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.