6/13/11

Sounds like you had an interesting week. The fire looks like it´s gotten pretty out of hand. Uncle Kim´s commute is messed up, I bet.

 

So this week was interesting. Tuesday we went into Barcelona for more meetings...
13^aWe believe in having meetings with all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe in all meetings, we ^fhope for all meetings, we have endured many meetings, and hope to be able to ^gendure all meetings. If there is anything ^hvirtuous, ⁱlovely, or of good report or praiseworthy to discuss, we hold a meeting.

 

That´s the humorous interpretation of the thirteenth Article of Faith.

 

We did get our conference issues, I guess, so that was okay. Wednesday we were up in Ripoll with the branch president. They´ve finally got the meetinghouse situation worked out. They´ll be working on a bajos until September (It´ll be done in August, but City Hall and everything else closes in August, so we won´t be able to get occupancy permits until September...hopefully), but until then we´ll be in an old bakery/cafe. At least it´s on the ground floor and people will be able to see it. ;)

 

Thursday...we were in the train up to Campdevánol...and the ticket checker came around. We showed him our tickets, which show we´re covered up to Vic, and asked to buy the usual extention up to Campdevánol. He freaked out and hauled us to the front of the train, then wrote us 50 euro citations for ´not having a ticket´. Now we get to go into Barcelona tomorrow and try to protest the farce, because we´ve never had a problem before, and the ticket sellers have told us to do it that way, as well as other ticket checkers. Like Alfredo said, he saw ties and white shirts and figured they could suck 50 each out of us. They´re probably not going to do anything, sadly.

 

It was going to happen that morning anyway, though. The way they´ve got the scam set up is that if you pay immediately (aka, cash to his pocket), they only charge 25 euros. Elder Saldaña had 25, so he payed. I had 15...but that morning, as I was grabbing my wallet, I saw a 20 sitting there and had the thought come to mind ¨I should grab that.¨. Of course, I thought, ¨Why? It´s a 2.90 ticket. I´ve got 15.¨ Then the impression ¨And if you get a ticket and need 25?¨. Well, I didn´t listen, and so now I´ll end up being out 50. Now you see why I would never want to live here...

 

Friday was pretty normal, Saturday we went out to Tona for a branch barbecue, which wasn´t bad. I´ve got some pictures, but the card reader isn´t working on this computer. Surprise.

 

Sunday was what will probably be the last meeting there in Shirley´s house. It was pretty full.

 

So we might be having a baptism on the 25th. As for transfers, they´re the 28th of June. This is the third transfer, so it´s hard to say if I´m staying or going. Probably start a mail stop on Wednesday just in case I´m leaving.

 

We don´t have an apartment yet. I´m giving the realtor until Wednesday before I go looking for someone else. We went in last week and pretty well got the brush off with a ¨Yeah, I´ll call if I get anything.¨ Customer service doesn´t exist here. It´s kinda weird. I´m sure when I go back to the States I´ll think everyone´s overly friendly.

 

As for the trip with your parents... ¨One night our little son Richard, who had a heart problem, awoke crying. The two of us heard it. Normally my wife always got up to take care of a crying baby, but this time I said, “I’ll take care of him.”
Because of his problem, when he began to cry, his little heart would pound very rapidly. He would throw up and soil the bed clothing. That night I held him very close to try to calm his racing heart and stop his crying as I changed his clothes and put on new bedsheets. I held him until he went to sleep. I didn’t know then that just a few months later he would pass away. I will always remember holding him in my arms in the middle of that night.¨
Elder Richard G. Scott, April 2011 conference. It might be the last trip you get, so just go and work to enjoy it.
We did get an interesting little tidbit from the branch president: Salt Lake has finally approved the reorganization of the stakes here in Barcelona. They´re going to be creating the third stake up here. That usually means that one of the Quorum of the Twelve will be coming down to take care of it, which means we might get a mission tour. I don´t know if it´ll be Elder Holland (or if I´ll be in the Barcelona area when it happens), but one can hope.
Well, you all have a good week.
Bradley.

6/6/11b

These are pictures of a 19th century mill being restored.

6/6/11

gaahbrandondrivingthetruckahhhhhhhh

 

Okay, I´m okay now. Really.

 

Camps during the summer are usually time consuming.

 

Did the cold break all the plastic joints on the hoses or did it mess up the filter and pump? Or both?

That´ll mess up flights going to LA and San Diego. FAA loves things like that. Still, it looks like it´s probably going to be a bad fire season. A little extra preparedness would be good for this year. Things probably aren´t going to get any better any time soon. But as long as we´re doing what we should, we´ll be fine.

 

Puppy.....the floor, the rugs, hide them all! Bye bye couches and linens! Flee from the dog!

 

We´ll, you´ve finally gone out of Primary. Binner will be fine.

 

Yes, I did get the box. I don´t know about the envelope, though, because I didn´t get a notice saying it´d been impounded either.

 

Things are moving along. It´s not that bad out there. We´ll probably have some baptisms in the coming weeks. The family is still there, but now they´re moving back to Ecuador and are set on not getting baptised here, and told us ´maybe´ when they get back to their country. We´ll try to get some info on where they´re going so we can send it out to the mission over there.

 

We´ll be doing some things towards an apartment this week.

 

Heheheheheheheheheme find a girl over here. No. I don´t have the remotest desire to live here in Spain. One of the cardinal rules I have is that the wife must be a natural born US citizen. Es lo que hay.(Google translate will not translate this right. It stinks. Translation is ¨It´s what there is.¨) Another is that she cannot be taller.

 

Hey, they did just do a full restructure of the senior couple missions. Now they´re different. One day, we´ll see about making that happen.

 

No, no parties. Parties bad. Sleep good.

 

So the week went pretty well. One of the things I found out in the store in Vic was...DR PEPPER!!!!!. Okay, so it´s not the best thing in the world, but it was a nice reminder of what it´s like to drink carbonated prune juice. And unlike the US cans (these were made in Belgium), it admits that the drink is ´fruit based´. I bought four cans. There might be more this week.

 

Saturday we got to go into to Barcelona and see the stake center dedication. Announced twenty-nine years ago, it´s now finally open and dedicated. Spain=slow.

 

One of the high councilman was talking about how ¨We´ve waited a long time for this building. We´ve suffered lack of faith, slow movement on the part of the church, on the part of Barcelona, etc. We´ve seen four stake presidencies come and go. I think it hurt worst when they split the stake, formed the Hospitalet stake, and then that stake got a four story stake center in the mid 90´s, and we still had another fifteen years to wait.¨

 

Elder Texiera was down from Germany to do the dedication. He kept slipping into Portuguese during his talk(he´s from Portugal). It´s still funny, though, because his English has a New York accent to it, and that accent carries over into his Spanish.

 

Then little brother (E. Dalton) and I took our companions into Barcelona to...Subway. Yeah, it was over busy, the guy didn´t do our orders right, but it came out okay.

 

Sunday was interesting. A lot of people didn´t come, so with the time we had all the members except one (she didn´t want to) were able to bear their testimonies and there was still five minutes of silence left...

 

Today we´ll be relaxing. I´m going to shop for food, then relax for the rest of the day.

 

Have a good week. More pictures to come soon.

 

Bradley

5/30/11

Windy, huh? We dealt with a heat wave for most of the week. Eech, I hate humidity. Guess I can´t move to Tampa after all.

Still nothing. No package or envelope, but no notices saying I have to pay an illegal tax. There´s no telling where it is at the moment. Getting shoes shipped is always a pain. It seems like most of the time, they nab those and demand money. That´s why most online businesses refuse to ship to Spain anymore, and eBay doesn´t even exist here. But the shoes are fine. I´m going to get new insoles today-afraid those ones you sent weren´t quite built for missionary work. They´re already dead after a few weeks.

Yeah, I´d imagine we´ll start seeing more stuff happening state-side. America isn´t repenting like it should, so now the reminders will start becoming more frequent and deadly. The country´s in the same position as the kingdoms of Judah and Israel were before they were destroyed by Assyria and Babylon.

Yes, there´s always a lot of people who say they´re going to run, get about five supporters, and then drop out. Palin needs to drop out, so does karger, Santorum, most of those nobodys, and Crist, and Graham. Leave Romney, Newt, Ron. Probably throw Huntsman in as a vice president to one of them. Spreading out the field is never a good thing.

Well, things moved fairly smoothly this week. We´ll probably be having some baptisms within a month or so. Still traveling every day, but I´m used to it. It´s pretty much like going to Tucson everyday, but at the demands of a tyrannical, communist train company who, sadly, can´t keep a schedule. We´ll survive.

We´ve been working with a few realtors, but you know how they are. I said ¨Okay, the central and university zones only, please. Only to get a call saying ¨I have a place!´...which was about twenty-five minutes walk to where the church will be. We´ll be working with a different realtor this week. My companion said I was too harsh in saying it wasn´t what we wanted, but I wasn´t. I was just honest. .

So, I do have pictures this time, and I´ll send them in some groups because I suspect they´ll be too large for one message. Most of them are self-explanatory.

I hope you all have a good week.

Bradley.

5/23/11

No, still no envelope. I´m pretty sure they´ve stolen it as well.

 

Sounds like you´ll have to call. There should be some numbers on papers from the internet company. The techs are usually idiots, but that´s what´s available.

 

Right now we´re rebuilding the area, and pretty well finding all new people to teach. We haven´t met with the family in a week or so. 

 

Just got the call today from the AP´s telling me to cede all area in Granollers and concentrate in Vic, and to try to find an apartment out there. So now I commute to work each day... It´s going to be lots of fun, as the member who could help us find one within a few days is in Peru because his father died...so I guess we get to look all alone. I hate dealing with realtors, but we´ll probably end up contracting one who won´t show us what we want. Remember those days?

 

Well, Elder Keller´s on the islands now, and I´m with Saldaña. He´s a good kid. I don´t have any pictures.

 

Things have been pretty calm this week. Spent Monday resting while Elder Keller packed, spent Tuesday just moving people around. Wednesday, Elder Plaskett had a little surgery on his toe (he´d had an ingrown toenail a few months back, then it got infected and he never got it taken care of.) The doctor said he had a ´chronic infection´ in the toe and cut off big chunks of it. Then he charged 300 bucks. I have my doubts about the wacko (Spaniards =/= good doctors) but the toe seems to be healing a bit. It still looks nasty, though. So I spent the afternoon taking care of him in the apartment while I sent Saldaña out to work with Jones.

 

The rest of the week stayed pretty calm. The usual traveling, visiting, and talking. Church wasn´t bad on Sunday. We had a pretty big group.

 

Today I´ve got to run into Barcelona taking more of Elder Kellers stuff to the office so they can lock it up. Having to leave half of your stuff always seems a little much. But other than that, I plan on relaxing, and then not working tonight, because I don´t have any area to do it in...not sure what I´m supposed to do. We´ll figure something out.

 

Hope you all have a good week.

5/17/11

Well, I think Spain has pilfered the envelope as well. I still haven´t gotten it, so I´m assuming it´s lost. The illegalities continue, but that´s how it works. So I don´t know if the box will even make it again...

 

No, Lorca´s part of the Malaga Mission now. There´s missionaries there, but I doubt they were hurt. It wasn´t that big.

 

I don´t think I´ll let Brandon drive if I´m in the car. I already don´t like to be driven...

 

We´re probably going to be five or six months in getting a location that´ll work for the church. And that´s assuming we´ll be able to open it. The stake center in Barcelona sat for over a year waiting for the permits to open it, just because the government sat around and made up excuses.

Well, it was an interesting week. The beginning was fairly calm. Elder Plaskett and I went into Barcelona to meet up with the other two. We went to a fairly lame park and left after a few hours. Tuesday we had a training meeting (spend too much time in meetings, I sometimes feel like). Wednesday we travelled out to Olot ($10.90 on the bus...ouch!) and worked around there, but it´s a pretty iffy city. We´ll see how much we travel out there.

 

Thursday, we went to eat with the second counselor in Campdevánol, up above Vic. Then he drove us through the mountains up to Puígcerda, a city right next to France. We taught a lesson there, and we were driving around with him as he was trying to find a place that he needed to go. Then, as we´re driving, he says ´Hey, crossing this bridge we´re in France! Isn´t that great!?¨. Well, not really, since it´s a big no-no to leave mission boundaries. Like ¨Pack your bags¨ no-no. But, we got him to turn around, and after a call to President, it was all smoothed over. Only there about a minute, but I guess I can say I was in France during my mission, eh?

 

Friday was pretty calm. Saturday we went out to a tiny town called Sant Feliu de Pallarolls, where they were having an activity for the youth in the branch. There´s a bunch of dead volcanoes up in that area, so we got a tour of the town, then climbed up one of the volcanoes and had a nice talk with the mayor. I´ve got some pretty crazy pictures, but, alas, this computer´s card slots are broken. Surprise!

 

Saturday, worked out in Vic, then President called with transfer information. Elder Keller got sent out to the islands (Palma de Mallorca), and I´m still here in Granollers. With a native (kinda.). He´s Elder Saldaña, from Bolivia, but he lives here in Spain. He just got off of the other island, Meñorca. So we´re happily chugging along, I guess.

 

Had a quiet Sunday and yesterday, since he spent most of the day packing. Out to the islands it´s one bag only, so you have to pack nice and selectively. I never want to go...

Well, that´s all for the week. I´m sure things will be interesting this week too.

 

Love,

 

Bradley.

5/9/11

Yeah, I´ve always wanted to move over to Tampa. Florida. That´s not too far away, right? Not, LOL

Missionaries get abused here a lot, but I´ve never had to give a talk.

 

Yeah, but you always moved the steering wheel in the truck. And the seat...and the mirrors...

 

The cat likes to be brushed. It´s because he´s too lazy for self grooming.
Ah, the library. The odor of stale books and unwashed teenagers.

 

No, we really didn´t do anything yesterday. It was stake conference, so we just went into Barcelona. Then we came home and worked for a bit.

 

So...I decided I could send some pictures now. (made some arrangements). 3405 was a round of Bananagrams. Elder Plaskett lost, and kinda spelt some words with what he had left. Then there´s just some more random photos. Like signs in Vic.

 

Today, we´ll be going into Barcelona to have some happy time wandering around doing nothing. No, the envelope hasn´t come still.

 

Just be finishing up the transfer this week. I´ll probably be writing on Tuesday. Sorry for the short letter, but we did just talk on the phone.

 

Love,

 

Bradley.