August in Gran Canaria!

August started out with our son Rob and his wife, Katharine visiting us.  We met them in Madrid, toured Segovia and then flew back to Grand Canaria.  We took them sailing and it was quite the adventure!!  We had 42 knot winds, big waves and so many memories!!  Here is Katharine skippering through the tough conditions!!

I know that the picture doesn't show how big the waves were that day, but they were higher than the sail boat!

Katharine and I went camel riding while Reed and Rob went golfing.  We rode through the natural sand dunes on the south end of the island.  I am sorry that I don't have more pictures of Rob and Katharine, but they took most of the pictures and sent us many to put in frames on our desk.  We loved having them here and miss them tremendously!!

Every wednesday we have district meeting at the chapel in Las Palmas.  All of the missionaries from our island and the Elders on Lanzarote (who skype into the meeting) attend.  Afterwards I always make them a big lunch.  This is my friend Bernice Louvel's lasagna recipe.  They all loved it!!  Here are Elders Day and Larsen enjoying it!

I know that Hermana Hansen is going to kill me for posting this photo of her, but this shows exactly how excited she gets every wednesday to eat the lunch that I have made!  She makes me feel like I am the "Martha Stewart" of Gran Canaria!  Hermana Cassinat also shows a lot of love too!  Thanks Hermanas!

Elders Diez and Delgado also enjoying the lasagne!  Hermanas Schaumann and Floyd must of been helping out in the kitchen.

This is at Jonathan's Baptism!!  It was a great day!!  Jonathan is one of our awesome young adults!!  He has such a strong testimony and is such a great missionary already!!  Elder Buhler had the privilege to baptize him and Elders Larsen and Day taught him well.

August was our "baptismal month" on Gran Canaria.  Every missionary companionship had a baptism in August!  Here is Diane, one of our young adults, at her baptism in Telde.  Hermanas Hansen and Cassinat taught her.  Great day!!

Elder Buhler also had the privilege of baptizing Diane.  It was another great day in Telde!!

Hermana Smalley and her friend Miriam flew down to visit us for two days from Madrid.  They both are temple missionaries in the Madrid Temple.  We loved having them stay with us!  Hermana Smalley was the oldest missionary at the Provo MTC (78 years old) and the funniest too!!  She and I were at the Provo MTC together for 7 weeks in spanish immersion classes.  She made my life in those classes so much fun!!  We can't wait to see them the next time we get to go to the temple in Madrid!!  Oh, they are standing in front of Christopher Columbus's house in Las Palmas.

Yanira, one of our young adults went on a mission to the Malaga Mission.  Here we are saying good bye to her at the airport.  She was so excited to go and we hear that she is a fantastic missionary!!  We miss her, but wish her well on her mission!!

President Deniz (he was the 1st counselor in the Mission Presidency, but now is the new stake president) and his family had all of the missionaries over for lunch after one of our district meetings.  They live in Telde and here he is cooking us some great tasting meat!!

Here we are eating lunch in the backyard of the Deniz's home..  It was so delicious and we enjoyed there hospitality!  It was so much fun to just enjoy all of the missionaries at lunch.

 I know that this is a random picture, but this is the District Young Women Leaders doing their talent dance at the YW camp talent show at our house.  Yes,  both the Young Men and Young Women had their camps at our house for 3 days each!  It was a wild but great time at our house in August!!

August was a busy but great month!!