Our trip - Part 3 - Castellon

After visiting Madrid, we took the 5:00 train to Castellon - which is about an hour north of Valencia. It's about an hour from the Mediterranean coast. This was Ryan's fourth area in his mission. We were there a Thursday through Saturday evening, so we didn't get to go to church in this area, but fortunately there was a ward party on Friday night that we got to attend, so it was practically the same thing :)

This was our first experience in Ryan's actual mission - and it was such a cool experience for me. I got to see how much everyone loved Ryan while he was there. While he was on his mission, I was very careful not to call him my missionary - because he was the Lord's missionary. As we visited everyone, I could see what an impact he had on so many people's lives - he was the Lord's missionary to them and it was obvious to me and everyone that he filled that role well. I was so proud of him the whole time - and getting to see his mission firsthand was life-changing for me.

While in Castellon, we visited people. We stopped at a lot of people's homes and talked. Some of them we surprised. We tried to convince a few to go back to church, had some really great discussions with others about the gospel and why we love the gospel, and even accompanied the missionaries on a visit to try and reactivate one lady. That was a cool experience for me, since I've never served a mission. It was great for Ryan to be able to see people again, and overall, not too many people had gone less active, but we still had our work cut out for us!

We were supposed to stay with a member friend while in Castellon, but when we arrived, she surprised us with the booking confirmation to the honeymoon suite in a local hotel - as a late wedding gift. It was touching and we appreciated it so much!

Cool statue with lots of hands

Bull statue - I guess all the missionaries get pictures with it at some point

With the bishop and his wife

With Edith (Ryan taught her and convinced her to be baptized). She has the cutest little boy, Rodrigo

With Jairo (Ryan baptized him)

With Mariela, a member in the ward. We ate delicious food at her house the first day :)

With the Zsiga family (Shee-guh). They're from Romania. They were so nice, and we had a great visit. We hope they all join the church soon - they are a wonderful family. Ryan baptized Alex, the son.

With the Rojas Bellota family. We were going to eat with them but ran out of meals.

This is the entire terminal for flying out of the Valencia airport, 45 minutes before our flight was to leave. We got there almost 2 hours early. Dumbest move ever... there was nobody there!