School Starts!

Today Anna and I, along with new missionaries Shawn and Deb Galyen and veteran missionary Ellen Cannon started language school! Due to an accident on the road, traffic was backed up for quite awhile and we were late for class. Everyone at the school was taking the placement test to see which class they would be in. The Test consists of 100 multiple choice questions (in Spanish) a short essay (in Spanish) and then an oral test where one of the instructors has a conversation with you in Spanish.

The good news is I was the first one to finish the exam! The bad news is I only knew one answer on the test (I think). I'll definitely be in the A1 class (beginning class). Anna did really well. She was one of the last ones finished and even had a conversation with one of the teachers.

Tomorrow we find out how we did and begin our classes. Well, the others will anyway. Today I found out that you have to register to pay sales tax on your car. The car dealer where we are getting our STL vehicle from tried to complete the transaction but could not do it because we had not registered to pay the sales tax (It never occurred to us that we had to!)

So tomorrow I get to play hooky and pay taxes... I think I'd rather be in school.

Prayer Points:

• That we can get our STL car by Thursday so we can use it for our long trip to Tarragona, Spain where we will be having our Missions Orientation.
• Our Attorney will be going to the Government offices tomorrow to straighten out our Visa problems. Her name is Silva, please pray that God will give her favor and wisdom.
• That we can learn Spanish for God's glory (Especially me!).
  

Please Pray

We have a few challenges that have popped up that we would really appreciate your prayers on.

The first is our residency paperwork. It seems that the official here wants an original document that is still in the possession of the Miami consulate. This particular official really seems to dislike us and is making thing difficult. We need that document very soon or we don't know what will happen to our residence status. Please pray for favor with the government officials and that we can get that document in time or better yet, complete the process with out the document.

Second, we have everything we need to get our Speed the Light vehicle. Please pray that there are no hitches when STL transfers the funds internationally to the dealership and that we can get the vehicle registered on our temporary residence number. In the past it hasn't been a problem to get a vehicle on a temporary number, but we just had a missionary get denied.

Finally, we start school on September 2nd. We will be going to the University of Alcala. They have been teaching the Spanish language and Spanish grammar since 1499 so I'm fairly confident they can get Spanish into my thick skull. Please pray that we learn the language well so that we can spread the gospel effectively.

Thank you so much for your prayers, it means the world to us! If you have a moment please feel free to leave us a comment so we know your praying.

Survivor (Part 2)

Much of our time so far has been learning how survive and completing the visa process. Grocery shopping and cooking are one example. When Anna would go grocery shopping in the states, she would get everything she needed at one or two stores. Now she has to go to three or four to get not only the best price, but to get the item she wants. Everything is in Spanish (we are, after all, in Spain) so she had to learn the difference between Cebolla en Polvo, Ajo en polvo, and Albahaca

The adventures don't end at the grocery store. Anna has been learning how to cook all over again. She has to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius and lean to cook with different ingredients. The stove she uses has very cryptic markings for temperature and it likes to get very hot very quickly. A few times our dinner has been "well done". But she has really gotten the hang of it in the past week and our meals have been outstanding!

In other news, Rebekah lost her first tooth! Here she is posing with a flower she bought for one of her friends.

A Few Changes

I've made a few changes to the blog. Updated the look a bit and discovered that no one could leave posts without being a blogger member. I've changed that, so now anyone can leave comments, however I've added the moderator feature to cut down on spam. So feel free to leave any comments. We love to hear from you!

Survivor (Part 1)

Most of our time in Spain so far has been spent adjusting and surviving. Having the power turned on, learning our way around (our GPS has been a blessing!) learning what is what in the grocery store and even learning how to cook all over again.

Today was spent trying to find our language school in Alcala. We eventually found it and picked up our applications. After that we went to a grocery store and did the weekly shopping. The milk is fresh and doesn't last very long, and the bread turns into a brick if left over night. So far its been quite the adventure.

Here are some pictures of our journey to Spain.

A House!

I don't know if I have ever been this tired. It's 11:15 PM here in Spain and we've been going hard at it all day.

To start off our day we finally got all our paperwork together and we were able to register with City Hall.

Josh went and spent the day at IMM where they were shooting Buddy Barrel's 60th Birthday Party! While he was having a great time eating pizza and cake, we were at the house putting together the kitchen table and chairs and the girls bunk beds. I really missed my Dewalt cordless drill....

The house was still without power until a wonderful dude showed and up waved his magic cordless drill and then we had power! As soon as we had power we rushed off to the local Carrefour (sort of like a Wal-Mart) and bought three fans. One for each of our bedrooms! Homes don't have AC like we have back in the states. You can but air conditioners but they run from €200 on up.

We came back and finished up the girls bunks, had a little dinner and cooled off a bit(I miss ice too!) before we ran to the grocery store and to Jon and Bonnie Coopers to pick up an air mattress. Anna, Josh and I get to camp out on air mattress until our container arrives in a few months. But its all good my friends we are in Spain! We can't wait until language school starts!

I used up my entire one semester of college Spanish in the Madrid airport. Then Mark and Ellen Cannon showed us this youtube video and we could relate. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

We're Here!

We arrved in Spain this past Friday! Our flight was fairly uneventful and the children managed to sleep a bit. Anna and I, however, still haven't mastered how to sleep sitting up. We were met at the airport by Missionaries Mark and Ellen Cannon and their son Tim. They, along with all the other missionaries that we have met have been so kind and helpful to us.

The house we are renting was supposed to have the power turned on today, but... it should be on somewhere from 1pm to 4pm tomorrow.

We're still jet-lagging so we'll write more later.

Blessings!