2/13/12

Yeah, it sounds like your week was calmer, at the very least.

I´m not going to comment on the dog. I´m sure he´s a wonderful little home-wrecker and the sofas will be in shreds in no time at all. >:O

Yeah, it was a crazy weekend. We´ve been busy trying to run around taking care of everything. On Friday the doctor for the southern European missions came down to Palma so we could go visit some doctors. That was fun-a nice break from the routine. They wanted the information so that we have good trustworthy doctors here and don´t have to fly into Barcelona for care if something goes wrong.

Today we´ll be out in the center part of town, just browsing through some stores and getting some things done.

Normally I should still be able to write on Monday, just that last week was crazy. But the next couple of weeks should be calmer.

So I has a problem. Between emergencies, paying for a dentist trip for my last companion(which he never payed back...that´s another long story, and 50 euros gone), and other bad luck situations(plus buying a few needed things) my personal card is a little low, and I need to go to the dentist to get a pinhole fixed. (and the mission doesn´t cover it) It´s starting to slowly turn black, and I know that needs to get taken care of ASAP before it goes into full blown cavity mode. I had to buy a set of gloves on Wednesday (it´s cold, and they were on sale for a great price), so there´s about 38 euros on my card right now. It´s probably going to be about 50 to get my tooth fixed. Do you thing you could put about 40 dollars into my account so I can get it taken care of? I shouldn´t have any more emergencies since I´ve been really skimping to rebuild my emergency funds and I´ve got them back now, so I´ll use the card and then just set it aside. I still need to get the estimate from a dentist, but the smallest filling here costs about that much. Sorry to have to ask this. If you need my account number, let me send it in a manner that it´s a little bit disguised.

Bob´s doing very well. He´s just a happy guy who always makes us laugh. We´re working with him at his pace towards baptism. He´ll be baptised either near the end of this month or next month. It´s one of the great things about Jehovah´s Witnesses, even if they´re inactive, is that they´re used to studying scriptures, praying, behaving, and doing things in a reverent manner. Like President Hinckley says ¨They´re great at preparing so many future members for us, that the first thing I plan on doing when I get home is thank them when they come to my house!¨.

I´d remembered that it was Valentines day. We don´t forget that many things.

Oh, the poor van. It´s had a rough life.

So this should be a calm week here. Hopefully, it´s a calm week there.

Have a good one,

Bradley.

2/8/12

Well, it actually snowed this weekend, or at least Friday and Saturday night. So it was kind of cold. My coat, scarfs, gloves, sweaters, etc are all in Barcelona in the office basement. But I was fine. I borrowed some stuff and was warm. It´s the first time it´s snowed that much since the 1960´s. The apartment´s old and drafty(and extremely overpriced), but we just close up the bedrooms at night with heaters and blankets and we´re warm. It`s probably equivalent to serving in Ukraine or similar countries.. Thankfully they came and fixed the dryer today. The electrical installation is a joke, and so when someone had a heater plugged in it blew up the timer on the dryer. We have to be careful to not plug in too many things at once either. Two heaters means nothing else. Just a few lights. And that´s after it was ´fixed´. But the expiration date on the contract is May 30th, so while we´ll start looking for a new place in March or so, I won´t be living in it. Oh well.

So we made it back to Palma on Tuesday. Had a calm couple of days, then we got a call on Friday morning saying that there´d been an office mess-up and Elder Pericle would have to fly out to Menorca to do a baptismal interview. We took him off to the airport, then I was with members on splits until the evening. I was joking around with Rafa (he´s interesting) while we huddled under his umbrella, then I noticed that the rain had changed to snowflakes. We were somewhat concerned that the airport would be shut down (island people really aren´t prepared for snow), but my companion made it back fine in the morning.

Sorry I haven´t been able to write until today. We had conferences on Monday and Tuesday, so we´re kind of getting a preparation day today. Kind of.

It sounds like you had a rough week. I´m sorry to hear that. Just remember that we´ll be able to overcome all things through Christ. Really, it´s how all these people we see here change their lives. We´re teaching a man from Bolivia named Bob(we can´t use real names anymore) who was previously a Jehovah´s Witness, though he´s been out of that church for quite some time. The day before I got here, they were passing by former investigators, and his stepdaughter had been taught before. As they knocked, Bob was reading in the Book of Mormon which he´d just found about fifteen minutes earlier. He invited the missionaries up and they started teaching him. He just surprises us every visit by his faith. The last time he´d invited us to have tea the next visit, so we commented that hot chocolate would be better, and briefly mentioned that we don´t drink tea. So the last visit was on the Word of Wisdom. He didn´t really understand why (like I told him, it´s a question of faith), but he just finally said ¨Well, I don´t understand, but if that´s the way the Lord says it has to be, then it has to be that way¨. That´s the answer we like to hear. He´s really trying to get his wife to listen, though she seems to really not like us at the moment (he says that her reason´s aren´t justified), and we´re going to keep working with him.

We had to manage the conferences on Monday and Tuesday. Of course, the planning was bad. The office only told us what we had to do Saturday at 8PM, we were headed to a visit, and all the stores close at 9PM. ANd they´re not open Sunday, and the first session was set for Monday at 10. We ran around getting everything bought (the stores also don´t open until 9AM), and managed to have everything set up by 930 when the Hinckley´s arrived. We´ll be pestering the office a lot earlier this time.

I have a working computer, so I´m attaching some pictures since I´m short on time. Most are just of the snow on Sunday morning, the last is when I took that trip down to Alcoy.

I hope you all have a good week, and that things are smoother this week.

Love,

Bradley

1/31/12

Arizona is almost as large as Spain, so don´t worry. Mallorca´s not that big. For the Spanish Postal Service, the Balearus Islands are the same tarriff as the mainland, so it shouldn´t cost extra. You might want to check, but it costs the same to send things inside Spain and to those islands, so it shoudn´t be different on your end.

My companion´s name is Elder Pericle, and he´s from Virginia. We´ve been having a jolly good time together.

The Office Secretary should give you a call soon to ask about travel details (or perhaps an e-mail) to ask how you´d like the flights configured, so you´ll just have to let him know. I don´t know if they´d have a flight from Georgia or New York to Tucson or not.

So we had to fly in yesterday for mission council, which took up the morning. Then by the time we got here there wasn´t time to write, and the meeting was from 4 to about 930. So we´re in the office now waiting for a 5PM flight (long story), and we´re writing today.

I had to laugh when you said ¨no turbulance¨. On yesterdays flight we´d just started to level off and they turned off the seatbelt light when the plane dropped, the light came back on, and they said ¨We´re experiencing a bit of turbulence, please return to your seats¨. It wasn´t that bad, don´t worry. But I hadn´t been in a plane for a year and a half, now I´ve had four flights in a week´s time, and we´ll be back in Barcelona on the 27th of February for another meeting, followed by a possible trip on the 6th for transfers (or to pick up my new residency card).

We were supposed to catch a 11:40 flight to Palma, but yesterday when we were in the office before the meeting I was talking with the Elder in charge of residency when we realized that the office records were wrong-they thought that I´d already done my fingerprints and everything for my second residency card.  Nope. So they sent us to do that this morning. It went extremely fast, thankfully. Now we´ll be headed out around 5PM for the short hop back to Mallorca.

Actually, I was happy to leave things. Only having one suitcase and my briefcase was rather enjoyable. A lot easier to navigate around airports and trains. And I really haven´t missed the items I stored away. It´s not like I´ll be without them for too long.

Yes, it´s been rainy and cold. I was told I was going to an island, and yet I´ve yet to see any banana trees, straw huts, pineapple plantations, Hawaiian people, or savages. Just a city with normal goodies. It´s quite large, however. With the way the branches are split three quarters of Palma is in our area, with just a quarter for the other Elders. But they survive just fine.

I´m definately not in the same level of apartment we had in Gandia. It´s old and cold. There´s heaters, but we can only have them on if there´s nothing in the washer, and if we don´t have too many lights on. In the summer we´ll be fine, we´ve just got to survive the winter, which will be ending soon, no doubt.

I´m glad to see that all appears to be well back home. I´m sure my cat is fluffy and happpy, as usual.

So I don´t know when I´ll be writing next week. We´ll be having training conferences with the Zone and President on Monday and Tuesday, so I suspect we won´t have our preparation day until Wednesday. I´m not sure how regular my writing schedule will be from here on out. Most of the time it shoudn´t be different, but you never know.

I hope all goes well and that everyone has a good week.

Bradley.

1/24/12

So yes, I´m not in Gandia anymore. I´ve been transferred to Gilligan´s Island out here in the Mediterranean. I´m in Palma de Mallorca.

So, it was kind of a surprise. I´d expected to be going up north to finish things off. Then when we had interviews on Friday, I was chatting with Elder Allphin while my companion was in with President, and he just said ¨You´re really going to like your new assignment. The Lord has big things in store for you.¨ So the next morning President called and said ¨Elder Mattice, I´m calling you to serve in the Poniente Branch on Mallorca as Zone Leader.¨ So here I am!

It was a crazy week last week. We switched with the Valencia Zone Leaders on Tuesday morning, then I spent that day and half of Wednesday there. Their piso was being repainted (it was in bad shape), so we all ended up throwing mattresses on the floor in a tiny room trying not to die from paint fumes. Elder Reeder, who´s there in Valencia, was pretty entertaining. He´s very neat and orderly, so this was just like murder to him. He complained about every five minutes.

Wednesday evening, I went to the train station, and got onto a train BY MYSELF to Alcoy. It´s the longest I´ve been alone for twenty months-two and a half hours. It was significantly weird. The train from Valencia got me to Xatíva, then I had to switch trains to go to Alcoy, which is that lost little town in the mountains. It was a diesel powered train from the 70´s out there...at least it was warm. Pulled into Alcoy about 10:45PM (way past the time we should be inside) and had a warm reception (I love those two Elders that were there). We had a great day on Thursday (ate about 8 quasadallas (hehe) each with El Pato. They´re both from Gilbert, so at least we all can talk about Arizona related things and they get it. And they know what Casa Mañana is...ooh....

It was a much needed little vacation. I realized after being with Elder Taylor how sad and stressed I´d gotten. Elder Taylor was my companion´s last companion and he´s just said ¨I know exactly what you´re going through, exactly how you feel, and I´m here to tell you that you absolutely cannot feel that way.¨ I guess he´d been in bad shape and President had to give him a bit of a pep talk.

So we had interviews on Friday. I renewed my temple recommend (it´s just an extension that´s good from now until three months after I get home). President Hinckley knew the questions from memory, without pausing. I was pretty impressed. I definitely can´t do that during my baptismal interviews.

I had to leave most of my stuff in Barcelona in the basement of the office. I only took the middle bag out to Mallorca, but it had everything I really needed, so it was actually nice to travel with fewer bags. We traveled up from Valencia on Monday, then I ended up sitting around the office all night Monday and until about 12PM today, until Elder Montoya and Elder Garces and I all left for the airport.

It took a long time to get out there. We rode a little plane out to the island (Airbus 320-200), and it was about a 25 minute flight. Nice short hop, really. Now I´m in an internet shop with some other Elders, and my companion, Elder Pericle, is with Elder Salmon, who´s in the other half of Palma.

I´ll be going back to Barcelona for Zone Leader Council next Monday. I think I´m going to be on planes a little more often now. We hit a little turbulance on the way down, which wasn´t my favorite experience, but at least I didn´t scream.

The address is
C/ Gumersindo 11, 3
07004 Palma de Mallorca
España

With the voting it would probably just be easier to do it from there. We certainly don´t want it to be late, and you´ll just have to send me a list of the candidates. A registered Republican, huh? I need to register with the NRA next, though I hear that´s gone down hill a lot since Charlton Heston died.

That was my week. I know it´s a large wall of text as we say, but I hope it makes up for some of the shorter letters in the past.

1/16/12

A fuller account of Elder Whitney´s vision is in the March 2008 Ensign, in the article by President Packer.

I don´t have my license on me, actually. I know it´s D50 something, but I´ll have to look and tell later.

So, it was an interesting week. Jesus fell through, but we found some new people who might progress towards baptism. One crazy thing that happened was that on Wednesday, I contacted a woman who wasn´t interested, but as I was talking with her, a guy who was walking by stopped and started talking to my companion. He asked for money to buy a plane ticket back to the Canary Islands (a lot of people ask us for money). We told him that we couldn´t help him, but gave him a pass along card and directions to the information office (he was looking for a motel). On Thursday, we had exchanges planned with some members, and to our surprise one of the members (he´s a crazier sort) had this same guy with him. He explained that he was coming home from work, when he felt the impression to stop at an Internet cafe and buy candy for his wife (he said that he never does that). Then he saw this guy inside, felt like he needed to talk to him, and long story shout (I´m short on time) he´s staying at the members house right now, came to church on Sunday, and he´s going back to the islands in a week or so. He´s a pretty dedicated Baptist, so we´re not sure how receptive he´ll be (he was a little contentious on Sunday in Gospel Principles class ¨Where´s that in the Bible!?¨ but we´ve got a visit set for Wednesday.

Glad to hear that Mitt won. We´ll have to see how things go, because I believe he won New Hampshire in 2008 as well. I´ll send a letter home with my DL# today, so you´ll have it by Friday probably.

Love,

Bradley.

1/9/12

I´ve only three transfers left, and that´s about one areas´ worth, so I´ll be there the rest of the time. But that´s not until the 24th of January. And I don´t know where I´ll be going.

President Hinckley sent him here so I could work him out of it, and it seems like he´s finally coming out of it. It´ll take more time to be sure, but I´m optimistic at the moment.

We´ll have stake conference at a Spain-wide level in February (satellite broadcast from Salt Lake), so that´ll be exciting.

As Brandon expressed, I don´t know most of these relatives. I´m not sure that´s fixable. I´ll just start calling everyone uncle and aunt.

If I end up going back down to EA I´d like to go to the temple weekly. Especially with it being that close. Maybe a couple of sessions (not to mention I´ll take advantage of the Spanish session)

Hannah being a lazy old dog sounds about right. I´m sure she´ll probably thin up a little in the summer, but she´s probably entering the golden years of retirement and lounging on the couch all day.

The church´s media push this last year and with the increase they´ve got planned for this year will help Romney out a bit. President Monson´s been focusing a lot on visibility and openness, and that´s why we´ve been getting a lot of media attention.

I´d suggest watching the types of music that the munchkins listen to. I´m not going all 80´s anti MTV style, but look up the lyrics on the songs and make sure there´s not anything inappropriate in them.

So the conference was good. We were concerned that the general missionary would get scared off by placing the yearly goal we wanted (there was a large push for 1000 or more), so we set the quarterly goal of 150 plus for the moment, from here until the end of March. But things in Europe are changing a lot. In the highest baptising missions in the church ( the Utah missions) they only have 3000 a year, and Portugal´s on track for 1200 or more. Basically, things are different, and one of the things that will help is that the people start getting the news. Talk about that with the ward the next time you get a chance-European missionaries baptise regularly. We´ve pretty well managed to stop the new missionaries from getting that corruption by having them stay connected to the mission blog, but not every mission has a President Hinckley. The widespread goal is to baptise every week, not just every month. And we´ll be doing it.

Time went by fast today. I´m fine, my house is clean, and everythings okay. Quick summary.

Love,

Bradley.

1/2/12

We managed to pull a fast one and end up with 451 for the year, so yes, we did get that.

It could happen. One of the members here was just talking about the newest stake president in his home country. He´d been bishop of a ward for two weeks when they called him to be the new stake president.

I´ll be travelling up to Barcelona this afternoon for a conference. I won´t be back here in Gandia until Wednesday night, fairly late. One of those things.

The week was pretty calm. I had planned to to exchanges with the Alcoy elders, but the Elder responsible left his suitcase in their apartment. So I was here in Gandia all week. Right now things are all kind of exploding around my ears, but it´s okay. Nothing new, and nothing I can´t handle. I´ll be using the full war chest, though. We had an easy transfer in the last one, so it´s semi-natural that this one would be difficult.

Thankfully, the Lord´s taken a big weight off my back. My companion´s been dead for the past couple of weeks. Not doing much, getting up around 10AM instead of 7:30, and just generally not helping matters. I´ve finally involved the leadership, and they´ve all been praying, not to mention I´ve been working with him pretty hard. He seems to have had some kind of 2012 reset, since for the last two days he´s been getting up on time, doing everything he should, helping with small things (the dishes, cleaning), etc. So now I´ll be able to focus less on him and more on my own area and the district. I´m here in the last three weeks of my time here. I´ll be leaving January 24th unless there´s a really unexpected change, so I´ve got to leave everything in good shape.

Oh, the joys of having ISP problems. It´s obviously Obama´s fault. There is no other explanation. I know a few of the members were asking if we hear anything about the news back home. When I said that Obama was probably going to be replaced by Ron Paul the poor guy nearly had a stroke. Ron Paul: Good for America, bad for everybody else. Bye bye Monopoly Money! (the Euro)

We´re teaching a great guy named Jesus right now. He threw out his cigarettes right as we taught him the Word of Wisdom, and he´s getting ready to be baptised the 21st of January. It´s just a pity that we don´t have someone named John to baptise him. Then it´d be perfect.

New Years eve, we ate with some members. Since we had to be home early, and the food was late, we ended up scarfing down a quick plate before everyone else ate. It was pretty sad. Then we were in bed by 11:30. I plan to have a much better time this coming New Years Eve. I also set the goal to be in Times Square one of these days when it happens.

Well, the holiday laziness still hasn´t ended here in Spain. We´ll have round three this weekend with WiseMenDay. Some how, here in Spain, their Bible translation became corrupted or something, because they´re not just wise men, they´ve been converted into Mage Kings with magic powers who bring toys and joy for all. I think I prefer the fat boy.

So, happy new year. I hope you all have a good week, and that things move smoothly.

Bradley.

12/26/11

January 24th is when I´ll probably be leaving for my last area.

I think at the moment I´m probably not going to need anything until the end. I should have enough deodorant, toothpaste, etc to survive until the end. Should I start getting low, I´ll advise, but for now it looks good.

The shoes should be fine. They were much needed. Look a lot different from the way the old ones look. They came just in time too-last night I noticed that the heel on one was about to completely split. I´ve been impressed enough with the shoes to probably stick with the brand after the mission.

I´ve gotten slightly taller during my mission, so he´ll probably have trouble catching up. I managed to sleep through all the night, though I kept hearing a dog or something. I know it´ll be difficult to have a house in the early years, but I plan on living in an apartment as little as possible. I woke up on Sunday, went to grab my garments off of the rack outside, only to discover that they stank like smoke...yech. I already washed them again and they´re good, but it was still annoying. Too many smokers here.

So the week was interesting. On Friday we got up and took off to catch a bus to Benidorm early, since I had to go do a baptismal interview and we weren´t sure if he was going to be leaving early. Got there at 10:30, went to the TRAM, then they said he coudn´t meet until around 4PM. We spent the day passing by people for the hermanas, then their branch president saw us and took us to his house for lunch.

The interview was a less than jolly experience. I´ve never had one where the person was almost antagonistic. It was more like ¨I´m glad you´re here, so I can prove to you that I´m not ready¨. The sisters said that he claimed to have a testimony, but then he told me that he didn´t. I´m not sure if he just did not want to get baptised, or what. I hope he was telling the truth-I read that bit you sent about how if they lie to a servant in a leadership position, it´s as if they lied to the Lord. Either way, he didn´t pass. So we ended up getting back into Gandia at 11:15 PM. We should have left earlier, but we had to wait for half an hour on the bus for the company to work out a double booking problem.

Yesterday we had probably the best attendance at sacrament meeting in Spain. There were actually about 60 people who showed up, and we had six investigators (ideal is 5). The program was kinda iffy, but they liked it, so it served its purpose.

Saturday night we ate with some members. They had a turkey (first one I´ve seen here). It was okay. The stuffing was really good though. The turkey we had on Sunday was much better, but the stuffing wasn´t as good. Go figure.

I shouldn´t be going anywhere this week, though next week I´ll be leaving on the 2nd to be in Barcelona on the 3rd and 4th. Then I´ll be back down here to finish out the transfer.

We´re sitting with 449 baptisms for the year. Somehow, Albacete and Terrassa have two baptisms that will need to be confirmed at the service, which makes them 2011 baptisms, which have thrown the mission back into stress mode as we hope that at least one goes through to push things up to 450. Luckily we´ve got good missionaries who won´t goof off in those areas, so there´s a good chance.

Today I´m going to be relaxing a bit. I´m also going to be sending that 100 dollar bill home. It´s to be placed in a tithing envelope and given to the Bishop, please. I feel a little behind on tithing, so it´ll go to that. I´ll wrap it well so it doesn´t get swiped. I´ll send it out today.

Thanks for every thing, and happy holidays!

Bradley.

12/19/11

Yeah, the call´s going to be a pain, since the office just threw more wrenches in the mix. They should have given us the guidelines for this call last week, but poor planning is poor planning, and now there´s not a whole lot I can do about it. . Now I´m not sure if I should just call on Saturday to not have to deal with it, or still call on Sunday. I´ll think about it while I write, and I´ll tell you at the end. May have you respond back ASAP and I´ll check later.

So the week was busy as always. Spent most of the week preparing Georgiana to get baptised. I´d send photos, but this computer doesn´t have a card slot. Better keyboard, but no card slot. It´s always something.

In theory they´ll be bringing down our packages on Wednesday. I know at least one of the boxes made it, but I haven´t confirmed to see if the other one did. No, Christmas day I´ll be in Gandia working as normal. We don´t get holidays, just days when we can relax a bit.

Wednesday we had district meeting here. That went okay, though I had to plan it on really short notice since I only found out Tuesday at about 5PM. On Friday we had the Ward Christmas party. The zone leaders came down to do the baptismal interview, then they left. The wind that day was really bad. Nearly knocked me over a few times, and it was breaking ceramic roofing tiles off (though that may be due to bad construction more than anything).

Saturday we had the baptism, which went well. She was ready, and now she´s happier, though her family´s proven to be a big stumbling block, repeatedly. That should all be fixed. Catholic tradition keep the people bound strongly, just like Satan wants. Thankfully, she´s got good support from the members.

The scripture talks about how when John the Baptist came, he wasn´t a common person who ate and drank with people, so the Pharisees said that he was possessed with a devil. Then when Jesus came and was a common people who met with everyone, they said that he was a sinner. He´s calling them hypocrits, like little children who cry when people don´t play by their rules. I was applying it in a manner of ¨some people will never be happy¨.

It might be easier in general to make the call on Saturday, just to simplify things. If I called at 10AM on Saturday would that be too early or difficult? I´ll check back around 10AM your time today, so there won´t be much time for you all to organize and decide. If it won´t work, then we´ll figure something else out.

Today we´ll be busy cutting hair, buying propane (pain in the butt), and doing all the last minute things before Christmas.

Love,

Bradley.

12/13/11

Just don´t forget said password. Don´t forget to lock out the iPod Touch´s as well. You can add a four digit passcode to those by going to Settings, then Security.

That sounds like the first of the new board game movies. I know they were planning a Monopoly movie. Oh, Hollywood and your lack of originality.

 31 ¶And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like?
 32 They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have ^amourned to you, and ye have not wept.
 33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil.
 34 The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!
You can think of that when you deal with the Anderson children, I suppose. Some people will just never be happy. .
I´ll let you know the certain details next week, but I´ll try to call before church, since the latest I could call would be 9PM, which is 1PM your time, which doesn´t work. It may be pretty early in the morning (10) or so.
The trip required a really early wake up, but we made it. Elder Caussé was a good speaker. He was pretty shocked to hear that we woke up at 7:30, though. That is probably the latest of all the missions. But the Area Presidency had approved it, so I doubt it´ll change any time soon.

We had a stressful experience on Sunday night. Right before the Christmas devotional was about to start (they showed it a week late here), we got a text message from our baptismal date for this week saying that she wasn´t going to get baptised. We´d just seen her at church and everything was fine. We called her, and she told us that her mother had called and freaked out when she heard that her daughter was considering breaking the Catholic traditions, and told her she couldn´t get baptised. At that point, we really couldn´t do much, but our wonderful Relief Society president went over and told her ¨We´re going for a walk.¨, brought her to the chapel, and in the ten minute walk calmed her down and got her to agree to be baptised again. So we only saw half the devotional, but it all worked out in the end.

So if all goes according to plan, we´ll have Georgiana this week, and Zoe, a little 11 year old, next week. Then that´ll essentially end the year for the mission, because all baptisms after the 25th count for 2012. We´re only 29 baptisms away from the year´s goal of 450, so it´s going to be close, but I´m sure we´ll make it. That being said, pray for us, okay?
I´m attaching a series of pictures. I was bored.
By the way, I recently ate mussels and shell fish. It was kinda bland. It definately wasn´t Mexican food.
We cleaned out a recent converts house this week. They´re gypsies, and not very clean...ugg...I´ve never seen so many cockroaches in my life. It was like being on an episode of Dirty Jobs, without gloves or any kind of protection. You could scoop up dead ones in handfuls, like candy. Lets just say you should be glad you weren´t there.

Well,

Have a good week!

2/13/11

Just don´t forget said password. Don´t forget to lock out the iPod Touch´s as well. You can add a four digit passcode to those by going to Settings, then Security.

That sounds like the first of the new board game movies. I know they were planning a Monopoly movie. Oh, Hollywood and your lack of originality.

 31 ¶And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like?
 32 They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have ^amourned to you, and ye have not wept.
 33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil.
 34 The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!
You can think of that when you deal with the Anderson children, I suppose. Some people will just never be happy. .
I´ll let you know the certain details next week, but I´ll try to call before church, since the latest I could call would be 9PM, which is 1PM your time, which doesn´t work. It may be pretty early in the morning (10) or so.
The trip required a really early wake up, but we made it. Elder Caussé was a good speaker. He was pretty shocked to hear that we woke up at 7:30, though. That is probably the latest of all the missions. But the Area Presidency had approved it, so I doubt it´ll change any time soon.

We had a stressful experience on Sunday night. Right before the Christmas devotional was about to start (they showed it a week late here), we got a text message from our baptismal date for this week saying that she wasn´t going to get baptised. We´d just seen her at church and everything was fine. We called her, and she told us that her mother had called and freaked out when she heard that her daughter was considering breaking the Catholic traditions, and told her she couldn´t get baptised. At that point, we really couldn´t do much, but our wonderful Relief Society president went over and told her ¨We´re going for a walk.¨, brought her to the chapel, and in the ten minute walk calmed her down and got her to agree to be baptised again. So we only saw half the devotional, but it all worked out in the end.

So if all goes according to plan, we´ll have Georgiana this week, and Zoe, a little 11 year old, next week. Then that´ll essentially end the year for the mission, because all baptisms after the 25th count for 2012. We´re only 29 baptisms away from the year´s goal of 450, so it´s going to be close, but I´m sure we´ll make it. That being said, pray for us, okay?
I´m attaching a series of pictures. I was bored.
By the way, I recently ate mussels and shell fish. It was kinda bland. It definately wasn´t Mexican food.
We cleaned out a recent converts house this week. They´re gypsies, and not very clean...ugg...I´ve never seen so many cockroaches in my life. It was like being on an episode of Dirty Jobs, without gloves or any kind of protection. You could scoop up dead ones in handfuls, like candy. Lets just say you should be glad you weren´t there.

Well,

Have a good week!

12/5/11

Ugg, I hate ward council. Mainly because the leadership just disputes over immaterial items while the missionaries try not to fall asleep. This week we´re just going to leave a Progress Record with the ward mission leader (who we don´t even meet with) and leave.

Transfers are next week, but President sent out the information early to let everyone know, and I´m staying here. He said he wanted to make as few changes as possible this close to the end of the year. 

Don´t worry, I´ll get the packages. They´ll get to me on the 21st, so I won´t be tempted to open them. Or maybe I will. I broke and open my birthday packages on Monday...naah, I´ll wait. :)

Now the members are starting to ask if I´ll ever be leaving Gandia. I´ll be here for a total of nine months, which is more than a third of the mission. But it´s okay, I have a nice apartment and food.

¨Old trusty¨ probably should have been retired in 2009, but we´ll see. By the time I get home it´ll be seven years old, which is definately time to replace it. I don´t think that hard drive will last much longer.

Thanks for the shoes. I looked closer at them and basically, the sole is a high-density foam coated in rubber. What´s happened is that in several places (like where the pad of the foot is) the rubber has completely worn off, so now it´s just the foam chipping off. That´s why the heel split as well. The rain hasn´t been helping matters either, I don´t think.

I really haven´t had too many sleepless nights, but I´m usually too tired to not sleep. At this point, I don´t function too well without eight hours. I don´t expect to sleep for a long time when I get home, but I will enjoy a nice rest. And driving...ooh, we were riding with a member this week and he started going a little fast...then I had to snap out of it. Hehe, I´ll survive.

I knew him a little bit, but I don´t think we ever had any classes together. Sometimes those things happen. I´m sure he´s fine now, probably busy preaching again.

This week should be busy. We´ll be preparing our new investigator for her baptism on the 17th. On Thursday we´ll be going to Valencia, since Elder Gerald Caussé of the Seventy is doing a mission tour.

They keep this district down here in Gandia full of Arizonans. They´re pulling out Elder Martherus, from Gilbert, and putting in Elder Rassmussen, from...Gilbert. Woohoo. I started my own little organization, the ¨Elders from Arizona¨, but no one´s paid their membership dues yet. Well, that´s how life goes sometimes.

Thursday we went to Burger King. I had some kind of disturbing box full of random food. Afterwards I felt sick from the grease, I think. I´m sure that won´t stop me in the future.

Well, I hope you all have a good week.

Bradley.

11/28/11

The baptism went as planned. Well, it happened, but not much went according to plan, to be honest. We flooded the chapel, everyone came late, almost started without anyone from the Bishopric, I had to give a talk at the last minute...but we made it.

The font wasn´t filling up fast enough, so I turned both valves to wide open and left it. Then I didn´t hear the font, so I assumed someone had turned it off. Then my companion assumed I´d turned it off. It looked good and full. Then we left it and Carlos´s wife said ¨Hey, the hallway´s filling with water!¨. I thought we had a leak in the wall (Valencia´s font was flooding the parking garage in September), but it had run up and over the steps, then down into the hallway. So I ran and shut it off, opened the drain, my companion opened the door, which brought more water out...it was fun. Got the mop crew out and pushed most of the water out with a broom into the parking lot. Thankfully there wasn´t carpet.

Then I got up and winged the talk. That went well enough.

So he´s baptised now, and we´re back to finding more people. Sunday I confirmed him, then we participated in the baby blessing, which was a first. Poor thing cried the whole way through.

So...problem with the Christmas gifts. I hope you haven´t picked up too much, because this week the lace up shoes have expressed their desire to die. When you asked, they were fine, but now the heel is splitting in one of them, and there´s small pieces coming out of the sole right at the point where they flex. The slip on´s are fine, and I could probably just wear the laceups out and then run the other pair into the ground. I could try to shoe goo them, but anything on the sole usually wears off in a few days time. Sorry for the really short notice. If it´s too late, no problem, I´ll just wear em out like I said. Probably still do that anyway.

As far as I´m aware of there´s no limit to the number of iPod´s that can be attached. Computers, yes, but iPod´s shouldn´t be a problem. If it´s necessary, I´m sure you´ll be able to deauthorize the Mini and the old Nano without any problems. And my Touch, since it barely worked when I left, and I really doubt it´s worth keeping now.

I did get the package. I´d forgotten how different new garments were. The old ones were pretty old.... I haven´t opened the majority of the presents, just the music. I´m trying to behave, though I may not survive past today... Thank you for all the wonderful gifts!

I didn´t find a turkey, so I bought some cheap pork chops and used up what was left of the potatoes and gravy.

Yes, still send it to Barcelona. A few days before Christmas we´ll all have Christmas dinner with the individual zones, and the Hinckley´s will bring down all the boxes in the office. Just needs to be in Barcelona before the 20th of December, and since it´s 10 days you´ve still got time.

Even though we´ve still got two weeks I´m on vacation essentially. There aren´t any district meetings for quite a while, so I´m just essentially taking numbers now. Only one more meeting before Christmas, and two more before the end of the year, and I might not even be a district leader after this transfer.

I hope you all has a good week.

11/21/11

Yay for Best Buy...well, as long as it works. Reasons like that is why I plan on having Gigabit Ethernet jacks wired into my future house. It´s just simpler that way.

Smartphones have been out since the 90´s, though they do do a bit more in these days. I don´t think you really want an iPad. They release a new one every year, and then they stop making software for yours within a year and a half from the time it came out. It´s not quite like a PC.

Yes, the old info would have been stored in the Xbox, so just deleting all the config information would have worked, since with an Ethernet connection it´s generally automatic.

He should be getting baptised this weekend, if all goes well.

I honestly don´t know. I think I´m going to be transfered, but I might stay. I´ll have spent 7.5 months in Gandia in total by the time this transfer ends. A situation like this makes it nearly impossible to guess.

No, Larry´s a bum. He doesn´t write.

Is she well behaved or does she need a few light slams every now and then?

Hehehehehehe...married. That´s a good one.

I´m going to look at buying a turkey today. I don´t think my search will be very fruitful. But I´m not buying a rabbit to replace it. I´ll think hard on what we´re going to have. Last year we worked a normal day, and I cooked bratwurst. I´ll try to do better this year.

So our week was fairly calm. Tuesday we had our first full district meeting here in Gandia, and the zone leaders came down, which always turns into a party. Then I sent my companion off to Alcoy and had Elder Martherus come here. Strangely, nothing particularly crazy happened, which is a rare event in Gandia, and especially while we´re on intercambios.

They did a lot of construction on the chapel this week, changing out the rostrum and placing windows in all the doors. But then they left a huge mess, and we ended up getting called to clean with one member. So we worked upstairs, reorganizing the library and Bishop´s office, all the classrooms and finished up there, only to come down and find that the member had ´kinda sorta halfway´ swept up the sawdust (aka-not) and was about to start mopping. We sent him upstairs to mop, reswept the entire first floor, and then arranged all the chairs again. I miss pews and carpet, but that´s rare to see. Spaniards and their cheap tile.

Sunday we were talking about typical ´end of days´ destruction, and how it´s possible that Menorca could collapse into the sea and send a huge wave towards Valencia and Gandia. One of the members said ¨yeah, but these buildings are made of brick, so they´d probably survive.¨ I had to not laugh. Not to be too negative, but I don´t think more than 1 percent of buildings here would pass any kind of inspection in the States. They don´t use the brick properly, (or proper bricks, for that matter) so it would probably fare worse than wood. At least the houses in the states typically stay in one piece when the flood carries them away...

This week, I don´t think I have to go anywhere. A week of rest. I just got my hair cut, then we´ll go shopping, then I think it´ll be a calm day today. Not much else to do.

Well, I hope you all have a good week. I´ll send pictures of the baptism next week.

Love,

Bradley.

11/14/11

Yes, I remembered to tell her happy birthday. Now I´m done for the year. Then there´s just one slightly crazy lady who´ll have a birthday before I get home. I think it´s Grandma...I can´t remember.

The box as it is is probably fine. I´m surviving here without too many problems, so no worries.

Oh dear, that scares me that you´re all looking at gadgets. Remember, just two years ago you were all watching television with coaxial cables...now you´re probably looking at one of them new fancy cordless phones...

Yes, but what about the alignment, and the paint, and the running boards, and the paint, and the tires? And the paint? Heavens!

So, anyway, the week was pretty good. Busy, but good. Tuesday I made chicken tacos, finally. Dang chicken was expensive. As were the imported tortillas. But it was good, and I still have more chicken and tortillas to use.

So, I´m trying to think of things I´d need for Christmas, but there isn´t much. Apart from some socks, I suppose I could use a few more ties, a small bottle (try to clean out a bottle of something else to use) of Tex Joy, some M&Ms (Peanut and Peanut Butter), some peanut butter, eh...I´m not coming up with many ideas here. I don´t need any books or anything, I´m good on music, and I really don´t need any clothes. Just throw in some good prepackaged American food and a few random trinkets and that´ll be good. And the cat, of course.

Address to send it to would be
C/Calatrava 10-12 bajos
08017 Barcelona
Spain

Then I´ll get it no matter where I´m at.

We´re busy teaching a lot of people at the moment, which is always welcome. Not having people to teach is not fun. Now we´ve just got to baptise the people that we´re teaching, and it´ll be perfect.

We had a good priesthood lesson yesterday. Thankfully they had a good member teaching it, as the last two lessons have been on the Second Coming, and the teachers weren´t prepared, so the class was just one big ¨Oh, we´ll I heard that we´ll be able to swim in lava...¨...etc. But the class was good. At one point they put the men and women together and had us stand outside of the doors, calling people in to live during the Millenium. Thankfully, our investigator Carlos was called in, and they called in his wife and mother in law. There was a big gap between them, and he said afterwards that he was thinking ¨What if this was real, and my wife wasn´t here?¨. We like it when investigators have experiences like that. They tend to keep progressing.

This week, we´ll be doing intercambios with the Alcoy elders again, so I´m dragging Elder Martherus here (I don´t have to travel, I´m the district leader!) and sending my companion there.

It´ll be a slower week with the members, since a good chunk of the ones that help us are going on the temple trip, and they´ll be back very late. But things should turn out alright.

Today I´ll be making spaghetti, or maybe chicken. It depends on how I feel.

I hope you all have a good week.

Bradley.

11/7/11

Yeah, that sounds like there was some interesting people in church yesterday. Bishoprics always have to do that, I think. It´s probably why there´s usually an older man who sleeps during sacrament-one less person who might laugh at the crazies.

Probably a 36 on the bottoms. With the Christmas stuff we´ll probably just wait, because I´m not sure I´d have room to transport the gifts with all their packaging etc during a transfer. I´ll get it without a problem if it goes into the office, so that´ll work out.

You´ll have to add a few packs of Big Red gum so a member here will stop pestering me. Please........

New socks would probably be a good idea. While the current ones aren´t bad, I´ve noticed that small holes are starting to appear at the seam where they sew the gold part to the sock on a few of them.

The picture is of the district from last transfer. They changed things around and pulled out one of the sister companionships, and Hna. Boone has a new companion, but other than that it´s pretty much the same this transfer. 3742 was of a lunch I made (I had extra gravy left over from the potatoes.)

So we didn´t have the baptism. That was a bad situation in the end. We´re still trying to find him, but he´s not answering his phone at the moment.

The week wasn´t bad, though. It´s been cold and rainy since Thursday, but other than that, okay. Being cold and rainy makes it possible to wear our suit jackets, which they made us start wearing.

Oh, ward council...I hate going. Most of the time we´re there as just a side show. If we´re lucky we get a few moments to speak. There´s usually a lot of talking, then little to no action, and we talk about the same things the next week. But we´ll be trying to get that fixed. One of the benefits of having a Spanish companion is that he can beat down on the Spaniards and they won´t have too much of a problem with it.

We found a new person who will hopefully get baptised in a few weeks. He´s only 19, but he seems like a good kid, and we´ll be seeing him again tonight.

We finally had to test out the heating in the piso, and it seems to be working okay. Not very efficient, but it works well enough.

Today we´ve got to buy a lot of light bulbs. Always a pain. The real lightbulbs are extremely expensive here, just like real Duracell batteries are, because of their ridiculous taxes. Imagine if the average sales tax on products was 18 percent...a four pack of AA´s is about 7.50. Since we need real things, we´ll be going out to the Carrefour again, so maybe I´ll get some Pepperidge Farm cookies or something.

Yes, I did get the package. Thank you for the nice candy and things.

Well, I know the letter´s short, but the week was short too. I hope you all have a nice week.

Bradley.

11/2/11

Oh, I´m actually a little tired and sore right now. We all kinda beat ourselves up yesterday.

So, yesterday I took Elder Gross into Valencia and put him on his train along with half the zone, (this was at 10AM) and then the other half had to wait until 5:30PM for the new ones to arrive. So we decided to get some things done, then that led to basketball and Ultimate Frisbee. I was one of the ones who came out mostly unscathed. Elder Keeler tried to break his coccyx, poor kid. He was limping the whole day after that.

So on Sunday, we kept waiting for calls (they should have come Saturday, but there was a delay), so I finally called Elder Allphin and got the info. They told me I was getting Elder Knudson, which was insane, since he had also served here in Gandia before, and he´s a pretty old missionary.

It was a good thing E. Knudson didn´t want me to tell anyone, because Monday night E. Allphin called me again and said ¨There´s been a problem, your transfer assignment´s been changed, and you´re getting a different companion. So E. Knudson went to the Barcelona third ward, and I´m now here with Elder Batanero, who´s from the south of Spain.

They moved the zone around and pulled the Valencia sisters out of my district, so now it´s just us, the Alcoy Elders, and the Benidorm sisters, and we´re meeting here in Gandia instead of in Valencia. That´ll save me a bit of cash each week.

SO if all goes well, we´ll be having a baptism this Saturday. Things are picking up lately, and this guy´s been prepared just for this time. We´ve seen him make a 180 degree change in his life. Right now, the path looks clear for Saturday, so we´ll have to find some more people to baptise after him.

It rained Thursday, Friday, and Saturday here in Gandia.  A lot. And the weather in general is a mess. It was hot yesterday, but colder today. We´ve given up trying to guess what´s going to happen.

Oh, for the birthday...there´s really not much that I need. I suppose there is a little music. Since we´re nearer to Christmas(started singing hymns and listening to music last week), I could use two CD´s: ¨Sing, Choirs of Angels¨ by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Christmas CD by Andrea Bocelli (that´s a guy). Then maybe some more photos from home, and Nephi, of course. I´m missing my cat. Then I´ll probably just order some new garments and that´ll be enough. That´s assuming I ever get them. I ordered a temple picture in April and still haven´t gotten it *glares at office*. Oh, the office. They´re so great...

We´ll be going to buy food after this, since the fridge is empty. Empty. There´s butter and condensed milk, and El Pato. Don´t worry, we´re not starving.

It sounds like things are going okay back at home. We´re moving into the final quarter of the game now, then things are over. Now we just have to hang on until the end.

I´m most certaintly not sure how things will go from here. Christmas could be a problem, because the transfer ends the 13th of December, and there´s no telling if I´ll stay or leave. I may just have you send all christmas packages to the office, since we´ll have the Christmas conferences right before, and I´ll get it that way no matter where I am. There´s time to decide that, but not a lot, it´ll be here pretty rapidly, I suspect.

I hope you all have a good week. Sorry I didn´t write until today, but the schedule wasn´t working out, since we didn´t get into Gandia until about 8PM and my companion was exhausted last night, then we had District Meeting this morning (in our piso, since the Hermanas are in Barcelona and I didn´t want to walk to the church).

Love,

Bradley.

10/24/11

No sicknesses? Hooboy, I had some kind of intestinal bug from Saturday afternoon through Sunday. Man, that was a rough time. I was in and out of the bathroom all day. But I´m doing better now.

Yes, we had the baptism. It went well. Interesting, but well. She´d asked me to baptise her, so we got in the font, and right before we walked down the stairs I said ¨Okay, when I go to put you under just bend your knees a bit¨. Well, she was nervous, so she got in and knelt. Oops. So I got her standing again, then I positioned her, and she just started to dunk herself. I was like ¨Woah, not good!¨ Pulled her back up (this isn´t a very small lady either) and she´s just like ¨Sorry, I´m just so nervous!¨. So I got her reset, said the prayer, and dunked her, but her dress popped up and the bishop said we needed to redo it. It went fine the second time, though.

1301 is us with Antonia. It´s not a very good picture, but the other has my eyes closed, so...

So, it was an interesting week. Tuesday we had interviews, and then President came in on the last 35 minutes of my meeting. The zone leaders attended as well. Then, as the meeting finished, I pulled out the game we were going to play, but President was like ¨Well, let´s bring everyone together instead.¨. Luckily he just wanted to pull everyone together, he wasn´t against the game. Then he talked to everyone for a bit, and we finished. So, it wasn´t a bad meeting. Having President taking notes on his iPad in the back could be considered mildly stressful.

Wednesday, we switched with the zone leaders so one of them could do the interview, so I was with Elder Jimenez in Gandia. Wooh...that was a day. We ate with an old lady a few weeks ago, and she started telling these crazy stories about chicken head soup and other foods that woudn´t pass FDA inspections. So Elder Gross set up a day to come the next week and learn how to make said food.

It just so happened that he managed to ESCAPE that day. I had planned on leaving, but it didn´t work out that way. Elder Jimenez didn´t believe me when I told him, but then we walk in and she´s got chicken heads on the counter top...ooh, nasty. She´s ripping the flesh off, you can see the eyeballs, then she just crushes their little beaks, all the while making small talk. At the same time I´ve got Elder Jimenez leaning on my shoulder wincing and trying to make me laugh. Then he made the wrong comment and she had a chew out session with him for fifteen minutes. When ever she turned, he´d be behind laughing or making faces, so I´m having to keep a straight face.

There was other ´food´ as well. She boiled fish skeletons and heads in water, then pulled them out, put them in a little bowl and had me crush them up like some kind of sick pharmacist. It just makes this sick gray paste, which she then strained and put the juice back with the water she´d boiled them in, talking about how some RS president had taught these recipes thirty years ago. She mixes it in with some type of pasta, tomatoes, garlic, and onions, and then has us eat it. I thought Elder Jimenez was going to die. There was other food, the sole purpose of which is to clog you up so you don´t feel hungry...except we had another eating visit in just a few hours time.

Yeah, I probably won´t forget the chicken heads. We survived the rest of the day, though.

Saturday we had the baptism. It was a good experience. Then the confirmation was smooth on Sunday.

Today, we went out to the big store on the outskirts of town. They had an imported food section...ooh...Dr Pepper, Cherry Coke, Pepperidge Farm cookies, Ocean Spray juices, REFRIED BEANS (over three dollars a can, however ), etc. We had to control ourselves. But some of it definitely went home with us. We´ll go back next week, maybe.

So transfers are next week. My companion will probably be leaving, and I don´t know how the switch will turn out. So I should write on Tuesday, but no promises. It might be Wednesday.

Yeah, the weather reports were wrong. It was in the 70´s and didn´t rain except for a bit Sunday morning. They really can´t predict the weather here in the Med anymore.

I don´t have it yet. It´ll probably be coming in this week, though.

Well, that´s what I have. I hope you have a good week.

Bradley.

10/17/11

I think the shoes will make it through to the end. They might be pretty beat up by then, but there should be enough tread life to last. I´ll probably do one more insole replacement in a few months, but there shouldn´t be any problems.

I thought the house looked wrong for a bit. Then I realized it was because there was a tree missing. I forgot you cut it down.

The grass again. I generally don´t have to worry about grass being tracked in. Having to watch out for dog poop on the sidewalks, yes, but not grass. Dog poop is an all too common sight.

We finally got the new SIM card on Tuesday. Turned everything to have 15 text messages and a dozen missed calls. But it works again. Kind of. The secretaries in the office have a lot of signal problems, as well as the AP´s-I was talking to Elder Allphin the other night and it cut off the call twice randomly.

So, if everything goes well, we´ll be having a baptism this Saturday. It´s the first one in a while, so it´ll hopefully be a good experience.

We saw a lot of good things this week, actually. People walking into church, people talking to us in the streets, all the fun things you like to see.

Tomorrow, President Hinckley will be in Valencia doing interviews for the missionaries, and he might drop in on my district meeting. That´ll be a bit stressful. I just hope he comes in at a good point! Last week, the zone leaders came in at the worst point possible, and there was a lot of silence. They probably thought it was an extremely boring meeting.

We´re still keeping the house clean. It was actually cleaner this week (and stayed cleaner) than I´d ever seen it be. So there wasn´t too much to pick up this morning.

I don´t think I´m really in need of anything. In November I´ll look at ordering some new garments through the office, but other than that there´s really no immediate needs I can think of.

I´ll probably be in Valencia for a few days this week, since one of the zone leaders will have to come down to do the interview (I can´t interview my own investigators). So I should have some baptism pictures to send you next week. That´ll be the goal.

I hope you all have a good week going back to school/work.

Bradley.

10/10/11

I´m not that skinny. Though I had to buy a new belt. And it averages around the third or fourth notch. But I think I´m pretty stable at the moment.

We had plenty of food. Just not the yummy kind. I didn´t want to make any rice, since we didn´t have any soy sauce. And I didn´t want to cook any pasta, since we had nothing with which to make sauce. So we went to Burger King instead that day. And we bought food the next day.

I said we could just eat steak when I got home instead of Christmas presents. And I´m too old to celebrate birthdays.

If you must, I do have a difficult request. I need special custom pen leads. You´re looking for Pentel ¨Multi 8¨ pencil leads (they look like color sticks with a metal piece on top). I need red, light blue, and orange. They´re probably ten dollars each.

I actually had figured that was what was going to happen. So I wasn´t too surprised when I opened the letter. That´s pretty much how it happened to Grandpa Seth-they called him while he was on vacation to the same spot.

The weather has mellowed out quite a bit. We mainly just leave the AC unit in the bedroom on ´Fan´ during the night now, just to keep the air circulating. The apartment was pretty messy-we had a ´New Schedule´ we were trying out last week, but it kinda short-circuited when we got to talking and missed the full time for cleaning. So we half-way cleaned and then had to do a bit more this week. The wood floors are a pain without the proper cleaning tools. The brooms aren´t ideal for that surface, nor is a normal mop. We may be making an investment in a real dust mop.

No, we don´t leave Gandia very much. We´re on the train normally once or twice a week.

It was an interesting week this week. On Friday morning I woke up to find our phone saying ´SIM Card rejected, validation failed¨. That in and of itself was fine. We´d been expecting that the switch from our old Vodafone cells would be happening soon. So I grabbed the new phone, put in the Movistar card, and received a ¨SIM Card rejected, validation failed´. message. That wasn´t good.

When we went out, we went to a public phone place, and I called the office. It turned out that we should have received two cards, one of which should have worked, but we only received one card, which didn´t work. That was all they could do for us. So we spent the weekend without a phone. They´re going to have a working card for us in Valencia tomorrow, I hope. When I called Elder Allphin to ask if he´d had a chance to talk with President yet over something, he´s like ¨Yeah, President´s been a little busy and out of town lately...and his phone doesn´t work.¨. Apparantly half the mission was left without a phone. The switch definately could have been managed a little better.

It was interesting doing missionary work without a phone (we don´t have landlines). Not a whole lot happened, to be honest. We just kept joking about it for the most part. ¨You have the phone?¨ ¨Yep! Not like it´s matters!¨. Followed by good chuckles as we descended in the elevator.

I´m sure the booboo remembers me. I´m pretty hard to forget. And I´m sure my cat will just claw me in the leg for having abandoned him for so long.

So, last week I used a recipe we had in our cook book to make Texas Sheet Cake. It didn´t turn out ideally, because we don´t have a real-sized cookie sheet (no, don´t send one), and I didn´t have the vanilla to make the frosting (it turns out that vanilla is kinda hard to find here). So we just made a second cake today, and we´ve got the vanilla this time to make the frosting. I´m planning on offering a few slices in a district meeting tomorrow as a prize.

I hope you all have a tranquil week, and that things go well. Have fun.

Bradley.

10/3/11

YAY! THE HOUSE WILL BE PAINTED AND I WON´T BE THERE. OH DARN...hehehehe I never did finish that. I know, I won´t ask you to come over and paint my house. I´ll just have six kids or so to paint it.

Speaking of pictures, I finally got a computer with a working card slot, so there are some that I´ll be uploading in a bit.

3677 is the Mysterious Man from St. George making a return appearance. That was last transfer at the leadership training conference. The weird eye in the background is Elder Estrada trying to be funny. 3708 is my corrent companion (he doesn´t care much for pictures) and 3711 is me with one of our members from England (he left the next day after the picture was taken. 3709 was at his farewell party.

It sounds like your week was nice and fun. At least Kono puked in Dad´s truck and not mine.

They rarely share buildings here in Spain. Usually it´s one ward/branch per building. The only ones that seem to share are the stake centers.

We´re looking at having a baptism the 15th of October, if all goes well. President wants us to get the Bishop´s opinion on the situation-I doubt he´ll have a problem. Like he said, he doesn´t have the final say, but he wants to see what the Bishop thinks. She´s been wanting to get baptised for a while(years), and it´ll be a special case if it does happen. It´ll be a big support for her daughter who was baptised in June.

That´s not a reason not to baptise, but if she´s young...it´s not a sin to have those feelings of opposite-sex attraction, it´s just wrong to act on them. We´ve got members who have those attractions, they just work with them and don´t give into them. She´d just have to have a good interview, and if anything had happened, have an interview with the Mission President before getting baptised.

I could use some toothbrushes. But as for the rest of supplies...how about some Chicken Taco seasoning. I can make some chicken without too much difficulty (have an extremely nice kitchen), and I can get some kinda sour cream stuff...yes, that seasoning would be wonderful.

But I´ve already committed to watch all the Star Trek films with Larry...I don´t know if I´ll have the time...dearie me...

It was an interesting week. Thursday night I met up with Elder Abplanalp (who´s in Catarroja right now) and we took a train to Barcelona. Spent the night in the office with some of the Zone Leaders, then in the morning the Hinckley´s drove us over to the Barç 2 chapel.

Our little conference was wonderful. They´re counting on us to do a lot, though. We´ve got to the the mission on a much higher level to start baptising 50 a month from here on out. President would like to see the mission baptise 600 during the next year, and then just continue to climb.

That ended, and the Valencia zone leaders, Elder Abplanalp and I all rode back on the train, with seats facing eachother. It was one of those weird moments-plotting on a train going 140MPH while the sun is going down. Then we had the usual deep doctrine talk, and met up with our companions. Got back home around 11PM.

Saturday and Sunday we had general conference. Ended up watching two of our four sessions in Spanish. It´s not hard for me to understand, but it was for my companion. I just downloaded the conference now to a flash drive and we´ll listen to it in the house so he´ll be able to review the sessions he kinda missed, and we´ll both be able to hear the last session.

Our week this week should be okay. We have no food because it´s another festival in Gandia today, so all the stores are closed. Sad face...

Hope you have a good week.

Love,

Bradley.

9/26/11

West Nile virus. That means you turn into an Egyptian and start walking like one. We don´t have a mosquito problem at the moment, and we don´t have bugs in the house thanks to A/C.

Yes, the youth of today are misguided. They´ve grown up in society, and society has done a number on them. The ability to think has been lost.

The counselors are just there to monitor. You have to be careful nowadays. You never know when you could break your coccyx or something worse.

During preparation day, we don´t typically do much for physical activity. On Thursday we played some basketball with [mystery person](I had to use the stupid extra ¨super shift¨ key on these dumb spanish keyboards to do that. I miss US 102 key layouts...). It didn´t go too badly.

My companion and I were talking about how schemes like Pampered Chef were gone in today's world...but now we have to just claim they´re dying out.

We did a fairly deep cleaning as well. Defrosted the freezer (they´re still figuring out ´frost free´ over here), rearranged the furniture, put up some more items, etc. Things are more open now.

Oh dear. That´s never a good things. Dates are dangerous. Soon he´ll be googoo gaga and we´ll never hear from him again. Danger alert!

The week was interesting. Nothing really happened. It just went along. So we´ll be working this new week to try to make things happen again. Sometimes that happens.

So, I´d been trying to get my old convert here, Ismael, to come back to church. He´d been inactive since April, more or less, and he always told us how he was too busy to meet. (he´d fallen in love with a catholic girl, and so was off in that apostacy). On Thursday (I´ll explain what happened before this moment later), we were walking to the chapel to prepare for the scripture study class we´ve been holding when I felt the impression to call him. So I did, and it was different. He just asked how I was, I told him he was invited, he asked the time, I told him to bring his Bible, and we hung up. I didn´t really think more about it from there on.

A few hours later, he walked in the door of the chapel. Said how he´d had a dream that he needed to come back to church, and that my call was what he needed. So he´s been with us every day since, and all seems to be okay.

Last week, we had these two people contact us on the street. So on Thursday we were trying to meet with them again (outside, in a park), but they had some of their friends there. Then the friends invited over the convienently located preacher of their church, the Baptists. Ahh...what fun. We talked for a good twenty minutes, he just kept contradicting himself, and if any of the rubberneckers were impartial, they would have noticed how blatant the difference was. Then he really freaked out when I handed him a pamphlet (they think having pictures of Christ is equivalent to idolatry) and he started screaming how we were idol worshippers and needed to repent. By this point I was grinning, so I just smiled, extended my hand, and said ¨Sir, we invite you to repent and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ. If you´d like to see us later, here´s our card, and the address of the chapel. It´s been a pleasure talking with you.¨ He really didn´t like that one. Needless to say, he didn´t take the card, and we left. But it was fun. (D&C 100:5). And it was inline with what is stated there.

So this week should be interesting. We´ll have district meeting on Wednesday and we´ll be travelling to Benidorm for baptismal interviews, then on Thursday evening I´ll be traveling up to Barcelona for a training meeting on Friday, then I´ll be travelling down Friday night, getting back, then we´ll have conference on Saturday and Sunday. It´s going to be busy. We´ll see how it goes.

I hope all have a good week.

Bradley.

9/20/11

Hehehe...you´ll never sell the house. They don´t make moving vans big enough for all the stuff inside.

No, I don´t really feel like I have a ball and chain on, but it´s pretty much the equivalent. Even normal people go to work sometime.
And I already have a ring on my finger. It´s big and silver.

Women are like caterpillars...that´s why they like vegetables and salads. It makes perfect sense to me. I don´t think I have any arguments to the contrary.

Well, we made it to Zone Conference...three minutes before it started. The brilliant spanish train company put out a schedule two months ago, then released another new schedule without announcing any changes...and one of the trains they just cancelled was the train we planned to take. At least we managed to slide in before things started.

Yeah, we´ll probably have to keep calling her Binner, since she runs fast like a Mexican across the border.

Yes, we´re probably going to have to barbecue. They don´t really have much for meat over here. All the hamburger patties are either turkey/chicken or beef/pork mixes...they don´t just sell beef hamburger patties. One day I´ll just buy the ground beef and make patties myself. Slily Spain.

Things were moving better last week. We beat things into shape and told our investigators they had to see us, so they didn´t have a choice. Sometimes being a missionary is like parenting.

We decontaminated the house this morning. The windows were pretty bad, so we scraped them clean(literally-a squeegie was involved), then swept the balconies and the back area, polished the floors, did all the usual items.  It stays pretty clean throughout the week. Then we keep seeing these strange bugs from time to time, so I also fumigated with a can of Raid. We evacuated and went shopping afterwards. I finally went and actually bought a new belt. The smaller, older one I brought was just about dead...and it was on the smallest loop it had. So I found a nice leather one this morning for about 10 bucks. It looks like it´ll hold up. I seem to be down to about a 36 at proper waist height.

Yesterday, we went out to a members house, and he made a type of chili with rice...it was good. Then we went back there later that night for a family home evening...the same chili and rice...oogh, my stomach wasn´t happy about that one. Repeating food like that=not good. I know the poor AP´s were complaining on Friday, since they´d had Dominos for lunch Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then Friday. You´d probably get sick of it pretty fast.

Thursday, we finally had our New Testament study class. Still developing everything, but people came to it, and now the first counselor is putting more support behind us and reminding everyone, because attendance the first week was zero, then last week were up to about six...more non members than members. He didn´t like that one, so we hope more people come this week.

Weather is still cooling down, but we still run the AC at night. And when ever we´re inside. Though if it keeps cooling off we´ll probably just start turning it to vent. But using only the AC instead of opening windows does keep the place cleaner. No dust blowing in.

Well, I hope you all have a good week.

9/12/11b

That´s why Honda developed a button on the driver door that locks the windows. Crazy binner. I might be the only person who doesn´t even react to Vicodin. Only time I get a little crazy is when I´m too tired.

Larry is going to be home like September 30th or so, so they better get that package out express. Nice thought, though.

Having a companion is like having a ball and chain around your ankle that´s always there, and only falls off when you go to the bathroom. Otherwise, it´s always there with you.

More young men? Sometimes it happens.

Yes, I walk just as much. We end up going back and forth a lot in the city. There´s only one ward, and there were few changes since I´ve left. Granted, some people are still figuring out that I´m back, or they think I´m ´new´. Elder Gross always is at my side laughing while I´m being gracious ¨yes, I´m new, yes, nice to meet you.¨. Granted, for the ones that haven´t recognized me yet, I am about 45 pounds lighter than I was when I was here last.

The weather is hot and humid at the moment. But we have A/C this time around, so at least we´re not sweating while we sleep like we did here last year. Waking up being sticky is terrible. And they have remotes, so we just turn them off from the bedside.

The new music has been nice. Thanks for putting it together.

I´ll be home one of these years. I know I¨ve been talking to President Hinckley about looking into a one year extention that they´re offering to go and open things up in Morocco, but I¨m not sure about it yet.

Hehe...I funny. I´m sure your heart probably stopped while you read that. No, there´s no one year extention in the works.

This week, I spent part of it in Alcoy on an exchange. I was there to do a basic area inspection, as well as just see how things were. Blasted city is built in a canyon, so it´s uphill both sides. I´ve had almost exclusively flat areas my whole mission. But I survived. Nearly all the elders in the district are from Arizona. Only my companion isn´t. 

Then I came back to my area to see that it had imploded. One of those weeks where all the people say ´yeah, not this week.¨ Whether it was ´yeah, I´ll be busy shopping all week. I won´t be home one hour.¨ or ¨yeah, busy¨, we heard it all.

So we went out finding, and thankfully we did, and managed to still have a good week.

This week will be a little different because we won´t have a district meeting tomorrow, but instead Zone Conference on Friday. So I´ve only taught two district meetings this transfer. It´s been crazy. The transfers are next week, so while I don´t think I´m going anywhere, I don´t know for sure what will happen, so it´ll probably be Tuesday when I write.

Yes, we were trying to get Tomas Costa to pick the ¨Battle Hymn of the Republic¨ as one of the sacrament meeting hymns yesterday, but we didn´t get time. Then I tried to get the YM president (who´s 19) to pick it for opening exercises, but I couldn´t catch his eye. So after church we just listened to some patriotic music and talked about how great America is. The usual.

We had some interesting steaks last week that I got the recipe for, so I¨ll have to make it when I get back. They came out extremely tender. And this Sunday, I had my first taste of ginger ale...it really wasn´t anything special.

So, sorry this is going out late. We were getting ready to leave and write when Tomas called, asking us if we could go down and open the chapel, because some carpenters were coming to look at the building (they´re getting ready to do a lot of remodeling). The bishop was working, the first counselor was out of town, and he couldn´t leave the house, because he had to watch his grandson. So that took up more time than we expected. Then we had visits...well, I´m here now.

I hope you all have a good week, and I´ll look forward to hearing from you next week.

9/20/11

There´s just not that many people in Benson, and even fewer that play games, and even fewer that buy them at launch, remember. I´m sure it sold a fair amount.

Yes, there weren´t any changes this transfer. So I´ll probably be here in Gandia for a while yet.

9/12/11

Well, things have been out of hand today. We would have written earlier, but...it´s a long story. I´m going to start writing my main response right now, but I´m sending this if I don´t get it done. If I don´t finish, we´ll be coming back by around nine or nine thirty our time to finish. I´d tell you what that is your time, but we still aren´t using the new phones that have that feature.

¡BESITOS!

Bradley.

9/5/11

Sounds different.

 

It also sounds like there is a lot of illness and disease in that home. It´s time to break out the Industrial Grade Lysol and fumigate. Did you know Lysol doesn´t exist in Spain? Nor does Febreeze. But Axe does...

 

Hannah and Jane are air heads. There´s no point in teaching your kids things if you don´t teach them tact.

 

Sometimes I don´t look forward to kids. Either home school them and have them turn out weird, or throw them in the public school and risk that they don´t learn how to think. But I guess I´ll just have some kind of special school after hours where I teach them all kinds of crazy crackpot theories and tell them how the government is after our guns...etc. Ahh...the life.

 

Yes, I got the box on Friday. August is over now, so Spain is slowly starting to inch forward again. The pants were a little bright at first, but they worked out with the right tie.

 

Let´s just skip the birthday and Christmas, and instead eat Omaha Steaks for a week when I get back. I´m tired of crappy Spanish meat, and I´d like to come back in style.

Hehehehehehehe...Hermanas....ah, they always do funny things.

 

So I got a haircut today. And we bought things for the apartment. Replaced the mop head and all that good stuff. I generally try to buy foreign brands when I can. At least 3M stuff is over here, though it´s of notably reduced quality. Certaintly better than ¨Basura de baja calidad! ¡Buen Precio!¨.

 

This week I´ll be going to Alcoy to take care of the other intercambio for the transfer with Elder Shiflet. Another Gilbert boy. Hoo dear....lets not ever move to Gilbert. I think I´d probably go inactive just to avoid the members.

 

This week was pretty calm. No ward activities, and things were pretty under control. We ate with a member family, and I almost started laughing because we started talking about the same things that we did the last year when I was there. Then we had another visit...almost the exact same day as the one visit last year. (Sep 1 vs Sep 2).

 

I´m sure as 9/11 gets closer people will start bringing up their theories again. Elder Gross told me that one person said that it wasn´t really an attack on the US because it was the ¨World¨ Trade Center. I love dumb people.

 

I was thinking I´ll have a website where I just interpret news, cut through the crap, and give people the real deal. I´m not sure there´s a market for that, however.

 

Anyway, we´re working on finding some more people to baptise. There might be some we´ll set dates with for the coming weeks.

 

Right now, I´m trying not to breathe, because the schmuck that just sat next to me isn´t wearing deodorant. That´s pretty common for Spain. So if the letter just comes to an end, know it´s because I collapsed from lack of fresh air.

 

I hope you all have a good week. Say hello to Nephi.

 

Bradley.

8/29/11

No, I haven´t been sick on the mission. The occasion sore throat or slight head cold, but it´s usually gone pretty quick.

 

I´m sure the pants will be fine. The one pair has been holding up fine, but I´ll probably throw this third pair into the rotation to help them all last longer with less wear.

 

No, it usually takes 10 days for packages. The mail service here is the type that if they had too much mail for one truck, they´d just leave the rest of the mail for the next day´s truck. Still, it´ll probably get here before the new phones the office has been promising. That´s about all I can say about the office...

 

Yes, it´s a lot of administrative work. I¨m in charge of the missionaries in Alcoy, Benidorm, and the area for the Valencia 2nd ward. Só that involves calls at least twice a week, getting their numbers for the week on Sunday, doing companion exchanges with the Elders in Alcoy, teaching a 90min district meeting on Tuesday, doing baptismal interviews, etc.

 

So, Tuesday we had district meeting, then Elder Martherus and I went together for an exchange. We had to travel to Benidorm so I could interview the baptism they had there. I suppose for the first time it had to be special-it was in a public park. Then, as I´m talking and listening, I see the sisters walk off, then come back and bring this random guy to Elder Martherus, then I see him giving the guy a blessing in the park...I was like...hookay...I guess if they need me they can come get me. Said he was just someone that was having a rough time.

 

Then we headed back to the bus station. Got there at 7.00. Waited until 9.30 for the next bus to Gandia. It was supposed to get us there around 10:45. But then, as we´re getting close, the driver realized he´d forgotten to make a stop, flips around, and we backtrack for 35 mins. Got home around 11:20. That was a long day..

 

The whole exchange was just full of crazy things. Thursday we changed back, and charged straight into the weekend.

 

Friday we had a good activity. They cleaned out the church, then had a movie and a barbecue. They always start late, though, so we had time to eat and then run home.

 

No, we never bought a can opener. Too lazy. That´d require effort. We just don´t buy canned goods.

 

I did make some spaghetti the other day. Came out okay. I pulled out the ´Official Spain Barcelona Mission Cook Book¨... and it didn´t even have a simple recipe for spaghetti sauce. I tossed it aside in disgust and made my own sauce. It´s not a very useful cookbook.

 

Things are still calm here in Gandia. This next week we´ll be buying some better cleaning supplies for the piso. The mop heads are shot, and a standard broom really doesn´t work on a wood floor, so we´ll be getting a dust mop.

 

The floor isn´t layed down right, either. They just layed it, then pushed it to the center, put down the baseboards, then tried to caulk the floor to the baseboards rather than put the spacers in between the wood and the wall. The caulking probably worked for five minutes before it broke, so now the pieces just slide back and forth in the hall as you walk. Silly Spain.

 

I hope you all have a good week.

 

Bradley.

8/22/11

Yes, but you can change the sink. We´ve repainted. Changed the tile. The floor mats. The fixtures. That doesn´t quite work here...and the last bathroom was a sickly pink. Everything.

Binner and the phone. Two incompatible substances that when mixed, produce a great explosion. Kinda like Die Hard 3.

Naah, I really am not much of a dancer. Dancing is for the people with smaller feet. And better coordination. Now, ´the little kicks´, that´s a dance.

Well, I had a weird experience on Saturday. We were waiting outside the church for English Class (it failed) when I looked down and realized that the crotch of my pants was blown out. Luckily it wasn´t visible from a standing position.

Now, here´s the kicker. The fabric didn´t tear. The thread literally just came loose and worked its way out.

So, today I resewed the whole bottom back up. It´s not perfect. Since you´re sending a box, could you grab the nicest pair of dress slacks that are in my closet? Those would be best because they´ll fit, and it´s not like they need to last very long as it is. Just for the rest of the summer and the start of next summer. As a backup incase my needlework doesn´t hold up. I think it will, but you never really know.

Larry will be home at the end of September.

RANDOM MOMENT

I have a confession to make. I¨m addicted to drinkable yogurt. Somebody help me...noo...strawberry banana...

/END RANDOM MOMENT

It was an interesting week. Wednesday we went into Valencia for a conference. I wish I didn´t always shake hands with President just after setting things up and being sweaty and hot. It seems to always happen.

Saturday we went to a wedding. Seems to happen here in Gandia. It was with a recent convert. and she was marrying another member. But, they started two hours late, and we had to go before the good food came out. So we missed out on that one.

This week I´m sending Elder Gross off to Alcoy, and I´ll be going with Elder Martherus to Benidorm to do my first baptismal interview. I´ll also be giving my first district meeting in the field (had to give them in the MTC).

Today we had one of the senior couples come and do an apartment inspection. They were kinda shocked that we had such a nice place. They´re both from Globe, so they actually knew where EA was.   We passed. Then they gave us our new portable DVD player. If everything in the apartment worked, we woudn´t even need it (the whole mission´s getting them), but the DVD drive on the surround sound unit isn´t opening at the moment. And it´s JVC...so much for quality.

The weather is still a little cooler than last year, but that doesn´t mean it´s not hot. At least the AC in the bedroom keeps us nice and cold at night. It´s bad enough being hot, but waking up being hot and sticky is worse.

Well,

Have.

A.

Good.

Week.

L
O
V
E