11/22/10

*Questions answered...we had asked in email prior to his reply.

1. Just another day. I´ll probably buy something to make in house. (Thanksgiving)
2. No, not yet, but it could come this week. (transfer for his companion)
3. Just make a new playlist. Then import the CD´s into the computer (stick it in, wait until it brings up a box that says ´would you like to import CD¨) and click yes. Then, once you´ve copied all the music you want, drag the songs to the new playlist you made and then click ¨Burn Disc¨. Probably take a few CD´s.
4. It shouldn´t be running out for a bit. Tell him to push the Guide button (the big button in the center), then go over to the far right tab, then look for ¨Account Information¨or something like that. Should be able to find the date around there. I think it might be coming up. If so, get a 12 month card at a store, and punch in the info under ¨Redeem Code¨. (xbox)
5. No, not really. But I kinda like being able to rest for two hours in house. (do members feed you in new area)
6. Normal work day here. Larry got to take it as an extra p-day, but we go out after four here I think. (Christmas)
7. No, because Microsoft´s gotten pretty good at detecting the modified controllers. They violate the Terms of Use, which equals Account+Console banned from Xbox Live until the year 9999. No matter what crazy steven´s telling him, they´re detectable. So no. (xbox controller for Brandon question)
8. Eh...customs will probably steal it again. I´m okay, really. (would he like a food/snack box?)

No, Risk will be next transfer. (have you been able to play the game Risk w/ companions on pday?)

Sounds like Marae gotten pretty good. (told how Marae had a great softball game)

It´s not really too cold. I´m...sort of still in short sleeves. :). Don´t worry, if it gets cold, I pull on a coat.

I don´t need anything at the moment, and we´re not buying a Christmas tree until after the Pharisee gets transferred.

The other baptism went through. She had to talk to President ( and we didn´t get the clearance until 9PM on Saturday night...), but it happened Sunday Morning. Now the goal is to get them to the temple in a year.

Been a fairly interesting week. Not a whole lot happened (though district meeting was a happy joyous time as usual). Joy´s interview was set for friday morning, but Vilafranca showed up Thursday night as a surprise to spend the night. Went out and did the interview in the morning, then President calls, saying he and Sister Hinckley are driving up from Valencia and want to stop by for lunch and to see the new apartment. So they took us to a nice Italian place and we all ordered some pizzas, then showed off the apartment. We talked about how most of the members here are ´Mormon Catholics´. 

Had to get up at a little before six on Sunday to go start filling the font. Was too early.

Things will be pretty crazy this transfer. They´ll be switching out one Assistant to the President, the Secretary to the President, and a good number of the Zone and District leaders. Plus, most of the oldest missionaries have been in their area for a while, so they´ll probably get switched out and asked to train in their new areas (big group coming in again). Though President kinda hinted he´d be sending someone here to be trained...not what I expected. May not happen, though. A few of them are a little iffy with visa issues, so he may not need to. 

Things are moving along fairly quickly here. Doorman is out for vacation the whole week, so we´ll have to take the garbage down ourselves. (comp´s upset about that). I´m planning on taking a nice break today. Wednesday, we´ll have to travel down to Valencia so the Pharisee can do his fingerprints to get another ID card.

Had a letter from Elder Crofts on Tuesday telling me how everything had pretty much stayed the same, though the office staff finally allowed them to buy new mattresses.

Seems like there´s not much to the letter this time. I though I´d had more to write.

I´ll try to have more next week.

bradley.

- Show quoted

11/15/10

I think they´ll be fine without the name. Just go ahead and send them.

Well, the Pharisee´s been here four transfers (24 weeks), so it´s 99% certain he´s gone. It´s really rare for a missionary to stay for more than four transfers in one area. So I´ll just have to put up with two more weeks.

Like I said, make sure you get the extended warranty on this surgery. Makes the doctors do a better job if they might have to fix the original, right?

Pictures are of me, Ludovik (member), Gerard (baptism-ee), and The Pharisee, in all his doofus glory. Can´t quite call him a ¨hipster doofus¨, so just doofus.

Church is moving more towards preparing the members we´ve got for what´s coming next. The last calls are starting to be made, I think. Though Elder Cook´s conference talk made it sound like we weren´t quite there yet (and I don´t think we are either), things are probably going to start degenerating soon. I know they just redid the entire two volume Church Operations Manual, and they´re holding a world conference to introduce it Saturday. Bishop said it´s a whole lot more detailed.

Well, it was an interesting week. Tuesday was the exchange with Elder Monks. Wooh, that was a fun time. Haven´t had such a good time since Gandia. We went and hit a candy shop, actually talked (he rode motorcross before the mission, so he knows his quads and stuff), and just enjoyed ourselves.

Switched back Wednesday evening. Then, Thursday evening the Zone Leaders called...I´m thinking *hmm*. After the Pharisee got done talking about how ¨well, we´re all right. We´re different, but I guess we get along. (I´m sitting right in the next room while he´s saying this...) I took the phone. Our Zone leaders here are Hansen and Atkin, and Hansen was my district leader down in Gandia (plus, he´s in the same group with Crofts and Monks). We chit chatted for a bit, then he asks ¨Okay, so we have a really serious question for you.¨. I´m thinking... all right. ¨Is Obama really a Muslim?¨. I couldn´t stop laughing for ten minutes. They´d been stopped in the street by someone getting mad at them for electing a Muslim to be President. Hansen knew I´m Mister Politics(along with half the mission, I´m starting to think. We have ¨Mattice Minutes¨during district meeting where they ask me stuff about these kinda things), so that was the whole purpose of their call.

Saturday afternoon, Elder Monks calls to invite us over to spend the night Sunday and then spend today in Vilafranca, and they were getting ahold of a Risk set, and then we´d play all day today. (You know me, if Risk is there I´m there.) I mention it to the Pharisee and he immediately starts whining. So I worked on it for a bit, Sunday, I show how the trains work out perfectly, won´t be a problem, even offer to pay the bum´s train fare, and he says no, because ¨Ugh, I just don´t want to lose two hours of p-day in the train...¨. So when Monks calls Sunday night to see if we´re at least coming for Monday, I told him no, we weren´t. He goes ¨I´m getting the feeling this wasn´t your idea.¨ Told me to hang in there until the end of the transfer. Hopefully we´ll be able to get something together next transfer when I don´t have a deadbeat. So we´ll get to sit around the apartment today...doing nothing.

Saturday was the baptism. Everything went well, though only three members came to the service. Wasn´t well announced, though, so I can´t get upset. Bishop got up in Sacrament meeting and let the ward know he expected more support from the members next time.

Today, I´ll be drawing some Christmas things up and coloring them so the apartment isn´t so humbugish. I was going to go out and buy a few things, but I had to get some slacks dry cleaned, and that took the last 10 euros of personal cash I had. I had to pull out 30 last week to buy new shoe insoles (all four quit about the same time), so that´s all I´m using for the month. I´ll draw up some trees and stuff and decorate my study cubby at least.

Tomorrow is District meeting, so that´s a trip to Vilafranca. Then we have to go into the office afterwards to pick up a load of supplies (and I´m not taking my suitcase this time), so that´s the whole day gone.

So, I thought of a few little things you guys could send. Like some cheap Red Sox stuff (fridge magnets and stuff like that), a copy of that picture you sent earlier in the week, but in color (plz), maybe a tie or two.

Going to eat pizza and swig Pepsi for lunch. I don´t haz much else, sadly. You guys have a good week. 

Bradley.

11/8/10

Okay, so the address I sent last week was correct. Just to recap:

Elder Bradley Seth Mattice
C/Rambla Nova 125, 3, 3
43001 Tarragona, Spain.

Side note: The Rambla Nova is the equivalent of living on Fifth Avenue or Times Square in New York. Better be-the rent just went from 550 a month to 800.

The Joseph Smith Translation should be in the full Bible format, I would think. I didn´t think there were that many formats.

I got the cookies a while back when I was in the office. No, they weren´t rocks, thankfully. They were good. But I doubt I could find any of the ingredients here (Spain´s supermarkets are pretty substandard...more like a quick mart than a store.)

It was a crazy week. Spent most of p-day dealing with contracts and other junk. Tuesday spent the day getting contracts signed, then finally got the keys and spent the rest of the day moving over the majority of things. Wednesday was normal. Thursday we had Zone Conference with Elder Texiera (kinda funny to hear a guy from Portugal speak English with a New York accent, but...). Friday, the Belnaps (one of the senior couples) came down to help us clean the old apartment and finish moving. That took all day. Then Saturday and Sunday were spent scrambling to get lessons.

Pictures are of my ´study cubby´ (I fought hard for that room). others are of the bathroom I got in exchange for the study cubby (personally, I like it better. The other one has bright, 70´s style orange tile...). Reminds me of being in the camp trailer sometimes.

So, let me say thanks for being a family that actually fixes things ourselves and not one who calls the repair man. Saturday night I tossed a load of shirts into the new washer and turned it on, then went to bed. Sunday morning I get up and it´s saying the filter is clogged, which means it won´t drain water and is stopped mid cycle....it´s not even a week old. So I´m thinking...uh oh. Companion is mumbling how it´s broke because I did laundry on a day other than monday. (even though that´s not a rule, and it´d be impossible to do all the laundry on Monday only. Plus the fact that he does laundry during the week...). So I drained the machine, pulled off the filter cap, and find this plastic chunk in there. Pulled it out, put the filter back in, and restarted the machine. Fifteen minutes later, same light is back on. Then we had to go to church (not really, but for some reason my comp thinks we need to go to the Ward Welfare Committee meeting at 8:30 in the morning...). Came back after church, he´s saying how I broke it and we´ll have to call the repair man and pay a bunch of money. I drain the thing again, pull off the filter, and find that a chunk of cotton he´d dropped in the machine (in between the drum and the washer) had gotten wrapped around the impeller on the water pump. Spent twenty minutes pulling that out, then got it back together and it worked again. Then after the shirts were done, I threw in socks just to be a turd head (well, and I was out of socks.)  Also, thanks that I don´t sound like a complete idiot when I´m trying tell someone what happened. It´s a ´float´ in the toilet, not a ´styrofoam ball thing´.

Tell Dad to tell them he wants a Lincoln Blackwood. Yeah, it´s only a half ton and it´s a bit old, but it´s got a power tonneau cover. Carpeted bed. He´d at least ride in a little style, right?

As for the Pharisee...I´m just trying to get through this transfer and hope for the best. This week should be better, since I´ll be on interchanges with Elder Monks, who´ll be here from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday evening. He´s in Elder Crofts group and is pretty loose. (and has a sense of humor). But don´t worry about me. You know I´m too much of a fart head to ever let anything really get to me. I find things too funny to ever really get depressed.

I can´t imagine I´d be transferred after only one transfer here, so I should be here through Christmas. Next transfers are on November 30th, but I shouldn´t go anywhere. President likes to do crazy things during transfers, but not that crazy.

We´re still teaching people. Should have a baptism this Saturday. Pretty set, so nothing should fall through. 20 year old Spainard, wants to go on a mission soon. Guess that makes two of them, right? :)

Saw most of the gang at Zone Conference on Wednesday, except for (unfortunately), the Mysterious Man from St. George. He´s up in Bilbao, and they had their zone conference up there.

Good to hear the election results. Now Obama is pretty well hamstrung for the next (and last) two years of his presidency. The Senate shouldn´t be an issue. They don´t have the 60 needed to stop a filibuster, and even if the Dems swing all the Independants over, not all of their own party will vote with them.

I saw some headlines that said Obama was pretty mad. Oh well, too bad. I thought he was all for ´change´.

Not too surprising that Brewer won, but I was kinda hoping McCain would get the boot. Giffords too.

So, did Nancy Pelosi not even get reelected, or did she just lose the Speaker of the House position?

That´s all I haz this week.

Until next week,

Bradley.

11/1/10

You´ll have to send me detailed election results next week. Who won, where, the new balance of the Senate and the House, etc. I´m sure Glenn will have a nice chit chat about it the day after. Oh, and the Bama´s reaction.

So, I remembered some more stuff for the christmas/birthday list. One, the Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restauration movie. Second may prove to be pretty difficult. I need a copy of the Joseph Smith Translation. The Reorganized Church sells them (now they´re called the ¨Community of Christ¨ or some other name like that.) But, if it´s not too expensive,  the Church released an annotated full version in the 80´s (President said he doubted I´d be able to find it), done by someone named Miller (I think Robert Miller). But either way, just a copy of the standard will be fine, unless it´s crazy expensive. Probably getting it used will be easier.

So, I finally pushed him to taking the apartment on the Rambla, but the contracts have been taking forever. In theory, the address should be

Elder Bradley Seth Mattice
Rambla Nova 125, 3, 3
Tarragona 43001, Spain

but I´m not sure on that. Things are moving slower because it´s one of the Catholic´s ridiculous holidays today, and nearly everything´s closed. I was hoping we´d get the keys on Saturday, but no dice.

Tarragona is a little larger than Gandia. It´s not this smelly little crowded blob like Gandia was. It helps we´re in Catalunya, which means people have money (Jags and BMW´s everywhere). Overall, people are more friendly too.

They sort of celebrate Halloween, but they don´t really get it. If it doesn´t mean they get a day off, no one really puts any effort into it.

It hasn´t been very cold. I´m in short sleeves still, so it´s been fairly nice.

3035, well, happy fun time, eh?

We´ve got Zone Conference scheduled this week for Thursday. Elder Texiera is doing a mission tour, so he´ll be there for a visit.

You´ll have to tell Dad that we´ve got a reference for a guy named Carlos Beltran. He ought to get a laugh out of that.

Haven´t seen much history. Spainards, in attempting to ´preserve´ history, usually wipe it out. Haven´t been in Old Tarragona yet either, but it´s probably not too impressive.

Poor BooBoo. So abused...

Finally heard from Larry again. Says he´s loving being in Canadia...not. :) He´s doing fine, though.

Interview with President was pretty weird. All we did was talk for a few minutes about random stuff (buildings, if you can believe it) and it was done. I guess that means he´s not worried about me or anything.

Four more weeks until transfers...please come fast. I´m living with the modern day version of a Pharisee. So concerned with the letter of the law that he´s completely missed the point. Really thinks he deserves to be a Zone Leader somewhere, or AP. Hehe...not!

Well, there´s not much else to talk about. Have a good week.

Bradley.

10/25/10

Well, the realtor´s pretty well taken the week off. I think I´m going to talk to Elder Close today and tell him let´s just take the piso we saw on the Rambla last week. A little old, but just redone and a lot bigger. Then we can finally get relaxed. I´m going into the office tomorrow for the mail run. The office couple was down in Valencia, and Elder Crofts said he was going to send the box with them, so I´ll get it tomorrow. Not too late.

Hopefully my cat gets a better attitude. I´d imagine he´s gone a little far at times. You could get Hannah one of Sony´s old Aibo dogs...they should be a little cheaper than they were in the past. But she´d probably kill it.  

Picture is me with Director Arjona, back in the Madrid MTC.Now you can´t say I never sent pictures. I´ll see about getting some pictures taken today so I have more to send for you.

The ward´s better here. Gotta love the bishop. We were in PEC meeting yesterday, and you could hear the choir practicing. (No one in Spain can sing. Very sad). He looks over at his counselor and says ¨That´s not human. That´s something dying.¨ It was pretty bad...makes Shawn Scott sound like Frank Sinatra.

They should be doing Doctrine and Covenants/Church History in Seminary this year, right? He went in a bad year. Better to either go in on a Book of Mormon year or an Old Testament year, IMO.

Busyish week this week. Have to go into Barcelona for interviews with President tomorrow (thankfully it´s only an hour train ride), so District Meeting will be pushed back to Wednesday, probably. Tomorrow marks five months, eh?

So, dad says you want a more comprehensive list for gifts.

Scriptures: Separate Bible and Triple, Don´t forget, there´s the new church Online Store, where you can order almost everything direct. (don´t know if it´s cheaper) Genuine leather is a little expensive, so probably just go with the bonded leather.(unless you know a member of the First Presidency and can get one of the Italian Leather sets they give out every year...hehehe) Thumb tabs, plz. Preferrably blue, since they discontinued the brown.
Two books: The Great Apostacy and Articles of Faith, both by James E. Talmage.
Some Tabernacle Choir CD´s. (not too many, plz. Like two at most).

Well, that´s not comprehensive, but it´s a start.

P.S. Don´t know if you saw it, but President Monson broke ground on the Rome, Italy temple on Saturday. Moving forward!

 Hope you all have a good week.

Bradley.

10/18/10

No, I´m not going to give you my address. It´s a secret.

Okay, actually, I don´t even really know it. But even if I did, I wouldn´t give it. But that´s because we´re going to be moving soon, so we don´t want any mail getting delivered to where it´ll never be seen again. So, send it to the mission office address.

Elder Bradley Seth Mattice
C/ Calatrava, 10-12

08017 Barcelona
Spain.

It´s not an elegant solution (we´ll only get that mail once a month or so), but we hope to have a new piso by the end of this month. So probably just pinch off the flow of letters for a short time until we get things settled out.

Skin is fine. It´s fairly humid here, so that shouldn´t be a problem. We´re too close to the Med to dry out.

Still no box. No idea when I´m going to see it. Probably next year at the mission rate of mail . I guess I´ll be able to use the cookies for paperweights and hammers by then.

Tell Brandon just to fall down early, then have them put him in the cart and pull him along in it. That´d be a pretty accurate pioneer experience...oh, I´m terrible. Also, hoe cakes are pretty stinky. We just ate the jerky. Though we didn´t have the cart to pull.

Weather´s been pretty calm here. Most days it´s in the low seventies, high sixties. Last night it bottomed out at about sixty flat.

Yes, please don´t get into the computers at home. They´re delicate and have sensitive feelings. They know that Dad doesn´t like them, and it´s all I can do to keep them from going on strike.

Clothing wise, I´m going to go looking for a belt today. I´s sort of only a semi fatty now, instead of a big fatty, and this one isn´t adequate anymore. The older one kinda works, but it´s falling apart. The lining is pulling away from the leather.

Sounds like you had a crazy week. Hopefully things go smoother this week.

Going to buy food today, and continue my studies of the Bible. Ooh, messy. At least I´m done with the Old Testament. Law of Moses is kinda long. I think Elder Close wants to go looking at some clothes ( I think he buys a lot of clothes. I know he´s real big on his comfort and his brands. We were in Vilafranca for District Meeting and he commented four times how they had Temper-Pedic mattresses. I wanted to quote Russell P. Kramer by the end.)

I tried to get pictures of Stashnar this morning, but the lighting wasn´t right. And he´s kinda glossy and reflects the flash. And I´m worried he´s cursed. Elder Crofts kept threatening me that I´d end up assistant to the president. I told him that President doesn´t work with apostates, which should keep me pretty safe.


I know it´s kinda short, but pictures are worth more, right? Plz? And this?