Saturday, February 27, 2010



These are the office Elders and the AP's for right now, we are having a transfer this week and it looks like we will be losing Elder David Barraza, the end one on the right. He is from Barcelona and will be going to the Canary Islands. He will be a zone leader on Tenerife and will probably end his mission in another mission. He would go home in August, but in July the Canary Islands will be part of the Madrid Mission. He sure has been a great elder and he will surely be missed. He has picked up the English language really good. Next to him is Elder Jason Harville, from the Marshall Islands orginally, but lately from Colorado. He spent most of his life on the Marshall Islands. He has been a member of the church for 3 years now. He is also an Assistant to the President, and he will be getting a new companion. Still going left is Elder Kameron Going from Richmond, Utah and has been the finance secretary and has been in the district as long as Elder Barraza. He is an excellent singer and plays the piano beautifully. The last one on the couch is Elder Zachary Barton from Peoria, Arizona and he is the general secretary in the office and has been here since December. It sure has been great working with all these missionaries. The office elders stay longer because of the training they have to go through, but they are also great missionaries when it comes to teaching. Elder Going has been our District Leader and we are amazed what spiritually these Elders have. They teach us lessons in District Meetings and we can see them being great leaders in their wards and stakes when they go home.

We have had more rain, it seems like we have a day or two now of sun, instead of everyday being rainy. This has been a very unusual weather according to the people here. Wetter than it has been in the last 75 years. But on the bright side, things are looking very green right now. Flowers are starting to bloom again, even though it seems like there is always something in bloom the year round. This last week we checked the office elders apartment, but the week before we went over to Sevilla to check 4 apartments and wouldn't you know it rained the whole way, both coming and going. It seems like wheneve Roy and I go out, we do so in a rain storm, so we really haven't seen much of the landscape of Spain yet.
The next picture is of one set of Elders in Sevilla, Elder Adams and Elder Wilson. The next picture is of the sisters in Sevilla, Sister Byers, then Sister Olsen and then Sister Campbell. Sister Olsen and Sister Campbell go home this coming week. They were on a threesome because we did get one new sister in the mission, Sister Ramirez from Ecuador, who has been waiting for six months to get her visa, and she finally got it, and only spent 3 weeks in Madrid. We didn't have to go pick her up after all. The next picture are the Zone Leaders in Sevilla, Elder Halverson from Ogden, Utah and Elder Bader from Germany. Great elders. The fuzzy picture is the Elders in Alcala, just outside of Sevilla, They are Elders Stanley and Elder LeBaron. They live a big house, and it is only the two of them. We were amazed at the big house. It belongs to a member and wanted missionaries to stay there. It has 3 stories and lots of time that zone gets together there to have a barbeque, only once a transfer. It's so nice being able to meet all these missionaries and see their excitement for missionary work.
This Friday we went with the Mission President and Sister Mellor and all of our zone out to dinner at a Brazillian Restaurant. It was really good food, They said it was similar to the one in Salt Lake City. They kept bringing meat on skewer and slicing off meat for each of us. It was really good, chicken, pork, beef, sausage etc.
We are having our monthly munch and mingle tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see what visitors we will have. We do know of one couple coming, because they were here last week, The Greeves from Kent, England. We have tried to invite the less active also, so we hope we get a couple of them coming.
The work in the office is about the same everyweek, except Roy has more work when there are more than one baptism each week. He keeps on top of that and keeps reminding the missionaries to get them sent in as soon as possible. I get to go to the post office 2-3 times a week, to mail package, wire money, pay bills and sent mail, or even to pick up packages. It is about 4-5 blocks down there and I enjoy the walk. We finally got our big order from Germany this last week, so the shelves of supplies are now loaded, where we had very few supplies left. It came on a pallet, so we had several boxes to unpack and put away. I did get the price list updated, because some prices did go down. I'm responsible for putting together supplies when the missionaries call in, whether it is different Books of Mormon in different languages or getting other supplies, DVD's etc.
We do enjoy our time in the office and the members in our branch. The gospel has helped so many people's lives. We just wish everyone wanted to listen to the missionaries and feel the peace that the Spirit brings to them. Have a great week.

1 comment:

  1. Wonderful to hear about you mission. We are busy with the work here in Utah our mission has been a real blessing in our lives.We spoke today in church, that it always good to get over. I should get used to it we speak all of the time. Our very best to you your MTC friends the Kemple's

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