La Casa de Colón

This week I am grateful for the promptings of the Spirit.  I was prompted to share with someone the importance of living a clean life, so that we can be worthy to have the Holy Ghost with us.  Right after doing this, we listened to a lesson by the missionaries about the importance of the Holy Ghost.  I had no idea that their lesson was going to be on that topic, but it reinforced what I had been inspired to share.  I was glad that I heeded that spiritual prompting.

Monday we did some sight seeing in Las Palmas.  We went to The Casa de Colón, The House of Columbus.  Columbus is said to have stayed here in 1492, while one of his ships is being worked on. The facade was rebuilt in 1777.  It was a very interesting museum which focuses on the history of the Canary Islands and its relationship to the Americas.  The Canary Islands were a stopping point for the ships as they came from Spain to the Americas. 

 

This is a large model of the island of Gran Canaria.  I love how you can see the difference between how green it is on one end, and how brown it is on the other.  

This jewelry is made from the volcanic rock that is found here on the island.

We had planned to tour the Santa Ana Cathedral, but it was closed.

Tuesday night, Elder Ruiz and Elder Priest taught a wonderful lesson about the Holy Ghost.

Our happy group of Las Palmas missionaries.

We met with the Vecindario missionaries for district meeting.  We had a wonderful meeting led by Elder Nash, who is our new district leader.  As he was closing the meeting, and we were expecting to finish up with a song and a prayer, he had us turn in our scriptures to Alma 8.  He had us read several verses of the account of Alma and Amulek, beginning with verse 15.  Not until we read verse 19 did I understand the purpose of this scripture reading:

       "Will ye give to an humble servant of God something to eat?"  

Then in verse 21, it reads:

       "And he brought forth bread and meat and set before Alma."

We work with amazing missionaries.  I feel privileged to interact with them and learn from them.  I did feed them chili, cornbread (with cornmeal sent from the States), salad, and I had banana bread and snickerdoodles, because I had also baked for the families that we visit each month.  The missionaries couldn't make a decision between the two, so we enjoyed some of each.

Here we have these good missionaries helping us load the car after our meal.  I don't mind the cooking, but transporting the food is not fun!

We caught this beautiful sunset after one of our home teaching visits.

One of the activities we do in our English class, is everyone has 3 or 4 cards with words in Spanish and different words in English.  They have to go to other people and ask them in English for the word that they need.  It is always nice to see them interacting.

Desiree is also one of my piano students.  She is an amazing young woman who is always smiling.

We had our Addiction Recovery class on Friday night, and aferwards, Elder Larsen taught the Institute class for our Las Palmas group.  Hermano Guerras wife was in the hospital.  We had a great lesson, and a good turnout, but I forgot to take pictures.  

On Saturday, we watched a movie with our young adults in Vecindario.  We watched Cheaper By the Dozen.  The antics of Steve Martin were funny even when we were listening in Spanish.  Our group was small, but we had a good time.  (Enzo left before I took the photo.)  Fabio is holding the caramel corn. It was the first time I had made it here, and it tasted great.  It is just hard to use 2 cups of precious brown sugar and 1/2 cup of corn syrup.  Oh the things that we value because they are so hard to come by.  

We were able to attend church in Las Palmas on Sunday and we were greeted by these happy, smiling faces.

There were some temple missionaries there from Madrid who were vacationing while the temple is closed.  We should have the opportunity to get to know them while we are in Madrid.

We drove to Vecindario to have our Institute class after the three-hour block of meetings.  I brought sandwich fixings, chips, and brownies for the young adults.  We had a good class and we are enjoying better attendance by holding the class on Sunday.

                            

Martin, Dario, Kimberly, Fabio, and Enzo

Another pretty sign of Spring.  I love all the blossoms.