Castillos in Cadiz

It was a long week in the office this week.  I learned another few steps in dealing with insurance to pay for missionary needs.  I may get the hang of this by the end of the mission.  Of course they will likely change things by then.  My companion, (I never know if I should call him Elder Castillo or Rod. I am trying to remember to say Elder Castillo when I talk to the Elders but it is hard.) Anyway, he has been working on getting the referal manager to work for us, plus we have started recieving names of missionaries coming in Oct.  Then we got our order of supplies but there was a mistake.  We got 450 copies of 1 DVD when we ordered 200, and didn't get any of 2 others that we ordered, plus we are missing 2 boxes of copies of the bible and triples that were marked sent.  ???  Still, I guess when you think of all the stuff they send out, it is amazing more errors don't happen.  That may be why we have cases of pamphlets in Russian??   We will eventually use all of the DVDs, but the russian stuff may get 'lost'....  It is too expensive to ship back and we just have to have the space. Know anyone in need of Russian pamphlets?  Rod has also been working on President's interview schedual and temporary housing arrangements for when we get 32 new missionaries at once, plus send 13 home. (Don't forget, each new missionary has a trainer that comes to get his or her comp.)  President will be BEAT after interviewing all of them. (This is in 2 weeks) The other fly in the ointment is that the day after the new ones get here is a bank holiday, all the government offices that we need for our residency work are closed.  Sing with me...."We will over come...some daaaay".  We will be working this week to get the new apartments their supplies and safety equipment.  Sooo glad it isn't like in England.  Here almost all the apartments come fully furnished, including kitchen ware.  There they must buy everything.  Of course here we have to keep track of what is ours and what belongs to landlords.  All my trials Lord. (that is from a song too, for you youngsters) We also cleaned our part of the chapel, Rod prepared his talk for sacrament meeting, which he was conducting, and practiced the songs he could play, though Sister Spainhower came so he was off the hook for playing piano.  Yea.  He did a nice job on his talk by the way.
Well, for a break in the month and to promote Senior Couple Sanity  friendships (they invited us to come visit 3-4 times), we took a trip to Rota (on the atlantic coast) to visit the Todds.  They are the church liason couple for the American military base there.  We got to see their beautiful little town and then spent Saturday with them showing us  around Cadiz.  That one will be on your maps people.  It is right where the Mediteranean runs into the Atlantic. It is an ancient town, inhabited for over 3,000 years, with layers of buildings, one on top of the ruins of another in some areas, going back to Roman times.
I will start with photos of the drive there, then photos of Rota

This is hilly country and as you can see, windy.  I loved the purple sheen on the hills.

The Land of Don Quixote!



I think it is a sort of clover

It takes me a long time to load photos onto the blog so, even though I wrote this on Sunday, I am still trying to finishe it on Wed.

We drove for 2 1/2 hours, and arrived to find this view across the street from the Todds' apartment.  Tough life huh?

After a delicious dinner that Sister Todd made for us, they took us on a walk around 'their' town.

That is sister Todd with the camera.

This is the bell tower. 

We wandered over to see their 'town center' and came across a wedding just finishing.

They shoot off these tubes filled with confetti.  It looked so cool!

She was so beautiful.

The wedding was in their town hall which used to be the 'palace' of the Duque (Duke).

 I was so impressed with this ceiling

This is the courtyard.

I love the arches looking up a stairway.

We loved this painting, especially the horse.

They are artists with ceramic tile here.  This comemorates the visit of the King and Queen.  Look at the name of the castle.

 

That courtyard at sunset.

 

A door through the city wall.

I have a dozen photos of this sunset.  So gorgeous!

Sister Todd

Elder Allan Todd.  We sure smiled when we learned his first name.



This piece of sandstone is on their 'board walk'.  The Todds saw  flaminco dancers being filmed during one of their walks.  A member found the film on Youtube.

Well, the computer doesn't want to add any more photos.  Maybe that is a sign that I should save the Cadiz photos for another post.  These have all been in Rota.  I hope we get to go again, maybe when we are allowed to swim and sit on the beach.