Starting where we are:

These are the JAS at the A Coruna Branch in Spain They had a party for us on our First Sturday Here Below are pictures of our hotel where we stayed for 3 weeks trying to get an apt. (piso). 

I have been trying to get this blog started for about 6 weeks but problems with computers or internet access or time have been getting in the way.  Then when the stars finally all aligned I thought I should start at the beginning but at this point that is a daunting task and so I am starting where we are: the here and now. I have lots of pics and think maybe I should just put them up and add words as we go.  Anything to get started. Things are great here in A Coruna. One thing before I start yaking many of you and friends but not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints so I will try and explain when I am talking church "speak".  If I miss something just ask.

Here is Dwight ( Elder Stephenson) standing out in front of our Hotel

 This is the look down the street toward the Store Alcampo (kind of like Walmart)

Thses are pictures of our Piso. there is a park right outside. And we live only about a five minute walk from the Church.

 This is a picture looking back at our apt. bldg from the metal bridge we take to cross the highway to get to the Church.

 I reolaced the fish curtain with a white one with spring flowers in this bath.

 We bought a printer right away so that we can get all our materials for English class etc. printed.

 This master bath even has hydro massage how wouldhave ever thought.

Our Piso is 2 bedroom 2 bath, hardwood floors 70m/2 , we have a nice kitchen it even has a dishwasher.  All the pisos have a washing machine and lines to hang your wash on a little terrace.  We put 2 single beds together to make our bed, because the matrimonio beds here are very narrow 135 cm. It is working great.  We used a duvet cover for the bottom sheet and another for the top, because they don't have sheets that size and the sheets here are not the thread counts of the states.  Pillows here are funny the are the length of the whole bed and so couples just have one.  This of course would not work for us. So we were able to go to IKEA our new favorite store to buy pillows for our bed. Now Dwight has his feather pillow and I have mine in polyester.
Our piso has heat some don't, but we haven't used it yet. The weather though rainy is comfortable ( at least for Wisconsinites)  It rains over 200 in /yr here and we believe it.  Everyone always carries an umbrella.

We are working with the Young Single Adults (YSA), they are age 18-30, there are about 30 in the branch.  Every young Adult we have met is great.  Most of them are from Central and South America. Only 1 is Spanish and we have 2 JAS (YSA) Jovenes Adultos Solteros investigators that are Spanish.  Here in Spain they speak a Dialect called Gallego but everyone understands Spanish, so it is just us who don't understand them. Gallego is very close to Portugese, so it sounds very pretty.  I taught my first class last night.  It was an English Class. we had 11 students from the branch (congregation) and 1 non- member.  We are thinking of adding a second class on Saturday for the many people who work late at night on weekdays.  We also have responsibilty for the youth in Lugo and Santiago de Compostela but we haven't been there yet.  We do have district meeting once a week with the Elders ( those are the young missionaries you see with the white shirts and ties) from this area, but Santiago doesn't even have elders.  I think we will be teaching English in Lugo along with FHE ( Family Home Evening) for JAS one night a week starting fairly soon.   We just got a call this morning, that we have provisional approval for our youth center. That  means that we will get funded and if we keep progressing in our numbers we will get our own center.
As far as what we eat, we are beginning to venture out alittle from bread and cheese,fruit, hot chocolate and cookies.  I make a meal each week for the JAS at our activity and I try to bring something to district meeting which is always here in A Coruna with the other Elders traveling from 1-2 hrs away.  We have tried Pasta salad, Baked potatoes with different toppings ( no sour cream here the closest is fromage blanc from France.) Spaghetti  pureed tomato with oregano, rosemary, garlic ( the spanish don't use much spice and so some of the Central and South Americans were happy to have some spice.   I also made Brownies the other day, I got the resipe from one of our nice JAS girls but what an adventure. first figure out what flour to use Trigo is wheat -  trigo Entera is whole wheat not the best choice.  I bought it first and had to use it to make alfredo sauce, it works but there were flakes of wheat germ in the sauce. Trigo harina de repostera-  turns out this is pastry flour.  I did use it to make the brownies, but next time I will look for trigo Harina de something else, and hope it is just right.  Then to the leavening agents I couldn't find baking soda finally found some 1.55 euros for 5 packets containing maybe 5 tablespoons total. I did find a little container of baking powder 2.5 Euros.  and Vanilla almost non existant I had to settle for vanilla aroma for 3.75 euro.  But Chocolate there is a whole aisle in the grocery store. I finally picked Valor pure tablet chocolate it is like bittersweet.  I didn't find cocoa in time, but later at another store Dwight found Powdered cocoa. anyway the brownies were different but good.  I will keep working on a recipe, or maybe now that we finally have internet I can find out if someone else has already reinvented this wheel. Brownies are about the only sweet they don't have here. Every bakery sweet you can think of they have in the "twinkie" aisle  like Napoilians etc. absolutely everything no wonder the flour only comes in 1 kilo pkg. who in their right mind would bake.  And the absolute best bread, Especially here is Galicia they have 2 breads call Gallego bread that are wonderful. Chewy but moist one is a huge donut shape and the other is like a turban.  We have been involved in some lessons for investigators  a lady named Susy who is amazing and so good in the lessons that we could give her a missionary badge tomorrow and send her out. She gets baptized on the 28th. 2 of our JAS are also taking the lessons they are twin sisters and are very sweet their family is from Galicia and they are friends of some our other JAS.  We have a car it is brand new an Opel Mervina and it has been an adventure driving it. There are alot more cars than parking spots in A Coruna and everyone is a master at parallel or any other trig function of parking.  Dwight is learning, and we haven't dented the car or anyone else's yet. Miracle, because every car here has a dent or scrape.  The streets are narrow and there is lots of double parking.