NATO headquarters and Lisboa Temple announcement

It is Sunday night here in Madrid on General Conference Sunday. We are so happy to have been able to see sessions of conference yesterday and today and will see the final session tomorrow morning. We have been watching the sessions upstairs with the missionaries. The messages have been powerful and very much what we need to know. We are so grateful to have our prophet and the others leaders to inspire and guide us. We are also grateful to each of you for your love and support. We could not be here doing what we are doing if we did not have your love and support. We love each of you more than ever and more than mere words can express. Thank you...thank you. Our week started off with the missionaries leaving for their areas. We have mentioned that the last few weeks have been different in that we have had all 5 languages in the MTC. We have included a picture of us with the missionaries taken by the temple. We look at these precious young people and appreciate so much their families who have prepared them to serve. We have received a few new elders so we still have some Italian, American and one from Spain and one from England. We were somewhat busy in the temple this week with some French and a few from Portugal. The one thing that happened this week was when we were asked to go to NATO Headquarters and help a fellow church member be promoted to LT.COL. in the USAF. Brother Wilson asked Dick to "PIN" his new rank on his uniform on one shoulder as his wife Karen did the other shoulder. It was a great experience for us and we have included a picture for you all to see. It has turned cool here in Madrid. The leaves are turning but the flowers on the temple plaza are blooming their heads off. We also have included a picture for you. We are doing well as we reach our one year mark. The next 6 months will go very quickly. We are looking forward to being home and spending time with our children and grandchildren. We have nothing that is more important to us than serving the Lord and our family. Please start making lists of the things we can do for and with all of you. We look forward to the opportunity to get better acquainted with our family. We felt that many of the speakers in conference were speaking directly to us concerning what we hope to do when we get home. We pray for you all and know that our greatest blessings come from keeping the commandments and by loving our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son Jesus Christ. One thing that thrilled us in conference was the announcement of the Lisboa Temple. Our friends in Portugal have sent us emails saying that the tears are flowing throughout Portugal in thanksgiving for this blessing of a temple in their country. We wept as well at the announcement.

Busy Busy

It has been such a happy and busy time for us here in Madrid but our thoughts and prayers have been about all of you. We find ourselves thinking of things that are so meaningful and important in our lives. We feel that a prayer of gratitude is hardly adequate to express how much we love you all. Heavenly Father has a great plan for us all and it involves many tender moments and many challenges. We have experienced some tender moments lately that have helped us feel the spirit deeply and often. Our work together in the temple is sweet and at times very demanding. Dick is doing sealings in Spanish and also doing everything there is to do in the temple. He gets tired and needs to rest but recovers quickly which we are grateful for. He is constantly thinking of ways to improve his teaching in the MTC and tries so hard to relate to each missionary. They love him! As August draws to a close we have 120 people from Portugal here for the entire week. They are so happy to be here and come here to work so that means we will be working our heads off too. Our bed feels really good at nights. It is a blessing that some of them are workers themselves so we will have their help. This past Sunday Dick and I both taught our lessons in Spanish. It was quite stressful especially for me but we survived and were really glad when Sunday was over. We did okay and had help from the Lord and the missionaries themselves. They are kind and sweet and help us with the words that we don't know. It makes us stretch and that at times is painful. We will be getting missionaries from Italy and France and Portugal in the next few months so we are in for some stretching! Please keep us in your prayers. We need all the help we can get. It is great to know that we are all in this together. We need each other so badly! Keep close to the spirit and one another. Make phone calls, make visits, send emails and say prayers. We pray that the Lord is blessing you as you need and want. One thing we have learned through serving these missions if that the Lord has a time table that is different from ours. Patience is waiting on the Lord and his timetable.

Saying Goodbye

We just got back from saying goodbye to our group of missionaries. We are all emotional wrecks! We have such mixed emotions. Our elder from Britain will be here for 3 more weeks with our 7 new Spanish missionaries. We have so much to be grateful for and we have so much to have hope in. These young people are preparing to be the leaders of the future church. We have great confidence in them and love them. We have had the chance to learn many things about the intelligences, light and truth and other deep subjects concerning the gospel. What a treat for us! We will be happy to share with you what we can of what we are learning. The spirit teaches and we listen and learn. We are not sure if the spirit will travel through an email so we will have to wait until we get home to discuss very much of what we are learning. Sorry! We do know that what the MTC president tells the missionaries is true that they need to serve their mission, go home, get married, have kids, and have a current temple recommend, and stay active. We share this with you all. It isn't so very hard. Most of us are doing alot of the right things for the right reasons and are receiving many blessings. It is the enduring to the end and knowing that if things are not great right now that they will get better in the future that is hard for most of us. Keep trying, don't get discouraged, things will work out is the counsel we heard from our beloved prophet Gordon B. Hinckley. We know this is true. We had the French in the temple last week and will have the Italians and Portuguese this week. Tomorrow morning we will have 10 new people for their endowments.....lots of work! Yea and more Yea! Here are a couple of pictures. Hope you like them. They grow like trees...tall and handsome. One is from Idaho and the other is from Sweden.

Tapas

The time gets away from us so this is not exactely a weekly update this time. We have been working with our French, German, British and American missionaries and one from Tahiti for the last couple of weeks. It takes some time to get to know them but once we do we feel their goodness and faithfulness. They treat us so kindly and tell us that we are examples to them when in reality they inspire us daily. We have had a visiting area authority this week. He is from France. He served in Madrid as a Mission president back in the 80's. The Skousens realized that he was the mission president for their son-in-law Chris Jorgenson. The Skousens had a wonderful time visiting with Elder Paya and sharing things about Chris. We certainly live in a small world and a big church. The temple has been busy with many patrons from outside of Madrid because the Spanish people as a rule take their vacations very seriously so the Madrianos leave Madrid and the other . come to Madrid to be in the temple. We have had the people from Hospitalet and Barcelona. We had alot of work done this week. There is a custom in Spain of eating Tapas at about 5 or 6 in the evening. These are small treats but not sweet treats so for FHE last Monday we had everyone bring Tapas. What a grand time we had tasting all the different treats. I made sweet and sour meatballs and everyone of them was gone. Two things we want to share this week is a quote from our prophet and an experience we had. The quote is: " You can never be wrong when you do right and you can never be right when you do wrong." Our experience this time is when we finish our Sundays we look at each other and say, "It doesn't get any better than this." We love our Sundays and our days in the temple. What a fantastic time in our lives. Thank you all for your love and support. We couldn't be here doing what we are doing if we didn't have all of you in our lives. We love you all and pray that you are well and happy.

Segovia

Our week started off with a trip to see the city of Segovia. This is where there is the Roman Aqueduct that dates back over 2000 years. It is really an interesting site. We climbed to the top and got a bird's eye view of it. It stretched from the mountains down through the town and onto the famous castle that Disney used as their pattern for the Disneyland Castle. In this castle is the stained glassed window of our relative King Alfonso. It is really something! He is on a beautiful white horse dressed in his armor and carrying his huge spear. We saw the Cathedral and walked around looking and doing a little shopping. On the Metro going out 3 South Americans were being really friendly and by the time we were getting off they were trying to get stuff out of my old Segovia bag that I carry all the time. It doesn't have a zipper or any snaps so the darn thieves think I am an easy target. I was onto to them so they moved onto some other easy target but it made me want another bag from Segovia so I got a great new bag with a ZIPPER. After our trip we had a wonderful FHE listening to a CD that the Skousens brought on the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was really great. There are 13 CDs is all so we will have a wonderful time listening to them. We were busy in the temple this week and the MTC. Our missionaries are all leaving tomorrow. They are ready! We will have a little time with them tonight for last minute advice and treats. We had a small 24th of July lunch and shared Pioneer stories that helped us all feel a little less homesick for all the celebrations back home. All our missionary apartments are full right now so the work in the temple is humming along beautifully. We are always grateful when the saints from out of Madrid show up to work. One other thing I wanted to mention about the MTC was that a group of the misssionaries wanted to sing so they practiced and practiced with Dick. Yesterday morning(Sunday) one of the Italian sisters who was our sololist woke up with a major problem of bleeding gums. It reminded us of when Leslie had her problem with her tonsils. Pres. Earl took her to the ER and got medicine and she was able to sing beautifully for the fireside last night. The Lord is ALWAYS in charge is He not? We love seeing His hand in the lives of our missionaries and others. One of our Elders reminded us of Jory and Jared with a terrible ingrown toenail. He too received medical help and is ready to hit the streets tomorrow. They are great and we have confidence in them. Just a thought for all our Junior High grand kids. Michael Wilcox on BYU yesterday said that Jr. High is a hell created by Satan and that in their family all the kids receive their Patriarchal Blessings at age 13 to fortify them for their Jr. High years. It seems a little young for blessings but the part about Jr. High being tough is sooooo true. We are busy with housekeeping chores this morning and baking cookies for the missionaries and later we are off to see the Palacio Real. Have a great day, week and month. We were so happy to receive the email about Jory's ordination. Vance sent us the picture of the "Power Group". It definitely made our day. Hope the pictures come through so you can get a feel for some of the things we are doing.

Sherbet and singing italians

Our Luau turned out really well and was greatly enjoyed by everyone. We dressed in our matching Hawaiiian clothes and handed out leis to everyone yes we were part of the docorations. We had beautiful music from the islands playing in the background and lovely placemats decorated with flowers and beaches. We heard the Hawaiian Wedding Song sung by a sister missionary Sister Leonora Smith from Utah. Our president Moore gave a FHE lesson as well. The food was Kalua Pig(kindof) Sweet and sour Chicken over rice, Passion rice made with grape juice, lots of fresh fruit and Haupia which is a coconut dessert. We also had pineapple cake and sherbet and 7-Up. Great food and company. Our temple was busy all week and we experienced several "tender mercies". Our patrons come with such faith and desires to do as much as they can. Young couples with babies come and stay in the hostal. One comes to the temple in the morning and the other in the afternoon so that the baby is well cared for. Others come early in the morning at 8:00 and stay until 6 or 7:00. We enjoy trying to switch back and forth between the languages but we have difficulties doing this but they are very helpful because most of them know the temple work as well as we do. Our missionaries in the MTC go to the biggest park in Madrid every Saturday to practice contacting people. This last Saturday was very hard on them all. The people in the park were not friendly or willing to listen. We didn't know about their experiences in the park until after we gave our lessons in Relief Society and Priesthood on Discouragement. The Lord had directed us to choose to teach our lessons because that is what they needed to hear. We love the way the Lord works to accomplish His plans. We are just instruments in His hands if we pay attention and take the time to listen. Thank goodness we were listening because we choose our lesson topics ourselves. We had great music in the MTC on Sunday. Our two Italian Missionaries sang a beautiful duet of This is the Christ. Can all Italians sing?

Skousens in Sacrament and Luau

We have had a terrific week with our members from Portugal. They touch our hearts everyday with their willingness to work! They really are hard workers. We have a huge group of elders and sisters in the MTC right now. We have a brother and sister from Milan, Italy who are from Peru but have lived for 9 years in Italy. They will be serving in Rome. They speak Italian and a little Spanish. We have another sister from Rome and another elder from Rome. Today in Relief Society we had our lesson in English which was translated into Spanish by our Portuguese instructor. The Spanish was then translated into Italian by our young bishop's wife who is originally from Argentina but who lived for 4 years in Italy. It was so interesting but we wondered if it was alittle like the "whisper game". Our speakers for Sacrament meeting were the Skousens from Mesa. They were wonderful and really had the missionaries in the palms of their hands. The air conditioning has broken and our building is hot! Madrid is having very unusual weather again. Hotter than normal. The elders were hot but didn't complain a bit. They are learning to roll with the punches. Our fireside tonight was a conversion story by a couple from Valladolid. The have been members since 1978 and are fantastic. They gave the missionaries some really good advice. We are having our luau tomorrow night for all the temple missionaires. There will be about 40 of us and we will have it downstairs in the hostal dining room. I'll let you know how it all turns out....music, table decorations and food. We will be on the afternoon shift this week in the temple and will be working upstairs too. We really don't have time to waste but do love being here. We had dinner today with a couple from Queen Creek. They said that they lived in the Pecansomething or other area. Their name is Everhard. She speaks Spanish and Portuguese and he speaks Spanish. What a blessing they are to us. We pray all is well and that the Lord's blessings are with each of you. We do have time to miss our family and friends. You are the dearest things to us. A spiritual thought for the week is, " When you can't stand it anymore, kneel!"