Crawfish and Okra

This week I am so thankful for the opportunity that we have to serve.  It is a wonderful to work with these missionaries and the Packs.  We are truly blessed.

Monday morning, Hermana Pack and I started out early with our shopping.  While we were getting the basics, Hermana Pack found something surprising, live crawfish!  First she demonstrated the way that she could stroke the crawfish to put it to sleep.  You could tell that she had done that before.

She was already planning to make gumbo for the going home meal, so she decided that a pot of crawfish would be the perfect finishing touch.

Anyone who has cooked gumbo knows that to be authentic, you need okra.  We had not seen any okra here in Spain, but Hermana Pack asked a lady in our ward who cooks a lot, if she knew of a place that would have okra.  She told us about small produce shop in the small town just north of us that carried it.  Hermana Pack was so excited and we bought all they had.  At 8 euros a kilo, it is a good thing that okra doesn't weigh very much.

After a day of cooking, we were ready to dish up 

the rice and gumbo and feed the going home missionaries.  

And here is the pot of delicious crawfish! Yummy!

Hermana Pack demonstrated the proper way to eat the crawfish.

Before the testimony meeting, we had a beautiful song by these elders.  

I will miss Elder Schwenke and his ukulele.

It's always sad to say goodbye to these good missionaries.  

And, Tuesday morning, we welcomed this wonderful group of missionaries to the mission.  

It was a busy day of cooking, but I was grateful to have Hermana Irigoyen in the kitchen with me, Her plane to Argentina did not leave until after 11:00 p.m., so she was my helper all day. How fun it was to reminisce about the past and talk about her future!  She is an amazing young woman!

Elder Scott and Elder Baron spent the night with us on Tuesday, and then Elder Larsen took them to the airport Wednesday morning.  They flew to the Canary Islands.  They will be serving in Telde and Vecindario.  I know they are going to love it there!

We had office meeting on Wednesday, and Hermana Pack brought the leftover gumbo.  Elder Koeven was brave and tried a shrimp and some okra!  He must be growing up because he actually liked them!

Thursday we had our choir practice.  I snapped a quick photo of these wonderful missionaries.  This was the first time that we practiced with the piano accompaniment, and it was beautiful.  I am starting to see that maybe this can actually work. Afterwards, they had a quick sandwich and a scotcheroos.

We spent the night at the Packs on Friday and Saturday night.  One night we had vegetable beef soup and I made marshmallow brownies.  Here we have Caroline enjoying one.  We also worked on the quilt most of the weekend.  We made some good progress, but there is still a lot to be done.  Kristen spent the weekend with her as well.  She is from the Olathe Kansas Stake where we used to live, and we know some of the same people.  She is an exchange student this year.  No pictures of her, but the three of us had lots of girl talk time until way too late at night!  They are both such sweet girls.

After church on Sunday, we had the Assistants and the Hermanas over for dinner.  I made chicken bundles, rice, gravy, salad, and fresh fruit.  

  

When we walked out of church, it was still cold. Our first real front of the season had come through. So, it inspired me to make homemade hot cocoa to go with our pumpkin cookies.  Yummy!