Well, we want to wish all of you a Happy New Year, it came in with a bang here in Spain. They set off firecrackers and fireworks to bring in the New Year. Some of the people started a lot earlier, because we have been hearing firecrackers go off for a week now, but on the 31st of December there were definitely more of them and several more when the clock turned to 12:00. We didn't go out and chose to stay home, but the noise kept us awake.

The bad thing was the poor dogs in the neighborhood. Every time one of the big firecrackers would go off the dogs would stat to bark.

It must have really hurt their ears.

We did get some pictures from Sister Mellor that were taken at the Mission Home on Christmas that I thought that I would share with you. We had a traditional Christmas dinner with turkey, dressing, yams, mashed potatoes and gravy and tossed salad. We happened to be at the head of the table this time. These missionaries were a great group to eat with and they left shortly after singing a few Christmas carols so they could be back to call their families. While we were waiting for the dinner to begin we finished a puzzle and of course I had to help, I miss putting puzzles together. I didn't put it altogether myself, the elders also helped, but Sister Mellor took my picture.

This week started out really warm. When I walked down to the post office, I got really hot and wished that I hadn't worn my sweater. On Tuesday it started out about the same, but later on during the day it started raining again and rained for the rest of the week. Saturday was a very sunny day and we walked over to the church for our district meeting. But it suppose to rain again maybe tomorrow but definitely on Monday and that is the day we wanted to go see the lights in Malaga.

We did go into the office on New Year's Day but didn't stay the whole day because the internet wasn't up and they were having trouble with the computers.

We hope that all of you will have a prosperous and happy New Year.

I can't believe another week has gone by. Christmas has come and gone and the New Year is approaching. We didn't really take many pictures this week because it rained the whole week, even had lightning and thunder to go along with it. It wasn't really too cold, only if you got wet through and the wind continued to blow. One day, I think it was Monday, my shoes got soaked all the way through just walking to the office. (Jo walked too close to the down spout of on of the builings and it filled her shoe full of wather.) We tried to get everything ready for the zone conference that we had last Tuesday in Malaga. We had a wonderful Zone Conference, and had a program about Christmas, with Scriptures and songs. We had a wonderful meal with the missionaries and enjoyed visiting with the missionaries from the 2 zones. They have 2 zones meet together for Zone Conference and then they try to have a zone Conference about every 6 weeks or so, usually between the transfers.

We were going to go with the Branch back into Malaga to see the lights on Wednesday night but it continued to rain so it was cancelled and we will try to go next week. They tell us that they keep the lights up until 3 Kings Day, which is January 6th. On Tuesday night Roy and I went home teaching to a couple of members, Fred and Bruna Riley, they have been members for about 17 years and have lived here in Spain for 7 years in Mijas Costa. He is from England and she was born in Italy and grew up in Beligum. They met in Yugoslavia at a (Communist Party)conference. She speaks several languages, and he only speaks English. They are a delightful couple and very strong members in our branch. He was in the Branch Presidency when we got here and is now the branch mission leader. She is the Young Women's Advisor, we only have 1 young woman, Holly, and she is a joy to have in any class. Holly has been our Pianist in Sacrament meeting until her brother, Jack, got back from Australia. Jack Tyndale-Biscoe is getting ready to serve a mission and he plays the piano beautifully. He is self taught and studied a very intensive music course while he was in Australia. He will be a great missionary.

On Thursday we got ready for Christmas, that is when we took our preparation day, which entailed cleaning our apartment, doing the wash, etc. I also did some baking. I made a lemon merigue pie to take to the mission home for Christmas dessert. On Friday we went up to the mission home to help with the cooking, but didn't need to do much. We did eat with President and Sister Mellor and nine other missionaries. They were a great group and enjoyed the Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, and yams and salad. It was great food. Then the missionaries hurried back to their apartments so they could talk to their families and then we were able to visit all of our kids on SKPE. It was so great to see all of the grandkids and what they got for Christmas. We really enjoyed talking with all of them.

On Saturday the English celebrate Boxing Day and once again we were out at the Riley's to a dinner about 3:00 o'clock and we had 15 people there. 4 of the missionaries and the rest were members of the branch. We took Aaron Jacobson, who is the member that is from Alaska who is over here working on his Doctor's degree. He is doing it out of England, but is doing research in Germany. He wanted to spend some time in the sun in Spain and then it has rained the last week here. He was here a month ago and decided to spend his time in our branch. He will be here until the end of January. He went to Columbia on his mission and has learned German, so the Meyers, the Germany couple really like to speak with him.

After we were at the Riley's on Saturday we went to the Meyer's for supper and we took Aaron with us. We always enjoy ourselves when we are there, even though Roy doesn't quite understand everything when they speak German.

On Sunday we had 17 people for Sacrament meeting, and we hope in a couple of weeks several of the others will come back from whereever they spent their holiday. It was a great meeting, even though it was small.

We wish you all a Happy New Year.

Well we are getting close to Christmas and the sun is still shining. It has been a bit cooler and we had a good rain on Wednesday. But Thursday was a beautiful day. We had scheduled a "Piso" (apartment) check in Nejar and Motril. One Elder from each area had to come into the Mission Home for residencey processing so we were able to take them home. This was good for them and for us. At least we had guides to the Pisos.

The pictures to the right represent an interesting Christmas practice here in Spain. Since, they don't heat their houses there are no chimneys for Santa to come down. Therefore, they have these little Santas and the Three Kings (Three Kings day, 6 Jan) is as big or bigger than Christmas here in Spain) on ladders climbing on the balconys so that they can leave their gifts for the children. They have all sizes of Santas to buy to hang outside on your balony. The children get gifts on both of the holidays, so we are told.

As I said Thursday was a beautiful day. We traveled to Motril on the Autovista (Freeway) and then returned on the old coast road so that we could see some of the scenery. This picture is of a bridge for the Autovista and the road below is the old highway that winds its way down the coast. Sometimes we were driving right along the beach and sometimes we had to go through tunnels because the hills go right down to the coast. In Fuengirola where we live there are miles of sandy beaches. We saw lots of peach orchards and citrus orchards where as when we travel to the interior of Spain where it is drier there are miles and miles of olive groves. We were surprised that in the stores the olive oil is more expensive than other vegetable oils.

This picture is of an old castle in one of the towns we went through. It was interesting how it had been built on top of the rock outcropping and almost looked like a part of the rock itself. It took a while before you realized that there was a castle up there. You can see the buildings that have been built up the hill under the castle. Its even worse on the back side. One almost can't see the Castle any more.

This is an example of the coast line. This mountain comes right down to the water and there isn't any beach. In this case the road will go though a tunnel. Along the road we saw a lot of towers setting on the tops of ridges facing the Mediteranian. I don't know how old these towers are but they were built as watch towers to set up an early warning system if invaders were spotted off shore.

The area aroung Nejar and Motril is mostly small farms where they grow fruits and vegitables. They use almost every available inch of land. The mountain side were terraced almost to the top and what looked like lemon trees were planted on them. When we got down in the valley we saw large orchards of what looked like Peach trees to us.

They also had a large number of greenhouse where they grew vegetables. I guess the greenhouses allow them to grow crops year around. There were acres of these green houses plus lots of small farms around them. I could see potatoes growing plus other crops. This area has lots of peaches, and they juice their peaches and there is a lot of peach juice that they drink here called Melocoton. Off course they drink lots of orange juice, pineapple and grape and apple juice here in Spain.

It is still hard to believe that next week is Christmas, I guess after all these years of having white Christmas, it hard to feel that it Christmas now. They put their poinsettias right outside and it look very pretty. We do wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year or as they say in Spain "Feliz Navidad".

Dec. 13, 2009

Can you believe another week has gone by. The time is going by so fast. This first picture is the office missionaries with Pres. and Sister Mellor and the AP's Back row. Sister Mellor, Elder Going, the financial secretary, Elder Barraza, an AP elder from Barcelona, Roy, JoAnne.

Front row: President Mellor, Elder Millerberg, executive secretary, and then Elder Lundin, the other AP and the last time he was going to be there, he was transfered to the Canary Islands. They are an excellent group of elders to work with. Elder Millerberg will leave on the next transfer and is now training his replacement.
The next two pictures are how they decorate for Christmas they string different lights up above the streets. You don't see many homes decorated with lights, mainly because most of them are apartments. There are all different designs and I only put in a couple. We aren't sure how the Spanish all celebrate Christmas, but have heard that they give presents on Christmas and then again on 3 Kings Day on Jan. 6th. One tradition I heard was they put a ladder outside their balacony for Santa to come in their apartment since they don't have chimneys for him to come down.

The next picture is the symbol for the town of Fuengirola, a big sun design and this is in one of the round-abouts with the name of the town in letters around it. So this sun symbol is on lots of things that represent the town of Fuengirola.
The last picture is how they clean the streets, a big water truck with a person behind using the hose to wash down the sidewalks and the streets. Lots of manual labor here. We have seen a street sweeper, but we have also seen people with brooms sweeping up

things along the streets.

We had to wait for him to finish the street before we could drive through it since it is a one-way street. This was taken right outside our apartment building. They do try to keep the town clean.

Church was good today and we had 22 people at church, but next week it will be way down in attendance because we have several that are leaving Spain for Christmas. We had our Christmas party on Thursday night and we had a little program, where everyone participate. We would sing a song together and have a scripture reading that Sister Marion Allen put together and it spelled out Christmas Love and then she told a story how something like this was used by another group years ago and one little boy holding his sign had it upside down and it gave the real message of Christmas. He had the M upside down. That was a great message in itself.

I hope this finds everyone well and we pray that all will go well tomorrow for our son Earl, He is going to be operated on tomorrow for Pancreatic Cancer. Look up the Whipple Procedure and you can see what they are going to do for him. Our Prayers are with him at this time and we are all staying positive for the outcome.

We wish you all a very Merry Season right now.

We didn't get out much this week to take pictures, but here are some that we took going to the office and or to the post office. The fountain has just had some white poinsettias put into the ground around the base of the statue and fountain. The 2nd picture are some red ones that they put into the ground. It looked so pretty that I took some pictures. The top one with the white poinsettias have red geraniums that are still blooming in December. The Spanish people think it is cold right now and are wearing coats and scarfs. I have worn a sweater a couple of times, but it is only 15 degrees Celsius which is about 59 degrees. At the same time you might see some English tourist still wearing shorts and flip flops.
The last picture is a nativity scene set up in front of a Catholic church. We need to go and see this at night because it is made up of lights like you see on the reindeer placed in peoples yards at Christmas time. All the streets have light hanging across the streets. We have been told that they don't decorate their houses with lights but the cities string up light decorations across the streets, and once again we need to go out at night to see this lights and take some pictures.

We have not done any traveling this week, except with our feet to the post office etc. I usually have to go down about 3 times a week to pick up packages or to pay bills and it is only about 5-6 blocks away. I always cut through the church plaza where the nativity scene is set up. They have benches place around on this plaza and it is right in front of a Catholic Church. We have lots of homeless people close here also and they sleep on the steps of the church.

We have been mainly in the office doing things, like finishing the cookbook so it can be printed and given to the missionaries for Christmas. Sister Mellor had me copy 100 discs with pictures on them to give to the missionaries also. She had 423 pictures on the disc and it took some time to copy all of them. That has kept us quite busy doing that. We have enjoyed working in the office and it has been really nice to get to know the elders here in this town.

Last Sunday we had 20 at church and one was an investigator and we had lady from France, who speaks some English and said she would see us again in March. After church we had the Turners to lunch. Judith and David Turner from Yorkshire, England. I'm not sure which town, but they definitely have an accent. They were the hardest English people to understand when we got here, but it is getting easier, being around them. He is the Elder's Quorum president, which is really over all the priesthood holders, whereas Judith is a teacher in Relief Society and is also the Branch family history counsulatant. You have to hold several jobs in this branch. They are also our home teachers, so we had a very pleasant time with them.

Next week is transfers again. How fast time flies we will be getting two new Elders in the Office. Elder Barton in coming in to train as the Executive Secrteary and Elder Harville in coming in to replace Elder Lundin as an AP. Elder Lundin will replace Elder Harville as ZL in Grand Canary. ElderMillerberg, the current Ex Sec. will be transfered on the next transfer or before if Elder Barton get up to speed quickly. We have a new elder coming in the mid-transfer at the end of December which will requre some moves to be made.

We hope your week is a delightful one.

Well I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. We ate with the Mission President and his wife and 20 of the missionaries in Malaga Zone and the elders from Algeciras. We had turkey, yams, potatoes and gravy, salad, homemade rolls and cranberry sauce. It was very good. We even had some pies, pumpkin, lemon merigue and one of the elders made an apple pie.

It was an overcast day and it even rained on the missionaries as they were playing soccer, but they still played as we, Roy and I and Sister Mellor got the dinner started. The Missionaries got there after 1:00 p.m. and we ate about 2:30 and then most of them had to leave to catch the 5:00 p.m. train back to their apartments. It's great getting to know all the missionaries.

On Friday, Roy and I left about 7:00 a.m. to go to Jaen, which is a 3 hour drive from our place to check the missionaries apartment. That is one of our duties is to inspect the apartments to make sure they clean it regularly. There were 4 elders in the 1st apartment. Elder Han, Elder Mullis, Elder Salls, and Elder Iglesias. 2 of the elders were going to go do a service project and were dressed in their p-day clothes.

The next apartment was in Granada which is over an hour's drive south of Jaen. There were saw the ZL'S apartment. This is Elder Gleason and Elder Martin. They had worked very hard on their apartment to get it ready on Thanksgiving day. They had celebrated Thanksgiving with the rest of their zone on p-day (Monday). Afterwards we stayed in Granada and found the sister's apartment, which is in a very, very old building, where the ZL's were was a very new building.

Here we have Sister Goins and Sister Byers. Right now we have 15 sister missionaries, but by April we will only have 12. All of missionary force will be reduced by April. But the missionaries are still baptizing, even though the numbers are smaller. Before we got here they had 120 missionaries and by April we will only have 72 missionaries. They met their goal for baptisms for the year back in October. They had a goal of 134 baptisms and now there is over 156 in the mission right now. I'm not sure how many will be this weekend. Roy has to call and make sure they send the paperwork in so that they get recorded.

This picture of Roy shows the Alhambra in the background. We were trying to go and visit it, but they only time available was when we had to be at the Elders apartment, so maybe another time we will visit it. The Alhambra was the last
Moorish outpost in Spain. The Moors were finally driven out of Spain in 1492. It is built up a hill overlooking Granada. The next picture is me at the same place as Roy but overlooking Granada. The last picture is a picture of Geraniums that were still blooming in Granada on the 28th of November.

I hope that this finds all of you nice and happy. I'm so thankful for the gospel and the redeeming love of our Savior. I'm also so thankful for my family. It was great being able to spend Thanksgiving day with you through Skpe. It seemed like I was just in the other room and I could almost smell the turkey. Have a wonderful week. We love you all, and thank you so much for your support and prayers.