A Taste of Home

We attended church last Sunday in Telde.  There are two Wards and one Branch on this island.  The Telde Branch is a very small congregation with only an average of 35 people in attendance.  They were a very friendly group and made us feel right at home.

This is Francesca Peña, the first person to be baptized as a member of the church on the island of Gran Canaria, in 1978.  That is the year that Elder Larsen came home from his mission.  She and her husband had joined the church.  He passed away 3 1/2 years ago, about the same time as my father.  She showed us a copy of the Book of Mormon that she had written her testimony in back in 1978.  What a very sweet lady!  A pioneer of the islands.  

When the bishop got up to announce the intermediate hymn, he said that afterwards the Larsen's would share some thoughts with the congregation.  I about died.  I could not think of a thing that I could say in Spanish.  So, I spoke first and told about our family, about how excited we were to be able to serve in the Canary Islands for two years, and I shared a very simple testimony of my love for the Savior and my desire to share this message with the people of this island.  I hope to have a little advanced notice to prepare for my next time to speak in church.  The speakers and teachers were all very well prepared and I was very uplifted by the messages that were shared.  It just goes to show that numbers don't matter.  It is the individual knowledge and testimony of each member.  

For our P-day this week, we decided to invite the missionaries from Las Palmas to come to our house. They don't have a lot of places to go or fun things to do on their day off, so we provided some food and some fun.  

Emails were written to families at home.

 Hermana Caballero, Hermana Grover,  Hermana Irigoyen 

Elder Shumway, Elder Beuden,  Elder Larsen

They played ping pong (no picture.)

They played basketball.

 Elder Beuden, Elder Shumway, Elder Brewer, Elder McWhorter

They played soccer.

 Elder McWhorter, Hermana Irigoyen, Elder Brewer, Hermana Caballero

They kicked the ball over the fence

Elder McWhorter went over the fence.

The other three looked on like little kids in a school yard who wanted to get away.

We fried chicken.

And it tasted like HOME!  Yum!!

Elder Beuden helped mash the potatoes.

Dinner was enjoyed by everyone.

We played Minute-to Win-It.

We devoured an Apple Pie with vanilla ice cream.

The hermanas with the balcony view.

The elders with a balcony view.

Island Attire?  Too Funny!

On Monday, I got a call from one of the hermanas on the other island.  She had been asked to sing for the upcoming Zone Conference and wanted me to accompany her.  She emailed me the music and I started my practicing before teaching piano lessons and after English class on Tuesday because I don't have a piano here at the house.  Elder Larsen and I are both having good attendance at our classes, and we actually see some progress with our students.  

Wednesday, we got to have our first District Meeting with the elders in Vecindario.  Elder Larsen attended there meeting, and I took advantage of the time to practice once again.  Elder Larsen had grilled some chicken and we used the barbeque sauce that we found at the store that said it was a Texas brand.  It is actually not too bad!  

Elder Rawlinson, Elder Echegaráy (Argentina), Elder Gentry, Elder Antezana (Brazil) , Elder Poulson, Elder Lopez (Mexico), Elder Larsen

So, I decided to make German Style Chicken for the young adults Wednesday.  I had not made it for years because of the calorie count, but we will forget about that and only think about how delicious it is.  But, there was a problem.  Well, actually a couple or problems.  First, the ovens here are strange, for several reasons, but I will only include one in this post.  There is a dial that you turn to the temperature setting and an indicator light comes on when you do this.  Then there is a selection dial for the heating element that you want to use.  But, you must turn the timer knob to some minutes before it will begin heating.  I think you know where I am going with this.  After over an hour with the chicken in the oven, I realized that I had not turned the timer knob on.  Two things were working in my favor.  One, I had browned the chicken earlier that day, and had put it in the liquid in the refrigerator.  Then, I heated it up right before putting it in the oven.  Two, I had just finished baking a cake, so the oven was hot when I put the food in.  It just started cooling at that point.  So, when I realized that the chicken was sitting in a cold oven, I put it back on the cooktop to heat it to boiling before starting the "Transporting Game."  I will share those details another day.  But in the removal of the pot of chicken at the church, week two of stuff on my clothes at Vecindario.  The blessing was the chicken was tender and delicious.

Just a few of the buttery spots on my white shirt and skirt.

Goal for next week:  No mishaps on Wednesday night.

We had several new young adults who joined us on.  We had a nice lesson, delicious, fattening chicken, and played Minute-to Win-It games afterwards.

Dario Umpierrez with a not so successful attempt at grabbing the pencils.

We also sang Happy Birthday to Elder Rawlinson for his 19th.  These guys are so young, 

but so dedicated!

Thursday night we had piano practice, piano lessons, English class and Family Night.

We played another silly group game with two ties, trying to catch up to each other.  I think the elders came up with this game just to get to take off their ties for a little while.  As you can tell, everyone gets into the games and they are very competitive.

Oudette (Senegal)   Felix

Marta Flores brought me homemade tortillas.  

We were supposed to go to the park with our Las Palmas group on Saturday night, but, the plans were changed at the last minute.  I had already purchased everything for hot dogs, so we stuck to the menu and had our picnic at the church.  You can buy hot dogs here, (some actually come in cans, but we did not opt for those.)  And I found some cans of chili. We bought baby gherkin pickles that tasted like straight vinegar and I added sugar to them.  After setting for several days, they tasted pretty sweet, so we chopped them up for relish.  We chopped onions, sliced cheese, and I even managed to make some decent baked beans with what I could find.  They have hot dog buns, but I found out as I was serving that they are not precut.  Several people already had theirs and they sliced it from the top.  They said that was how they always did it.  They had had hot dogs, but not with all the fixings.  They tried all the toppings and it was a total success.

 Sara Marcos, Aida Cruz, Joan Peña, Elder Larsen

Jhon Rodriguez, Josue Muñoz, Fran Marcos

The hermanas dropped in just in time to finish off the last dogs.

I practiced the piano before our meeting and then practiced with the hermanas on another song that they are going to sing.  At least it is just a hymn so no need for extra practice time.   

On Monday morning at 7:30 a.m., we are taking a ferry over to the island of Tenerife for a Zone Conference.  The directions that we could find on line were very sketchy, so on Saturday morning, we decided we needed to take a drive over to the port.  It is further north than we had ever driven.  The highway that we take to the church in Las Palmas is GC-1.  It runs right along the seawall.  These pictures were taken from around the other side of the point, looking back at GC-1.

We attended a baptism in Vecindario on Saturday evening.  It was a very nice meeting and José is part of our group on Wednesday nights.


This is the portable baptismal font that they used.  I had heard Elder Larsen tell the story about when they had a portable font, (not nearly as nice as this one) and they were baptizing a very, very large man. The sides of the font gave way and the room was flooded.  Nothing nearly so exciting happened for us. It was a very spiritual meeting instead.

Fabio Sanchez baptized José Sanchez.

We had another great week!

Mother's Day and Transfers

THIS WEEK I AM THANKFUL FOR:
I have decided to start each off each post with that I am thankful for.

I am thankful that this rooster, and all of his many friends, live a few ridges over from where we live. Everyday, no matter what time we take our walk, he and his friends have the loudest chorus going. They never stop.  It would be so annoying if I had to listen to them all of the time.  They run wild in a deep ravine.  One day, we saw a man feeding them with big sacks of grain.  We can't figure out why he would feed them and let them run wild.  Yesterday we saw some darling baby chicks as well.  A nice thing to enjoy from a distance.  

Late last Saturday night, we found out which of the young missionaries would be transferred, or moved to a new area to serve.  Every six weeks, transfers occur.  It is probably most common to serve for two or three transfers in one area, but they can serve as short as one transfer and perhaps as long as four. This transfer, Elder Nielsen and Sister Smith were leaving.

They had both been in the area about 6 months. They will now be serving on the peninsula of Spain. We enjoyed working with them for the past week and they are both very dedicated missionaries.  We were sad to see them go.

Elder Nielsen had been serving as the district leader and now Elder McWhorter will have that responsibility.  Elder Shumway, from Enterprise, Utah, is the new elder and he will be serving as the Zone Leader, which also includes the missionaries on the island of Tenerife.   Because of a sister coming from the MTC in Provo, we did not get the new sisters until Wednesday. This caused some major planning to make everything happen.  Because it was Mother's Day and that is one of the two days during the year that the missionaries get to call home, and they can Skype, we had to plan carefully to get everyone taken care of.  We drove Elder Nielsen to his apartment to so that he could pack his suitcase.  The apartment was very large and missionaries have lived there for many years, even back to the time when the Islands were their own mission.  We took Elder Nielson to our house after church and he used my computer to Skype with his family.  We had written to his family on Saturday to set up a time to Skype.  There were several emails back and forth, trying to coordinate times, and then that all changed because of transfers.  We fed him a quick meal and headed back to Las Palmas to pick up Hermana Smith.  I stayed at the apartment with Hermana Caballero while Cody took the missionaries to the airport.  Normally, the missionaries fly out on Monday, but because Elder Nielsen was going to be serving in the far north of Spain, and had an 8 hour train ride on Monday, the missionaries flew out Sunday evening.  The Corsa that we have been driving is very small and with luggage, there is only room for 3 people.  Also, Hermana Caballero could not be left alone, so I was her companion.  She is from Spain and speaks very little English, but we were able to communicate with my poor Spanish and a dictionary.  Cody picked us up after his airport run, and Hermana Caballero stayed at our house with us until Wednesday.  She is a wonderful young woman and such a dedicated missionary.  She only has one transfer left before she goes home.

I had a wonderful Mother's Day.  Between Saturday night and Sunday night, we were able to Skype or Facetime with all of our children, grandchildren, and parents.  We love getting to see them when we talk to them.  I hope this will help us keep a relationship going with the grandchildren while we are away.  Monday was not much of a P-day, preparation day, because Cody had to pick up Elder Shumway at the airport and I needed to make a batch of cookies for a Family Home Evening, FHE, that we were attending that night.  Let me take this opportunity to share some of my baking woes. Because a can of Crisco that is this size

costs $10.50 (if the specialty store has any) it has been necessary to convert my cookie recipes that were half butter and half Crisco to all butter.  That sounds simple enough, except that butter comes in a 250 gram slab.  One cup of butter is 227 grams.  So, I try to cut off 23 grams, and divide up the remainder into 1/2 cup or 1/4 cup sections.  This week I made a Chocolate Crinkle cookie which is delicious with peanut butter chips, but we had them plain.  I did sprinkle some powdered sugar on the top of them. Powdered sugar comes in containers that are about 250 g (a little over a cup) for $1.26.  Not nearly as expensive as Crisco, but where is my 4 lb sack from Costco?  For all of my friends who have lived, or do live now overseas,  I have a greater appreciation of the things that you have gone without.  I did see my first sack of Hershey's semi-sweet chocolate chips at El Corte Inglés (a very expensive grocery store with some American products) and they were over $10 for 12 oz.  I brought a stash with me that I haven't gotten into yet.  

The Fish Counter at El Corte Inglés

While I am on the topic of grocery stores, all of the stores have very large fish sections.  There are a wide variety of types of fish that you can purchase, including squid and octopus.  On the front side of the counter to the right, there is a blue area with live goldfish.  I asked Cody if they eat them here, and he said no, that he thought they are just for decoration.  Weird!  There is one major problem...the smell. It is so strong in some of the stores that it is hard to take while shopping for my groceries.  

Cured Pork Hind Quarters

This was a very fancy display of the hide quarters where they carve the cured meat right off of the leg.  If you look closely, you can see the hoof in full display.  (Somehow meet wrapped neatly in plastic is easier for me to take.)

Back to our P-day, we went out to eat with the seven young missionaries to a Chinese Buffet.  The food was actually very good.  The best part was choosing meat and vegetables that they grilled for us. They also had some delicious seafood.  I would have preferred my shrimp with the heads off!  It was amazing to see how much these young people can eat.  

We attended an FHE in Vecindario Monday night.  Fabio is in our Young Adult group.  One of his sisters is a member of the church, but he has another sister who is 14 and she is planning to get baptized in a couple of weeks.  The missionaries are also teaching his step-brother.  They were a great group of young people and they had a desire to learn about Jesus Christ.  We played another fun, but silly group game.  The person in the center was blind-folded and had to hold a book and touch someone's knee and snort like a pig.  The person they touched had to respond by snorting.  Then the person who was blind-folded had to guess who they had picked.  It was hilarious to hear everyone snorting or sometimes trying to snort.  Very funny!

Victor, Luciano, and Desire

I am now teaching piano lessons on Tuesday and Thursday, before our English class.  We found a music store and they had Bastien Piano Books.  For a primer level book it was $19.  The price in the States is $5.50.  Crazy!!  Also, for any piano teachers out there, can you give me a good reason why I should teach the notes as Do RE Mi Fa So La Si instead of A B C D E F G.  It just seems like knowing the order of the alphabet already is easier than starting over with 7 syllables.  It is also very interesting that in Spanish, the names of the notes, quarter, half, whole, etc, have no mathematical meaning.  They are negra-black, blanca-white, and redonda-round.  

I'm sure you noticed that I have three students at the piano.  Fran was taking the picture and he plays a little by ear, but would like to read music, so he was looking on.  That was not planned, but they have a desire to learn.  We will see how this goes.  There was not a lot of practicing done between Tuesday and Thursday.  I will hope for more practice before next Tuesday.  

Wednesday morning I cooked for District Meeting and also started the meal for the Vecindario young adults.  Hermana Caballero was good to help with the dishes and Cody is always good to help as well.  

Cody dropped us off for the District Meeting, and then headed to the airport to get the other two sisters. Normally there are only two missionaries in a companionship, but there was a problem with this transfer.  Because there is an MTC in Provo and in Madrid, missionaries can be trained in either location.  President Jackson had been told that he was getting a missionary from the Provo MTC who had been trained for 6 weeks.  At the very last minute, they figured out that she was coming from the States, but that she had not had any training yet, and was coming to Madrid for her training.  Because a sister had gone home from her mission this transfer, that left an odd number of sisters.  So we now have Hermana Caballero, Hermana Grover from Florida, and Hermana Irigoyen from Argentina.  Hermana Irigoyen speaks very good English and enjoys visiting with us in English.  

Once again I was inspired by these missionaries.  They have such a desire to teach people about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Elder Shumway and Elder McWhorter shared talks and then Elder Beuden had us play a game.  The game was similar to $10,000 pyramid.  One person explained a principle of the gospel while the other person had to guess the principle.  I was with Hermana Caballero and I just knew I would be so embarrassed because my Spanish is not very good.  But I actually did quite well, getting 8 principles.  The winners got 16, but the other companionship only got 4.  

 Playing $10,000 Pyramid

Wednesday night, Cody gave a very good spiritual message to the young adults.  He talked about faith and that having faith in Jesus Christ is not enough.  He shared with them from Alma 32 about how we have to exercise our faith by doing things that will bring us closer to our Savior.  We had a good discussion with these young people.  

And then the Disaster

After Cody's message, I went into the kitchen to get the dinner ready to serve.  I was looking for something to put the baked potatoes in.  When I pulled a pan down from the top shelf, I realized too late that it was full of oil.  Needless to say, it drenched me.  My skirt was literally dripping with oil.  From the smell, the oil was old which made it even worse.  It was quite the feat to clean up the shiny tile floor in the kitchen so that no one fell down.  Then another feat when I got home to get the oil out of my clothes.  

I fixed pork chops with apple slices, baked potatoes, broccoli, and bread.  After everyone had gotten a plate and had started eating, we noticed that they had no idea what to do with the potato.  Some of them were just rolling them around while some had unwrapped them from the foil and were cutting off slices from the ends.  Cody asked them if they had ever had a baked potato and they all said no.  He then demonstrated how to cut, mash, add butter, cheese, salt and pepper, etc.  They all loved the meal and everything was eaten.  

Minute-to-Win-it- Sticky Situation

After eating we played a great Minute-to-Win-it game.  If you haven't ever tried this one, I think you would enjoy it.  You get a point for each ping pong ball that you can bounce onto a piece of bread spread with peanut butter.  I had to do some pleading to get Cody to let me use a spread of precious peanut butter (another expensive item) onto a piece of bread for our game.

José, Fabio, Dario, Inzo, Wendy, Ruth, and Cody

We had three young adults join us who were not there last week.  

Thursday night we had piano lessons and English class.  We were very frustrated because we had both spent several hours working on our lessons for class.  We had typed up worksheets and when Cody went to print them, the printer quit working.  He tried everything, even buying a new cord.  Nothing worked, so we had to go to class without our papers.   Our students were very understanding and they just had to copy things off of the board.  Our classes are growing, so that is a good sign.  After class, we had FHE.  Here is a picture of us playing another group game where we had to remember the signs of everyone in the group.  The purpose of the game was to pass our sign to another person without the person in the middle seeing us. 

It became quite hilarious the faster that we were passing signs.  I love seeing how much fun a group of people at various ages can have playing such simple games.

Friday we bought a new printer.  Cody is so proud of himself that he was able to get the new one connected and it even works wirelessly!  And it was only a little more than it would have been in the States.

Who knows what countries would use these phone adapters? Very interesting!

Friday night we had FHE with the young adults in Las Palmas.  We watched the CES Devotional that Elder Ballard gave a couple of weeks ago.  We can't watch it live because of the time difference.  It was an excellent talk and we had a good discussion afterwards.  We were very impressed with the thoughts that the young adults shared.  Afterwards, Cody did the baked potato demonstration before we served up the plates.  Aida was the only one who had had a baked potato.  She served her mission in England and she said that there they put baked beans on there baked potatoes.  Interesting!  Everyone loved the potatoes and most had seconds.  This is a very easy thing to prepare, transport, and keep hot.  

Elder Beuden, Joe from Ghana, Elder Shumway

We attended a baptism for Joe on Saturday night.  He is one of the happiest people I have ever met.  He is always smiling.  He had a very interesting conversion story.  He is a mechanic on a boat that sails between here and Ghana.  The first time that he came to the Island, a friend of his gave him a book, Jesus the Christ, and said that since Joe loved to read, that he would enjoy this book.  He read the entire book and really enjoyed it.  He said that the book had different ideas, but that he felt good about them. Over a year later, he was on the Island and was walking around when he saw the missionaries.  He waved them down and asked them if they were part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were both from the United States, so they could speak to him because he speaks English.  He told them that he had read their book and of course they thought he meant the Book of Mormon.  But then he let them know that he had read Jesus the Christ.  He loves the message of the gospel and says that he feels peace and joy with all of the things that he has learned.  He is excited to participate in the church in Ghana.  I shared another batch of chocolate cookies for refreshments.  

Here is the view from our back deck.

We've now been here a full two weeks.  We are fairly comfortable in our routine and can get back and forth to the places we need to be.  I still struggle with some people's accents and it is hard to see any progress with my Spanish, though Cody says I am getting better.  Please pray for me.  I know that I will be able to form better relationships with these people if I can communicate with them.  

Our First Full Week

We were glad to have our first full week here in Las Palmas.  We have gotten into a bit of a routine.  I wanted to share a little bit about where we are living.  The Canary Islands were organized as their own mission  at one time, and the church bought the home we are living in to be the mission home for the presidents of the mission and their wives and families.  This was in the the 80's.  The house was built in 1968.  It is very large with five bedrooms and five bathrooms, a formal dining room, a study, a very large living room, and a laundry room.  I even have two dryers, which dryers are very uncommon here on the islands.  I am grateful every time I do laundry.  The house is built on the side of the mountain and we have beautiful views out across the valley.  (I just realized that I don't have a picture of the view to post, so I will have to share that next week.  But here is a view of the house from the front and from below.

There is a large basketball court in the backyard.  We plan to have the missionaries and the young adults to the house for meals and activities to enjoy all of the space.

Because the mission was closed in 2006 and this area is no longer a separate mission, and is now part of the Spain, Madrid Mission, there is no need for a large mission home and the house has been for sale for quite awhile.  Most likely, anyone who would be interested in purchasing the property would do it for the land only, and would tear down the house because it is so old and in disrepair.  For this reason, the church is not willing to put any money into the property.  We are grateful for the Buhlers, the couple who were here before us, for all of the money they spent fixing things up to make it more livable.  Unfortunately, there continue to be problems.  One of the problems is the carpet.  Carpet is not common here, in fact it doesn't exist.  There are no carpet cleaners, and this carpet is in desperate need of cleaning.

We did find a can of cleaner at Leroy Merlin, which is similar to Home Depot, and we spent part of our Preparation Day (p-day) cleaning the carpet.  It is better, but it will never be good.  I will just work on small places at a time.  Cody has also been working on some of the bathrooms.  They all have different problems.  We are just hoping that the house doesn't fall apart while we are trying to live in it, because we love the location.  It is in Santa Brígida, a small town up in the mountains, about a 20 minute drive from the chapel in Las Palmas and about the same distance from Telde and Vecindario where we also serve.  We love the quiet, tranquil setting with the beautiful views.  Here is a picture of a Bird of Paradise that is blooming in our backyard.  My Aunt Lavada was always so proud when her Bird of Paradise would be blooming, so I think of her when I look at these beautiful blossoms.

Every morning, we take an hour walk for our exercise.  I thought I would share a couple of pictures each week of the beautiful sites that we see.  The geraniums get so big here, because the climate is perfect for them.

The mountain views are beautiful. And you can see the ocean from here.

Monday, P-day, we did some shopping.  There are several malls and large grocery stores.  There is a store that is very similar to a Wal-mart called AlCampo.  We were very glad to find this as the selection and prices of hair care products, make-up, etc, were terrible at the grocery store we shopped at last week.  Cody is amazed at how much things have changed since his mission.  Of course, I have to remind him that he was here 36 years ago.   This picture was taken from one of the malls.  The major highway we use, and most of the stores are right along the coast.  

We taught our first English classes on Tuesday night.  I was a little overwhelmed, even though I was teaching the beginners class.  Cody teaches the advanced class.  The missionaries are in my class with me, so they are my help and support.  Some of my students know a good bit of English because they teach it here in the schools, but others know almost nothing.  I have a book to use, but it is hard to know what to work on when the class is at such different levels.  They are all very patient with me and my attempts at Spanish.

Leidy, Hermana Larsen, Desire, Victor, Cynthia, Luciano, Rafa, Cristian, Solange

Wednesdays will be our busy cooking days.  There are two districts of missionaries on the island, six in each district.  Both groups meet on Wednesday, so we will take turns attending their meetings and taking them a meal.   I started my meal on Tuesday night so that it wouldn't be quite so crazy on Wednesday.  I made two loaves of Jewish Sweet Bread and it was a big hit.  We really enjoyed being with these young missionaries.  Sister Caballero is a native Spaniard and she gave a very inspiring message.  She talked about the fears that prevent us from opening our mouths and sharing our beliefs with others.  It was a good reminder of the joy that we have in our lives because of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we know that other people can find that same joy if they follow the Savior.  I am so inspired by being with these missionaries who have put aside 18 or 24 months of their lives to serve the Lord. They put everything on hold, jobs, education, etc.  They dedicate all of this time to do nothing but serve others.  They are a great example to me.

Hermana Caballero, Hermana Smith, Elder Nielsen, Elder Beuden, Elder Larsen, Elder McWhorter, Elder Brewer

After our midday meeting and meal, then we came home to finish preparing the meal for the young adults in Vecindario.  We met with them at 8:30 p.m. and then ate after the lesson.  The Spanish custom is to eat around 9:00 or 10:00 p.m.  Very different for us.  It was nice to meet the young adults in Vecindario and get to know them a little.  I forgot to take a picture, so I will include that next week.

Thursday we had go to Vecindario, about 30 minutes to the south, to pick up the missionaries and drive them to Las Palmas.  There are usually 3 cars on the island for the missionaries, but just before we came, there were problems with two of the cars.  We have the only functioning car right now.  We had our English classes again and I felt much better prepared after having done it one other time.  I hope I am able to help my students learn more English.  Cody has several people in his class who speak English very well.  One man wants to go to the United States.  He is very grateful for the opportunity to talk with Cody and to improve his language skills.  

After class, we had a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) for people in our ward (congregation) who are single and don't have families of their own.  Elder Nielsen and Elder Beuden gave a great lesson about the importance of serving only one master, that being Jesus Christ.  They had a good object lesson and then shared the scripture Matthew 6:24.  Afterwards, we played the craziest game where two people made a house, one person was a renter, and we had to change when they said, Casa (house), Inquilino (renter), or Terremoto (earthquake).  It was chaotic and very fun to see adults having such a good time doing such a silly activity.  They are a great group of people.  

Friday, we made another trip to the grocery store.  This was our fourth trip and they have each lasted about 2 hours each.  We have gotten smarter and realized that we need a dictionary with us because Cody's vocabulary of grocery items is not always the best.  Prices are very expensive here, so we have been doing a lot of comparison shopping.  We will be glad when we get this down to a smoother process.  We had our first meeting with the leaders of the young adult group in Las Palmas, Aida Cruz (who just returned from a mission to Leeds, England) and Sara Marcos.  We planned activities for May and chose a course of study for Institute for the summer.  Then we had our Noche de Hogar and again, ate a very late dinner and enjoyed a beautiful and delicious cake that Aida made.  We enjoyed visiting with the young adults and getting to know them.

Sister Larsen, Johan Peña, Fran Marcos, Sara Marcos, Aida Cruz, Omar Roka, Sara Gomez

Saturday we had to make another run to Leroy Merlin because a couple of our showers weren't working and we knew we might have some of the missionaries staying here because of transfers.  Cody has been the fix it man on the bathrooms.  He recaulked and demolded one.  He caulked up cracks in the tile on the wall of one.  We are hoping that since it will rarely be used that is will hold up okay.  The entire wall needs to be redone.  He has unstopped drains and replaced hoses and showerheads.  I made a batch of cookies to take to the baptism that night.  I forgot to take a picture, but the baptism was for Rafa who is pictured in our English class.  It was a wonderful service and he was so pleased to be baptized.  My snickerdoodles were a hit both times this week.  Most of the people had never had them and asked what they were.  But when I told them that they were covered with sugar and cinnamon, everyone tried them and they were all eaten.  It was nice to visit with a few more of the members of the Las Palmas Ward.  

We're Here!

We started our flight to Spain on Monday, April 28th, from Salt Lake City at 11:00, had a one hour layover in Atlanta, and arrived in Madrid at 8:35a.m., Tuesday, April 29th.  Elder and Sister Hatch flew in at the same time, but on a different flight.  They will be serving on the island next to us, Tenerife. President Jackson and his wife, the president of the mission,  picked us up at the airport and took us to the mission home, where they were having a Zone Leader Conference with thirty of the young missionaries.  They were an amazing group of missionaries, and their excitement and enthusiasm for their service to the Lord was very inspiring.  We look forward to our opportunity to serve with some of them.

Sister Hatch with all of our suitcases.

We dropped off our suitcases at the hotel and were grateful to not have to lug them around.  Then we went back to the mission home and we were able to take a nap to try to help us through our jet lag.
The Jacksons are just wonderful, so friendly and welcoming.  The mission home is in a beautiful suburb of Madrid.

President and Sister Jackson

Backyard of the Mission Home

The perfect Spring Day for eating outside.

That evening we went Retiro Park, which is 350 acres.  It was so nice to walk around, see the beautiful sites and to enjoy visiting with the Jacksons, Hatchs, and also the Buhlers, whose place we are taking on the island.  

The Jacksons, The Larsens, The Buhlers, and the Hatchs

Puerta de Acalá

The next day, we slept in, trying to conquer the jet lag.  Because we had a kitchenette in our hotel room, we walked across the street and bought a few groceries at a German store named Lidl.  It was just like shopping at Aldis, for all of our friends who are familiar with that German chain that is in the United States.  Then we had training with Paco Serrano and his wife.  He and his wife are wonderful. They have served tirelessly in Spain.  They are full of energy and enthusiasm and their love for the Lord and desire to help others is inspiring.  They both have amazing conversion stories.  It was wonderful to meet with them.  Brother Serrano works for the church and is over employment. Unemployment in Spain is about 30% and on the island, it is higher than that, especially among the young adults that we will be working with.  The church has a 3 day course to help people with resumes, job searching, interviewing, networking, etc.  Then there are weekly follow up meetings.  People who have taken the course and put forth the assigned effort do find jobs.  We will be making sure this program is being used here in the island, and could possibly be teaching these classes.  It could be a great help for our young adults.

  Dinner with the Serranos

The Hatchs, The Larsens, and The Serranos

Thursday morning we were able to attend a session at the Madrid Temple.  There is a beautiful complex there with the temple and two other buildings that house the MTC, Institute, Distribution Center, and hotel rooms for those who come long distances to attend the temple.  The temple is a beautiful building.  Cody is delighted to see the growth of the church in Spain since the time he served in 1976-1978.  He could never have imagined a temple in Madrid.  

Cody outside of the Madrid Temple

After attending the temple we were able to visit Kenny and Susie Lovell.  Kenny is the new president for the Madrid Missionary Training Center.  They will be serving here for two years.  We took the bus downtown, ate at an Italian restaurant (which was unheard of when Cody was here) and then took a quick walk through Retiro Park.  Cody and Kenny grew up together in Bartlesville and roomed together one year at BYU.  Cody and Susie worked together at Phillips when Cody was working summer jobs while he was in college.  It was so fun to reconnect with these wonderful people.  We are grateful for their service.  

The Lovells and the Larsens

Friday morning, the big day had arrived.  We flew to Las Islas Canarias.  The Hatchs flew out at the same time to Tenerife.  After spending the past three weeks with them, it was sad to say goodbye. 

This is actually their third mission.  They are a great example of those who are willing to serve the Lord.  We will be attending a zone conference on Tenerife in a few weeks, so we will be able to see them then.  

A view of Gran Canaria from the plane.

The Stake President picked us up at the airport.  He dropped us off at the house we will be living in.  It is located in a smaller town in the mountains, about a 20 minute drive from Las Palmas.  The views are amazing, and it is much greener in this area.  The house is a story all of its own, so I will save that for our next post.  We spent Saturday getting settled and bought a few groceries.  We were not able to find fresh milk and I was not brave enough to by the kind that sits in a box on the shelf.  We will have to try another store this next week.  

Elder Beuden,  Nielsen, Cody and Cheryl Larsen, Hermana Smith,  Caballero, Elder Brewer, McWhorter

We attended church at the ward in Las Palmas.  There were about 160 people in attendance.

Everyone was so friendly and they all came up to introduce themselves.  All the females gave me a kiss on each cheek.  That is their way of greeting each other.  I was a little discouraged because the people speak very fast and clip off the ends of their words.  I had a very hard time understanding them.  But, I am determined to get better.  Cody is doing very well with the language and I am so glad that he can communicate with everyone.  

Cheryl and Cody wearing their pin and tie.

To help unite our family while we are far away, we purchased matching ties for all of the guys and little boys, and the girls all have matching pins and hair clips for the little girls.  We will all wear them on the first Sunday of each month.  So, our first Sunday away from home was a first Sunday of the month and here we are wearing our pin and tie.