August 8, 2010

Things have been really busy since we have had a new mission president, different things need to be done. We are also trying to help the office elders to lightening their loads, so we are keeping really busy.
This is a sail boat in the Mediterranean Sea, which we took from on top of the Mall when we took Roy's suit to the cleaners. Roy likes to take pictures of sailboats. When we drive along the beach going west, we see fishing boats, cruise ships, sailboats, etc.
We were surprised how much activity happens here after 10:00 p.m., we are usually home and don't realize how much the Spanish do things at night. They will take a siesta during the day and then go back to work about 5:00 and go home about 7:00 - 9:00 and then several go back out again around 10:00. We came back from home teaching around 9:30 and there was so much traffic.

We put some pictures of the house being built so you can see the progress that is being made on this house. They are probably quite well to do to be able to build a house this big, because so many of the people here in Fuengirola live in apartments.

The whole bottom is going to be a huge garage, which they will probably tile, like others we have seen in the neighborhood. They pour all the cement and then brick between the support, about the only wood you see is the trim around the doors or if they have wood cabinets in their kitchens. The floors are all tiled, which gets pretty cold in the winter, because they don't put central heat in the apartments. They only use space heaters when they need it in the winter, which doesn't last very long here down on the southern coast of Spain. Some put airconditioning in afterwards, so you see lots of air conditioning units outside the apartment baloncies.

My son Earl was release on Saturday after spending a week in the Huntman's Cancer Center in Salt Lake City, where he had intense chemo treatments. His cancer came back after a couple months in remission. We were wishing his remission would last for years. They will probably do some stem cell harvesting from his blood and then give him some more chemo and give him his own stem cells back. We just hope it will be successful this time around. He is in really good spirits and the pain in his back went away after the chemo treatment. We get to see him regularly through skype, which is very comforting to me.

The work is going great over here and they are trying to push the Book of Mormon more, which is hard right now, because we haven't got our shipment of Books of Mormon and we have sent out almost all of the books that we had in the office. We get orders ready for the missionaries and put them together so when they have a zone conference or have interviews with the president we send the supplies out. This last week and this week the assistants have been going with the president to all the different zones when President Clegg had interviews with the missionaires. We have 5 zones right now and they split the interview in the biggest zone and then the Cleggs went to some of the more distant ones by themselves. At least 8 days of interviews, lots of traveling, because we have most of the southern half of Spain in our mission. Some areas are at least a 5 hour drive away.

Our branch is doing great and we had 2 visitors give talks today. Brother and Sister Beale from England. That have been visiting this branch for 4 years now, and Brother Beale thanked Roy for asking him to speak. Some people visit this branch every year so the members know them, some even visit 2 to 3 times a year, and we now recognize them. The branch members are great and welcome everyone that comes. You really feel the love they have for the members. Next week is the last time that Jack will be playing the piano for us in Sacrament meeting because he goes to Madrid on the 18th of August. He will be a great missionary. Other than the Tyndale-

Biscoe family this branch is older, about the average age is 55, so we are all grandparents to the children of the Tyndale-Biscoes.

I hope you all have a great week.

Love JoAnne and Roy