Pictures from July

Castle on a cliff in Frias

Cliff Castle

Trees are knitted together to make these beautiful arbors in Madrid

In Spain they build towns on their beautiful natural formations.

Italian embassy in Madrid for our Italian Missionaries

Town built on a natural arch

Grandpa in Burgos

ancient toll bridge on the way to Burgos

July 2, 2015

Dear family,
We are sitting in our apartment on Thursday afternoon after having finished our shift here at the temple. It was a beautiful morning. We served saint from France, Austria, and of course, Spain. Our language skills are getting better. Grandpa is great, and I actually had a little conversation today with a sister who met her husband while she was a participant in the baptistry and he was one of the witnesses. Three months later they were married. She is from Spain, and he is from Cameroon. They are so happy. They have 3 children and are both working in the temple. Wow! when you are doing what you are supposed to do, the Lord blesses you. 
 On Sunday, I played in Primary and Sacrament meeting. Happy to be of service while they wait for someone to move into the ward who can play the piano. I also play nearly every day in the temple for our prayer meeting. Grandpa is having more responsibilities in the temple all the time. Today he was the Veil Director. He can do just about anything they need him for. His administrative abilities are being used.

We love you all and hope all is well. Congrats to Taylor for all his accomplishments, Kate on her baptism. It will be a special day for you on Saturday. Sarah as she gets ready to leave for Nicaragua. Sarah, we have a good friend here on our mission who served his mission in Nicaragua. He just loves that country and says you will love your mission experience there. Are you Managua North or South. All of a sudden I am having a brain cramp. We love you and wish could be there. We miss you all. Love, Grandpa and Grandma.

July 27, 2015

Dear Family, We wanted to touch bases with you all and tell you how much we love you all. You are such an inspiration to us as we strive to do the Lord's work here in Spain everyday.
Our week has been busy. We have been a lot short staffed this week. We had a big group of people from Portugal come to the temple this week. When these groups come in we depend on them to bring their set-apart ordinance workers with them, so we can keep everything going. However, only a few were able to get off of work or were able to afford to come. One stake was from the Azores and the sister said that they had to take a three hour flight to Lisbon and then another two hours here to Madrid, which meant that they had to stay overnight in Lisbon to get the connecting flight to here. These sweet saints give up a lot to make it here and do the work. They spend the week and do a lot of family names.

On one day there were a bunch of youth here to do baptisms and Grandpa had to give the spiritual thought because the temple president was doing a sealing. He found that one of the boys spoke English and so the boy translated for your him. Grandpa delivered the talk in English and the boy translated into Portuguese. That cute little 14 year old was so proud of himself. He was just beaming. It was so fun. We have little spiritual experiences like that every day.
The language is coming for me at a slow pace, but I am able to accomplish the things I need to and be of service. I keep saying that trying to understand a foreign language for 8 hours a day is like sitting in a 3rd level calculus class on the day of the test review. Every thing that is said is crucial but makes no sense. I am tired at the end of the day. Mentally exhausted, but so grateful for these opportunities.
This weekend we are going to visit some little towns on the coast that we have heard about. We are looking forward to it. We will send pictures.
Merci, Shanon is so grateful that you could come and play. She said you did a beautiful job. Call and tell me all about it. Meg, How is Sarah doing? Taylor, we're glad you had a great time. Lizzy, happy Beehives. We love you all.
Grandpa and Grandma in Spain.