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.