Santander and Sansebastian Trip

This is a picture of Elder Holmes on the right, Elder C. Hansen, the tall one and me and Delwyn at the very front of the entrance to the Christ Statue. I'll tell you more latter. I got this picture from Elder Holmes after I had entered my pictures. We were tired after hiking for about an hour. But it was sure fun and worth the work. It was such a perfect day for hiking.

On our trip to Madrid to the temple, we stopped on our way home at this hotel so everyone including the driver could have a break. I had to get a picture of it just for Alisa. It was dark, so you can't see much except the name.

Here is the picture of the Hotel Alisa, If you make this bigger, you can see the name better. But, Alisa, I did this just for you. Our family will appreciate it. Now you know for sure your name is Spanish.

Fun picture of the group at our Bilbao Zone Conference. We were finished and tired.

This missionaries are in the Bilbao District. Elders B. Hanson, Roldan, the Zone leaders, Harmana Patten, Sandoval and Elders Cepeda and Araya.

Here we are in the Las Arenas District: Elder Woods, Ashby, Delwyn, Flo, Elder Dredge our Assistance, Elder Ashby will be leaving us this next week, and Elder Holmes our Financial Secretary and Elder C. Hansen our (Show Man) Secretary. I'm not sure what that means. But that is what he said was his title. He actually does a lot with the residency cards, plus much more. They both work really hard and do such a great job.

Of Course, I have to get the Hermanas: Sandoval, Patten, Belnap, Clegg, Johns and Miskin. They are my sweethearts.

We are here on our Trip to Santander. We cleaned 2 pisos there. But I saw this flag of Spain and I needed a picture of it. The wind was blowing great so you can see the flag. This place is called Magdalena because that mean muffin. The land is a little peninsula that look like a muffin. They have many fun things on it.

Here are the seals. They were having a lot of fun. When every they would jump out, I'd try to get a picture, but it never worked. But I got all five of them in one picture here.

These 3 ships were something but we weren't sure so we called them the Pinta, Nina and the Santa Maria. Don't quote me on this. We were having fun.

Just a pretty picture of the ocean. It was pretty windy so there were some nice waves.

By the 3 sail boats, there was a Spanish House Boat. I'm sure it was a few years old though. Maybe 100 plus years. Pretty quaint.

As we climbed to the top of the hill we found this gorgeous Castle where the King of Spain and his family lived many years ago. I don't know what is in it now. This is the back of it. This must be the servants entrance.

The front, isn't this beautiful. I would have loved to know the history of this. This is another draw back in not knowing the language. At least they keep this looking very pretty. We could house all our family and their families and never see each other for a week.

Just off the coast there on the hill.

As we were driving home, we saw this light house so we had to get a picture of us in front of it.

Now we are in San Sebastian. We are only about 25 miles from France. This is a very beautiful Cathedral in San Sebastian. There is a parking garage under it, so we see it every time we go to San Sebastian. The parking here in Spain is next to nothing. So we take advantage of what ever parking we can find.

The famous Christ Statue in San Sebastian. This was a fun hike to the top. I did get my exercise that day. Which I needed.

San Sebastian is one of the most pretty cities here in Spain. It also has more to see than most of them. A beach in town.

As we were walking, I took this picture of this island. How would you like to live up on the top of that. I think if that was my house, I'd have made it much bigger. Maybe after the island, that was all they could afford. Actually, I don't even know if that is a house or not.

We are now on the top by the Statue of Christ. I took this picture because I thought it was so pretty. If you look real close, you can see the Cathedral where we left the car and walked up here. Not a small hike for this old lady. In the very middle you can see a black pointy building. That is the Cathedral.

More pictures of San Sebastian. You can see the Cathedral better here. I think the city is so pretty and clean. More modern than some of the cities.

We climbed up through the bottom of the Statue in a Chapel. It is more of a museum now.

If you can read this, you will know what this is all about. Someday, I'll be able to read this and I'll know too. That is why I took this picture.

That plaque was by this cannon so I think maybe it had to do with it in some way. There were many cannons around so this must have been some battle ground or fort of some sort. Wish I could tell you more.

Just more pictures to show you the city

Looking over the ocean.

I had to get this picture of Delwyn.

Here we are in front at the top of the Statue of Christ.

As we were walking down, the Elders locked us up. I'm glad they were able to get us out of there.

After we had come down from the hill, we passed by this Catholic Chapel. I just wanted you to see the detail that they put in these old Building. I think they are so amazing.

The front door and more detail.

Santiago Trip

Some of my favorite missionaries going home. What a great group of Elders. We will miss them so very much and the hard work they did while they were here in Spain. Elder Barber (he was in the office when we came into the mission. He is from Oklahoma. Elder Garcia from Tucson, Elder Johnstun from Washington state, Elder Harris from Sacramento, CA, Elder Alvarez from New Jersey. Del and Flo. Elder Alveraz has his new Spanish suit on. Looks good. Dad actually bought a new suit also.

This is just one of the many Pueblos here. They are all mostly in the valley by the mountains.

This is on the right side of probably the most famous Cathedral here in Spain. This is where St. Peter is buried. It is really beautiful. It really could use a sand blasting done to it and it would be so gorgeous.

This is the left side. In the back by the building with all the flags, a man was cutting wood with an ax. I thought, don't they have chain saws here?

Here we are in front of it. We look really bad. We just finished cleaning 2 pisos and we had to run up the hill because we were in such a hurry. It was 5:00pm and we had a 7 hr. drive a head of us.

I wish you could see the details on this Cathedral. Here in Spain, people walk clear across Spain once a year to do a pilgrimage to Santiago. They come to this Cathedral. You can see them walking as you drive down the freeway. They have a special trail just for that. They are much better than I would be. I'd drive.

This is just a Catholic Church by the Cathedral. I thought it was interesting. I wonder how old these building are? We didn't have time to find out.

We are climbing up the hill to the Cathedral. I was way behind, so I ran up. I can still do it. That is the Catholic Church in the back.

After we cleaned the Elders piso, we took the Elders and the Hermanas out for lunch. Pizza. It was really good. Not quite as good as the states, but good. We had BBQ and Pepperoni.

Hermana Maraza, from Spain, Elder Driggs, who I am related to. His grandmother is a Kuntz. They are from Driggs, ID. He now lives in Syracuse, UT, Elder McClanahan from Pinedale, AZ, Elder Belnap, Elder Holmes our Secretary who was helping us, from the office. and Hermana Calderon from Spain.

Elder Holmes didn't have a good picture in the last on. So I got a better one. He is the one on the left.

We were really close to the ocean when we were in Ferrol but couldn't get out of the car, as usual, to take a picture. So here is the best I could do.

I think the little farms or what ever they are, are so interesting. If you look close, you can see the divisions between plots of ground. They are made of bushes. I'd love to know why they do that.

This is a better picture of the ocean. In the very back, is part of the city.

This is a closer picture of the divisions of the land. To me, they don't have any rhyme or reason. But I am sure they do to the people here because, they all have them.

Elder Anderson, the one on the right, is leaving us. He has been one of the Financial Secretaries since we have been here. He has been very patient with me and has taught me a lot. Elder C. Hansen is the Residence, Reservation, Ticket purchaser and many other things here in the office. They are beating eggs for our farewell breakfast for Elder Anderson and Elder Ashby who is one of the assistance.

Elder Ashby, the one with his back to us is from Mesa. He is the Assistant that is going back out in the field. We will miss him. Elder Holmes is taking Elder Andersons place while Elder Anderson goes back out into the field, also. Then Elder Dredge our other Assistant. They love to eat, so Hermana Clegg puts them all to work. Make lighter work for us. Then Dad is looking on.

February 21, 2010 - Update from Delwyn

Another week has passed so I’ll give an account of the stuff we’ve experienced. After our church meetings on Sunday we brought Elder Hansen to our piso and the three of us had dinner together, finished packing our bag, carried stuff to the car, made a stop at the office for the tool boxes and left at 2:30 for the drive to Ponferrada; we drove thru rain for the first 80-90 KM and had some wet roads after that but things went well and we arrived in Ponferrada four hours later. We dropped Elder Hansen at a member’s home where the missionaries were visiting, found our way back to the hotel we’d passed on our way in and began looking for parking. We had a call from Pte Clegg right then and, by the time we got done with that, we couldn’t figure out how to get back in front of the hotel. We put the address into the GPS but apparently didn’t get enough buttons pushed and it began taking us back where we’d dropped Elder Hansen – we recovered. We checked in, asked about parking and were told they have a parking garage across the street so we took our stuff to the room, checked it out then went back to park the car – that went okay and we were glad to have it off the street. Internet access was 5€/hour in our room but free in the lobby so I went there, had some trouble getting my mouse to work (apparently didn’t like the slick glass table) and sent last week’s letter. We did some reading of our Books of Mormon, discussed some plans and went to bed.
On Monday morning we showered & dressed, had breakfast in the hotel restaurant (won’t do that again; it was 10€ each for fruit & cold cereal), got cleaning stuff from the car across one street and went to the elders’ piso across another street. They’d done a lot of work to clean their piso so it wasn’t terrible but they just don’t seem to see the buildup in the kitchen nor the stuff that’s behind doors and furniture in the other rooms. We made some repairs for some of the problems they had and Flo worked in the kitchen to get that clean. We left after two hours with some instructions for things that still need to be done, checked out of the hotel (parking was 8€ for the night) and drove to Benavente – about an hour. It’s a new piso there so it was relatively clean and with an elder with roots in the ranch world of Lima, Montana, who knows how to fix and clean. I tried to fabricate a fix for a broken cabinet pull but didn’t have enough tools to finish the job. They said they’d ask a member for help to cut a bolt then asked us if we’d take them with us to León, our next stop. We got them, their bags (they planned to spend the night) and a baptism font heater (looked like a giant coffee cup heater) into the car and drove to the piso in León where four elders live together. They too had worked hard at cleaning their piso (we’d seen it in September when we went) but, like most others, they clean only what is readily visible. I pulled a couch away from the wall to look at some bed parts and it was obvious that hadn’t happened for a long time. We vacuumed that and the recesses of a bunch of other places and made a couple of minor repairs but they have a couple of major things that need repairing – I told them to call the landlord right away. At the entry for example, the flooring is loose and lifting to the point that the door drags and had left an arc of scratches. We bought cookies and supplies for sandwiches (consumed in that order), had lunch then worked till about 4:00 and we left with promises they’d address a few things that we hadn’t. Elder Strickland is there now as the district leader and I think he’ll follow up to finish the job. We ran into the evening rush hour traffic as we came thru Bilbao so it was about 7:30 when we parked (about 1030 KM) and went to the office – we were tired. We spent a few minutes there before coming home to do our reading and crash. Next week we have 4 pisos, 3 cities, 2 hotel nights to take care of – it’s that schedule for the next three weeks leaving us only 2-3 pisos left to visit.
We’ve had a pretty slow week in the office – had to make a few corrections to the help the elders gave in entering the proselyting numbers, got some piso inspection forms and processed mail in both directions. One afternoon when only Flo & I were in the office we received a call from a member in Italy who spoke only Spanish. Flo asked her to call back when the elders were there but she was rather distraught – her mother is in the hospital in Bilbao and is very ill - Flo asked me to talk to her and that didn’t provide a significant upgrade in the conversation. But I managed to get the mother’s name, the name of the hospital, a local phone number for a family member (not sure why she didn’t just call there) and a promise to call tomorrow to see what we had done. I told her we’d contact the missionaries in Bilbao and ask them to visit the mother or ensure that the ward would make a visit. She called the next day (Spanish speakers were in the office) and we’d determined that the missionaries were still working with the ward to visit and offer a blessing – apparently the mother is terminally ill. I’m hoping someone doesn’t die waiting for us to learn Spanish so we can save them.
We got some great letters from family this week – notably Alisa and Chad – and the shaver parts Danette had sent finally arrived on Friday. I put them on the shaver and they work great – I’m excited. We had a Skype call with Heidi on Thursday as an inspector was at their house inspecting for termites and both they and we were excited about the offer that had been made to buy their house. On Saturday we had a Skype call with Travis and he told us the buyer had backed out of the deal so I’m not sure where things stand today. Making a career change and moving the family at the same time isn’t really the time you’d like to have problems selling your home.
We had an ‘interview’ with Pte Clegg on Thursday and the point of interest for us was the plan for our time here in Las Arenas. He told us that they’re planning for us to stay here in our piso thru July so that we’re here for the full year of our contract and can help close the office then go to Barcelona. He forwarded a couple of emails he’d exchanged with Pte Hinckley including correspondence with a missionary couple serving there giving us some idea of the living costs based on their experience. Hna Sandoval, a missionary from Barcelona, came by the office and told us that prices in the area of the mission office are quite high but are much cheaper out of the city center. That’d mean some commute costs but the greatest challenge might be what/how to do the mediodía routine if we’re not close to our piso. We’ve had a few email responses about the change to Barcelona and all have commented that it’s a beautiful place to be so we’ll look forward to it.
Had some email exchanges with the Ramon Martinez family – they’re coming to our part of Spain in late April to visit places and try to meet family that still is here. Ramon’s grandparents were born in this area and the towns and villages named from doing family research are still on the maps albeit at least one is shown on Google Earth on a forested hillside – my guess is they’ve moved the wagon. We’re very excited about their visit and look forward to spending a little time with them.
We and the three secretaries went Saturday morning to Makro to try to get a resolution of my problem with the electric toothbrush I bought there. As a testament to the customer service offered, they agreed to take the toothbrush, do some testing and call me if they find it’s faulty. I can’t tell them whether it’s the brush or the charger that doesn’t work but the end result is that, using it as a manual brush, isn’t what I thought I’d signed up for when I bought it. The elders bought the ingredients for chicken cordon bleu while they were there – this place reminds me of Costco in style with some excellent buys and some turkey-like (so to speak) buys and the missionaries were like little kids in a candy shop. But Elder Anderson discovered, as we did, that some things are not well marked and some chicken wings he thought were a great buy turned out to be twice as expensive as he’d expected. We went from there across the river to pick up a new suit that had been altered for Elder Holmes (turns out I’m not the only driver who tours) – we finally found the place. While he was trying on the suit we were looking at the 70%-off rack of suits, I found one I liked, came close in size so we bought it. It has to have some alterations to both jacket and pants but I’m excited about having a new suit. We returned to our piso where Flo worked with them to prepare the cordon bleu and potato salad – it turned out very well.
We still study Spanish nearly every day, are still seeing a little progress and still have hope to one day understand what’s being said and respond appropriately – keep praying for us. Flo finished her Book of Mormon challenge Friday evening (read the book, in English; mark the references to Christ) but I’m pacing myself a little more and have about 100 pages left to read. We’re about 2/3 of the way thru the D&C in Spanish and have started to discuss what we’ll read when we finish the PoGP. I’m suggesting something doctrinal (for the gospel study) but written in modern Spanish to help us improve in the language – maybe manuals or something similar. If you’ve had experience with that sort of thing, we’d welcome your experience and suggestions.
Guess that’s enough of shopping and cleaning for one week. Start saving now in case we need help to pay the rent in Barcelona. We love you all very much, appreciate your love and support for us and pray for God’s choicest blessings to always be with you. Love, E&H Belnap

Leon Elders & Vigo visits

Here is a cathedral in Leon. It isn't very big, but we were driving by and I took a shot of it.

Here we are cleaning the piso in Leon. They have 4 Elders living in here. It wasn't really to dirty, but we helped in the kitchen, what they hadn't done already. Elder Strickland, the Elder second on the left in white T-shirt, was one of our old Secretaries and knew what we were doing, so he had his companions clean before we got there. Delwyn did some fixing up. The Elders from left around are, Elder Hansen, Secretary, Elder Strickland, I'm behind Elder Strickland, Elder Pedersen, Elder Garcia, Elder Alverez, Elder Ciccio, Elder Carins in green, and Delwyn. Elder Alverez and Pedersen got a ride with us from Benevente after we cleaned their piso, to go to Leon for the rest of their P-Day. Elder Ciccio in the Branch President in Leon. Elder Garcia and Alverez will be going home this next week. They are all such good missionaries and the work is really going well in their areas.

We bought bread, ham, cheese, chips, and cookies for everyone to have lunch. They seemed be enjoy the few groceries we bought. In the back is Elder Ciccio, he loves to brake dance, and is always moving. I call him a monkey. He doesn't climb stairs, he jumps and hangs from a bar they have put on the top and he swings to the top. In this picture he jumped up just as the camera went off.

Elder Carins is from Scottland. It is fun to talk to him. I really have to listen to him to get what he is saying. The Elders said he can put on an American accent really well.

Elders Alverez, Strickland, Ciccio and Hansen doing their pose.

Elders Garcia, top, Carins, and Pedersen in their pose.

Here is the whole group waiting for the camera to go off. Not bad.

Elder Ciccio in his pose.

Now for Elder Ciccio's brake dancing. He is really good. He was up there for almost a minute.

Here are the girls in the Young Women. Sister Martin is next to me. She is 1st Counselor. Her sister, Sis Martin is the Young Womens President. She is in the middle on the bottom row. She went on a mission in the States. She was actually in Tucson and on Temple Square in SLC. She helps me with the language.

This last weekend, we were in Vigo. A very pretty place, however, It rained the whole time we were there so we didn't get to see much or take pictures. This one is from our hotel room. The sun came out for a minute so I took this one. The ride to and from (which was 6-7 hrs.) rain the whole time.

As we were leaving, we went by this statue of the horses. I did this as we were moving, so it isn't very good.

This is an Spanish tortilla. They are so very good. My next product I want to learn to make without burning it. All it is is eggs, onions, and potatoes. You have to cook it very slow.

Elder Garcia in front of the horse statue. I got this from Elder Anderson. It is a better picture.

I love this. Elder Anderson in front of the statue of fisher men. He is showing off his muscle's

February 14, 2010 - Update from Delwyn

Hello again to our dear loved ones. We’re healthy and reasonably happy (we wish we could be thin, have boundless energy and more money than we could give away) – there have been others who’ve observed that getting old has its downside. We had a couple of fun Skype calls Tuesday evening – one with Angela and one with Kay. Email is great for communication but there’s something special about being able to hold a conversation with someone and not have to wait days for answers to questions.
I guess I was premature last week to make statements about the improving temperatures and weather – it’s gotten nasty again here. As I worked in the office one day I could see thru the window that we had rain, wind, hail, snow, sunshine, lightning and thunder thru much of the day so I was glad not to be out in it. A major snowstorm hit northern Spain Thursday and left lots of snow and very cold weather in a wide-spread area.
We went early Saturday afternoon to Hidalgo’s where Flo had made an appointment to learn how to make paella. Their piso doesn’t have central heating so they move portable heaters from room to room depending on where they are. The heaters in the kitchen and living room where we spent most of the time kept us warm enough to be fairly comfortable. But as we left we went to a spare bedroom for our coats and it was cold as a meat locker – we couldn’t get our coats on fast enough. We asked how this winter compares to a normal winter and they told us it’s been quite a while since they had a ‘normal’ winter but that this year is unusually cold – certainly not what we’ve trained for in Arizona.
We drove Monday morning to Logroño as part of the piso cleaning campaign. The Hermanas had done a good job of cleaning theirs so it didn’t take Flo long to do the checking and touch a few things that could use some help. E Anderson and I worked on repairs that were needed – the plastic mounting brackets at the ends of an L-shaped shower curtain rod both were broken (in different ways) so we jury-rigged a couple of fixes for those. We won’t be applying for patents on them but they’re a lot more solid and, hopefully durable, than the duct tape we replaced. And we didn’t have a way to splice a broken chain that supports the corner of the rod but we made a major improvement to the aesthetics of that as well. As do most pisos, their piso has Persianas – rolling shutters – on all the windows and one of the spring-loaded reels had fallen off the mounting bracket. I straightened some parts, found new screws and remounted the reel but had no way to install the plastic shield that’s supposed to cover it.
Elder Anderson assured us that the Elders’ piso was five minutes away so we grabbed our buckets, tools and boxes and headed up the street – we couldn’t have driven there in five minutes much less walk and it was raining all the time we walked. With a box in each hand and another under my arm I could barely hang onto my umbrella let alone use it to shield me from falling water. But we finally arrived and they showed us thru the place assuring us they’d worked pretty hard to get it cleaned up. I’m glad we didn’t get to see it prior to their work – the place was so cluttered we couldn’t really see any dirt. They’d had a water pipe in the wall rupture and soak the wall board in the main hall and a living room wall opposite it – lots of mold growing there. We send out instructions every 6-weeks telling the missionaries how to kill mold so I instructed him to get a spray bottle and get to work on it right away. He did and in 20-30 minutes, nearly all the dark spots were gone. On the living room wall the mold was even worse and we moved a wall unit to unveil still more so they treated it and promised to stay on it until it’s cleaned up. As is pretty common, the doors were off the closet unit and standing against the wall – most of the screw holes for hinges were stripped out. We did repairs to the holes and I moved a pair of doors to check for problems there – they were okay but the dirt & lint behind them was pretty deep. I got a broom and swept that bedroom without moving the beds to show them a sample of what they’d missed – the dustpan was almost full. Flo and two elders worked in the kitchen for the more than three hours we were there so the kitchen is clean and would be a pleasant place to be if they had more than a 5-watt globe in the light – most of the piso is like being in a cave (until we urge them to do so, none of the missionaries seems willing to spend 50-cents to buy a light bulb). The other elder and I did more cleaning and repairing thru the piso but there is still a lot of work to do to get it clean and orderly. We took our cleaning stuff to the car, had lunch at a restaurant and made the two hour drive home. Sunday/Monday we go to Ponferrada, Benavente and León so we spend one night on the road and half expect a nightmare in León.
After we got home Monday and finished some work we had to get done in the office we went to see our friend Marcelo in the fruit stand close to us. We were too late and the business has been taken over by another, younger man and (we think) his wife. We visited (I use the term loosely) for a few minutes and went back Friday to buy some things – they were patient and helpful to us.
In a phone conversation we proposed to the Cleggs that, as they close the mission and specifically the office, that they let us stay here thru July and then use one of the cars to help us move to Barcelona and it was favorably received. But that was before Pte Clegg spent Friday & Saturday in Germany with the Area Presidency and other mission presidents to try to define a plan to get the logistics of the mission changes worked out. We haven’t had a chance to talk with him so it’ll be at least Tuesday before we can talk with him about it.
Flo spent some time this week working on the blog – she ran into some problem that left us unknowing as to whether or not the changes actually are there or not. If they’re not there or someone can’t fix the problems for her I guess she’ll have to redo the additions – I’m worthless at trying to help her. We still have periods of slack time but, for the most part, we have plenty to do and hope what we do helps others. It appears, by the number of investigators with baptism dates, that the missionaries still are working hard and being effective. I think it’ll take a little while to know whether the impending changes affect the dedication that the missionaries have had.
That’s all I think of to report this week. It’s apparent to me that Haiti and the Haiti rescuers need the gospel – just like the rest of the world. We love you all very much, appreciate your love & support for us and pray for God’s choicest blessings to always be with you. Love, E&H Belnap