Zaragoza Road Trip

 I wanted to start off this week by talking about this beautiful painting that hangs in the President's home. It's a beautiful picture of the Savior as he first exited the tomb. The story behind this picture is that there was a missionary who was really struggling. He just couldn't talk to people. He was a brilliant artist (as you can see), so his companion was inspired with a wonderful idea. He told him "you sit here in the plaza and paint, and I will talk with the people about what you are painting. This is what he was painting. The Lord has use of all of our talents, even old geezers like me.

This week has been one wild ride from start to finish. On Monday we took Alicia and her family down to the Gothic Quarter and wandered the streets for a while. We then jumped on the metro to take a train up to the office because we had a couple of things that we needed to do there. Of course, we had to take them to eat sushi. It was a little scary for the kids, but they ended up liking at least some of it. Then it was home for a few games before they had to pack their bags for their early flight home. 

On Tuesday, we had to take them to the airport early. I'm not going to lie, there were some tears shed! What little time we had was quality time, but of course, it was WAY too short. After dropping them off (and wiping my eyes) it was back to the office only to have to turn around and go back to the airport a little while later to pick up a couple flying in from one of the islands who were on their way home. The Wayments are super sweet. They told of a miracle that they experienced. She had some significant health problems while they have been here mostly with her legs where walking was very difficult and stairs pretty much impossible. Yet, she wanted to go to Rome to see the temple before they went home. She and her husband had long discussions about it. She wanted to go, and he was worried about her health and what it would take to get her there, and what that would do to her. Finally the Spirit told her quite clearly "you can go to the temple any time, but these sweet recent converts on the island, may never get the chance." They decided to take the money that it would have cost them to go to Rome, and send as many of the new converts as possible to Madrid to the Temple. The problem is that airfare to and from the islands is super expensive this time of year because it's tourist season. However the Lord is involved and on one day, the airfare was only about a tenth of what it normally is. She jumped online, and bought 10 round-trip tickets for them. That was an absolute miracle, that blessed the lives of these humble people.

Sprinkled into all of this was the fact that we needed to get contracts signed and in place for a new piso in Zaragoza. The couple that will live there got here last week, and we finally got the contract so that we could get everything set up and get the keys. On Thursday we drove the big mission van (The MAV -Mission Assault Vehicle) to Zaragoza which is about a 3 hour drive to get the keys and start furnishing the apartment. We had a devil of a time first finding the missionaries who had picked up the keys the day before, and then getting to the building, finding the apartment (which was really tough because all of the entrances are from an inner courtyard. The only parking that we could find was about two blocks away. Once we took what we had in the van to the apartment, we took Sister Lisonbee to the local IKEA to get a bed. Normally, mattresses from IKEA come all rolled up so that they can be easily taken home. However, after paying for the bigger sized bed that they requested, we come to find out, that the biggest size isn't rolled up! It took us all to "taco" that thing into our van, but we made it! While we were away, Elder Lisonbee found out that his key would unlock the barriers to the inner courtyard which was wonderful. It would have been much easier to get the mattress through the doors and up the stairs. Well, we had pulled the big van into the courtyard, and had just opened the back when the superintendent showed up and demanded that we get out of there. He told us that we had to go to the parking garage under the building and unload from there. Now, I have been in several parking garages in Spain at this point, and none of them were simple to negotiate with a car, much less the MAV. This one however, was by far the worst. The corners were way too tight, and we couldn't get the MAV to their parking spot. I finally got to a corner that there was no way I was going to get the MAV around without folding it in half. I was stuck. I ended up having to back my way out and do about a dozen multi-point turns to just get the thing out of there. It literally took about a half hour of coming within an inch or two of scraping large pillars over and over again until we were finally free from the catacombs of death! While I was doing this and parking a couple of blocks away, the missionaries showed up to help haul the mattress up 4 flights of steps to get to their apartment. Whew!

One of the reasons that the missionaries came over is because they needed a ride back to Barcelona with us so that they could do some residency appointments there. We got home about midnight. I never want to look at that MAV again! I never had PTSD when I was in the military, so I guess this is how I get to experience that. However, on Friday we needed to take the MAV again to get some oil in it, wash it, and park it under the Church (not nearly as tough as the catacombs of death, but still not easy). I got to teach institute again that night and was finally able to do a "prisoner exchange" to get the keys to the car back in exchange for the MAV keys. 

My lesson was on chapters 4 through 8 of Romans which is wonderful. It was fitting because the Apostle Paul talks about "glorying in tribulations". I felt like the Lord needed me to have a week like this one so that I could better appreciate the lesson material. I am always grateful when I can feel the Spirit kind of take over and really drive the lesson. Those times are when I love teaching the most. It was a sweet experience. 

Yesterday, the office elders invited us to go with them to the national museum at Montjuic which was the royal palace at one time and it's up on a mountain overlooking the city. Very long day. According to my watch, I got well over 15,000 steps, so I am very thankful for "The Day of Rest" today. 

I hope that your week hasn't been this crazy. If it has, I hope therapy goes well for you! We love and miss you all. 

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