First Transfer Week

 

This has been an amazing week. We got to experience our first "transfer week". We saw missionaries who have completed their missions go home, and brand new missionaries arrive to take their places. We got to experience everything from a CO detector scare (fortunately it was just a failed detector) to a set of sisters who got themselves locked out of their apartment for the second time in a week (lock-smiths are REALLY expensive here). Also, broken toilets, broken AC units, broken stoves, lost credit cards, and even a bad mattress. Through it all, we've been learning and slowly started figuring out how to handle this stuff. One of the missionaries who finished his mission was one of the Assistants to the President, Elder LaDuc. What a great young man! It was fun to watch a new Assistant to the President come into the office. They even have some fun traditions when they make a change. The assistants a few months back realized that they had both purchased the exact same wristwatch, and they decided to give them to their replacements. I've attached a photo of Elder LaDuc giving his watch to the new assistant. 

They kind of build up to transfers by having the outgoing missionaries show up to the mission home on Tuesday to spend a little time with the President and have their exit interviews. Wednesday is the day that the new missionaries are slated to arrive. The way it's supposed to work is that the outgoing missionaries catch a fairly early plane and the new missionaries come in mid-morning. What happened is that everyone's flights were delayed somehow, and so the the outgoing missionaries hung out for longer than they would normally do and worry about making the connecting flights, which was going to be an issue for several of them. The new missionaries didn't get there until much later than we expected, and yet we still needed to do all of the training, that they need, get them their interviews with the President, let them meet their trainers, and get them to their areas which took a long time. We didn't get to bed until almost mid-night, and I can't imagine what those poor, jet-lagged, bedraggled, yet super-excited new missionaries went through. There were a few that needed to stay in Barcelona that night and then go out to the outlying areas the next day. It was chaos, but still fun. 

One of the traditions they have is to line the trainers up on one side, and the new missionaries up on the other side. They then give the trainers an envelope with the name of their new companion in it, and then on a signal they run over and give their new companion a hug. I caught that on video (attached). It's pretty special to see an instantaneous bond between them. 

Thursday and Friday we were able to get caught up amidst the problems popping up. On Friday afternoon, the Assistants told Brenda and I that they were going to teach a sister in the mission office that afternoon and invited us to be in the "Charla" (discussion) with them. It was a wonderful experience for me as the memories of those teaching moments from my youth came flooding back. It was neat to be able to bear testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel to someone who is experiencing it all for the first time. Brenda loved being there although she was frustrated to not be able to express herself the way she would have liked to.

Tammy and Gerald are coming here tonight, and so yesterday we decided that we better experiment with the metro system so that we can take them around to see the sights (that we had not yet seen ourselves). There are some amazing places here, and we're looking forward to seeing them all. One of the most famous is a cathedral designed by Goudi called La Sagrada Familia. They have been building it for years, and will probably take many more to complete. It is MASSIVE and the photos don't do it justice. We're looking forward to actually going inside on a tour with Tammy and Gerald, but the outside is breathtaking. We also went to an area called the "Gothic" area which was pretty amazing as well. We're looking forward to doing more exploration with the Jones' this week.

Overall, I'm grateful for "El dia de reposo" (the day of rest) to get a little rest. However, the adventure continued today at church. As the meeting was getting ready to start the Bishop asked if anyone was willing to lead the music. I volunteered. 3 of the 4 hymns were hymns that I've sung a lot in my life, only singing them in Spanish was an adventure while leading. The 4th one is a hymn that is NOT in our English hymnal and so I was trying to sight-read music while singing in Spanish and leading it so it was pretty exciting. When church got over, it was POURING rain, and we had forgotten to bring our umbrellas. Luckily, we were able to walk with the Romney's who had remembered their umbrellas so we didn't get as drenched as we would have. Wet Sunday clothes notwithstanding, it's a glorious day here in Spain. I guess the rain in Spain does NOT fall mainly on the plain!

We love you all, and hope that you have a wonderful week!

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