Saying Goodbye

Wardenburgs

Sunday was Joel's last day in Oklahoma.  We closed on our home in Kansas and he is officially a Kansan.  The Jenkins hosted a Farewell Get Together at their home Sunday afternoon before Joel left.  It was so fun to see friends and chat.  I didn't think to get any pictures until the very end, so I only have pictures of the last 3 remaining families.  I'm going to really miss these guys.  The best thing about Oklahoma is definitely the people.

Tharps (my sweet Beehive Ari)

Jenkins

Michelle knows I collect ornaments, so she decided to give me a very special reminder of Oklahoma!  She found these at a random gas station and turned them into ornaments for me.  The scorpion will always remind me of the one I found in my closet.  It scared me half to death!

 And ya, they glow in the dark- so creepy!  Joel thinks I should turn them into earrings and a necklace.

Final Day in Madrid

Our last day in Madrid was all about reliving my experiences as a college student when I studied here.  I got to study in the Prado every week, and I fell in love with Spanish history and art.  We started the day with Churros and Chocolate at San Gines, because you can't come to Madrid and not eat them at least once.  Yum!! 

 We walked off the churros by walking all over Madrid starting at the Palacio Real.  It's the 3rd largest palace in Europe.  

 From there we went to the Reina Sofia.  This art museum is focused on mostly modern art.  It has great collections of Salvador Dalí and Miró, but the jewel of this museum is Picasso's Guernica. 

 It covers an entire wall in real life.  It's Picasso's response to Franco's bombing of the town of Guernica in Northern Spain during the civil war.  It was Hitler's testing ground for his weapons before the start of WWII.  The painting only came to Spain after Franco's death.  You learn a lot about the Spanish Civil War at this museum.

We ate lunch learn the museum.  The Arroz con Carne (rice with meat) was our favorite.  From there we walked to the Prado.  This is an absolutely incredible art museum, and walking through it transported me straight back 20 years when I was there studying.  It was so fun to see so many familiar works of art.  Velazquez and Murillo are my personal favorites but Goya is fascinating.  I loved showing all of these to Joel.

 We rested our tired feet in Parque Retiro afterward.  It's the largest inner-city park in Europe. 

We headed back to Plaza Mayor, because Joel and I both had one thing we wanted to eat before leaving Spain.  Joel wanted Croquetas (think small Spanish versions of Corde en Bleu), and I wanted Arroz con Leche (Rice pudding).  It was a perfect finish to a great day.  We headed back to our piso (apartment) to pack and then we flew out the next morning.

 Goodbye, Spain!  I hope it doesn't take another 18 years to come back!

A Reunion in Madrid

Saturday and Sunday were all spent doing amazing things related to my time as a missionary in Madrid.  I spent the morning in the temple with my husband, mission president and fellow missionaries.  Afterward, my mission president took some of us out to lunch and we spent the entire afternoon talking and catching up in a cross of Spanish and English.  It was so incredibly wonderful!  I can't tell you just how much I love my mission president.  I was so excited for my husband to meet him, because I've told Joel so much about President Clark, but I wanted him to see for himself that I wasn't exaggerating what a special man he is.  I could tell Joel was really impressed and it left an impression on him as well.  President Clark is a quiet man, but he makes you feel like you're the absolute most important person in the room when he's talking to you.  He treats you as though you've reached your highest potential while still encouraging you to attain it.  He has such incredible faith and love that it's hard not to believe when he's bearing his testimony.  It's so powerful.  He's currently a Stake President in Carlsbad, California.  I was sad Hermana Clark couldn't be here, but she was at Girl's Camp.

We talked until the very last minute before we had to leave.  Lopez was reorganizing a Bishopric in the morning, so they needed to get on the road, and we had an appointment in Plaza Mayor.  It's amazing to me how you can pick right up where you left off so many years ago when you're true friends.  We promised them it wouldn't take another 18 years to get back to see them, and they're hoping to come to the States one of these days. 

Elder Soto was my Zone leader in Alcobendas, and he now lives in Florida.  Hermana Botana and I lived in the same piso (apartment) together.  She "died" in Barrio IV, and then I actually replaced her in Barrio IV the next transfer.  She now lives in Madrid.

 We finished an already amazing day by learning how to make Paella with Pablo up on the roof of the Plaza Mayor.  We sat and ate as the sun set over the Plaza and it was wonderful!

Sunday we went to church in San Sebastian de los Reyes.  It's a suburb just North of Madrid.  I served there for 3 transfers (about 4 1/2 months).  It's where the mission president lives and where I trained for the first time.  It was really special to be able to attend church in the brand new chapel there.  In the US we take for granted the ability to have a free standing building to use as a house of worship. It’s much more difficult to have that in Spain and it’s rare. For years we hoped and prayed for a church in Alcobendas. This past year the members were blessed with a beautiful building. It was a very surreal moment to be standing in the chapel with my mission president and the former Branch president. The branch president said to me, “This is because of you (speaking of all the missionaries). We all worked so hard for this, and you are a part of it. I hope you feel that.” 

 There was someone who was really special to me during my time serving as a missionary.  It’s been so long since I was in Spain that I had convinced myself that Manolo wouldn’t even know who I was anymore. We were late getting to church because Apple maps and Spain don’t like each other and we made several wrong turns. We slipped in the back. Manolo stood up to guard the door during the sacrament. When we made eye contact we instantly both started crying. Don’t mind the picture- we’re both still crying. When I told him it had been 18 years, he said. “No, Hermana. It was just yesterday.” Manolo is who taught me the true and glorious definition of what it means to be meek. The only thing that would have made the moment even better is if Eusebio was still alive. One of my sweetest memories is sitting around Eusebio’s tiny table as Manolo slowly and painstakingly sounded out the words. He learned how to read through reading the Book of Mormon with Eusebio.  Manolo told me with such pride that he is now the librarian at church.

 None of my pictures from the town itself of San Se/Alcobendas and Algete survived, but the picture of Manolo is what meant the most to me, so I don't mind as much.  Later that afternoon Joel and I traveled to Cuatro Caminos.  It's the chapel where I served for Barrio I and Barrio V at the very end of my mission.  I was excited that the building was open, and I was able to talk to someone who knew of some of the members from when I served there.  It was good to find out what had happened to a couple of them. 

 The mission office is now in the new building in San Se, but it used to be downtown by where the Hermanas lived.  c/ San Telmo 26:  A family from the US Embassy now lives there.  She was actually outside and talked to me for a while.  They've lived there for 3 years.  

 This is Plaza de Castilla.  It's a commerce hub in Madrid and one of the center points of Barrio I where I started and almost finished my mission.  We used to street contact people here all the time. 

Here's the metro line that we took all the time up and down from Plaza de Castilla to Cuatro Caminos and everything in between.

We finished the night down at temple square.  There was a fireside commemorating the 20th anniversary of the dedication of the temple and 50 years of the gospel being taught in Spain.  They brought in all of the former builders/architects/construction managers for the meeting.  It was really cool to hear the history of how the site was chosen and some of the interesting details of the construction and design.  

Heading to Madrid

We stayed the night in Castelo Branco, a cute town in Portugal not far from the Spanish border.  We had a weekend full of mission reunion events, so we had to be in Madrid by that evening.  We drove back along the northern route, so that we could stop in Salamanca.  I was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salamanca for almost 8 months.  It's a university town and fairly large town, but at the time there were only 11 members of the Church there.  It was a very difficult and very soul stretching experience there.  My absolute lowest moments on the mission happened in Salamanca.  It also happens to be where I have some of my happiest moments as well and where I served with one of my favorite companions.  Salamanca holds a really special place in my heart, because I really learned and grew the most in those 8 months during all the emotional roller-coastering.  This was my first time back to Salamanca in 18 years.  I sat down on a bench in the Plaza Mayor and cried.  It's really hard to explain the feelings I had sitting there. 

 After I pulled myself back together we ate empanadas and raquetas in the plaza that we bought at the Panadería that Tuckett and I frequented often as missionaries.  We could have lived off of raquetas and been perfectly content. 

 I'm so grateful that I snapped a picture of my old apartment, so I could text the pic to my companion Tuckett, because it's the only mission picture of everything in Salamanca that survived my camera loss.  I lived at c/ Obispo Jarrin 2, 3A.  It was directly off of the Plaza Mayor, so anytime there was any kind of celebration or parade it always came directly under our balcony.  My favorite was the Easter procession. 

After lunch we walked down to the cathedreal and then headed back to the car. 

 We made a couple of stops on our way into the city.  Our first stop was at Ávila, because I wanted to show Joel its perfectly preserved medieval walls.

 We then traveled into the Guadarrama Mountains to El Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen).  It is probably Spain's most controversial monument.  It technically is a monument to the victims of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), but it's an underground church that was built my Franco's prisoners of war.  Franco also happens to be buried there behind the main altar of the church along with his Fascist side-kick, so many people in Spain don't care for this place very much.  It's honestly cold and dark feeling inside.  I'd have a hard time worshiping there, but it's an important reminder of a darker period in Spanish history during the dictatorship rule of Franco.

 We didn't have time to go into El Escorial, because we backtracked 3 times trying to find it.  It turns out it's located in a town that is also called El Escorial, so all of the signs were confusing and the GPS took us to the local town hall.  We had to put in its full name of Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial to find it.  It's a massive 16th century palace that was the center of the Counter-Reformation and the Inquisition in Spain. 

We drove to our apartment to check in and then we headed to the Manzana del Templo that is close by.  It contains the LDS Temple, a Stake Center, a Distribution and Family History Center, and a building of hostels (it's the former CCM where I was trained as a missionary that was recently closed).  We got there toward the end of the mission reunion, but I was fine with that because this particular reunion was for missionaries who served under President Shallenberger.  I served as a missionary with President Clark directly after Shallenberger went back to the States.  What I was most excited about was seeing some of the missionaries who overlapped with both presidents and my mission president was also in attendance.  Oh, how I love this man!

 A treat that most missionaries fell in love with in Madrid: Palmeras (there's a flaky pastry under that chocolate)

 Here's a It's-A-Small-World story for you.  This girl and I were both staring at each other, because we knew we knew each other, but couldn't remember how.  It turns out that Carol and Bart are from my Freshman year at BYU.  Carol and I lived on the same floor in the dorms at DT.  How funny is that?!  Bart served in Madrid before I did and when he got home they got married.  Bart reminded me of a funny story back when I was studying in Madrid.  We had gone to some tiny town to watch a crazy festival that mimicked the Inquisition.  They wore red devil masks to represent the evil judges who cast out the Jews.  Anyway, it was a very memorable festival, because it was so bizarre.  As I was leaving I saw 2 Elders and realized I knew one of them.  It was Bart!  I had completely forgotten about that experience until Bart reminded me about it.  He had been there with an investigator who was filming the festival when a large group of BYU students walked by. 

 I served with Lopez for almost half of my mission in 2 different areas.  He was my zone leader until almost the very end of my mission.  We had quite a few amazing experiences together, and he was one of my favorite Elders that I served along side with during the mission.  His wife, Cinthia, also served in the mission with us.  I knew her but never served with her.  Lopez is now the Stake President in Southern Spain (Elche).  He's going on 7 years as Stake President, and it was so interesting to talk to him about his experiences.