Well another busy week has gone by. I can't believe how fast time is going by. Last night we had a valentine's supper for the branch. I wish I had more pictures to show you. Sister Marion Allen did a great job of getting the project going and finishing it. It started out a very rainy Saturday, but with the members and the other people that came it turned out to be a great success. The first picture is Bruna Riley, and Holly Tyndale-Biscoe. Holly is the one that I have been tutoring in Math. She hopes to go to BYU in the year 2011 in the fall. She is a great asset to the branch and a wonderful member. Sister Riley is a lovely lady in the branch, she and her husband in the next picture with the white hair join the church 17 years ago in England. She and her husband in the next picture with the white hair met in Yugoslavia. She was born in Italy and was raised in Beligum. They have been living here in Spain for 7 years now. They are a wonderful active couple and we sure enjoy them. He is the Branch mission leader and works really hard to help the missionaries that are standing by him in the picture. With Sister Riley is Holly Tyndale-Biscoe, a wonderful young girl that I have been tutoring in Math for a over a month now. She hopes to go to BYU in the fall of 2011. She is going to take the SAT test in October and wants to do well. She with her family are very active. You can see the back of her young brother, Seth, standing in front of the missionaries. The next picture are the Parker's, Linda and Ted, that I put in last week's blog, who were visiting and brought a non-member. In the picture they are talking to Bruno and Victoria Cologne, who we met just last night, they are less-active and we hope they will start coming out to church. We really enjoyed meeting them. They had joined the church about 6 years ago, but knew most of the members.

The next picture is of Jack Tyndale-Biscoe who played nice music for our supper. He is the young man who is getting his papers ready to go on a mission. He will be the first missionary from the Mijas International Branch. We are all excited for him, but we also hate to see him go, because of his talent in playing the piano. He played during the supper last night and it was very lovely. He will be a great missionary. He can play almost anything you ask him to, and he taught himself to play the piano. He goes over the the church and practices for hours, with the piano and also his violin.

You can see the beautiful table that was prepared for our party. We even had real china to eat on, thanks to Sister Marion Allen. It was a delight for all those who came. I think we had 19 there for the dinner, which was very delicious. I did get to help prepare, but then Sister Allen wouldn't let me do anything else once the members started coming. Sister Leonila Garcia helped her getting the rest of it ready. The missionaries helped to pass out the plates and we had chicken and ham casserole, with carrots, peas, corn, mashed potatoes and puffs, a pastry that is very flaky. Our appetizer was melon slices, orange with a raspberry sauce. We had raspberry dessert in a chocolate tart. Very tasty.

The next picture is Sister Mellor with two of her friends from the states. They all had girls the same age and they also became friends and they all know Sheri Hill. Sister Sherry MacMillian grew up in Harper Ward and knew several members and she was once a roomate with Christine Burt Bingham. Sister Mellor is in the middle and then Marsha Porter that is in the same ward as Sheri. They came to our branch plus we had another family, Lee Davenport and family, from the state of Washington, that picked up their daughter from the Madrid Mission a week ago and was touring. We love to have visitors from all over the world. It was great visiting with them all and hearing their wonderful testimonies. The spirit was very strong today. We had fast Sunday, because last week we had a Regional Broadcast from Salt Lake.
Some of you have seen the Smart Cars that are now in the states and I couldn't resist taking these pictures. They are almost small enough that you could almost park 2 of these Smart cars in a parking space like we park in everyday that we go to the office. The parking is at a premium around the office so we park at these parking spots and walk about 1/2 mile to the office. I think it has helped Roy, except on those days that it is raining or is going to rain, because he feels it in his hip and knees. The parking places are usually between two trees along the side where the train goes.

News that we have is that our mission boundaries are going to change. We got work that they are going to take the 4 missions in Spain and combine them and have 3 missions now. The Bilbao Mission will be dissolved and President Clegg will become the new mission President when the Mellors go home the first of July. We will lose the Canary Island to the Madrid Mission, and they will take the west part of the Bilbao Mission and the rest of that mission will go to the Barcelona Mission. Just 3 years ago the Canary Islands were no longer a mission by themselve, but put in our mission. So that means instead of 5 Spanish Missions there will be only 3. The missionaries are being cut down in all the missions, so that there will probably be only 2 missionaries for each unit, ward or branch. We will gain the Elche Stake from the Barcelona Mission and also the La Manche District from the Madrid Mission. It looks like on a map that our area will double in size if you don't count the Canary Islands. It will be interesting and those missionaries who are on the Canary Islands at the time will then be serving in the Madrid Mission.

We sure have enjoyed serving here and it is amazing that the church is great all over the world. The visitors even mention how they feel the spirit of the truthfulness of the gospel wherever they attend church. It's amazing how you can feel love for even the visitors that come. We know that the church is true and needs to brought to all of God's children.

A couple of puzzles that we were able to figure out this week was about some letters that we received at the mission office. I hate to see letters not given to who they are addressed to. We got a letter for 2 missionaries that had served in this mission years ago from Sri Lanka. I tried to sent it back to the owner, but it got delivered to us again. A day later we got a telegram for those same elders from a lady that was baptized in 1994. I had scanned all the past newsletters so we could put them on a disc to be saved instead of paper copies. So I went through the past newsletters for that time frame and found the full names of the missionaries and got on white pages. com to find them and we found a number and Elder Hunt called the one that was now living in Kansas city and talked with him and it was him and his companion that had baptized this lady. So we got to forward the letter on. Another letter came to the mission home in the first of January and it was dated Nov. 2007 and of course the missionary was already home, but I found his address in Blanding, Utah and sent the letter on to him. That was kind of fun to make out those mysteries.

We hope you all have a very wonderful week. Love Roy and JoAnne Hunt