This is our apartment in Alcázar de San Juan, Spain. December 2013

December 16, 2013- We are in Ronda, Spain. What a beautiful place!

December 16, 2013- Ronda, Spain with President Deere & Sister Deere and our Senior Missionaries.
Left to right: Elder & Sister Wiscombe, Elder & Sister Castello, Elder & Sister Wilson, Sister Deere, Sister Chantrill, President Deere, Elder & Sister Todd.

We enjoyed an afternoon with some investigators that live in the home town of Dulcinea, El Toboso. We enjoyed two museums, one was a house like Dulcinea could have lived in with olive presses and wine presses and all the furnishings. The other museum was a collection of copies of Don Quiotje, Man of La Mancha in over 70 languages. Books were donated by many dignitaries including Ronald Reagan, King Carlos, Mussolini. It was an amazing exhibit. Ana and her husband are great investigators. They are ready for baptism but her husband, Raúl, has not been divorced from his first wife and they are trying to get things worked out so they can get married and then baptized.

These are the missionaries from our Zone. They were in our piso for Thanksgiving Day. We have missionaries from Sweden, Chile, USA, Spain, Ecuador, and Netherlands in our Zone. We had a wonderful day with them. We had transfers the day before Thanksgiving so 6 of the missionaries are new to the area and two of them started their first assignment here. We have over 200 missionaries in the Málaga mission.

We are doing well. We are visiting many members of the branch. We travel to several cities surrounding Alcázar that are in our branch area. Most people don't like visitors until it is 8:30 p.m. We have been able to find everyone we look for even though the cities are new to us and it is dark. The GPS comes in handy. The street names usually change every block or two. The streets are narrow and it is hard to find a place to park.

 These two elders work in our branch. Elder Peña and Elder Vosters have helped us a lot in getting settled. They have enjoyed Susan's cooking. Elder Vosters was transfered today. We are waiting the arrival of Elder Peña's new companion.

Alcázar de San Juan is in the background. Hermana Wiscombe is enjoying a short break as we were visiting the windmills on a hill outside the city. We are driving to other cities in our branch and meeting the members that live there. Distance and lack of transportation keep some of the members from coming to church every week.

We are enjoying our mission and we feel the prayers of all the members of the church. We are being helped in our labors. We are glad to serve in this part of the Lord's vineyard.

22 Nov 2013

We are doing well in Spain. We have visited several members in their homes or apartments. We have traveled to other cities that are included in our branch. We have enjoyed these drives. The city streets and the highways are kept very clean. The author of Don Quijote, Miguel Cervantes, was baptized as an infant in a catholic church in this city of Alcazar. We could follow the route of Don Quijote as it is marked out on maps.

We have been accepted very well by the branch members. The general public have been very helpful to us. They are willing to talk to us. We usually start our conversations by asking them to help us with something or as we are doing business with them.

We had a good experience at the hairdresser this week. We both had our haircut. Susan was in the chair a little longer than I was.

We visited this windmill near Alcázar. This is a beautiful area. Hermana Wiscombe is doing just fine as we are now helping members with their family history.

We arrived in Spain 5 November 2013. This is a photo at the airport with our mission president, President Deere, and his wife, Hermana Deere.

We spent two days in the mission office before going to our assigned area in La Mancha, Spain. We are assigned to work in a branch in Alcázar de San Juan.

We have spent much of our time setting up our new apartment.

We enjoyed church Sunday with the members. There were about 30 members in attendance. The church has been here for about 30 years. They hope for some real growth. There are 80 total members.

Susan and I have been asked to help all of the families in the ward learn to do family history.

We are excited with the opportunity to serve. I have been able to communicate and Susan is putting forth her best effort to learn the language.

We appreciate your prayers in our behalf.

We just arrived in Malaga, Spain. This is a photo of the missionary couples and sisters that participated with us for the week in the MTC in Provo.

It feels like we are in San Diego.

We have spent the day packing and we are about ready to go.

We appreciate all everyone has done for us to prepare to leave on a mission to Spain Monday!

We miss our children and grandchildren already. We have been very busy in the MTC. We will be home for the weekend before leaving for Spain 4 November 2013.

We spoke in sacrament meeting 20 October. we enjoyed visiting with family. The deer hunt began 19 October. We had a large gathering of family as the men went hunting the children and spouses had a Halloween party.

The last week home was very busy. We were able to finalize many things before our departure but it seemed we were busy every waking hour.

We entered the MTC in Provo, Utah at 10:40 a.m. Monday morning (28 Oct).

We are enjoying getting acquainted with missionaries from all over the world leaving to serve all over the world. Bruce and Allison Hoskinsson are here. They will be going to Brisbane, Australia. Linda Porter is also here. She is going to Kansas.

We are glad to finally leave the "world" behind and serve full time in the mission field.

Mission Call

We received our mission call in a letter that arrived at our home late in the evening on 5 July 2013. We invited all of our family to join us Saturday afternoon to open the letter. Our granddaughter, Regan McGreer, had guessed that we would go to Spain. Susan read her call first. She was called to the Spain Málaga Mission. There was a little apprehension when Richard read his call. It was to the same mission!

We are really excited about this call. Richard spoke Spanish on his mission to the Andes South Mission in 1968. Susan is learning to speak Spanish. We will make the perfect couple!

We will go to the Missionary Training Center in Provo on 28 October 2013. We will return home Friday evening and spend the weekend in Richville. We will leave for Spain Monday 4 November 2013. We should arrive in Málaga 5 November 2013 in the afternoon.

We are thankful for the opportunity this call gives us to serve. We hope we can be of help.