Two weeks later...

I really should not miss a week.  I can never remember that far back.  I know that we did the residency work for some of our new missionaries.  They are so cute, delighted to be able to speak English and be able to relax a bit after a week of putting their all into this work.  If you have ever tried to learn a language, you will remember the 'tried brain' feeling that comes from spending so much time so focused.  They are trying so very hard.  Every one is just delightful. It is good to be reminded how discouraging it is to begin with too.  It has been so much easier for me this time around just recognizing the stages of learning and knowing that the hard parts do pass.
 We had district meeting at the chapel and Rod did a very short time management lesson for them that really caught their attention.  I am rather amazed at how they are trying everything he suggests.  He is such a great teacher. We were able to spend a little time hopefully cheering up a member of our branch who is having a very tough time not having any work for way too long. We got to have 6 missionaries stay the night.

It is fuzzy but this little guy was in the kitchen so the Elders captured him for me and released him' into the wild' of the patio. Much nicer than a mouse in the house.

 I fixed them pancakes for breakfast but I am a little worried that they will start competing to stay here rather than the mission home so that may not happen in the future.  The Deeres just can't do big breakfasts for the huge groups they have, especially since they are feeding them dinner the night before, and often lunches on two days.  One other thing we did that week on one of our trips to Malaga was stop at a fabric store and buy material for a bed spread and headboard. I just hemmed the material for the bedspread.  We really like it.  It is kind of cool, they have lots of fabric that is 280 cm  (almost 3 yards) wide.  I almost never see that at home. 
Fri night we had our date night dinner at a restaurant near the bull ring. The food was wonderful, Rod said it was the best piece of meat he has had in Spain.  The elders ask now what our date night plans are.  I expect they will try to follow that tradition too after seeing it work for us.

Mine was delicious too, but I loved the presentation of the meat on the skewer. Yummy. The photos in the background are all of bull fights, bull fighters and their homes... all old.  It is a lost era now.



For our Pday on Sat. we went to the botanical gardens. We used to drive past the sign for it when we lived in Malaga and I always wanted to see it, so we went.  It was beautiful.  There are lots of photos.  I will post a few.

This is a type of yucca but super big as you can see.

We aren't used to such big trees.

 

You asked for more photos with me in them, so here you are.  I loved the view of the city of Malaga from here.

Roots fascinate me, especially huge ones like these.

This last week I made up packets for the new missionaries that are coming next month.  Rod is trying to get the baptism records caught up.  The forms  are often not complete  (Elders how can you mess up something so important?) and that means calls to get the rest of the info.  He has also been working on finding records for a couple of people whose records are lost or were never recorded.  One guy they have a photo, and contacted the missionary that did the baptism a couple of years ago.  The other was in the 1980s  in Peru.  She had been inactive but started back and wanted to go to the temple.  When they were trying to set that up they discovered there wasn't a record of her baptism.???  There is a process though.  What a church.  It has to be true or the missionaries would have ruined it long ago. 
I think it was Tue after 'work', we 'built' our headboard.  We got a piece of masonite and covered it with batting stapled on fabric, then mounted it on the hooks the landlord has in the wall already,  It looks good!
Thur we went to the post office in the afternoon.  The lines are usually much shorter in the afternoon, but that day we waited over 1/2 an hour.  We almost gave up as I was supposed to go help with a RS project but we waited, which was our minor miracle, because when we got back to the office, the elders were all gone but there was a lady waiting for the APs.  She is one of their investigators that they forgot was coming.  Since we were there, we got to teach her.  She is ready to be baptized, so we talked about that.  It was kind of exciting to get to teach.  I hope she makes it.  She works as a cook in a restaurant and has to work Sundays.  You know how hard that is.  Then when we got to the RS project, it turned out I had the wrong day, so it was good that we didn't skip the line at the post office and miss teaching our lesson. ( we have been praying for missionary experiences)
 Another thing I have been working on is getting  Elders seen by  doctors.  It is way harder than it should be to get things okayed by the insurance and paid for by them so we don't have the fuss of arranging payment directly but so far it is more work to have the insurance do it.
We had the Wilsons come in on Fri to finish their residency, then they stayed the night with us and then we left early Sat AM for Cordoba. 

Rod had seen an advert (that is British for advertisement) for these patio garden contests they have there and decided that the couples should all go see them  together.  Well the other 2 couples had health issues so we went with the Wilsons and had a wonderful time.  Pres. said we should see this place called La Mezquita (I am sure you can find it on the Internet) so we started with that and it was truly amazing.  It started out as a mosque, was added onto several times, then the Christians came and built a cathedral inside of it.  They figure it can hold 40.000 people and it could.  It is just huge.  The arches are fascinating and the mosaics are fabulous.  We loved it.  We ended up spending most of our time and energy looking at that.

You get a glimpse of the size here if you realize that these arches continue past the red square at least as far as you see in front of it.

These arches are famous

Notice the column's textures.  The red is alabaster (I think)

These arches facinated me.  Behind this one you see a mosaic.  The stone is carved into such amazing designs.

 The lines were long enough that we decided not to do the tour of the patios after all.  I did find energy to do some shopping and found a ...you guessed it.... a new nativity. 

 

We had a wonderful time but were very tired when we got home.  That was bad in a way because over the weekend we had 3 missionaries in hospital or ERs, plus one whose brother died.  A long stressful weekend.  So far, everyone is doing better, and I did get some rest.  Ahhh!

I want to post lots more photos but I must get to bed. Maybe tomorrow?