1/3/11

I´m sorry to hear that. Hopefully everything gets figured out.

The work wasn´t so hot this week. My companion came down with bronchitis, so we were in the apartment from Wednesday morning until Sunday. He´d been kinda sick the last week or so, then woke up Wednesday morning just all messed up. Had to take him to the ER...hoo boy, they´re so stupid here. I got a little grumpy with them. Would have gotten grumpier, but I had my nametag on. Then the hospital was in worse shape than Benson´s little hospital was ten years ago. So we finally got him some antibiotics and had him stay inside for the rest of the week. He´s doing better now, though he´s still got a tad bit of a cough. Doesn´t look sick anymore, though.

Transfers will be next week, so I say hold off on the package until I know what´s going to happen. Most likely, I won´t be transferred, (though there might be some companion shuffling in Tarragona-Elder Close is really hoping he gets this Zone Leader spot that´s opening, but we´ll see), but you never know anymore. Things tend to be crazy. President Monson is pushing mission presidents to keep missionaries in their areas for longer than it has been lately, ideally four transfers, even five in cases, just because it´s too hard on the recent converts, but there´s been a lot of shifting with less time still.

Totals for the year weren´t very good. We fell about eighty baptisms short of what they´d been hoping. Haven´t heard all of what´s going to be happening this year, but I think they´re going to toss any kind of number goal for 2011. The whole month of December the mission just got slammed left and right. Lost roughly sixty planned baptisms, right now something around 15 percent of the mission is seriously ill(nasty stomach bug seems to be going around), our best investigator turned out to be gay... it´s just been a rough ending. Our area was one of the bright spots in the mission, but we tanked this week pretty bad. We´ll turn it back around, though. Long as there isn´t anymore sickness.

Yeah, we´ve noticed the holidays isn´t the best season to teach, actually. Here in Spain it´s not going to be over until January 7th. The 6th is what Spain really celebrates...the wise men day. You know, because the wise men are more important than Jesus...

I thought the booboo was too fat to fit under the fence. You´ll have to beat her with a stick, I guess.

So this morning I was finally able to go pick up that package. It got here the 28th, but I couldn´t leave the apartment to go pick it up. Thanks for the Grinch. I´ll have to do something with him as a joke.

Well, with staying in I was able to burn through all my books, and those CD´s. Thanks for the Joseph Smith one-Madsen was bringing up a lot of new stuff we don´t really ever hear about.

Fireworks everywhere but in Pima County? Pima County is always a bunch of fuddy-duddies. Unless it comes to weed, they´d probably legalize that.

True Grit not starring John Wayne is heresy. Did they at least leave Gene´s favorite line in the movie?

You could take some Germ-X and squirt it in his mouth when he curses. I don´t think it´d kill him-it´s just a little alcohol, right?

It wasn´t the rain-that little umbrella was a piece of junk was all. It broke the second time I tried to use it. The one I have now works fine. Little big to drag along during transfers, but otherwise it works. Sometimes I slide it on my bag like Sean Connery in The Last Crusade. Other times it´s my cane. :)

I haven´t been in an area where there was more than one ward meeting in a building, so I don´t know whether they flip flop wards here. I´ll ask Elder Benito later-I think he meets in a multiward building in Madrid when he´s at home.

I´m going to go relax for the most part today, I think. We´ve got to go buy a new stereo today-I´ve milked about all we can out of the clunker we´ve got now. We´re still trying to get the hot water heater fixed-it works when it wants to, and I´m sick of cold showers.

Love,

Bradley.

12/27/10 (HELPING US OUT ELECTRONICALLY) oy! WE MISS HIM.

Did he just redeem the card on your user account, or did he buy songs? Either way, he should just be able to have them pulled up. Pull up iTunes (make sure you´re signed in on the iTunes Store with the account you bought them on), then go to the top, click ¨Store¨or ¨purchases¨ or something (might have to go through all the pull down windows) and look for ¨Check for Purchased Songs¨. Then click it, and it should allow it to download. If not...well it´d be pretty hard to explain how to do it over an e-mail. Not impossible, but we´ll try this first.

Oops...not sure why I hit send. Sorry.

Scripture is Proverbs 23: 13-14

 13Withhold not ^acorrection from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
 14Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
Or, there´s this in Proverbs 13:
24He that spareth his ^arod hateth his son: but he that loveth him ^bchasteneth him betimes(aka sometimes).
It´s a good thing that the book of Proverbs isn´t solid doctrine, right?

So, full year schedule...what evilness. I´m so glad I got the schooling old style. Back before we had these fancy computer reading programs. Why, in my day, we had to use a pencil! And the teacher actually looked at your paper! And we had to do these stupid ´probes´....

Ahh, the old Anchor Baby debate. Silly Congress.
18% is still not to bad compared to the 30+ that it is here. But for the US...it´s madness.
Still, the rate of spending will probably slow down here pretty soon. There might have to come government wide shutdowns when budgets don´t get passed, but we´ll probably have a few more years than three or four. Though, more unemployment=less taxes brought in=more stupid taxes on rich=less jobs=less taxes...and the cycle continues. Sometimes I wonder if any of those goons took Algebra 1.

Sorry this letter seems short. We did just talk.
We´re going to get in some Phase 10 and Skip-Bo today. And I was crazy enough to finally break down and buy some real maple syrup...five euros later. Ouch.

I´ll have a better letter next week. promise.
Bradley.

12/25/10

Okay, I´ll be calling between 8:30 and 9:00 PM Spain time. Dont´worry, the call is dirt cheap for me. It´s going to be like 3 euros for the thirty or so minutes.

Love,

Bradley.

12/20/10

Okay, so the call first. I´ve considered the several options, and I think the simplest option will be for me to just go to a locutorio and make the call from there. Then there´s not signal issues, and it´s usually pretty cheap(like three or four bucks). I´ll be calling on Christmas day, probably around 8:30-9:00PM our time, which shouldn´t be too late for you all. The calls this year are limited to 30 minutes.

I got the one box with the peanut brittle and stuff on Tuesday, and  the other on Friday. The fudge...well, it kinda made it. It was mainly melted into one big blob in the Tupperware.

Baptism went fine. Pictures are attached. He...well, he´s not the best with pictures. But he´s a pretty good kid. Name is Mikel, and he´s from Spain.

We actually were one of the most successful companionships in the mission this week. Judging from the numbers we´ve been seeing in the weekly reports, the mission is getting hammered right now. There were some 22 people with dates for Saturday, and only five actually made it into getting baptised. So we´re sitting about 74 baptisms short for the year´s goal, with fifteen scheduled for this weekend, the last one in the year that counts. Well, there´s always next year.

The presents were fine. They all made it. Two of them had rips on the edges, but i´ve behaved. They´re all still wrapped. Last night, I finally made those mashed potatoes and gravy. Put down some toast on the bottom of the plate, then the taters, then the gravy. Nice little meal.

We´ve still got Edgar set for Christmas day. Pretty sure that´s going to go through. Hopefully we have the hot water heaters working this time-it was sort of frozen water last time.

Weather´s been pretty calm here. Being right on the sea helps. It´s definitely been jacket weather, but nothing too extreme.

I saw on LDS.org that Switzerland is trying to pass a law that would prevent missionaries in their country unless they came from one of the European Union countries...that´s not a good sign. Hopefully they get it stopped, and the rest of Europe doesn´t follow suit.

We had the ward christmas party on Friday. Bishop spent a fair amount of money to make sure it was a good one this year. Tons of food, and I think everyone had a good time.

I think all the clothes are holding up. Nothings in dire need of replacement yet. But yeah, the washers over here are all retarded. And we´ve got a Whirlpool...but it´s got to be European built, that´s certain. Explains why it only sort of works.

Christmas conference is on Wednesday. It should be good. We´ve still got to go out and buy the white elephant gifts-not sure if we´re supposed to wrap them or just bring them-but that should go fine.

Hehe...they don´t have biscuits here. Guess it´s gravy on toast. . I am planning on feeding the Spaniard some El Pato, though. He´ll probably act like it´s Baja sauce and go running for the faucet. Thanks for the cans-sometimes food is a little bland here. I´m planning on using it for the flautas and for the hot dog burros this week. Thankfully we have a church key.

So, I´ll try to be good and not open the presents too early. Might have to follow local tradition (well, South American tradition) and open them the 24th...or maybe just two a day until Christmas? ;)

All right, I´ll behave. Maybe.

Well, it´s kinda of a short letter. I´ll write down some themes for the call on Saturday.

Bradley

PS: I sent out the Christmas letters, but they didn´t get put in the box until Tuesday, and probably didn´t get postmarked until Wednesday. Hopefully they´ll make it in time, but if not, there is stuff coming.

- Show quoted text -

12/13/10

Doesn´t sound too hot, although we´ve been in mostly short sleeves this week. I don´t think we´ll get any snow here, though. That´d be a Bilbao section thing.

Well, it´s been a more normal week this time around. We´re still working on getting the area built up, though I`ve been told President is pretty pleased with our numbers for this week, so we´ll have to keep working.

We finally got the window replaced that Elder Benito broke (long, long story), and thankfully they didn´t charge us for it. Still trying to get the hot water heater looked at (apparantly they´re supposed to be coming tomorrow.)

We´ve got just one baptism set for the 25th at the moment, and one for the 18th. The other that was set for the 25th will probably be a January baptism.

Funny story: Saturday we took a trip out to a pueblo to eat with one of our recent converts (who´s from Scotland, so everythings in English) and we were just sitting (all four) when she was bringing out two plates. One of them tipped a bit and dropped a little gravy on the ground. She just says ¨Oh, s***¨, no warning. It was exactly how your mother usually says it. (she´s about sixty too) So we all managed to keep quiet until she went back into the kitchen, and then all about died with laughter. Just really unexpected.

Thursday, we go out to this little dumpy pueblo called Campoclaro. We were just going to mainly kill time and pass by some former investigators. First, a less active from Africa stops us and asks where the church is. So we set a lesson with him for the next day. Then, another lady stops us and asks whether there´s the ward Christmas party this year. We set a lesson with her for the next day too. Later, we´d gone pretty far out into a pretty rough looking area, it´s getting late, and I finally said ¨All right, let´s get out of here.¨ We´d had to pass by some gangs on the way, and now it was getting fairly dark.

As we´re headed back in that direction, this huge African guy waves us down and starts walking with us. Talking about how he´d heard about the church in Africa and all kinds of stuff. Walked with him all past the gangs to the bus stop, then got his information and set up an appointment for the next day.

So, next day, we go out to Campoclaro again. All three lessons fired on us. The third person wasn´t even interested and didn´t remember giving us his information (my comp thought he might have been drunk).

Personally, I think he was just sent there to walk with us and keep us from getting robbed, so...needless to say we don´t work in Campoclaro anymore. At least not at night. Our information member told us that´s not an area we should be in anyway.

We´ve been having a lot more fun this week. Now that everything is finally split, we just have to make sure the other companionship isn´t trying to make inroads into our area (the zone leaders hit that pretty hard during their visit on Tuesday). We´ve gone out for churros a few times, (haven´t hit a candy shop yet), but we´re still working hard.

I´m going to try to send out all the Christmas letters today. Should be able to get most, if not all, in the mail. They should make it to the US before Christmas.

Today, I´ve got to get more lightbulbs (it would figure these turds all go out around the same time. The ones in our bedroom and my Study Cubby(now renamed the Tarragona Norte offices) are little Halogens that are running us 2.50 for a two pack for the junkiest versions. Like 12.00 for a name brand.

I put together the christmas tree last week, and I´ve got pictures of it. It wasn´t too difficult.

This week, we´ve got to just get things ready for the baptism on the 18th. Apart from that, it should be pretty calm. Going to relax this p-day, and probably just kick back a bit, maybe take a few pictures.

I´ll try not to open the presents. Hopefully the paper doesn´t accidentally rip or something. Or they don´t end up going through one of the x-ray machines at the train station.

Yes, you can tell your parents I got the card, and no, the post office didn´t steal the money. It´ll sit with the stash of Dollars I´ve got for a while, probably.

I keep telling the new missionaries that President wears a Santa suit for the Christmas party, but I´m not sure they believe me. I think it´ll mainly just be a simple little thing for four hours like the schedule says. I´ve got to find a white give for a White Elephant game they´ll be holding.

Okay, that´s probably all I have for this week.

Bradley.

12/6/10

Yeah, I got the cards a bit late, but it was fine. No mail today, though-another stupid Catholic holiday, so everything´s closed. I´m going to drown in these holidays.

The chinos might be open today, but I don´t think the Pharisee will shell out his part for a tree, so probably not, unless just Allphin and I buy one.

So we had to go to district meeting on Wednesday, and we had to go to Llerida. Rather than just take a bus, the Pharisee made us take the AVE...so, 40 euros later for a thirty minute ride each way, we got there.

He´s been pretty bad lately. Now he likes to lord over everyone. The amount of crap in the meeting was so large you needed waders to get through it. The Elders from Llerida were like ¨Oh no, why couldn´t we get Elder Naseath again?¨. Basically, ¨I want success here so I can be a zone leader or an AP¨...

So, we finally divided the area on Wednesday afternoon. I fought pretty hard to get the majority of Tarragona, (ended up giving away the biggest outer pueblo). He was thinking how most of our area was worthless ¨Eh, there´s nothing up there(old, old Roman Tarragona)¨ So we went to work.

Talked it over with a less active member on Thursday, who told us that area should be a gold mine, since it´s mostly populated by South Americans. We haven´t had much time to search up there yet, but it should bring some more this week. Thursday was the first real day we had to work last week.

Friday night, we finally got in with one of our investigators and set a baptismal date for the 25th. Saturday, we set another baptismal date for the 25th as well. We found new investigators in some of these ´dead´ pueblos. Then when we got back Saturday night he´s in the apartment pouting. ¨You´re going to have to give me Torredembarra. It has to be more fair.¨. My comps like ¨Hey, I thought we´d agreed to just split that area. ¨ ¨No, it´s not fair.¨. So I told him to take it and be happy (we hadn´t even gone out there, though we lost some nice Peruvian less actives.)

Throughout the week, the Pharisee had been talking about how they´d bumped into someone on the street. He said that the guy asked where the church was, and they asked him if he was a member. He replied ¨No, but I´d like to be.¨ Well, until Sunday they hadn´t even met with him. Sunday night, we were just walking all over the city, passing by former investigators that were dropped for one reason or another. We had the choice to either go catch a bus for a pueblo, Torreforta, to hope that a less active might be home, or walk uphill on the Rambla to pass by two more formers. We were tired, but we walked up the Rambla. Then we run into this guy who stops us and says ¨Hey, Elders, where are the other missionaries?¨ Turns out it was the Columbian guy they´d run into on the street. They were supposed to meet him at the church at 8, but they´d completely fired on him. Then I guess they´d called to meet him on the top of the Rambla. By sheer luck we´d run into him first. Talking with him, we found out that he lives in our area. So we walk with him to the meeting spot. I immediately saw the Pharisee was furious. Elder Allphin (who´s learned by himself how bad the Pharisee is) is like, ¨Hey, we ran into your friend, turns out he lives within our boundaries, so we´re going to go to the church to teach him.¨ The Pharisee was so furious. He pulls out the map, where I point out that the street in question is well past the borders of our area, then he storms off toward the church, saying ¨We´ll talk later about this!¨. (right infront of the investigator)

So we walked the twenty minutes to the church, getting to know Edgar, from Columbia. Great guy. He´d investigated in Columbia, but never had the chance to get baptised, and didn´t find the church here. We get to the church, go upstairs, and teach him a quick lesson. By the end of it, he´s got a baptismal date for the 25th of December.

So that was awesome. We´ve got another appointment with him tonight.

Going back to the apartment, we´re talking about how this is going to go over. Edgar himself had said ¨I like you guys better. That other guy is kinda...wierd¨. My comp was pretty upset (he tends to get pretty firey), especially since we knew they´d known he lived within our area, and they´d never have told us until after he was baptised, if even then. I got him calmed down, and when they got back things went okay. Turned out he was still mad, but his companion (who he´s training, a Spaniard(speaks english too)), told him to knock it off and that all that mattered was that he got baptised, not which companionship did it. And they´d just come from setting a baptismal date.

So, that´s how that went. I´m sure there will still be boundary issues, but we´ll continue on.

We´re planning on enjoying ourselves today. Got to go get a few lightbulbs (of course they have to be a special type), we´re going to see if the store is open, then we´re going to relax today. Probably play some Pass or Uno. Next week we´ve got plans to hit the sights here in Tarragona.

Either way, I´ve had a better week this last week than I´ve had since I left Gandia.

Now that there won´t be any crazyness this week, we should be able to get even more done. Looking like it´s going to be a busy Christmas day-I´ve never baptised more than one person a day, and three different people will be really interesting. I´m sure Bishop will just explode.

Well, that´s all the madness for this week. It´ll be interesting how the Pharisee justifies himself tomorrow, since he had the worst numbers in the district, and he always slammed Elder Monks about how ¨dur, the district leaders area should be a model for the other areas¨. I kinda feel bad for his companion. He treats him pretty badly,(I am master, you´re dirt) and Elder Allphin said that Elder Benito told him privately that he doesn´t like his trainer, which is sad.

Have a good week.

Bradley.

11/30/10

Yes, we´re dealing with transfers today (yesterday was just a disaster). So, President decided to throw a curveball and break up the Hospitalet Zone, create two new zones, and reorganize the districts. And he´s put two companionships in Tarragona now. I´m not with the Pharisee anymore, but he´s still there. They´re letting him train again (hopefully it goes better than last time). And I´m with Elder Allphin again...sort of unexpected. Super super rare to have a companion twice in your mission. But at least we´ll get along.

 

I´m in Barcelona right now, wating for Allphin to get in the office. The newbies are coming in, so they kicked us out until after two. They made the Pharisee the district leader, so I´m sure it´ll just be delightful. Thankfully, that´s only an hour and a half once a week.

 

So, a messy week. Friday, we had to spend the day in Valencia because the Pharisee had to do fingerprints for residency. Left around 9, got back around 8PM. Didn´t get anything done because the line was too long. SO we went back Sunday night, spent the night there, got up at FOUR AM (), sat outside in the cold from 5:30 to 9, got a number, had to go back to the Valencia piso, sat around until 2:30, went back and froze in line from 3 to 6, finally got in, got done. I had to call the office to get them to change our return tickets so that we´d get into Barcelona earlier (the tickets we had put us in at 11:45PM). It was pouring rain, I didn´t have my umbrella, then a car drove by and soaked my slacks... Finally got on the train, got into Barcelona around 10:30, then got to the office and I went to sleep.

 

So, when I was in Valencia, they said they´d mistakenly received a box. It was a Hush Puppies shoe box. From July. Yeah, that missing box finally got to me, along with two letters from July as well. Fraid the Hot Cheetos bag popped some time ago, and while I haven´t opened it, they´re sure to be stale. Everything else is fine, though.

 

I ´ve gotten the box with the presents and the envelope with the Ensigns and everything. Probably some package notices sitting in the mailbox. And since I¨m a bad person I opened the presents already. . Thank you very much for the scriptures. They´re really nice. It hurts to use a marking pencil on them. I haven´t really eaten the candy much yet, but I´ll start breaking into it soon.

 

Hey, I was meaning to ask-what ever happened to that Lake Havasu City trip you won? Did it expire?

 

Tell dad that if he wants a new truck he really just has to ask.

 

I plan to treat myself. Especially since I¨ll be with a companion who won´t demand that I pay for everything and then mooch off of things. Maybe we´ll go out to eat for lunch.

 

Yes, I could use a bottle of baby powder.

 

The foot insoles are holding up, but they won´t last six months, I don´t think. When they start dying, I´ll let you know so you can send some from the US. They just don´t make good things here.

 

I thought about how this was the first black friday I´d missed in a while.

 

Naah, the Pharisee won´t change. He´s been a hypocrite his whole mission. He was brought up that way-super conceited and spoiled. Made his parents send him $180 just so he could buy a new jacket just because he didn´t like the way the old one looked (because it wasn´t ´european´ style.) It seems to be a Utah problem, primarily Salt Lake. Nearly every missionary I´ve met from Salt Lake I haven´t liked.

 

The Koreans had been getting antsy for a while. Little Kimmy likes to throw little fits every now and then.

 

I made some bratwurst for thanksgiving lunch. Then I had em with a nice Pepsi and some ice cream. Nothing too fancy. I´ve been smart with the mission money, so it just keeps building up. Then I can afford a silght splurge every now and then. (like 2.50 for a little thing of Dijon Mustard.) There´s a bottle of genuine Canadian Maple Syrup at one store í´ve been considering, but 5 euros for a little bottle like that is tough to swallow. Plus, there´s no waffles to buy.

 

We walk a pretty good amount. Shoes are holding up fine, though you can see some wear on the bottoms. Just keep them polished and they still look nice, though.

 

Elder Crofts is getting transferred out of Gandia finally. He´s ending up in Grannolers or something like that, so I´ll see him at the Christmas conference the 22nd. We keep writing each other pretty regularly, and I´ve got his home address.

 

Well, that´s all I have for this week.

 

Bradley.