ZONE CONFERENCE!!! July 8th and 9th

We had zone conference and there was 30 of us missionaries that were there!  President and Sister Jackson and the AP's flew down from Madrid. The Andersons, another senior couple, and all of the Elders from Tenerife came by ferry. The Lanzarote Elders also flew in from their island. Everyone arrived on monday, our P-day. We started out with a BBQ of real "American" hamburgers! Here we are getting ready to eat. Hermanas Buhler, Jackson, Floyd, Zitting, Hansen and Sheperd.

Hungry Elders lining up in our kitchen to eat!!
The Tenerife Elders even showed up with their own "island" shirts!!  Elder Rockwood, who is serving on Lanzarote, is sporting his spanish "futbol" (soccer) shirt!  They played basketball, soccer, ping-pong and volleyball after lunch!!

Hungry but happy Elders!!

Some of the desserts that we had for them.  We tried to make it like a 4th of July BBQ since obviously they don't celebrate the 4th here!

After a fun day full of playing sports, everyone showered for the zone testimony meeting that we had with President and Sister Jackson.

More Elders!!  Nothing better than having Sisters and Elders fill up your house!!

The Andersons with even more Elders!!

and some Sisters!!!!

Here we all are!!  Hermana Jackson and I are on the stairs taking this picture!!  Sorry that it is so shaded but the sun was on it's way to setting for the night.  The best zone in the mission!!!

This picture was taken the next morning before heading down to Las Palmas to the Chapel for the Conference.  These are the Elders from Tenerife and Lanzarote.  The Elders and Sisters that serve on Gran Canaria were at their own apartments and met us at the chapel.

Elder Anderson and Elder Rockwood, both serve on Lanzarote.  This is on our balcony overlooking Santa Brigida.

Gathering their things to go to the Conference.  We had a total of 22 missionaries that spent the night at our house.  (this included us, the Andersons, President and Sister Jackson and all of the Elders from Tenerife, Lanzarote and the AP's) Our house turned up side down with Elders, but oh how great it was!!  I just love having zone conference!!

Our special musical number at the conference by the Gran Canaria district and one Tenerife Elder.  They sang so beautiful!!!  Elder Blanchard was playing the piano.

Zone Conference in the chapel in Las Palmas.

After Zone Conference, we all had lunch before everyone had to go back to their areas.  A Sister from the Las Palmas branch made lunch for us.  She makes great Canarian food!!

Patiently waiting in line to eat lunch.  They were spiritually well fed but now they were physically hungry!!

In honor of the 4th of July, the Canarian Sister also made us an "American" cake!!  It was so appreciated by all of the Americans!!  Thanks so much!!

                                                       The Best Zone in the Mission!!!!!
                                                      

AMY AND JARED HAVE ARRIVED!!!!!

Our daughter, Amy, and her husband, Jared, came to visit for one week!  Here we are getting ready to go deep sea fishing on our P-day!!

Jared reeling in his tuna!!  They are harder to reel in than you think!!  They are pretty heavy and they put up a fight!

Amy reeling in her catch of the day!

Jared and Reed getting their tunas!!

Jared with his catch of the day!!  It was fantastic eating!!
We also saw a whale, a dolphin, flying fish and many sea turtles!  It was a wonderful day!!

President Jackson gave us permission to travel to Marrekech, Morocco with our daughter and son in-law for basically 1 1/2 days.  The flight is not very long and you fly on a prop plane.  Here we are in the Medina (the old city dating back to the 12th century) in the main plaza with snake charmers!  Yes, that is a live cobra that he is "charming"!  I was scared to death!!  It was cool to see, but I am so afraid of snakes!!

These are the "water" guys!  They have brass cups and water for you to drink.  Don't worry, we didn't drink any of the water but just took pictures with them.  I guess this is the traditional water wear for any of you that are wanting to keep up with the traditional Morrocan fashion!  Love those hats!

Amy and Jared looking "vogue" in their water hats!

Typical architecture in the Medina.  It is very beautiful!  Check out the birds on top of the building.  They are storks with their nests!!

A better picture of the storks on top of this building with their nests.  Who knew that Marrekech had so many storks?

Amy and Jared are in a traditional Moroccan pharmacy.  Basically it has many spices that Morocco is famous for.  They not only have spices to cook with but have a spice to cure any ailment/illness that you have.  Very interesting!!

Another picture of the pharmacy with it's walls lined with spices!!  Check out the beautiful tile on the walls!

We also visited the traditional tanneries where they use the hides of goats, sheep and cows to make purses, briefcases, etc.  They put the hides in these pools and stomp on them.  The smell of this place was horrendous!!  They gave us fresh mint leaves to smell the whole time that we were touring to try and help with the horrible smell!

These are goat hides drying.  Lovely?!!

Morroco is famous for their beautiful rugs! Mainly the women weave the rugs.  Here is a woman weaving a rug.  They have certain symbols that they weave in to show where they are from.

At our hotel getting ready to fly home from our quick trip!!  I never thought that I could do a quick trip to Morroco!!  I still can't believe that we live so close to Africa!!  Love Gran Canaria!!

We went sailing the last day that Amy and Jared were here.  It turns out that Amy and Jared are really good sailors!!  Here Jared is being taught the fine art of skippering from Domigo, a gold medalist sailor!!

Amy sailing through the rough seas!!  We didn't know that good sailors runs in the family!  Domingo is a great teacher!!

Reed enjoying the ride!  He loves to sail!!!
We had to say to goodbye to Amy and Jared later that day. We had so much fun with them!!!   It was sad to say goodbye!!

Telde Activity and P-days with the Missionaries!

The Telde Branch had a BBQ activity at a park above Las Palmas.  It was a great day!  We taught all of the kids how to play Kick Ball.  They loved it even though they had a hard time with the concept of "running the bases" correctly.

Taking a break from playing kick ball.  Check out Hermanas Hansen and Sheperd on the right in this picture.  They are really doing a great job in Telde!  They are teaching and re-activating so many people!!  Go Hermanas!!

A couple of P-days ago we played volleyball in Telde with the Las Palmas Elders, Vecindario Elders and the Telde Hermanas.  Great time had by all!!  We love spending our P-days with the missionaries!!

Elder Diez, from Virginia, joined us after Elder Rockwood was transfered to Lanzarote (another island).  Elder Diez is working in Vecindario with Elder Delgado.  Bienvenidos!!

On another P-day, we went up to Roque Nublo (the highest point on our island) with Hermanas Zitting and Floyd.  It looks just like Colorado and Utah because it has pine trees.  It felt like we were in the United States!  We hiked the trail to the actual rock which is about 2 miles.

One of the views from Roque Nublo.

We met Hermanas Hansen and Sheperd on the trail at Roque Nublo.  They are all such awesome Hermanas!!  We love them so much!

Everyone needs a photo at the Roque Nublo sign!
No one believes that we have pine trees on our island!!

This is our "urban pose" photo at Roque Nublo.  Our missionary daughter taught us how to "urban pose".    The blue in the background is the ocean.  We love our island!!

JAS Sailing Activity!

We took our young adults out sailing along the south coast of the island.  It was our welcome the new young adults that just turned 18 years of age.
It was a fun day!

Heading out to sea!  We were on a big catamaran boat.

They went on the banana tube behind a jet ski.  They all were dumped into the water at the end of this ride!  They loved it!

Enjoying the cool water!

This picture was taken from on the boat looking down to the water.  The water is very clear and beautiful here!  We were "chumming" the fish!

We ate lunch on the boat.  It was a great day!

Great day at sea!!

A parting "GQ" shot of Elder Buhler on the boat!