First Send off

We have just sent off our group of missionaries and are missing them already! We get very attached to them during their time here in the MTC. This group has inspired us with their testimonies and strengths. Our French elders were especially wonderful. When we don't understand their words we have to rely on the spirit to communicate and it is amazing how that works. One of the elders was from an island off Madagasgar. He is very tall and very thin and speaks quite alot of English. He bore his testimony yesterday in our farewell meeting with all of them and brought us all to tears as he tearfully said, "I want to be like Christ". We see changes in all the missionaries and love them so much. One sister from Utah is Jewish. Her parents joined the church and have sent 7 of their 9 children on missions. Another elder from California told us that he wants to remind the people here in Spain of what they knew before they came to earth. We teach the missionaries about the preexistence and help them see how important it is to remember that we are truly Heavenly Fathers beloved children. The elder who said this is a big strong athlete from California and doesn't say much but he thinks alot. They are all so different and wonderful. We had two sisters from Mesa!! We have speakers from Madrid who come to the MTC on Sundays for sacrament meetings and firesides. Our hearts are touched by the stories we hear of their conversions. The missionaries learn how important it is for them to be out there talking and smiling! This week our speakers told how the husband was looking for the truth and was easily taught but the wife was harder to teach because of her Catholic background. When she did say she would be baptized her family told her that she was now dead to them. She was baptized with her husband but admitted that she did not have a testimony. After a few months she decided to return to the Catholic church and asked the priest to visit her the next day at 2:00. At the time there was a knock at her door and when she opened it there stood 3 elders who said we don't know why we are here but something told us to stop by. They said we don't have a lesson but just wanted to pray with you. She knelt down with them and they asked her to pray. She just wanted to get rid of them so she started to pray and then the words just came out of her of wanting to know if this church is true. As she prayed the spirit testified to her and she knew that no matter what her family did she knew the church was true. From that day she has been totally faithful. And by the way the priest never came to her home that day or any other day after. She and her husband have been strong and faithful members for 20 years. Conversion stories are always so tender and meaningful. We are keeping a journal of all the MTC missionaries with their testimonies and personal information. We hope to keep in touch with them the best we can. We have had several special experiences in the temple as well. One family was sealed last week. There 9 year old son was great. He said after the sealing that he could see someone there but didn't know who it was. With tears streaming down his cheeks he thanked everyone for helping his family be sealed! It may seem that we spend alot of time crying but there are moments when we can't hold back our joy!

Visit from Elder and Sister Hinckley

We have had a rather unusual day today. Elder Richard G. Hinckley and his wife are here to check out the MTC. He is over all the MTC's in the world. I, your mom, had the opportunity to go with a few other people to show Sister Hinckley a few of the Madrid sites and to go shopping. She is a delightful and happy person and we all enjoyed being with her. She told me that the jacket she had on had been her mother-law's (Marjorie Hinckley's). We had a group picture taken and I got to sit next to Elder Hinckley. The first time I met him and shook his hand all I could do was say my name and that "it is like looking at your father." He looks like a younger version of our beloved Pres. Hinckley!!We had all our meals with them today and listened to them when that talked to the elders and sisters. We then took them to the temple to talk with the temple president and his wife. We are so happy to have the chance to meet and listen and learn from our wonderful church leaders. We are all so blessed to belong to the true church of Jesus Christ!! Our blessings are huge!! We are tired tonight but looking forward to a beautiful day in the temple tomorrow. Elder Hinckley told your dad that he is caught between the land of the living and the land of the dead, Meaning the MTC and the temple. He also said that sometimes there are stories that go around about his dad that are"Faith promoting myths". We loved our day and hope you all are having wonderful days and are happy, well, successful and most of all faithful. Good night with all our love, Mom and Dad P.S. We helped the missionaries sing a special song for the Hinckleys. They did it perfectly. They sang "We Will Bring the World His Truth."

Studying and Music

I want to write this update for you all so that you can have a feel for how things are for us. You should be so proud of your dad!! He is amazing!! He spends hours studying and preparing to teach the elders upstairs in the MTC. He goes the extra mile on every assignment. I am so proud of how he relates to all of them and reaches out to all of them to help and encourage. He is doing a fantastic work for the Lord and I have never seen him happier!! Our apartment is full of books and papers and he uses the internet all the time. We are involved alot with the missionaries and love it so much. The days fly by!! We are still busy in the temple and will always love the wonderful things we get to do and the great people we get to be around. Dad has used his music alot here. He plays for meetings and for people to perform and as extra bonus he gets the missionaries to sing with great gusto!! We love you all and miss you dreadfully!! We love our Heavenly Father and His Son with all our hearts and are so grateful for this opportunity to be here doing what we are doing. Our time away from you and family activities is difficult but we try to think that you are receiving blessings because of our service. This next week Pres. Hinckley's son will be here to check out the MTC. He is head of the Mission Department. I get to go with Sister Hinckley and a few other sisters to see the sights of Madrid. I am really looking forward to this. Please tell all the grandchildren that we are happy serving and look forward to when all of them are serving their missions. This work is the work of the Lord and it is the best thing for us all to do. Pray for a missionary experience in your lives! It will work! Tomorrow is Sunday and another great time for us!! Please keep us in your prayers. One of our new missionaries is from Italy so we are trying to speak what little Italian we have learned. She is from Milan and is a beautiful and bright young woman. We have 7 sisters from the US and 6 elders from the US and 1 elder from Spain who is a celebrity here because of a Reality TV show he was on so his mother said please take him early before it goes to his head. He is doing well and fitting in well with all the gringos.

MTC plus the Temple

Dear Loved Ones,Here we are with our latest group of missionaries. We have 9 North American and 5 Portuguese missionaries. The ones from the USA come for 6 weeks and the others from any of the countries in Europe come for only 3 weeks because they will be speaking the language they already know . It is really a pleasure to get to know all of them and work with them to help them to be ready to serve their missions. Our President and his wife are wonderful, competent and capable people who are great teachers and examples of service. We are enjoying very much serving with them here. This MTC service coupled with our Temple service makes for a very interesting and rewarding experience for us. We are very busy and the time is going by as if we were in afterburners all the time. What a marvelous experience we are having, learning and sharing. We are expecting 11 more missionaries tomorrow. It is truly an emotional experience to get to know these faithful servants of our Heavenly Father and then to see them launch on their missions probably never to see them again. These are photos of the Presidency of 4 including wives with the current group altogether and then with the Americans and then the Portuguese. As you can see we are directly in front of the temple doors. We are finally going to get two more pairs of Senior temple missionaries in the next two weeks ( Skousens and Browns) and possibly 2 more by summer. This will alleviate the shortage in workers we have been experiencing in the temple the entire time that we have been here. It has been great to feel needed in a desperate sort of way. Hope this finds you all well.

Meeting the missionaries

This was our first day to meet with the missionaries! We started off with District Meetings at 8:00. Then we had Relief Society and Priesthood Meetings and right after we had Sacrament meeting. After that we were set apart by the MTC Presidency as Counselor and Relief Society Counselor. In our blessings we both received promises that our family would be blessed for our service rendered here in Spain in both the temple and the MTC. We were promised other blessings associated with our duties. We truly felt the spirit of the Lord sink deep into our hearts. We were then invited to the MTC dining room to eat with the elders and sisters currently residing in the MTC. This group will be going to their missions a week from Tuesday. The food was chicken, french fries, salad, bread, spaghetti, fruit and ice cream and flan. Not too bad! There will be another group of missionaries the day after this group leaves. At 2:30 we went to see a devotional on DVD from the Provo MTC of David Bednar and his wife. What incredible talks they gave. What a treat it was for us to see and hear. His talk was how do I know if it's the Holy Ghost or just me thinking. His answer to that was quite worrying about it and get to work. You may never know for sure if you are getting impressions by the spirit or not. It doesn't really matter whether you know if the spirit is talking to you or not. If you are a good boy and a good girl and are keeping the commandments you will never be led astray and will be given guidance to do good and the right thing for the right reasons. He told stories where that had happened to him and he didn't realize until 20 years later that the thing he had been impressed to do had been from the Holy Ghost and had had such a positive influence on certain individuals. We go to dinner in a few minutes then to singing practice with the missionaries then down to sing with the missionaries on temple square then to a fireside with the elders and sisters. This will be our typical Sunday for the next year!! We will be teaching each Sunday in Relief Society and Priesthood from Preach My Gospel.

New Calling

We enjoyed a farewell dinner at our apartment with the two couples to our right . They are the Sprouls and the Fords. They leave for home at the end of this month. It was also Elder Ford's birthday on the left end. The Sprouls are returning to South Jordan where he was a school administrator for most of his career. The Ford's are going back to Bountiful. He was a farmer for many years. We will miss these good and faithful servants. The Ford's were temple workers and the Sprouls were in charge of the Institute program and were in the MTC Presidency. We were called to serve in the MTC presidency in addition to our serving as Temple missionaries. We were truly honored, humbled and a little overwhelmed at the new callings we received and accepted. We are also very excited about being able to work with the MTC President and Sister Earl and the new missionaries that will be coming through the MTC from all of the different countries including the USA. Needless to say our workload and service load has been increased significantly and some of our extra-curricular activities will have to go. The couple to our left is the McDougals from Pleasant Grove, UT. They arrived 2 months ago to serve in the temple. We have enjoyed getting to know them. We are expecting 5 more couples from the USA to serve in the temple around the beginning of May. This week two bus loads of dedicated people from Portugal arrived at the temple to work hard for the week. We enjoy the activity generated by these kind of groups. We almost always have others from France, Italy and Spain join in with these larger groups and the language fun begins. We truly feel the joy of serving the Lord and are grateful for our opportunities to do so in spite of our ancient ways. We are too busy and happy to grow any older. Our minds are stimulated beyond our wildest expectations and our memories seem better than ever. We are more in love than we have ever been. We are experiencing a little bit of heaven everyday as we serve in the House of the Lord. We ask the Lord daily to bless you all and his spirit to be with you in all of your activities. Have a wonderful week !!! We are almost down to one year left and it will go by very fast so we have to dig in and work as hard as we can so as to not have any regrets.

Epistle

Thanks for the Valentine messages. We have 4 couples scheduled to come here but they, including our friends the Skousen's are hung up because of the new requirement to have an FBI clearance due to the terrorist event on Christmas Day on the aircraft that was inbound into Detroit from Amsterdam. So We will soon be hurting a lot for sufficient people to run the temple whereas the Picards from France and Guillens from Murcia have left and the Clementes from Alicante are soon to go and Perez keep saying that they will be going also. The dollar has gained some strength since we have been here and the 300 euros we usually get has gone down in price from $ 443 to $418. That has been a pleasant surprise.This winter is as cold as ever and we wimps from Arizona are getting tired of it. We have enjoyed knowing the Moores and other obreros who are here. Serving in the temple has been as wonderful as ever. We are scheduled today to speak in the CCM. We are excited about this opportunity. However we will be speaking to only 5 missionaries, 4 French and 1 Portuguese. Some of the other senior missionaries are going with us for moral support. We had a very busy day yesterday and it seems that the weekends right now are the best and busiest times. As Veil Directors last week Sandy & I had double sessions at 9:00 and 11:00 which as you know gave us some fun challenges , but it was a piece of cake. Brother Retuerto( Flt. Attendant with Iberian ) and Sister Zaldivar had their daughter sealed to a Swedish young man yesterday. We really feel needed and like we are doing a worthwhile thing in our lives right now. Where else except in the Church. We feel the tender mercies of the Lord every day. We are so blessed and try hard to have an attitude of gratitude.We appreciate you for what and who you are and love hearing from you. We went to the Cuatro Caminos Ward to do a Music and the Spoken Word program to help the missionaries there. We had fun working with Patricia Cerro who has a beautiful soprano voice and her friend who has been a member for only 9 months was our narrator. He seemed to get more out of the experience than anybody . He and I did some baptisms in the temple that morning. We have been talking to him about going to the temple for his own endowments 3 months from now. He is a great guy of 32 years age and his name is Hugo Morelli. I've got to run and play for our ward primary prior to going to the CCM sacrament meeting so better end this epistle. Have a great Sabbath !!!