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.