Well we sure had a very busy week. Monday was staff meeting and what a great meeting to have with the Mellor's (President and Sister) and the office elders and the AP's. We have a spiritual thought, go over the baptisms that happened during the week, etc, go over the calendar for the next couple of weeks and another other things that they need to bring up, for example Roy wanted to talk with the Zone leaders at their conference to remind them how important it was to fill out the baptismal record and how to get it sent in as soon as they are confirmed. Usually in this mission they are confirmed a week after their baptism, because so many of them happen on Sunday afternoon and they confirm them the next Sunday. We usually go out to eat with Sister Mellor and she brings back a lunch for President Mellor, because he usually has another meeting with the AP's as we go out.

On Tuesday it was Sister Mellor's birthday and we went to a
Spanish restaurant and had something like fajitas, but it was not on tortillas but on french fries. It was really good and filling, because Roy and I shared a plate and it was plenty for us.

Wednesday we went to Algeciras to check out one of the Elder's
apartments to give word back to the President that they really needed to change apartments because of the mold. On all the walls, which isn't healthly for the missionaries. Of course with all the humidity and bad circulation in some of the apartments there will always be some mold. They don't heat the apartments over here so there is good conditions for mold to grow in even the best apartments, but this one was very very bad and we agreed that they needed to move. On the way there we did see the rock of Gilbrator, but not very good because of the rain, the 4th picture after we checked the apartment out it really started to rain, but we did drive into the rock of Gilbratar, which belongs to Great Britain to look around and on the 5th picture you can see that we were closer but saw even less. Needless to say, we didn't stay at all, but went home teaching on the way home.

We went to visit Sister Marion Allen, the 1st picture, who lives a lot closer to the Rock of Gilbratar than she does to the branch. She sure brings enthusiasm to the branch. She got back a week ago from her Christmas trip to England, and already has a party planned for the branch, she is the activity chairperson. It takes us usually about an hour to drive out to her place. She did go with the stake to the temple trip that we went to on Friday and Saturday. We left our branch/ward building at 9:30 p.m. It was the whole stake that went. We had a couple of buses for the whole stake. We drove into Malaga and picked up more people and met the 2nd bus there and left there about 10:30 p.m. Then we drove to Granada and picked up more people, the busses weren't completely full, but we had a good group and we left there between 1:00 a.m. and 2 a.m. We had another rest stop around 4 a.m. and reach the temple at about 6:00 in the morning so we took a picture to show you the moon and the temple. We had to wait for a session to start about 8:00, we did get into the temple about 7:00 and then we did a couple of sessions, the youth did baptisms for the dead and some did a third session. We left Madrid about 4:30 p.m. and drove back and we didn't arrive home until about 12:00 in the morning. That made it a very very long day and we were very tired. This picture of the elder is Elder Ruz who lives in Spain and finished his mission on the 9th of January. I met him in the celestial room of the temple. What a shock to see him there, his sister was going through for the 1st time.

I also found Sister Raimez who is coming into our mission on the 9th of Feb and is right now in the MTC in Madrid, which is on the temple grounds. I really needed to meet her because we are the ones that have to pick her up. The President and his wife will be on the Canary Islands and won't get back in time to pick her up. Another one of our duties. This picture is what the Rock of Gilbratar looks like on a clear day, the mountains behind the main rock is Africa. So far we have had many clear days when we were in that area and Sister Mellor took this picture.

The 3rd picture is our branch members that went to the temple, Bro and Sis Meyer from Germany, Roy and I and Sister Allen from England.

The most exciting news is our branch new grandson that was born on the 30 of January to Evan and Hilary Fisher. This is Gavin Fisher weighing in at 6 lbs, 14 oz and was 19 3/4 inches long. He was born in Yuma, Arizona and joins his 2 1/2 year old brother, Conlan. Isn't he just cute? We are biased or anything like that, but this makes # 21 grandchildren for us, and later on when Evan gets his laptop back or a new webcam we can see him other than just pictures. We did get to talk with Evan today and they are already home. Everything went fine and Hilary's mother got there on Tuesday before the baby came, so that was great.

We wish you all a very great week. We plan to have a very busy week, Zone Conference Wednesday, Home Teaching on Thursday( 3 hour drive one way) and Stake Conference on Saturday and Sunday. Love you all.