Food...The Language of Love

One of the joys of serving in Le Seu is the beautiful environment in which we work.  It has turned bitter, cold so I have to really bundle up to go walking in the morning…but the misty majesty of the valley make it worth it.  The Pyrenees are capped with snow and Andorra is full of seasonal skiers arriving from all over Europe. 

Sunrise

A follow up of last week’s sausage marathon, I dropped over to deliver some cookies to Carmen and she took me on a tour of her menagerie of sausages.   After having spent a great deal of time with Juan and Carmen, we have come to realize that we were “city” farmers compared these folks.  They produce every part of their livelihood…meat, milk, eggs, produce and etc.  They even share their house with the pigs!

Carmen and in her Sausage Room

Even though I don’t speak Spanish very fluently, I do speak “food”.  So I have been showing my love to the members by cooking.  We have now hosted four different family dinners and have three more scheduled.  It is lovely to spend an evening with just one family and get to know them better and learn how we can best serve them. I have master Grandma Faye’s roll recipe.  Two dozen rolls disappear pretty quickly!

During this week we hosted a family with three little boys who had a bit of extra energy to spare so we gave them each a hammer and let them crack walnuts. The scatter pattern was pretty impressive when they were finished but we had a few quiet minutes to chat with their mom.

Food is the Language of Love

We decided to visit all the members in our little branch before Christmas and take a message of how they could better worship the Christ Child through gifts of personal worship.  We made a custom Christmas card with the Nativity scene and our message printed on the inside.  Additionally, we purchased some cookie canisters (torros de galletas) and Hermana Fowers filled them with several varieties of freshly baked cookies.  We enjoy seeing each recipient feel a moment of peace and joy as we performed a simple act of giving. In this part of Spain there is nothing that even comes close to Hermana Fowers’ “fresh-out-of-the-oven” cookies.

Baked with Love

Torros de Galletas

The front yard of our farmhouse once was a beautiful flower and vegetable garden, but has been abandon for many years.  Next spring we hope to bring this back to life again by allowing the member families to have their own garden plot.  Saturday we had a clean-up party cutting the excess grass and weeds.  We will then get a neighbor to plow the rich, brown soil after we spread manure from Juan’s cows and my chickens.  We plan to use this project to teach self-sufficiency tool for the members.

Members Working Together in Branch Garden

Today we had our Andorra Branch Primary Program.  Our new Primary President had never attended Primary because she joined the church as an adult, but today she organize a sweet little program with two primary children and a nonmember cousin singing and giving their little talks.  I remember the last primary program I attended in our Silver Lake Ward.  There were probably 200+ kids on the stand singing and giving their little talks over the pulpit.  The spirit is the same.  Primary children are the same all over the world we have come to see first hand.  Little 10-year-old Faviana gave a 10-minute talk on the restoration and coming forth of the Book of Mormon without any help from her teacher. There was an “espiritu sagrada” (sacred spirit) in the words and songs of the children.

Andorra Branch Primary Program

I sometimes wonder what the Lord would have us do during our 18-month calling in this branch where real growth is so difficult.  The local people have no God in daily routines and only go to church when someone dies.  Today in Priesthood meeting I called upon the 5 brethren to stand up and represent Jesus Christ to this Godless community.  I know that all of God's children will have his opportunity to know the truth and that all will eventually confess that Jesus is the Christ.  May we endure joyfully together until that day comes. It will be worth it.  That I believe and testify.

Elder and Hermana Fowers