Here are some of the pictures from the celebration that the Spanish ward and the international Branch had together. From the different flags you can see that we had many different countries represented there. The members were supppose to bring something from their country to show and to share. A lot of the Spanish members really come from others places than from just Spain, as you can see Brazil, Costa Rica, etc. The members really had a great time there. Several shared different foods from their countries. Sister Mellor, the mission president's wife made rice crispy treats and I made a chocolate cake, and they both went really really fast.
This was a national holiday for Spain and in America we celebrate it as Columbus Day. They mingled with each other for a while. They started in what is called Mediodia, the middle of the day. We didn't get there until after 2:00 and we left at 4:00 p.m. and they were still going strong.
They even put music on and danced, they did the flamigo, maracrena(sp) the one we do in the states also. The little kids were even out there dancing. They also do something like the bunny hop where they went in a long line dancing. It was very fun to watch and to mingle with the members. Of course we just watched and visited. The elders in the mission brought their investigators to
join in the celebration. The seminary teacher, Jorge, I'm not sure his last name even invited someone from Kurkhanstan to join us. When she saw what the others had done, she went back home and got things from her country to share. I was able to speak with her, Her English is very good. She met her husband in her country, I think he is from England or Spain, but they are living here now. They have a 6-7 year old daughter who is fluent now in several languages and they are having her learn others, like Chinese. She isn't a member but came and participated anyway. Roy and I talked with a lady from England who is a teacher, without a job right now. She sold her house in England and moved to Spain. She is also studing to be a Jehovah Witness and plans to be baptized with them in Feb. We talked with her anyway. She is a friend of the branch president's wife. She doesn't want to tell the JW'S that she went to a Mormon party. We tried to convince her to pray about it and to read the Book of Mormon that she has. Gee, if only she would read it sincerely she would know. I did talk with one of the elder's investigators because he is German but has lived in Spain for a long time, they elders are teaching him in Spanish and I think he has a baptismal date set.
The German member, Bro. Meyer talked with him a lot also. Bro Meyer is going back to Halle, German to pick up his wife and move their belongings to Marabella, which is just west of Fuengirola (about 30 minutes drive) where the branch is. They will be working for a very rich German. We went with the branch president to visit him on Wednesday night, just in case he needed a translator. He has a hard time understanding the branch president, Bro Brown, because he thinks he has an accent that is hard to follow, but I think it is mainly because he throws in Spanish words all the time. Bro Brown is married to a Spanish lady, Carmen, and they have a 4 month old baby girl, who is very big for a 4 month old. We were really impressed with Bro. Brown and the challenges he has had in life. They met in Colorado but moved to Spain. They have had their trials in life, but he is very spiritual. They had about 4 miscarriages before they were able to carry this little girl to term, and Carmen had to stay down the last part of her pregnancy. The baby weighed 9 1/2 lbs. He just lost his job when he was called to be called to be branch president. They are planning on moving back to the states in November.
When we drove out to Marabella to visit Bro Meyer, Roy got his first taste of driving on the freeway here in Spain. It went alright and we got back home safely but we had Bro. Brown with us to help us get back home.
We are enjoying ourselves here in Spain and hope to get to know the language better, but right now they need us in the international, or English branch to help out. We did have about 31 people at church on Sunday, but several were visitors from England and Canada, so it did seem like it was a little bigger. We meet about the same time as the Spanish ward, we start 1/2 hour earlier and start with Relief Society and Priesthood and the Spanish ward starts with Sacrament meeting in the chapel. We meet in the same room for Relief Society and then for Sunday School and everyone, even the youth meet with us, because there are only 2 unless there are visitors. We go into Sacrament meeting and then the Spanish members have Relief Society and Priesthood. It isn't a very big chapel, but we do have our own building and not like some of the others places that have to rent someplace to meet.

This week was Roy and JoAnne's amazing adventure to Madrid. It started on Monday with a quick trip from Fuengirola to Malaga on the train which was new to us. but it went smoothly and it was interesting to see the sits along the coast. We even saw the Mediterranean Sea on occasion. The train took us into the main station in Malaga so were only had to walk a little way to another platform to catch the bullet train to Madrid. This was a experience. We had comfortable seats and much more leg room than on the plane. The trip took two hours and forty minutes. On occasion the train reached 300 KPH but usually cruised at about 270 KPH.

Utah boys would be right at home in the Spanish countryside. its very dry and arid. They seem to grow mostly olives as you can see from the picture on the right. We did see some cattle, sheep and hog operations and there were farmers out plowing fields so perhaps they grow something other than olives. It didn't look like they received a lot of rain during the year (unless it comes during the winter and early summer months.) Sorry the foreground of the picture is a bit blurry but as I said the train moves along at a pretty good clip.

This picture shows more of the countryside. More olive trees however there are some interesting mountains and hills. This area is pretty sparsely populated.

When we arrived in Madrid we found that the Metro (Underground) station was right there at the main train station so transferring was a snap. We weren't to familiar with the Metro however, we knew that some how we had to get from the "blue line" which was in the train station to the "Purple line" which went close to the Temple and the CCM where we were going to stay while in Madrid. We managed this trick quite well however, we later noticed that if we had gone the other direction it would have been a lot shorter ride. The only problem we had was getting off the Metro. We couldn't remember which stop to get off at. We picked one we thought was close but when we came out of the station nothing looked familiar to us. Fortunately we had the phone number of the CCM and were able to find out which stop was the correct one. We only missed it by two stops. It was a short trip back to the proper stop and we had arrived safely at our destination.

On Tuesday our appointment to sigh papers was not until 4:30 PM so we took advantage of the free time and did a session at the Madrid Temple. It is a beautiful building (aren't they all). We met the Fords who until fairly recently were in our mission but were transferred to the Temple when they extended their mission. They were a nice couple and we spent the evening visiting with them. Oh! the appointment to sign our papers took about 10 minutes.

On Wednesday we had an appointment at about 9:00 AM to turn in out papers and signed for the final time. We only had to wait about half an hour before our papers were processed and ready to sign, Then our attorney informed us that we had to go back across to town and sign a power of attorney so that he could do all of this work for again next year. Well that was a real experience. After we got to the metro stop that he indicated we waited for him about 30 minutes. He then proceeded to take on a long walk around in circles to get to the notary public office it was actually only a couple of blocks from the metro stop but the attorney didn't know exactly were it was so he started out in the wrong direction to start with. Fortunately Elder Andrews had been in town for almost two weeks and had learned his way around and noticed that the No. 20 bus stopped at the corner and he knew that it would also stop just in front of the temple so we rode that back to the Temple and the CCM where we had lunch and rested up for our tripe home. Pres. Hill gave us ride to the train station. He is such a nice man and so considerate of the missionaries. We arrived home at about 9;00 PM that evening.

Hi for this week. Here is a picture of the little car we drive back and forth. It is a diesel Opal and we haven't figured out the gas mileage yet. We park here along the street, between two trees. (Its a little tough to get into sometimes this time took me several trys but today I got it in the spot on the first try. rfh) This seems a good place to park because, for some reason, there are several places availabel at 10:00 in the morning and the trees provide shade for the care in the afternoon. On the right of the picture is where the train runs underground and it is coming up out of the ground and will be above the street level and we drive under neath it in some places. We then have about a mile to walk to the office, but it is level ground. It is so hard to park downtown, so we try to find the best place that we can. We would walk from the apartment but going back after we are in the office is all up hill and too hard for Roy. Right now this is hard enough for him and he is worn out when we get back to the apartment.

Here is one of the scooters we have to watch out for. They drive everywhere and they also have special places to park, because there are so many of them. It is quite funny as you are driving with two lanes, they whip in and out of the traffic even driving between the two cars, like they have their own lane right between the two cars. There are lots of round-abouts over here in Spain, probably all over Europe, but we can just turn around and go back the way we came if we missed a turn. Right now on this street they are setting up a festival, similar to Peach Days with rides, etc. The Elders told us that it was a very very BIG celebration for the town of Fuengirola, and we are going to miss this celebration. We have to go back to Madrid on Monday to get our residency papers. We are going to take the bullet train up to Madrid and back again.

Here is a picture of what looks like a bridge above the street, but it is really the train that is now up out of the ground, where in the middle of Fuengirola it goes underground. This is where we go around the round-about and go up the hill to our apartment. This will be one of the trains we ride on to go to Madrid. This train will take us to the city of Malaga where we will catch the bullet train to Madrid. We leave Monday morning around 9:00 and get into Malaga where we have to catch the bullet train at 11:00. We come back on Wednesday night. We hope that this time we will get to go to the Madrid temple.

This picture is taken from the balcony of our apartment. The bell has just rang and the students are going into the school. This looks like an elementary school, and right across the street kiddie-cornered is what looks like the high school, I think. At least lots of teenagers were lined up within the wall of the enclosure, so I assumed that is was a high school. After school there are always kids playing over there, either basketball or soccer. So it is a busy place most of the time.

I wanted to take a picture of the street cleaners that come

every morning and pick up the trash from the street. You can see that he has some branc

hes in the garbage there and has a broom and dustpan to pick up trash from the street. This was also taken from our balcony, looking down. They have to wear the bright green on their uniform. In fact people working on the roads wear the bright green also.

The elders told us that if you ever stop on the freeway you also need to wear bright green

vests so people can see you. The elders had some in their cars and I asked what they were for. I found that we have one in the glove box, it has to be readily available, so the elders had them on the back of the seats, the seats were wearing the vests.

We have spent the first week in the office, and sometimes we were really busy and other times not so busy. I think they are gradually giving us more to do. I spent two whole days going through the phone bill for the mission. I was supposed to track whether the elders were making calls to other missionaries outside their zone boundaries. Luckily I only had to look at the 3 digit numbers instead of the 9-10 digits. The missionaries have a network for their phones and they only have to use the 3-digit number to call each other. This also makes it handy for us, because we have to call the missionaries also. In fact, President Mellor asked us to call all the companionships and talk to them about the intervention of spreading the swine flu. So Roy and I each took half of the missionaries and called them. It took a couple of hours to do that, but it was nice chatting with the missionaries and they are so positive about the missionary work where they were working. Several had "investigadores" who had baptismal dates.

We are excited to hear conference. We are going up to the mission home Saturday afternoon to hear the 10:00 Saturday morning session. If we want to hear the others we will have to go on the internet to here them or go over to the Stake Center in Malaga.

President and Sister Mellor took us out to lunch on Wedensday. The restaurant was one they were familer with in another town and has only been in Fuengirola about a month. We had a salad and a Baja Wrap they were both very tasty. We had auga con gas to drink. this is actually cabonated mineral water and tasted a little like alkaseltzer (a little more so than Sprite) but one could get used to it.

This is our newest grandchild. Her name is Mahala Rae Fisher. She was born last Sunday and we got to see her before we left for Spain. She is the daughter of Reg and Amber Fisher and she weighed 8 lbs. 9 oz. and 20 1/2 inches long. We I talked to Amber today, she said everything was going fine and that her kids really missed her while she was in the hospital. We are so glad that she is here and that she is healthy. This makes 5 children for Reg and Amber, 3 boys and 2 girls.

We went to church this morning to the English branch, it is a very little branch, about 14 members, but this seems like it is and international branch. Members from all over the world go there. We had about 3-4 people from the Philipines there, a family from Finland and their daughter and son-in-law and family were there. A couple from England have been there for 7 1/2 years and their kids have been going to school here. Their oldest boy is in Australia going to a music school and will be filling out his papers soon to go on a mission. There was a man from Germany, who had been there last week and will be moving his wife down here at the end of the month. I spent a lot of time speaking with him in German, but his English is getting better. He says his wife speaks better English, but he didn't learn it in school. We met about 30 minutes before the Spanish Ward meets so they overlap. We met several Spanish members also. The branch president is from Colorado, but married a Spanish lady. They plan to move back to the states within the next month. She is learning English and they have a 3 month old baby girl. There were a couple of other couples from England also. We have been invited to attend a family home evening with some of the members tomorrow evening. We will spend our first full day in the office tomorrow.

This is a picture of the school that is below our apartment window. It isn't a very big school but you can see the kids during their play time. On Saturday there were a lot of kids over there playing, some of them older than the school children. To the right of the picture there is a small farmyard with a couple of roosters and geese that are noisy in the morning, but not as noisy as the garbage truck that comes at 1:30 a.m. This has woken us up a couple of times and we couldn't go back to sleep for an hour or so, so have called Andrea and Dennis and Kathleen. This magic jack works really nifty for us, we just have to remember that it is 8 hours early here.

Here is the Madrid Temple. we got to the Madrid MTC on Tuesday afternoon and left Thursday morning. On Wednesday we just had to wait around until they could get an appointment with the registar, so we couldn't really go anywhere until we got that appointment. It turned out that they could not get an appointment for us until the 7th of October we do have to come back to Madrid and finish registering for the country. So instead of waiting for 2 weeks in the MTC, they thought it was best if we were just sent to our mission. So we flew out on Thursday morning and got here in the town of Fuengirola where the mission home is and our apartment is not very far away. The mission President and his wife picked us up from the airport and showed us a little bit around the town, really quickly, because they were getting ready to go to the Canary Islands for the weekend. They said they would see us on Wednesday. Very delightful couple.

It is very close to the Mediterran Sea, in fact the office is only 3 blocks away. We have an 2006 Opal Corsa to drive around. We have driven it to the grocery store and around town on the very narrow streets. We missed the really hot time in the mission, we were told that in the city of Sevilla it got up to 120 degrees, or about 48 degrees Celisus. The missionaries in the office were really helpful, they got our waterheater started and showed us how to start it. It's an on demand water heater. Our apartment is really nice and right now very comfortable. We have all tile floors, and the kitchen and bathrooms are tile to the ceiling. Because of that, Sister Mellor says it gets very cold in the winter and the little space heaters they have don't warm it enough, because they keep blowing the circuit. We have three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The kitchen is small but we have an oven, fridge and even a very small (and slow) washing machine in there. The rent is 576. 85 Euro's per month (that's about $957, so it looks like our expenses will run closer to the $2000 as first advertised rather the $1000 shown in the Churches most recent publication for Senior Missionaries.

I (Roy) was up early this morning and discovered that this place can get kind of noisey. First the garbage man came about 2:00 AM. I tried to go back to sleep but was not very sucessful. At six the roosters started to crow. Although this part of town has been built up with highrise apartments there seems to some vestages left of the former rural life. Around seven the people who live her state leaving for work and then about eight the children state arriving at the shool across the street.

I (JoAnne) spent the day cleaning the apartment, there was a very fine layer of dust on the floor, that you couldn't see, but my white socks sure picked it up. The apartment has been closed for almost two months, so that was why there was dust, but when you first looked at it, the apartment seemed spic and span. We are on the third floor, called the 2nd floor like most of Europe, where the 1st floor is called the ground floor.

We do have a district meeting tomorrow, we are with the office staff, and maybe afterwards they will show us some of our duties. We know that there will be a lot.

President Mellor and his wife has invited the office staff up to their house to watch conference next Saturday. We get to watch the 10:00 O clock session live (at 6:00 PM). Finally, on the 6th of Oct w have to go back to Madrid for our meeting with the registrar which is early in the morning on the seventh. I hope we get to go on the Bullit Train. The Hadleys told us that the meeting only lasts about 15 minutes so it may be a quick turnaround.

They Made it to Spain

From Ron - They Made it to Spain - so does the Rain in Spain fall mainly in the Plain?
Here is Sister Hunt's E-mail.

We made it to Spain today after a delay landing in Atlanta
because of a severe thunderstorm and we weren´t allowed to
land for an hour.  We also left ATLANTA late and arrived in
Spain about 3 hours late and had to call the MTC president who
hadn´t received offical word that we were coming.  THE Hills
are a delightful couple.  The Hadley´s from the MTC in Provo
arrived here on Friday and will be leaving Thursday. We might
have to stay here until Monday to get registered in Spain.  We
are super tired so we hope we get a good night sleep.