Our Trip to the Madrid Temple

Alicia and Sephora

After our weekend in Angouleme, we checked out of our cute little hotel and were picked up by Jean-Pierre on another rainy day in France.  Yesterday, Remy Demolombe said all his potatoes have rotted in the ground because there have been so few dry days this spring.  J.P. had just taken Marion to the bus for her school where she'd like to learn how to care for 'old people' (that is until one bopped her good one, and another accused her of stealing), now she is thinking seriously about baby care!  We loaded up their nice big SUV (lots of baby stuff), and had just the room we all needed since grandmere Genevieve took the train.  Little Alicia, at 4 1/2 months old, was such a good girl as we sat in the back seat with her between us.  It was a 10 hour drive (with stops to feed her) and she was stuck in her seat, unable to get off her back, but was wide eyed with curiosity and gave us many sweet smiles to die for.  We finally drove through the Pyrenees Mts. into Spain and pretty much left the bad weather behind us, for blue skies and sunshine.

    The large Madrid temple sits bright and white on a corner of a busy street, and is eyecatchingly beautiful, with the angel Moroni blowing his horn just above for all the world to see.  We got to park underground and took our luggage into the housing area where we were expected (I think):  Joana & Jaque Motcalfo.  We claimed the names and for the two of us, we paid $85E. total for a 5 night stay in two dorm rooms, where we both had upper bunks and 3 roommates.  I lucked out with my two Spanish sisters, and Genevieve; the lady in my bottom bunk was a temple worker from Barcelona who came to give a week of service.  She was very nice, with just enough English for us to be able to figure things out between us; and her worker-bee, early rising schedule, was good for me and got me going also in a timely manner.  Jack was dressed and raring to go the next morning at just past 7 A.M., because his roommate is a big-time snorer.  He couldn't even drown out the noise by lying on his good ear, and so he had a rotten night of very little sleep.  But, we were so happy to be going to an endowment session after all this time, his night time woes were soon forgotten.  In the chapel they find out how many people are there who speak different languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, etc., and whoever has the majority of people, that's the language the session is done in.  Our first was in English, and our second one was in French and we were asked to be the witness couple.  I decided to try it without headphones as an experiment, so Jack kept nudging me to keep me on my toes about when to do this or that.

Sephora, Jean-Pierre & Alicia

Jean-Pierre, Alicia & Jaime

    At 3 P.M. we gathered again for the sealing ceremony of Jean-Pierre and Sephora, and waited for the arrival of a friend who was on a 6 hour drive from France to be there also.  Tall and lanky Jaime (Hy-mie, born in Madrid) was a branch president years ago in Angouleme and J.P. was one of his counselors.  After his mission, he met a young French divorcee with 4 YOUNG CHILDREN and they married and have added 2 more to their family...what a neat guy he is.  The ceremony was nice, then they brought Alicia in to be sealed to her parents.  She had been fussy downstairs, but J.P. rocked her to sleep and the matrons whisked her off until time to bring her in.  They dressed her in a beautiful long white princess gown (fluffy with ruffles) and we gasped at how pretty she looked.  The matron placed her where her parents hands were clasped, and she laid her little hand on theirs, and she looked around at everyone, but kept her hand there the whole time.  Even President Paia, (who sealed them) was mesmerized as Alicia, then in her father's arms, began to speak to us...' ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhhhh.....'  She sat there straight and tall, eyes on all of us adults in the room, calmly sounding as if she was telling us all about this wonderful world that she knew so well.  She was in total charge for over two minutes...none of us wanted the moment to end, we were so amazed and delighted to have been a part of that experience. 

   We asked Jaime if he knew of any restaurants in the area for an outing the next night.  He found one in the phone book that sounded good, so after a day of temple work, we headed out into the city in two cars. 

Jean-Pierre's French GPS didn't like being in Spain and kept sending us in wide circles as we tried following him, and up one-way streets to nowhere.  Finally we found the city center street we were looking for, and after parking we marched up and down looking for a non-existent restaurant - it had closed its doors for good some time ago.  Hmmmm. Plan B was to ask the man on the street, and we were directed a block away to a small place, not too new or clean looking, but we were game (and hungry), and there were plenty of customers at the outside tables (smoking!), so we sat inside.  Jaime ordered several traditional dishes for us all to try, plus the cafe brought free samplers of fried pork rinds,  and crusty little fried fish as long as your finger, and creamy mild Spanish olives to start with.  Deep Fried is the name of the game for Spanish people, and we've noticed this at the temple apartments kitchen also.  Then the food started coming....potato salad with thick mayonnaise, potato salad with tuna and other stuff (yum), yellow potatoes covered with an orange colored paprika sauce (yum), Spanish potato omelet, deep fried cheese balls (both yum), deep fried squid pieces (scary, but we tried it - not bad, just must get it past your eyes first), and large slices of chorizo sausage (Jack loved it).  It was actually quite a potato fest, all beautifully prepared and presented, and I was pleasantly surprised by all the different tastes.  We ended the night at an ice cream shop, got lost on our way back, and felt like naughty teenagers coming timidly in after hours, hoping our parents (or security!) wouldn't be mad at us.

     Our remaining days at the temple were busy with more endowment sessions and we helped Jean-Pierre with some family sealings he had been working on since 2007.  That was a special session for us as the Spanish officiator gave us a card with the words in French so that we could follow along more easily.  A woman slipped in to help us and Jack helped her by being proxy for her father and she for her mother, as they were sealed across the altar.  She wept for joy as the spirit was strong and it was a special time.  Then later, after we went to get dressed again to go to lunch, I stopped to use the WC real quick (I thought!).  I flipped the lock to get out of my stall and the door would not open!  Hmmmm.  This was just plain crazy - was I doing something wrong?  It was a simple latch up is open, flip it sideways to lock.  But, nothing I did helped at all, and no one else was in the room, lunch time you know!  I was not going to yell for help in the temple - I'd rather suffer a bit than do that!  The stall had very tall walls, with very little space at the bottom, maybe 6 or 8 inches, enough room for my head to scootch out, but not the rest of me.  I prayed for some aid to help me...maybe Jack was missing me!  Sure enough, a couple of minutes later my Barcelona roommate came calling to see if I was there.  She tried the door from the outside, then with a tool, but nothing gave, so they called in the Big Guns!   It was quite funny listening to the chatter of concerned women, wondering how I was doing, trying to encourage me to not give up hope, until finally a deep man's voice cut to the chase - the answer to the problem had arrived.  I watched as big fingers came up under the door, feeling for the hinge, but that idea was banished quickly.  He tried the door, pushed on the door, then WHAM, slammed a tool into the lock and BAM the door leaped open with gusto (glad I was standing way back!) and I was freed from my cell.  Everyone gathered around and congratulated me for surviving my ordeal, and were so very nice to me (the main concern I had was to be sure to wash my hands before leaving)!  That just goes to show that funny things can happen to a person anywhere you might be. 

    We left on Saturday, and J.P. took us on a little side trip through an Atlantic Ocean tourist town called St. Jean de Luz, that was just beginning its season.  He stopped so that we could get a good look at the lovely curve of smooth sand and sparkling blue water that stretched out along the coastline.  This was every bit as appealing as the Mediterranean Sea side of France and Spain…what neat playgrounds the people have here.  We got to Angouleme and stayed the night with Patrick Humblot, who was alone since his wife is under a doctor's care in a rest home for a few weeks...we don't know why, but it seems to happen a lot here.  We visited Carole in one a few years ago after we had just got to know her, and also knew another woman who was admitted for a rest and evaluation...it seems to be free.  Maybe that's what we need when life starts throwing us curveballs, a place to rest for awhile...sounds good to me!  After church on Sunday, Patrick handed us sack lunches he had thoughtfully made for us and got us to our train on time for the trip back to Lille.  Come to think about it, we did get a much needed rest......a weeklong trip to the temple of our God in Madrid, Spain; what could be better than that?