Mike and Charmaine Anderson

Mike and Charmaine Anderson

Friday, April 20, 2012

What are we doing now?

The Visa has been submitted.  The mission President told us that the Visas are coming in a lot earlier since the new "conservative" government was voted in...some as early as 2 months so we are hoping that our August 6 date will truly happen.

Right now we are studying Spanish many hours a day.  We found this great site with progressive lessons that we are working through. http://www.spanishdict.com/  We are trying to speak a little Spanish to each other, hopefully it will be even more as the summer progresses.

I am learning to use my new I pad and Mike has a new lap top he is taking.  He is considering an I pad also.  We are communicating with missionaries on the Canaries and have a good idea what the situation is there...more Spanish is needed than was advertised. Oh me!  Mike will be fine as he is far far ahead of me.  For once he will be talking and I will be silent.  He just needs to get to a point where he can translate for me.  

I am sewing for myself for the first time in years.  I am making comfortable, simple longish skirts and dresses.  Someone told us that CES stands for "cooking every second"  so I want to be in some easy clothes if that is true. 

I am going to Women's Conference at BYU next week and plan to teach a shortened family writing class in May.  I have a painting I want to finish before we go.  Life is good!

Sunday, April 8, 2012

THE SECOND CALL - Canary Islands

Six weeks before reporting to the MTC we received a call from the Mission President in Scotland telling us that our call was issued by mistake in that the couple we were to replace were not leaving as their release date was wrong.  We were getting very excited about this call so it was a traumatic week, not to mention the closet full of warm clothes we had collected.  We were given a couple of options for our recall:  Indonesia teaching 3 days a week in the University there since we both have degrees and then doing member support and PR the rest of the week or Canary Islands Center for Young Adults.  Since we already had thoughts about Spanish speaking there was no big decision.  Within a week the call came to the Madrid Spain mission working on the Canary Islands.  Thankfully a bunch of those warm clothes still had tags and were taken back to Kohls.  We were grateful for their generous return policy.

The Canary islands are reported to have some of the nicest weather in the world, 65-85 degrees all year.  And we won't be leaving until August if the visa comes through then.  The visa process is slow in Spain but is said to be picking up.  So, we are head first into our Spanish review and looking forward to a nice summer at home.