October 10, 2010

Hi everyone, This has been a different 3 weeks. Right now Roy and I are in separate continents, Roy stayed in Spain, while I came home for a while to help Earl when he goes through his stem-cell transplant, that we thought would have happened, but they found some cancer in his colon, which they removed and he is just recovering from that surgery. He goes to the doctor tomorrow and they will decide when they do the really really strong chemo that will kill all of his immune system and then they give him back his stem cells that they collected the 1st weekend in September. He has such a great attitude that has helped him thus far. I have spent the time cleaning my house, moving his belongings back home, trying to fatten him up, but I think that is impossible, even though he eats several meals a day. He eats with Andrea and I and goes back and warms up a casserole about 2 hours later, and still doesn't gain weight.
Roy took some pictures of the festival that they hold in Fuengirola each year with their fancy flamingo dress. I miss it again this year. Last year we had to go back to Madrid during the festival to work on our residency and this year I'm in Utah, but Roy sent some pictures to me. There are miles of ruffles, I think on these dresses and they wear them and probably dance in them. They are so pretty. I see lots of them in the special stores just for flamingo dresses, and they are very expensive. I couldn't resist sending the picture of the little girl, they even have little high heels for the girls in the color of their dresses.
This little girl is so cute, I just had to send this picture along. Roy is doing great and we talk 1-3 times a day through SKYPE, which has been a blessing to us, to be able to see everyone and keep contact with each other. It sounds like the branch is taking really good care of Roy and feeding him occassionally, which I am so grateful for everyone. I really miss those members back in the Mijas Branch, they are all such nice people.
They like polka dots on their dresses.
I will also keep you updated on Earl, but I wish you all a very pleasant week.

Sept, 19, 2010

Sorry about last week and no blog. Sometimes we just don't get around to it and I really didn't have many pictures to add. Spain is great and we have really enjoyed working in the office. We do really hope that we are making a difference in the lives of the missionaries. It is great to feel of their love for the Savior and the work that they are doing. We went to a specialized training with the missionaries from our Zone on Friday. It was great and the spirit we felt there was great. The work is true and everyone needs to hear it. We as missionaries have to be led by the spirit to find those who are waiting for this wonderful message that we have to share.

Here is some of the fish for sell at our local supermarket. You have to take a number to get waited on. I was only able to get a portion of what is sold. They eat lots of fish and seafood.

Here is a bunch of goats being led to pasture. We went beyond them and turned around and they were going up the hill, so either the goats knew where they were going or the dog did that was out in front, because the shepherd was giving directions to the man in the car.

This is Sister Michelle Frandsen that was finally able to come to Spain, she spent 5 months in the states waiting for her visa to come. We get 2 elders this week who were assigned to other mission waiting for their visas, but didn't have to wait as long as Sister Frandsen. She will be a great missionary, we can already tell.

We got lots of packages ready for the missionaries that they were given during their specialized training. We had lots of dvd's to give them so they could give them away with new pass-along-cards that have been given out to the wards and branches. We know that these will reach some of those who are ready to hear this wonderful gospel. One of the area authorities said of each of the members would give one pass-along-card each week then Europe area would have 2800 more baptisms in a year. That is a wonderful promise and we have tried to get the members in our branch excited about doing just that.

We had only 20 people at church today, very small, one man from Cardiff, Wales and 2 Spanish visitors. We have had several who have gone back to their country for a visit. The Turners have been gone all summer and we hope that they are back next week. Sister Allen went to England and Sister Meyer went back to Germany to visit and help her parents for a while. We really miss all the visitors that we usually get. Hopefully next week will be better. Most of our active members were there except for those that I mentioned. We really miss them when they are not there.

Have a wonderful week.

Sept 5, 2010

We had our monthly munch and mingle today. Lots of good food and wonderful people to share it with. I didn't get everyone's picture, but here are some of our branch members. Belinda and Shawn Tyndale-Biscoe

This is Vida Torcuator and Bruna Riley.

This is Celia Padre, Victoria Cologne, and Augusto Padre.

Some of the same ones, sitting is Marion Allen and the close to the left, just her back is Lydia Duran and the man on the right is Fred Riley.

These are our young men and the President of the Young Men. Wayne Padre, (16)son of Cecila and Augusto Padre, just moved here this summer from the Philippines, Seth Tyndale-Biscoe (turning 14 in November) and then Victor Gamez. He has been great with these young men and he is from Malaga, Spain, going to our branch.

This is Victoria Cologne and Bruna Riley.

These are the 2 nieces of Bruna Riley visiting from Beligum and Ralf Meyer from Germany.

This is some of the delicious food that we got to eat. We had plenty this time, because we didn't have many visitors today.

This is Lydia Duran from the Philippines.

We just love all these people in our branch, you can just feel it when you visit with them. We love being associated with them.

Have a great week.

August 22, 2010

Here's our newest missionary, Elder Fagersten from Iowa, with President and Sister Clegg. He will be a great missionary. We sure hate to see them come in just one at a time, but with the problem of getting visas here in Spain we will take them when they get here. We have another Elder, Elder Redd coming in this week, who has been assigned somewhere in the states since July 7, but he will be coming. We are glad. We sent off our missionary to Madrid on Wednesday. Roy and I went into the stake where Jack was set apart, along with a sister missionary, who was called to the Madrid mission.

I couldn't resist taking the pictures of these flowers, which have all different colors, from red, yellow, pink, etc. These two had the middle that was so distinctive that I took them.

We hadn't seen an orange quite like this one before. They grow all over the place and they use them where we would have rose gardens, even though they do have roses here. These will grow almost into a tree, but they keep them trimmed down.
If you have a small enough car you can park sideways, where everyone else is parallel parking. They have a lot of these small cars, I'm not sure the kind this one is, but there are also smart cars which are very small.

Have a fabulous week.

Love JoAnne and Roy.

August 15, 2010

Here is Jack Tyndale-Biscoe already to go on his mission. He leaves Wednesday on the fast train to Madrid. We are really going to miss him in our branch, we have depended on him to play the piano, anything that you ask him to play. He's a great pianist and will be a fabulous missionary.

These are some pictures of the people at our munch and mingle, a kind of going away farewell for Jack. We met down in Fred and Bruna Riley's place and we had about 38 to 40 people there, more than came to church, because we had neighbors of Fred and Bruna and their neighbor has met with the missionaries, plus we had a couple that just got baptized that are Spanish but have become friends with several in the English branch, they can speak a little English and we welcomed them also.

We had lots of good food, just a pot luck that people bring to share. We had lots to go around, sushi, morocan food, french food, all kinds of salads today. It was really too hot to cook much today.

Jack spoke in Sacrament meeting, plus Elder Bader, who is an assistant to the mission president who is being transfered this Wednesday, and we will miss him. He is a German Elder and has helped the Meyers a lot.

Holly Tyndale-Biscoe sang a song with the 2 office elders, who can sing for a musical number.

We had an American visitor there from Draper Utah, Savannah Smart, who has taken a job as a nanny over here and it was her birthday, so we had a big party for her also. I think she is very homesick, even though it has only been a little while since she was come here, but I think the children she is tending are hard, because the Spanish don't want her to discipline the children. We were glad to be there for her. Pam Young took a liking to her and helped her. Pam is only here for a couple of more weeks and then she is off to Mali for a few months, so help the people down there.

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

July 25, 2010

This week we had our first Zone Conference with the new mission President and his wife. The picture on the left is of the Granada Zone, note: the elders all had the same Tie on. I guess as a show of Zone Unity. The picture below is of the Malaga Zone we have the shortest elder, Elder Basurto, standing next to Sis Clegg

This picture is of the "Sisters in the two Zones

Hermanas Hidalgo, Rameriz, Stolk, Clegg, Millan and Hunt. Hermana Rameriz is probably the shortest sister in the mission.

On Saturday evening we had a joint activity with the Spanish Ward, The Ward members put on a program about the days of 47. It was really quite good considering that they had just practiced for an hour before the program. (Typical Spanish style. They told us the program would start at 7:00 P.M. when in actual fact that was when the "rehearsal stated" the program didn't start until 8:00 P.M. It gave us time to talk to the people and get to know some of the Ward Members better as well and the visitors that came with one of our members.

These kids were really qute. While they sat on stage waiting for the program to start, they ate all the props (roll that were supposed to put out for the family dinner.)

The Litttle boy in the had (below) wasn't supposed to be part of the cast however, he kept running in and out of the play all night. Sometimes its kind of fun somtimes it get annoying.

Now, for the next phase of the home building project. You can see that the roof has now been poured and the house is now completly "framed" and not one stick of wood used. They will now start to brick up between the pillers to form the interior and exterior walls (Fire insurance rates should be very low.)

We had a very good Sacrament meeting today. In fact, it was better than I expcected. First our High Council speaker called just before Priesthood meeting stated to tell me that he was ill and would not be able to come today. Since his wife usually speaks with him that meant that I was short two speakers for Sacrament Meeting. But things worked out. The first speaker was afraid that her talk would take too much time as she had planned it so I told her she could have as much time as she wanted. I then asked a visitor, (a former member of the Branch from Nerja) to bare his testimony at the end of the meeting. During Sunday school I remembered that the week before JoAnne had offered to speak and relate a pioneer story about one of her ancestors. So, I asked her if she would still be willing to do that. It all turned out very well. We had 28 people present, 19 members and 9 visitors all from England.