Visiting Teaching

Very frustrated with the visiting teaching here. I just spent 5 hours trying to visit 2 people and we still have 2 more women to visit before the end of the month. So the day started out meeting at the church. I drove and so did my companion so we had to drive around for 30 minutes trying to find a place for her to park. After she finally parked her car we drove another 30 minutes away to our first appointment. I visit another american who moved in to our ward recently so I was able to give a message in English. After I gave my short message my companion also gave her message which was a little longer. We were there for about an hour. My companion wanted to go find and visit a woman on our list that we haven't had any contact with. She lived in another pueblo. My companion wanted to drive back to Valencia and park my car and take the metro back out to this pueblo which turns out it wasn't that far from our first visit. She wanted to take the metro because she didn't know where this woman lived. So we get off the metro and wander around town looking for the street she lived on. I was going crazy. We finally found the street and rang her door. She didn't answer. We took the message and put it in her mailbox and started to leave. There was a man on the street that told us that she was home so we rang the bell again and she finally answered but hung up her intercom on us. We walked all the way back to the metro and finally came home. On the bright side at least our other two visits are within the city.

I really do enjoy visiting teaching, but five hours is ridiculous.

My only friend

Policia

I got pulled over yesterday. I was off to orient a new young woman in our ward and explain the Personal progress program to her. Just as I left the driveway I made my usual left turn. I was suddenly pulled over and I had no idea why. I can't roll down my window because el coche is a piece of garbage. I had to open my door and didn't understand a thing that the officer said. But I do know the drill. I got out my international license, registration my spanish ID card. Come to find out when you drive with an international license you also need your passport. So I sit there for 15 minutes not knowing why as they write me out a ticket for who knows? They came back politely handed me my ticket, license, and registration and drove off. The citation says "No respectar, una linea longitudinal continua." So off I went to my appointment and when I came home (making sure I obeyed every rule) I discovered that right next to my driveway there was a no left hand turn sign. It is in plain site. I have no idea when they put that sign up I'm sure it wasn't there before. ; )

To top it all off Brent has been in the US this week so he can't help me with this issue. I do have a nice friend I have met that works next to the police station in the city office. She is going to take my ticket and see if she can get me out of my fine.

So this is the first ticket I have ever gotten. Because I'm in Spain does it really even count?

Halloween

Halloween in Spain is just not the same. There are no school parties no, trick or treating but there are a few parties. We had a youth activity last night at the church where they dressed up in costumes. We played games and danced. We had a great time and sadly I forgot my camera so I have no pictures.

Sleepyhead

Many of you know about Brent's sleeping problem. Yes it's a problem and I've had to deal with it for the last 19 years. He falls asleep on dates, with friends, while driving. I've always known Brent could sleep anywhere, anytime, anyplace but this is ridiculous.
My son is following in his fathers footsteps.

Madrid

We left Friday to go to Madrid with our friends the Pierces. El coche (car) has been giving us headaches and I didn't feel comfortable driving it all the way to Madrid (3 1/2 hours) so we rented a car. We got in late friday and stayed a little way out of the city right by a metro line. Saturday morning we got up and went to the temple. Afterwards we went into the city and walked all around Madrid. We spent some time in parks, just enjoying the city. We also went to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (modern art). Sunday we went to Retiro park. Every sunday there is a puppet show put on for kids so we watched that with the kids. Cade really got a kick out of that. Afterward we went to the Prado museum and saw some Velazquez, El Greco, and Goya. It was a quick trip but a lot of fun.

Visitors

We had our first visitors this past week. The Pierces came all the way from Oregon to visit us here in Spain. We had a great time with their family. We showed them all around Valencia. Went to a bullfight, flew kites on the beach, went to the Science museum and aquarium, took a run in the river park.

We took them to Sagunt to see the castle ruins on the hill. We watched their kids while they went to Barcelona. We topped the trip off with a trip to Madrid. I'll blog more about Madrid later.

Who is next? We are here waiting.