Well, another wonderful week capped off by General Conference! The weather in Spain is absolutely gorgeous, the temperature at 1:30 pm following the rebroadcast of the Priesthood Session is about 64 degrees Fahrenheit.
As you can see, several of the stake members are eating and waiting for the rebroadcast of the Saturday afternoon session today at 2:00 pm (SDT). 
We were able to watch it on KBYU television last night from 10:00-12:00 midnight. 
The same schedule goes for today (Sunday) 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm (SDT). It is such a wonderful blessing to be able to watch all of conference sessions from our apartment.
The conference talks have been wonderful as usual and you can really feel the spirit of the messages. The messages never get old and continue to inspire us to be better people and to love the Lord with all of our hearts, minds, might and strength. Many of the messages have focused on provident living and to put our faith and trust in the Lord. The crisis that we are now in has continually been repeated throughout history and will likely be repeated again in the secular world - the Old and New Testaments and the Book of Mormon all tell of this cycle: people being blessed by the Lord by obedience of the people, followed by a loss of faith because of riches, followed by divisions between people (classes) forgetting to care for the poor and the sharing of their substance, followed by greed, pride, and loss of morality which leads to spiritual darkness and then loss of precious worldly things and freedoms, hopefully then and only then, the people turn back to God because of their forced humility or they will be totally destroyed. We are somewhere in the last part of the cycle - obviously we (the world) have not learned from history. But the great thing is that there is hope, for we have the promise of a loving Father and His Son Jesus Christ that we can be saved from total destruction, if we but turn from the wicked ways and return to following the commandments.
The message to return to the Temple was inspiring to help us better understand the principles taught there and to strengthen our relationship with God and Christ.
The comment made sense, and we have seen it here, that often it is easier for those living farther from the Temple to be faithful in attending than those that live close-by. When were are farther away we have to plan for the trip and we set goals, but when we live in the shadows of the Temple we often think that we can and will go whenever we want….the only problem with that is that Satan puts all sorts of challenges in our lives and frequently we let everything else come between our Temple worship and our precious time. It is our hope and prayer that we have learned that there is a time and a season for everything and that we need to set in priority our responsibility to worship in the House of the Lord and to work other things around this opportunity. 
The Temple covenants we have made do bring us power to cope with all of the trials and tribulations that we are now facing.
The growth of the Church is mind boggling. As they read the report it was interesting to see how far has come since 1830; 2,800 stakes, 28,000 wards and branches, and more than a quarter of a million new converts during 2008.
During this past week we met a family that comes faithfully to the Temple. We heard their story during this week and it makes me reflect on what I have continually taken for granted. They live in a small town, they are the only members of the church and the closest church is several miles away (too far to walk). They joined the Church a few years ago and wanted to be active in the ward. They take a bus every Saturday night to the city where their ward is located, pack their meals for the night and next day, rent a hotel room so they will be there in time for the meetings and then attend the next day and return home later that day. This has happened every week since they were baptized. They are just common, ordinary people doing extraordinary things to show the Lord that they love Him. They hold positions in the ward and are some of the most faithful people that we have ever met. They come to the Temple about every three months and spend the entire week doing five to six sessions a day.
This past week the Temple President and his wife finished the Job Descriptions that we have been putting together as training documents. They sent them off to Frankfurt, Germany for translation into French and Italian-we had prepared them in English and translated them into Spanish locally. It is good to have this behind us, hopefully, the translations will come back quickly and we can start to train everyone using the same procedures.
We are so happy serving here in Madrid, Spain and, hopefully, our simple little efforts will be helping move the work along. We have been richly blessed and have felt the Lord direct our actions as we have tried to serve with an eye single to His glory. Have we been without illnesses and trials, no, but we have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams. Has everything gone as planned, no, but we have been inspired to adjust a little here a little there and things have proceeded better than our original plans would have done. It is amazing what can be done if we trust in the Lord, listen to His whisperings and recognize what He is trying to tell us and then do it. We know He lives, He hears and answers our prayers and He is mindful of us as individuals.
Thank you for all of your faithfulness and example. We are better people for having known each of you. We sincerely thank you for your love, support and prayers not only for us but for each other. There is nothing more glorious than feeling the sweet comfort of the Holy Ghost that we have all been given. May God be with you and your families throughout this week and forever.
Love Mom & Dad / Nana and Papa / Elder y Hermana Shaw
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