips are not found here but we can break up a chocolate bar.  We have learned to love ham and white cheese sandwiches.  Cheddar is rare.  The bread here is great!
We have learned to make the traditional Colombian food called arepas.  It is like a thicker tortilla made from corn flour.  It is very good. 
Everything is a cultural experience here!  We need to remember to take our camera to the local grocery store because it has some very interesting food.  One of our young people went to the United States for about two weeks and she came home with the funniest stories on how the Americans do things so differently.  She was hungry a lot because we eat cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and then our big meal at about 5-6pm.  In Spain they have their big meal in the afternoon with several substantial snacks inbetween with supper late in the evening about 9-10pm.
It is not unusual to see little kids out to eat late when our kids would be in bed!
The weather is lovely here right now.  It is cool and sunny.  The evenings require a sweater and scarf or a light jacket.  Scarves are the thing here and the women all wear nice shoes! 
We are thankful everyday to be able to missionaries for the church.  Our testimonies have grown of the truthfulness of the Gospel. Being missionaries has given us many opportunites that we would never have experienced before.  These experiences have been good and also hard in some ways.  When we get home we will have a lot to look back on in a good way.  http://www.lds.org/ .
Until next time.  Love Elder and Hermana Knight


Some costumes of the Islands!  There is a festival that lots of people wear these costumes.  It must be beautiful!

One of the camels carrying the gifts. They were getting alot of treats along the way.

One of the members cooking up a big Christmas feast! 



A sampling of the Canarian food.  Mike calls it Star Trek food!



 The missionaries singing" How Great Thou Art" in spanish with the guitar and a Texas accent!

Romina received her mission call to Barcelona, Spain!  /She will be a great one!

Jessica's uncle is one of our best friends back home in Huntsville.  What a small world.  She and her husband are in our branch here in Santa Cruz!



Our First dinner guests!  Makan on left and his good friend.  They are both from Africa.  Makan always gives us gum.  They are both super!