Monday, May 31, 2010

New and Old missionaries & The Martinez's

Elders Reist, Woolsey, Plaskett, Blatter, and Hadley. They are telling Elder Hadley where he will be serving. Elder Stock got cut off in this picture. They are all looking so eager for their calls.
The Elders are enjoying their time even if it is an anxious time for them.

Elder Dredge is giving them their directions. He tells them the route they will take where they stop but never comes to the actual city until they are on pins and needles. They love to do that to the poor Elders. These are our two Assistance. Elder Dredge and Elder Woods. Elder Dredge is pointing to where the office is.
President is enjoying what the Elders are going through to finally get their place of service. They look like they are going to be a good batch of Elders. We have been really blessed in getting Elders that are excited about their call and ready to get out there and work. It is such a blessing to be in the middle of all of this. Some times it doesn't feel like we are even working. We have such a good time.
Exciting times here in the Spain Bilbao Mission. We got 6 new Elders. We have lost so many, it is really great to have some reinforcements. Here the Elders are waiting to hear where they will be serving. Of course, the Assistance draw it out as long as they can and make it really interesting for us who are watching. But the Elders are ready and waiting.
Going for left to right. First you see President enjoying this touchier they are giving the Elders. Elder Stock, Elder Reist, Elder Woolsey, Elder Blatter, Elder Hadley, You can't see Elder Plaskett in this picture.
Now you can see Elder Plaskett in the far left corner. He is here in Las Arenas with Elder Woods. Elder Woods is one of the Assistance, but when the mission is dissolved, he will just be Elder Plasketts trainer, along with being one of the great missionaries. I am impressed with Elder Woods, because Elder Woods is teaching him just as though he wasn't one of the Assistance. President wanted things to be a normal as possible. The Assistance used to study in their office here in the Mission Office. But Elder Woods & Elder Plaskett stay in their piso and study. Elder Dredge, who is the other Assistant comes in the office with the Secretaries to study.
Elder Reist, the second from the left is now going through the torture. You can tell by the way he is seated. By now, all the other Elders have their assignments.
With the new Elders coming in, there are always the old ones going home. Elder Smith on the left. We really got to know him really well. A very great Elder we are going to miss. Also, two other great missionaries, but I didn't know them as well. Elder Nestvogel in the middle is from Germany and Elder Sayaz is a native missionary. He doesn't speak much English, so our conversations were very limited.
Here we are again with our friend Elder Smith from Taylorsville, Utah. Maybe we will see him again some day soon.
We picked up Edna and Ray and Tony, Val and Troy at the airport on Wednesday. They have been so busy finding relatives that we weren't able to see them until Saturday. Which is really just fine. It is so excited to hear about their success while they are here. This is a Church in a small town of Amoroto. His grandmother very well could have gone to church here. You can see Edna, Tony, Ramon and Val.
div> The whole family. Troy, Edna, Tony, Ramon, and Val

We got a picture of us on the other side of the Chapel.
Here is the baptismal font that was in the back corner of the Chapel
Also, while we were there, Tony went into one of the local pubs and started talking with a man. Tony read a list of some of his diciest relatives, and before you know it, he was taking us out to one of the relatives place. The man on the left is a man that is related to Ramon. The lady in the middle is his wife. We didn't get their names. But this is how their week has gone. They have met over a 100 relatives. They found people that shouldn't have been where they were at the time. They have had doors to Churches open that are usually closed. They were able to get into a Church and a lady showed them the past records of their relatives. Including a Sister of his grandmother who he couldn't find her birth date. Everything was there for him. They have been so blessed.

I took this quote from one of Ramon's e-mails to us. "It has truly been miraculous (well beyond coincidence) that the people we have found have been right there where we ended up arriving to in so many cases. We have really been blessed to have so many details come together just right."
Troy, Ramon's son said, "You couldn't swing a cat around without hitting a family member."

3 comments:

Teresa said...

Love all the pictures....oh my, how sweet the Elders looked waiting for their assignments.
Glad you are doing well and enjoying everything.
Happy Day

heidi said...

looks like there has been lots going on. hope the new elders are great. and i'm sure it's been fun to have ray and edna and their family there, too bad you don't get to spend lots and lots of time with them.

that baptismal font is so cool looking, so crazy!

Danette said...

It it so good to have a good set of missionaries come in - in this transition time. It must be torture for the missionaries as they wait through so much to see where they will be serving. I think it is quite funny though. I am so grateful that the Martinez's had so much success. Now if we could have the missionaries go in and work on some family conversions. That would be even more cool. I'm so glad you got to see family!! More beautiful pictures of my parents - YEAH!!