Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Turkey!

We love the adventures of living here in Turkey. We love the area of Izmir, the people have been friendly, the food is great and Ryan is enjoying playing Basketball!Some of the funny/interesting things that have happened here are…

-Jess got ringworm

-Ryan has had many facial hair experiments and different hairdos or should we say “hair don’ts!”

-Didn’t bring enough cash to the grocery store so at the check out stand we had to explain in sign language we would be back with more money. Ryan sprinted home and back to the store within 5 minutes and the whole line was laughing.

-Jess taught a spinning class at her gym to a full class of people that don’t speak English! It was a great success…the people had a lot of fun and so did Jess.

-Jess is given free food at the “Bizarre” because people don’t want to try and figure out what she is explaining.

-Ryan locked Jess inside the apartment on accident for 2 whole days!!

-Ryan’s posters at the games say “In Ryan We Trust”

-We have learned not to ask for a peach because “Peach” in Turkish is a swear word!

-Jess enjoys going around to different small villages to do service with the Humanitarian Missionaries

-Ryan got chased and yelled at by a VERY old man screaming “America needs to leave the Middle East alone!” Ryan just turned and said “Whatever brother” in order to avoid an argument.

These are some of our adventures of Turkey in a nutshell! We feel very blessed to have this opportunity and have learned a lot through this experience. We are very excited to see our families when they come to visit and can’t wait to see more friends and family when we return home. We wish the very best for all of you and your families! We also wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Much Love,

Ryan and Jess Toolson