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.