ELDER BEDNAR visits Spain. . . . .

A couple of weeks back, Elder Bednar came to our mission (Espana, Madrid) and asked to be able to meet with all of the missionaries, so we all headed to Madrid, on Saturday the 14th of April, and had a three hour meeting with him in the chapel that is located on the Temple Grounds.  What a quick 3 hours that was!!

(Sorry that there are no pictures to verify, but it is a little squirrelly trying to take a picture in the chapel!!)

The first thing he said as he began his time with us, as he noticed all the missionaries bring out their pens and paper, to take notes, was to make a comparison between the large plates of Nephi and the small ones.  The large ones, he said, were confined to things mostly historical, and told us not to take notes like on the large plates--meaning that he did not want us to write a 'history' of the meeting--rather, he desired that we do something more likened unto the small plates, with a recording of the more spiritual things;  things that come into our minds as we listen.  The whole idea was to write down the things that aren't said, rather the things that are felt in the heart--the things that the Spirit whispers to us as we contemplate the proceedings of the meetings.

Made a lot of sense to me!

Before his coming to Spain, we were all sent 4 of his recent talks, to study, and learn, and prepare our minds and hearts to be taught by the Spirit.  Then, he spent almost the entire time asking us what we had learned (heard) during the study of the talks.  It was fun to be taught in this manner!  The time just flew.  One of his main objectives what to then get us to 'act' upon the things that the Spirit had already taught us.  Imagine that--learn something, then act upon it!   That seems to be one of his favorite things to talk about, lately, and it is sorely needed.  "Good meeting"!  Now, go home and DO something about what you have learned.  Seems to be a good practice for all of us to employ.

The meeting concluded by him inviting the missionaries the ask him anything they wanted to ask.
It took a little while, but then they began to have faith in his invitation, and the questions came.
Again, the time flew by much too quickly.  What a treat!  He is such a 'normal' person, but the spirit that emanated from his as he taught, left no one in doubt as to his Apostleship.


We probably have 4 of the best missionaries right now, than we have had the entire time we have been here.  They are busy teaching a lot of people, and they invite us to go with them every once in a while, to help with the teaching.  Also, our piso (apartment) makes a nice place for them to bring people to, so that the teaching environment is conducive of the Spirit.  We have been very busy also, trying to keep up with them.  It helps to make the time move on more rapidly, also.

Transfers come every six weeks.  Most of the missionaries keep track of time this way.  "I only have two more transfers." they will say, when you ask how much time they have left.  New missionaries come, and the older ones leave for home, every six weeks.  Hna. Bake and I have only between 2 and 3 transfers left.  We still don't know our exact release date yet, but that should be forthcoming, soon, we hope.  The missionaries are told their release date with about 5 months to go, so that if parents want to come and pick them up, they have time to plan for that event.  We will let you know.

We have been able to travel a little, (day trips, mostly) and have been able to see some real beautiful places so far.  We would like to spend a day at the beach (which, we are allowed to do!!), but the weather is warming up, and we have already had an experience that let us know that that is probably not a good idea!!  There are a lot of places (almost all of them) that have folks not fully clothed.  We were walking along one of our favorite places, not too long ago, and Hna. Bake said, "Don't look!"  Of course, I had to see what it was that I was not to look at, you know!!  Bad idea!!  Anyway, the beaches will probably be off-limits now--and we really wanted to take a dip in the ocean while we were here.  Maybe our branch president can direct us to a 'family' beach, and we will yet have that opportunity.

In the past month, we had the privilege of dedicating a new chapel
in A Coruna, the first real chapel in the Santiago District.
Hopefully, there will be more to come in the future.

There are 27 parking spaces in the basement, and four more
outside, on the property.  What a blessing that is, as parking
 is a beast here.

A chapel that will seat 170 people!  It is hard to imagine needing that many seats here.  Most of the branches are now around 30-40 people.  Seeing this chapel gives the small branches hope that they will grow. Ground was broken in Vigo for their chapel.  Santiago, when "grown up" will be the Stake Center.  We have the ground, just need more people to come.

The back yard, complete with a combo soccer/basketball court.

Yep, that's my car!  And I was the last one to park!  I have often
wondered, when I have seen stuff like this, that the guy in the
middle must have parked there first, and then the others came
and hemmed him in .  Not So!!!!!  It can be done!!  I have almost'
graduated to real Spaniard when it comes to parking.  I am just
not sure if that is a good thing, or not!!

Sometimes our GPS takes us to places, that I swear are not
where we should be going.  4-Wheeling, anyone?

Storms comin' in!!

On the plains, between Galicia and Madrid:  the canola fields
are ahead of where we are in the US.   They roll on for
miles and miles.  And. . . Julie Andrews was so wrong--the rain
in Spain stays mainly in Galicia, not in the plains!!

This is a famous rock in the little coastal town of Muxia
(pronounced   MooSheUh)  (it's Gallego)

When the tide is high, the waves cause this rock to ROCK!!, if
you know what I mean?  Tourists, and other normal people, have
their pictures taken under the rock.

This chapel in Muxia, is the chapel of the Virgen of the Boat.
There is a big celebration here every September, when the priest
blesses the fishing boats that leave from this harbor,so they will
be safe in their endeavors.  Muxia is on the coast that they call
La Costa da Morte  (The coast of Death).  The storms can get
pretty wild here.

Muxia, from the parking lot.

The street of the 'barca'

One of our recent transferred Elders wanted to have a good P-day prior to moving out, so we took him and his companion to the far northeaster coastline of Galicia, to a place called the Playa de las Catedrales.  (the beach of the cathedrals).  The 'cathedrals' are a bunch of huge rock formations, just off the coastline, that are pretty impressive.  What follows is a picture tour of our outing.

Before dropping down to the beach.  Elder Hendrix, on my left,
and Elder Trassierra (from Spain).  Love these Elders!

Going here at low tide allows you to walk among the cathedrals.
Otherwise, you see them from above.

If there is water near, she has to get in it!!!  Love her!!

I always look wind blown!

This beautiful 'shrubbery' grows everywhere.  Look closely, though,
and you can see how nasty it is.  It will rip your lips off!!!, or
your legs, or ankles, or arms!!

We had heard that Lugo, one of the cities in our district, had some neat Roman walls that a person needed to explore.  We had to do some piso inspections (all the pisos in our district) so we built in some extra time to try to explore those walls.  We did not build in nearly enough time to do the job correctly, but enough to show you what is there.  We will return another day and do a better job.

These walls are some of the oldest in Spain.  The type of rock used
and the manner of the  construction will tell you that.

Every place has its own cathedral--and they are magnificent!!

The city sprung up both inside and outside the walls.  

It was kind of a hazy day, but you can still see the length of
just one of the four sides of the walls.  Pretty impressive!!

Wannabe!!!

For whatever reason, I don't know, they depict Santiago-
the Apostle James- as riding a horse.  Here in Lugo. this is
the official beginning spot of the Camino (the way) to Santiago.

One last fun thing before ending this epistle.  We found a new park one P-day and spent an hour or so there, just enjoying the solitude and beauty.  On the way out, Hna. Bake called my attention to this dark, black thing, in the pathway.  We had to get down real close to it to be able to tell exactly what it was.  This has got to be the largest SLUG I have ever seen in my life!!

Hna. Bake's hand, just for scale!!

Lunch anyone??

Can't end on something that ugly!!  They really have a ton of
cool plants and flowers here.   Hna. Bake tells me this is Bottlebrush.

, 

Holy Week. . . . .and more "stuff"

Easter, when celebrated here, lasts an entire week!   For obvious reasons, they label it the Holy Week.
Little processions take place on almost every day of the week, somewhere in town.  They begin by honoring  what we refer to as the "Triumphal Entry" into Jerusalem.  We had plans go see one of the processions each day, but were too busy to get to them all, thanks to having Missionary Work to do!!!
The one we finally got to see took place on Thursday, the night of the Last Supper.  We had hoped to feel something of the sacredness of the event, but the way it unfolded just left us a little 'lost'.  Not to be critical in any way, but the procession was more dark, and gloomy, somber and not as uplifting as we had hoped.  That's our problem, I guess, for not knowing the customs of the day.

Notice that all the participants have covered their faces with this
hooded robe.  We investigated and found out that they volunteer
as part of a penitence process, and thus keep their identities secret.

They marched, in a real slow step, to the beat of a single drum.
The entire process was not very long, but it took a real long time
to pass by the crowd because of the slow, measured way in
which they marched.

Christ, of course, is one of the central figures.

We assumed that this represented the resurrected Christ, since it
was an empty cross.

The last, and arguably the grandest, of all the figures, was this
one of the Virgin Mary.  In this culture, she is revered almost
as much as is Christ.

One of the things that I did really like, was the celebration during an entire week.  It made the Resurrection Sunday even more special for me personally, because we had been thinking and pondering for a whole week, and not just the Sunday of the Resurrection.  That part of the way they do it was a huge improvement for me.  I really appreciated it!!

As mentioned above, the celebrations last the entire week.  There is no school held during the Holy Week. Maybe they treat it like our Spring Break, who knows?   Families get together and have a a big family dinner, especially on the Thursday evening.  Sunday, the actual day of the resurrection, we did not notice any big festivities going on, but of course, we were in church, so it would have been easy for us to miss it.

Compared to where we live in Idaho, this has to be one of the mildest winters I have ever experienced, except for the time I spent in Uruguay, right on the coast.  As I watched the forecast each night, to see how low the temps would go overnight, I realized, part way through the winter, that we had not had even one night of a freezing temperature!!!!  And so it went.  YEA!@!!!  Then, what do we do?  We go visit a family that lives closer to Lugo, and they think it would be a fun idea to go to the snow!!!!!   WHY?, I said to myself.  But, we had with us that day a young lady, student from Mexico, and member of our branch (for the semester, at least) who had never seen snow before.  So. . . we went to the snow.

Can't see it yet, but we are closing in on it!

Awe, there's some of that stuff, that I don't miss!!

At this point, I was getting nervous!!  One lane, really!!
But, we survived.

Big, deep canyons!!  If you are a hunter, you might just notice
something of interest in this shot!!

There it is!!!  Probably the closest I will come to one, at least
on this mission.  These tracks belong to the elusive "corzo",
the Corsican deer,  a diminutive little creature, with single curving
horns, that do not branch.  They might weigh 90 pounds!!

Hermana Bake stayed in the car!!   SMART!!

The little place, up in the hills, where we turned around,,, finally!!

On the way out, our friend took us past this old Roman Fort,
which now resides in private ownership.  Cool!!
Not sure why they had this one, clear out in the boonies!

Our branch president's wife is a tireless genealogy hound!  They (she) lives in her ancestral home, where she was born and raised.  After spending almost 30 years in Switzerland (because they could find work there--not unlike a ton of people from Spain) they felt the Spirit prompting them to 'go home'.  They responded.  This little village, about 70 kilometers from Santiago, has a Catholic Parrish that has kept records from all the baptisms and marriages that transpired in the village.  She had tried, on many occasions, to be able to go there and to look, and to record, but the old Priest just had a little stubborn streak that would not allow it to happen.  Then, a miracle occurred.  A young Priest replaced the aging man, and when she (Marite) (accent over the  'e') went to see if she could copy dates, names and such, he allowed it.  Then, the greater miracle!--he was going to be gone for a time, and she was anxious to keep working on the extraction of the data, so. . . . . he actually invited her to take the book home with her!!!  He had seen her diligence, and knew she would take good care of it.

You can see the dates.   This book is full of the names of her
relatives.

Tons of baptism dates!

Besides working on here genealogy, they are also in  the process of renovating their very own old stone house.  Currently, they live with her brother, in the old homestead home, but on that property, their is another old stone home, that could be remodeled to accommodate their family.  What follows is a picture story of the work so far:

Outside view after the old stone was washed up.

The stone building on the left was the look of the other building
before the washing of the stone.

Hard to see in the photo, but there is a layer of foam
insulation between the old stone and the newer brick.  Notice that
the brick has hollow spaces in it--lending itself to more insulating
value.

These two walls they will repair and keep the stone exposed.

Hna. Bake, Marite (Maria, Teresa), Elders Trassierra, and Hendrix.
The old stone oven, in  the background, will remain, as well as
the open, stone well, just to the left of the oven.  You can remove a lid,
dip a cup down the well about 6 feet, and get water!!!

Men at  work!!  This brick is then 'finished' with a layer of troweled
'grout'' or 'cement', or whatever they choose to  do the finish work.

And now, a little more on the Camino.  Below, find an assortment of some of the signs along 'The Way'.

This is to warn those who are driving, that there is a 'crossing'
coming up, and you should be on the alert for the Peregrinos.

Peregrino!!!

Actual crossing sign.  

Some of the signs are real subtle!!

Hna. Bake just loves these old fountains!!

Seems like the 'locals' love them also!!

Our local full-time missionaries are really keeping us busy these days.  They invite us to go with them to teach.  We actually take a part of a lesson and then at the end, bear testimony of the truths of what has been taught.  Sometimes then need us to drive them so a lesson, when they can't get there soon enough.  The little car comes in handy for a lot of that, and we are putting the miles (kilometros) like crazy!!  I also teach classes to the teachers of 4 of the eight units, to help them to improve their methods and effectiveness.  Three of those units are at least an hour's drive away, so we get to see plenty of the countryside.  We do stay busy these days, and the time is moving along swiftly.  Yesterday, the 13th of April, we just completed the one year mark!  We will be home before we know it!

Take care--be good--and keep praying for the success of the missionaries world-wide.

We will be back with another installment of the blog, in the not-too-distant future.  I promise not to delay so long between this one and the next one.

Elder and Hna. Bake