Piso cleanng and some fun pictures.

You've wanted to see some of the pisos we've been cleaning. Here is one. This is the 2nd bath that Delwyn fixed but couldn't get the toilet fixed until the next Monday. He got it done and now they have another good toilet. This is a very small bathroom. The tub is what you see. It isn't big at all. You can sit on the toilet, wash your hands in the sink and clean your feet in the tub all the same time.

The main bathroom. It is bigger. The toilet paper is up there because Delwyn had to fix the paper holder and it still was drying.

This is their study room and their living room. All the cupboards in the back had very thick dust on them. We swept and mopped and dusted everything.

The other side of the living room. It is a really big room for here in Spain.

The kitchen looks much different than it did. The Elder helped me clean. I cleaned the freezer, refrigerator, oven, all the top cupboards and he cleaned the bottom bupboards and the drawers. The walls needed washed and I cleaned the stove top. The sack on the door is how the Elders do garbage. When it is full, they just take it out to the dumpsters. They have many sacks and no garbage baskets. This works for them.

The closet in their bedroom. The doors were really bad, I dusted them and they look so much better. Their vacuum doesn't work well. Not many have carpet in their pisos. This one should be replaced. It was thread bare.

The other side of their bedroom. You can see out their patio.

Elder Raban turned 21 Tuesday, so we bought him a couple of ice cream cakes to celebrate. He is one of the Assistance here. It was their p-day, that is why he is dressed the way he is.

Last p-day, President gave them permission to visit the huge soccer stadum and go on a tour. They each found a soccer shirt to ware. Elder Hadley and Elder Parry are the models of these shirts. They actually had a lot of snow last year. I'm not sure if they had a while Christmas though.

Standing: Elder Morales, Elder Bowers, Elder Hadley, Elder Rhead

bottom: Elder Raban, Elder Parry, and Elder Southwick.

The missionaries were in the office last week while I was trying to clean for our Authorities. While they were there, they gave each other these back rubs. They do it in a chain. I thought it would be fun to take their pictures. However, I only got this of Hermana Johns. The other Hermanas are behind her.

The Elders in their chain, Elder Parry sitting, Elder Lara, Elder Atkin, Elder Auerkamp, Elder Ames and Elder Pynes. They always seem to be enjoying themselves no mater what they are doing.

Elder Cairns was going home, so this is how he gave me a hug. He is from Scottland. He speaks English very well, but with a huge accent. We love him, he was in the Bilbao Mission with us. It is always a little special for us when the old Bilbao Missionaries come into the office.

The night before the Missionaries go home and the New Missionaries go into the field, they go down to the Rambla and sing. While they sing, many people stop and listen and take pictures. The Missionaries go out in the crowd and contact them. It is really fun to be a part of that.

The missionaries you see are some that were going home the next day. In the middle is President Hinckley. He has a beautiful voice. Elder Cepeda, second from the right, was also one of our Bilbao Missionaries. He was from here in Spain.

This is a better picture. Right to left: Elder Johnson, Elder Cepeda, Elder Morales, President, Elder Lindsey, and Hermana Camarero. Elders Cepeda, Morales and Hermana Camarero were all from Spain. Elder Morales left a transfer early because he had to go to Medical School.
He was an Assistant when we got here. He is a brilliant man. He learned English during his mission and he was really good. Now he has to learn Catalan because the school he is going to only teaches in Catalan. The schools here in Barcelona all speak Catalan.

Our trip to Zaragoza

On the road to Zaragoza, I took this picture of a hill side with old structures on them. I'm not sure if anyone lived in them or not. The one on the left certainly doesn't.

We finished cleaning the Elders piso and we wanted to see at least one thing in the city. This is a huge Cathedral in Zaragoza. This is at an angle as we were going to see it.

We went by some pools. The one on the top you can't see well. It is right under the design at the top of the picture. Kids were actually playing in it. Quite interesting here in Spain how relaxed they are in somethings.

This is the left side of the Cathedral. You see the scaffolding on the far left. They seem to be always fixing or refreshing the Cathedrals here in Spain. They are so old, I guess they would have to.

This is the very front of the building. The people and the tables and chairs actually belong to little bars, restaurants here. I am sure this is pretty popular because it is across from the Cathedral. There are thousands of these restaurants here in Spain. Usually there are 1-2 on every street. They all seem to do good business too.

This is the far right and also the enterance to the Cathedral. Inside was really ornate. I thought of the Book of Mormon where they described the money and show in the abomnable church. It was really beautiful and very detailed. We couldn't take pictures though. I would have really liked to have. There was a lot of gold leafing and silver in there. They have a guard probably to protect everything and keep us from taking pictures. You could see people using their cell phones taking pictures. There were many people there that were praying and touching the legs of the Savior and crossing themselves. They are very spiritual in there.
This chapel is just down the court yard in front of the Cathedral. The court yard was well taken care of.
On our way home, I wanted to show you the difference between here and Bilbao. It is much dryer here. These are houses built out of a huge rock.
A Chapel built on top of a hill. There are many around here like that. See how dry it is. It reminds me of Arizona. We are just not as hot.
Just another structure here on the hill.

Visit to the Barcelona Aquarium

We were walking to the Aquarium and I wanted to show you how blue the Mediterranean Sea is. It is really clear too. Very pretty.

The enterance to the aquarium. They water all these plants with rain water that they have saved. In Las Arenas they wouldn't have to save rain water, but it doesn't rain as much here. Since we have been here, I think it has rain 3 times and each time they were really hard rains.

There is a huge aquarium in the middle of the whole thing. You get on a moving sidewalk that takes you all the way around. I wasn't supposed to have my flash on, but whenever I turned it off, it came back on for the next picture. I don't know why unless it was dark and automatically did it. So I tried to watch after that. This is a big shark. There were thousands of different kinds of fish, but not as fun as in the smaller aquariums.

Here is an eel coming at us. Sure glad there was a glass between us.

Here is a stingray. You can't see him very well, I though I had a better picture. Sorry!

The famous octopus. They are very fun to watch. They slither around with all 8 legs. With all 8 legs, they move very fast. I don't know if I'd be so coordinated.

Sorry, I don't remember what kind these are, but I like the many colors.

Same display as the top, but some different fish.

I think these are so very interesting. They are call dinosaur fish. They look like like a dinosaur too. They are pretty small one, however.

I had to take a picture of Nemo. He didn't talk to me. At least I couldn't hear him.

This picture shows a lot of coral. Most of this coral is still alive and moves around like it is in a wave. Plus that pretty little fish. I don't know his name.

Here are some jelly fish. There were so many in that tank, I didn't know how they moved around.

Here we are in all our glory. I'm not sure how that got between these two pictures. We are standing by a boat dock. The bridge slides in and out when boats come in. I don't know if they do it each time one comes in or if there is a set time for it to do it. While we were on it, it actually blew the horn and soon the bridge started moving out. They give you time to get off, and they close the bridge when they do it.

This is another type of Jelly fish. He looks like a mushroom to me.