WHAT NOW

This week we talked to the Missionary Department, wanting to know if we could get our visas for a trip we are thinking of taking to Cancun to practice our Spanish.  If we are going to wait we might as well have some fun.  The woman Mike talked to said that we could get our visas.  Evidently our visa applications have been sitting in the Spanish consulate in Los Angelas for 5 months.  They have never even arrived in Spain.  She said there are over 100 missionaries waiting to go to Spain.  There is a big backlog, with not enough help, so this woman is going to LA on September 17 to help get things moving, but even if she succeeds it will be 2 or 3 more months after Spain receives them.  So, it will surely be December of after.  I am thinking maybe the church needs to call full time missionaries to help at the consulate, if that's what it takes, for the notoriously slow visa process to Spain.  I have vowed not to decorate for Christmas but perhaps I should start another painting.

We are planning to have a farewell on November 18.  We will enter the MTC on November 26 and when we are finished we will return home to....wait.  Then we will be ready to fly immediately when the visa's arrive.   I can't say we are getting good at waiting, but we hang in with very little murmuring, at least not out loud.  

22x28 oil on canvas board from my photo

I started this painting in January.  In February our first mission call came for Scotland , reporting in May.  I didn't think I would have time to finish it but the call changed to Spain and visa delays have gone on giving me ample time.  The pressure to study Spanish has filled up a lot of my disposable time or it would have been finished long ago.

Two years ago we were in Paris France on a Sunday afternoon.  Look here for photos and story.  The sweetest thing I have ever seen is the bird feeding in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral.  An older man was there with a basket of bread and he would stand the children upon the marble ledges and put bread in their hands.  The birds obviously knew the routine and would jockey for their turn.  The hedge was filled with little birds, waiting for a chance.  The pigeons on the ground pecked for stray crumbs.  The kids would laugh and giggle as the little beaks tickled their fingers.  I couldn't get enough of the charm of it all.