Update from the Canaries!

The time is marching on and we are staying busy.  Here is a picture of the English class.  Elder Ottesen got transferred to the North of Spain where it is very cold and Hermana Knight  (Jeanne)  has taken over this English class.  It is fun and a learning esperience.  When was the last time you explained what nouns, verbs, adverbs etc are?  It is open to everyone that wants to come.  The Chinese girls are smart and already know a lot of Enlish.  They also know how to write many beautiful characters for the Chinese language. 

Elder Knight has the more advanced class of conversational english and does his share of teaching the Gospel to all those that want to listen!

Here is an example of the beautiful African Market.  There are many fresh fruits and vegetables.  We have never seen such beautiful eggs here too.  They are large and brown.  A lot of people that live away from the city have their own chickens and some have their own goats and grow beautiful terraced gardens.

We had the opportunity to have some of the other couples to visit with us.  The Aultman's from Texas are on the island of La Palma.  It is much smaller there and has some of the steepest streets in the world.  We will have to visit their island before we go home because it is also known as the "Beautiful Island" because it is very green and flowering.

This is at the lava field of Teide.

The Ovard's from Kansas City also visited with us.  They work in the office in Madrid.  They handle the landlords, the cars, the problems, the baptismal reports etc.  It is not a lot of fun so they were very excited to visit some of the other islands before they go home this year.  

The Ovard's are in front of Los Gigantes. This is in the movie "The Princess Bride"

We took both couples up to the volcano, Teide.  It is a fascinating sight and looks like what could be the surface of the moon in some places.  You can see where the lava has flowed and cooled as it ran down the mountain.  We wish we could go back in time and see how all of these islands were formed.  There was no snow on the mountain at the time we visited but now we hear there is snow.  It is very windy and quite cold because of the elevation.  A cable car takes you to the top and then you walk the rest of the way.  They say it is very, very cold up there.  We hope to take the cable car one day before we leave.  It is the highest peak in Spain!

This is the peak of Teide.  It is a volcano that grew out of a huge volcano.  We are above the cloud line.

The zone conference in Las Palmas is fun to go to and requires taking the ferry over for the 2 1/2 hour trip.  We take our car on the ferry.  We had warned the elders to be on time because the ferry leaves exactly at 8am sharp.  To our dismay we looked out the window and saw 4 missionaries running and jumping fences but they still missed the boat.  They were able to take the next boat at 3pm but they missed a wonderful day visiting with the other elders and couples.  We took a drive to see the beauty of their island.  Very fascinating!

We were also very uplifted by enjoying the zone conference.  Being taught by President and Sister Watkins and the elders.  It is a spiritual experience and helps us to draw closer together and to be better missionaries. 

This is the Aultman's, the Eynon's from Gran Canaria and the Ovard's. Here we are in front of a beautiful overlook on the other island of Gran Canaria.

Three of these elders got transferred and we got one new elder, not in this picture though.

Transfer Day.  Everyone wants to come to the islands.  Sometimes they write the President in their weekly letters and say....President...If I could just go to the islands I will be able to work so much better!

It is always sad when the missionaries get transferred but something good always comes out of each transfer.  They get to meet new people and it is great to have fresh faces.  We now have the priviledge of working with Elder Sulpulveda from Colombia via Spain.  He is a very nice and calm elder.  He is always smiling!

Our JAS trip to Teide.  It is a challenge to get everyone a ride.  Many of the kids only ride the bus or the tranvia and do not have cars. 

The JAS are our main focus.  They keep us busy and laughing.  They always have Family Home Evening on Friday night with a spiritual message, snacks and then an activity. On Saturday there is Institute class and then a meal and activity.  Our room is overflowing almost everytime and we are trying to make some other arrangements to accomadate all the kids.  We don't know how it will turn out but even if we are very cramped it is fun.  We often have to sit in the hall so they can all be together. We saw the movie "The Seventeen Miracles" the other night and it was hard to keep a dry eye.  What a sacrifice the pioneers went through to establish the church for our day.

We have some great activities coming up this year.  Some are so hard we will have to wait for them to get back from their hikes.  More to come on that later!  

We are in the cloud line!

On our hike to Teide with the kids.

Our crowded JAS room.  We then bring our table in to serve food.  It is tight!

Are we in Alaska or on the Canary Islands?  Everyone is so used to warm weather the cold really effects them!

This was a wonderful cultural experience.  We were invited to a surprise birthday party and there were Spanish, Finnish, Swedish and Americans there.  They served potatoes, popcorn, bread and pate, salads, gofio bread, juices, cokes, cakes, chips, sausages and hotdogs. 

In our times when we are not with the JAS we are visiting members, trying to find addresses, studying our spanish, teaching english, cooking, making brownies for the millionth time. 

This was a funny sign on a billboard...for your dessert and yogurt needs!  Will deliver to your home!

Giant pizzas!  We caught Elder Sepulveda not smiling.

We enjoy it a lot over here now.  It is a unique and one of a kind experience to serve a mission.  It is a huge priviledge to be a member of this church.  What a blessing both of us found out for ourselves that there was something special about this church when we were both 18 years old. 

We miss our home everyday but keep busy and get to talk to our kids and grandkids on skype!  That helps us a lot.  

Even though it looks as if we are tourists and having a blast everyday.... it is missionary work!  So we know the ups and downs.  We are thankful for everyone's thoughts and prayers for us.  We pray for everyone back home to be healthy, strong, safe and happy!

Sabrina with the blueberry tongue!

Until next time!  

It doesn't look like it but we are Back to Work!

 ! At the Parade!

                   Alejandro never smiles in a picture but he smiles all the time! Marcos just returned from his mission in Madrid.  He is making one of those crazy missionary faces.  Natalia is the life of the party.  She loves her nephew and brought him to the parade.                

The holidays are over and we are back to work! It was hard to get any work done because the people are on vacation and spending time with their families.  We had a good time over the Christmas, New Years and Three Kings holidays.   Christmas is the religious holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ.  Some families might give a few gifts to each other but Three Kings on January 6th is day day of gift giving.  This holiday celebrates the Wisemen that visited Jesus.  We were able to go, with some of the JAS we work with, to the parade in the city above us called La Laguna.  It is in an old part of the city where no cars travel and the streets are cobblestone in some areas.  The parade was a lot of fun with local marching bands, local dance groups and floats.  The Three Kings rode in on camels and their costumes were larger than life!  They throw candy out to everyone.  Many camels pulled trailers with wrapped packages with kids names written on them.  All the kids were very excited.  Some were singing "Feliz Navidad!"  It was really cute.  There was a tremendous amount of confetti flying! The next day we were making a hospital visit and we met the Three Kings in the stairwell in the hospital!  That was exciting!  

For New Years we had gone to bed about 11pm but we were awakened by large booms and fireworks going off in every direction!  We could see a lot from our apartment window but we should have been downtown because there was a huge display we got a glimpse of.  The traffic would have been terrible and we followed the mission rule of missionaries being in by 1000.  It was a good rule.

The next big festival will be Carnival.  That is in February.  We will be in Madrid hopefully attending the temple with some of our JAS kids.  That will be a much greater experience for us.  The temple is a very special place to get to go.
We really missed our family for Christmastime.  We were thankful for skype and email so we could touch base with all of them.  All the grandkids look like they are growing up so quickly.  We are always very happy to hear how well they are doing in school and in their activities.  There is no greater blessing for parents to know their kids are doing well and are happy and healthy! Thank you for the cards and letters too!

Our spanish is moving along.  Mike is able to talk on the phone very well now.  We study whenever we can.  Jeanne is able to communicate on a basic level but speaking is the last thing to come!  Listening, reading and writing seem to come first.
We are able to work with some great missionaries here.  We enjoy them all.  We think a few will be leaving us in the next few weeks with transfers.  We help them whenever we can.
We continue to visit people here on the island.  That is a good experience. We leave a little message and spend time getting to know them and let them know they are not forgotten.
Every Friday night we have a get together with the kids that can come. (the JAS)  They have a spiritual message then an activity like movie night, bowling, skating or just hanging out.  On Saturday they have their Institute class (Old Testament) followed by a dinner and sometimes an activity.  The kids are all excited for the opportunity to get together.  Some of these kids have been friends since they have been little so they know each other very well.  There is a lot of love there!  Everyone is welcome and everyone can always bring friends too. 
This missionary experience has helped us grow our cooking talents.  We are always looking for recipes and experiementing on the elders, especially.  So if anyone has some great recipes to make with basic ingredients please send them on.  There are no mixes here so everything is from scratch.  Peanut butter is hard to find and if you do it is Peter Pan and is expensive.  6$ for a small jar.  We just found out we could get coconut at the candystore!  Chocolate chips are not found here but we can break up a chocolate bar.  We have learned to love ham and white cheese sandwiches.  Cheddar is rare.  The bread here is great!
We have learned to make the traditional Colombian food called arepas.  It is like a thicker tortilla made from corn flour.  It is very good. 
Everything is a cultural experience here!  We need to remember to take our camera to the local grocery store because it has some very interesting food.  One of our young people went to the United States for about two weeks and she came home with the funniest stories on how the Americans do things so differently.  She was hungry a lot because we eat cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and then our big meal at about 5-6pm.  In Spain they have their big meal in the afternoon with several substantial snacks inbetween with supper late in the evening about 9-10pm.
It is not unusual to see little kids out to eat late when our kids would be in bed!
The weather is lovely here right now.  It is cool and sunny.  The evenings require a sweater and scarf or a light jacket.  Scarves are the thing here and the women all wear nice shoes! 
We are thankful everyday to be able to missionaries for the church.  Our testimonies have grown of the truthfulness of the Gospel. Being missionaries has given us many opportunites that we would never have experienced before.  These experiences have been good and also hard in some ways.  When we get home we will have a lot to look back on in a good way.  http://www.lds.org/ .
Until next time.  Love Elder and Hermana Knight


Some costumes of the Islands!  There is a festival that lots of people wear these costumes.  It must be beautiful!

One of the camels carrying the gifts. They were getting alot of treats along the way.

One of the members cooking up a big Christmas feast! 



A sampling of the Canarian food.  Mike calls it Star Trek food!



 The missionaries singing" How Great Thou Art" in spanish with the guitar and a Texas accent!

Romina received her mission call to Barcelona, Spain!  /She will be a great one!

Jessica's uncle is one of our best friends back home in Huntsville.  What a small world.  She and her husband are in our branch here in Santa Cruz!



Our First dinner guests!  Makan on left and his good friend.  They are both from Africa.  Makan always gives us gum.  They are both super!



MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!
This is from our apartment.  We have made it pretty festive so we are in the holiday spirit.  There is a big mall down from our house that has "Feliz Navidad" on the front in big bright lights!  We are looking forward to the 3 Kings celebration on January 6th because that is when they celebrate their big holiday.  We hear there are parades and people dressed up as the 3 kings riding on camels in the streets.  It should be fun.
We are doing very well now.  We have been much busier than usual because we have gotten to know many people and know our way around much better.  Elder Knight is great about getting us out and visiting people in our branch.  Even though it is hard to find their apartments, when we get in to see them it is always a nice experience.  There are some wonderful, sweet people here.
The missionaries came over for a holiday yesterday and we ate traditional Christmas foods, like turkey and dressing, apple pie, mashed potatoes, green beans, no bake cookies.  We watched A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey.  Some of the elders were not familiar with the story.  They played futbol in the field across the street.  It was good to have them.  One of our Elders has a bad sprained ankle so his cast has been our special friend for the last 3 weeks.  We are hoping that he can get it off in 1 week.  That will lift his spirits a lot.
We had the opportunity to take the young adults we work with to the Catholic old folks home and sing some Christmas carols.  It was a wonderful experience.  Everyone was so appreciative.  They clapped for us.  It is run by Catholic nuns and they were so tiny and sweet.
We miss everyone back home especially at Christmastime.  We hope everyone is on the good list!  We send our love and best wishes.  Hopefully we can skype over the Christmas weekend.  Everyone please be safe and healthy and know we are thinking and praying for each and everyone everyday.
We recognize our blessings more each day, our family, our health and our beliefs are among the top we are grateful for!

The Elders! 

The sprained ankle!

Merry Christmas Elders!

Our Young Adults.  The "JAS"...that is young adults in spanish.

This is a moment of weakness at the Horno de Pan!  The bread store right down from our apartment!

Magnolia has been a painter all her life and gave us this lovely painting she did in 1974!  She is a little treasure.  She is 85 years old.

The hermanita with one of the oldest patients.  She was very lively! The hermanita (the nun) is wonderful. When we asked her what her name was she simply said "Milagros", meaning miracles. 

Our JAS visit to the old folk's home.  The little lady in the middle was a patient and jumped up and played a mean piano!  Wow!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!



Wow, this was a great day.  You get baptised in the ocean if you are too tall for the font.  He is a great young man. 




Those elders!  Mike looks confused.




At Punta da Hidalgo.  Collecting my rock.




The ferry to Gran Canaria.




A double rainbow!




The elders taking a picture of the food table. 

We had a fun Thanksgiving adventure!  We were able to go to the island of Gran Canaria by ferry (with our car) to the old mission home for zone conference.  The Eynon's that live in the mission home and the Aultman's from the island of La Palma were there along with 12 young missionaries.  President Watkins and Sister Watkins came also.  After much cooking we had a great feast. Brother Eynon was able to find two big turkeys.  We had dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce from a can and apple, chocolate and pumpkin pies.  Mike Knight was at work making the apple and chocolate pies.  Lots of other good food was served too.   We also had many funny stories to tell about the growing pains of being new missionaries on these islands.  We were cracking up!  The time helped us all so much.  We all miss our families back home but we also feel dedicated to helping the work of our church move forward.  There are some people that when they hear about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, they are so excited because it was just what they had been praying for.  That makes for a great day!
On Friday we were able to attend the zone conference meetings. It was really rewarding and we all felt the Spirit.  The missionaries are so bright and work so hard that it is an example to all of us. 
We are feeling much more at home now.  We walk a lot in the city.  We are getting to know it better but it is a huge city.  There are many several beautiful parks and a great opera center.  We know how to ride the bus now and the train. 
In the south of the island it looks like the desert, very dry and rocky,  but as you go north it gets greener.  This is a volanic island so when you go toward the middle of the island you are going up at a steep grade.  As you go up it does get colder.  We can't wait to go to Teide, the volcano.  It is supposed to be very beautiful and the altitude is so high it has its own climate there.  It is the highest peak in Spain.
We miss everyone, especially at the holidays. Kisses and hugs to the grandkids.


Our wonderful group of kids!




Sister Eynon cooking up a storm!




Zone conference





Las Palmas in Gran Canaria




We have some tiny people here!  One of our sweet members we met walking on the street.

 We are being blessed in many ways and watched over.  Love to everyone!