Lanzarote

This week I am grateful for this medley.   It is from a performance of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with Santino Fontana.  I love it!  I hope you will take the time to listen.  It makes me smile every time I listen to it.  It has made me think this week about happiness.  The Lord wants us to be happy.  He wants us to have the kind of happiness that will last throughout the eternities.  For this reason, the Lord has a plan for us all.  This is the message that we are sharing with people.  Click here if you want to know more.

We spent Monday with Hermana Trone and Hermna Irigoyen.  First we made a trip to the grocery store.  I see these fish displays every week, but I never get used to them.  I love fish.  But these displays do not say to me, "Come buy some fish for dinner."

 And yes, these fish are real!

 Hermana Trone and Hermana Irigoyen answering emails.

The hermanas wanted to cook, so we made homemade pizza for lunch.

It was delicious!

And then, since the calendar says it is fall, (even though we have had some of our warmest days since we've been here,) we made pumpkin cookies.  Yummy!

 I love these two hermanas and I am so glad they wanted to spend the day with us.

Tuesday night, Elder Hansen and Elder Tanner gave our lesson.  They talked about Christ's Atonement and all that He did for us.  I could feel of their love for their Savior as they shared their testimonies with us.

 And then we had a silly game.  You had to remember what fruit everyone was, and then say your fruit and call out someone else's fruit, never letting your teeth show.  We played this one on another night, and I decided there was no glory in making it to the end, so I conveniently bowed out early.








As you can see, some people really got into it. And Hermana Trone looks like she is really getting into it.  Too funny!

 These good missionaries always have a good attitude about whatever they are doing.  It is a pleasure to serve with them.

Wednesday, we attended district meeting in Vecindario.  We had a good meeting and a good meal, and the missionaries went away happy!

 Elder Maxfield, Elder Dyer, Elder Sarango, Elder Thunell

That night, we were back in Vecindario for a piano lesson and Institute Class.  These are three of our great young adults in Vecindario.

 Dario, Kimberly, Fabio

Friday night was Omar's last night at Institute.  He will be leaving for his mission on Tuesday morning.  He will be serving in the Spain Madrid Mission.  He is very excited for his opportunity to serve.  He will be a great missionary, but we will truly miss him.  

 Omar and Fran

This weekend, we had an opportunity to fly to Lanzarote, one of the other islands.  People had told us that Lanzarote was brown and white.  It is brown because they get almost no rain, and all the buildings are white.  Also, there are no large cities, and only a couple of hotels are taller than four stories.  Here are some views from the air as we flew in.  

The bishop of the Lanzarote ward, Bishop Barriero, and his son, Josué, picked us up at the airport. Josué is eight years old, and our grandson Sawyer had just turned eight the day before.  Josué is a charming little boy, and many of his mannerisms reminded us of Sawyer.

We started our afternoon by doing an apartment inspection with Elder Peterson and Elder Brownell. Their apartment was very clean and we were very pleased.  Afterwards, we took them to lunch.  We were at a restaurant just across the street from a beach.

 Elder Peterson, Elder Brownell, our very friendly waiters, Elder Larsen, Hermana Larsen

These are two great missionaries.  Elder Peterson is a new missionary and has a good attitude and wants to learn.  Elder Brownell is a good trainer.  They are working hard in this area.  We enjoyed visiting with them and getting to know them better.

After lunch, we went to the church and had interviews with some people that the bishop wanted us to visit.  The highlight of our trip was visiting with José and Jennifer.  She has lived a hard life.  She told us that she had made choices as a teenager that took her down a very rocky path.  But for the past year, she has been trying to put her life in order and put the things of God first in her life.  As we visited with them about the things that they needed to change in their lives, José said,  "The important things of life come at a high price."  That is so true!  We need to be willing to pay that price to obtain those things that matter most.  After the interviews, Elder Larsen was the guest speaker for a meeting they had on Saturday night.  He did a wonderful job.  He is so much more comfortable with his Spanish, and his enthusiastic personality and love for the Lord are shining through as he delivers his messages. 


We attended church today in Lanzarote with these two wonderful missionaries.  Everyone was so friendly.  They really have a wonderful ward and we enjoyed getting to meet with them.  Elder Larsen gave another great talk and I was able to participate by playing the piano.

This was the view out of our hotel room.  We were in the hotel with many tourist, but did not have any free time to even walk along the beach.  It was pretty to look at this morning!

Here is Elder Larsen in his Sunday attire.  We were not dressed for the beach.

We have transfers tomorrow.  Even though we were sure it would happen, we are sad to be losing two of our missionaries.  Elder Wiltbank is leaving us and Hermana Irigoyen is headed to Barrio 2 in Madrid to train a new missionary.  I am so sad to see her go.  She arrived here 1 1/2 weeks after we got here.  To have her leave seems very strange.  Transfers come around every six weeks, but it doesn't get any easier for me to say goodbye.  But we always love the new missionaries that come to serve with us here on the islands!