Musser Mission Blog

 It is our sincere hope that your Christmas was wonderful! The world needs our Savior more than ever, and I am grateful that we still have this special time of year to remember, and honor Him. Christmas week in the office is an interesting time. We received about a hundred packages after we had already passed them out at Zone conferences. It was fun on Monday and Tuesday as the local missionaries came by to pick up their Christmas goodies. Some came for themselves, and others for their districts and zones. Anyway, we had all of them under the tree, and it was great to watch them all disappear.  On Christmas Eve, Brenda did the traditional soups (my favorite is clam chowder!). We had 5 elders (the office elders), 2 sisters (the rest of their district), and a senior couple (Elder and Sister Rees) over to celebrate. It was great. Brenda's soups were a hit, and we had tons of finger foods as well. What's a holiday without being able to stuff your face full of food, right?! We all ...

  This past week has been pretty eventful. We are finally legal as we traveled to Rubi and Terrasa to get our residency cards. So, we're good for a year. I have also been scrambling trying to get all of the End of Year stuff pulled together. In addition to having spend half a day getting our cards, we also had to travel to a place called Blanes to check out an apartment there as the President wants to send missionaries to that city. Blanes is a little over an hour away. It was as stressful as always having to drive there, but the apartment is going to work out well for a pair of missionaries. So, we will be doing all the stuff that needs to be done to get all of the paperwork pulled together and setting up the finances to get the rents paid, etc. Another little bit of excitement was getting into a small accident. We were driving to work one morning. A guy decided that he wanted to turn from the second lane over to a street off to my right without signalling, and totally cut me off....

This past week has been really busy. It was Zone Conference week. So, Tuesday and Wednesday were both spent supporting the Barcelona Zone Conferences. That equates to very long hours making sure the food is ready, getting things set up, serving, and cleaning up after the fact. This week was especially rough because for whatever reason the heat in the stake center wasn't working. Tuesday we weren't prepared and basically froze most of the day. Wednesday we wore warmer clothes, and Brenda and Hermana Hammond kicked on the oven in the kitchen to keep them warm. We got home exhausted both days, but it sure is fun being around these wonderful missionaries! Thursday and Friday we were in the office alone because all of the office Elders went with the Heckmanns to the other two zone conferences. It allowed us to at least attempt to get caught up between package deliveries. Amazon is making a bundle on these missionaries as Moms and Dads order from Amazon.es rather than try to send a p...

  I can't believe that December is already here! We just barely wrapped up Thanksgiving! One thing that I failed to talk about was that Brenda suggested that the missionaries who came to Thanksgiving dinner write on a paper tablecloth the things they were thankful for. It was fun to see the result. We officially started the Christmas Season with what I feel is "required viewing" every year. It is The Christ Child video from the Church. It's always worth watching again! Christmas is on its way, and the Spanish seem to love it. There are lights all over town hanging across streets, and it's really kind of fun to see. We have been wanting to go to the Gothic Section of town because we have been hearing about the decorations and Christmas market. We finally got there yesterday, but our schedule only allowed us to go during the day because we wanted to get back in time to see Davy, Caleb, and Peter do their piano recital over WhatsApp. They did a great job, and we are...

 This has been a very eventful week! We tried to get as much done on Monday-Wednesday as we possibly could because we new that Thursday was going to be completely dedicated to feeding 80 hungry missionaries. The elders were true to their word, and pulled it all together. From finding turkeys in a country that doesn't do turkey, to having enough mashed potatoes, they pulled it all off. And it was delicious. Sure, I would have liked to have some cranberry sauce, but overall it was a hit. Friday was a day of catching up so that we could have all day Saturday to not worry about the office (only partially successful). Friday night was the usual institute craziness. We usually get to bed around Midnight on Fridays.  Saturday, we went to a professional Soccer game between Barcelona and Las Palmas. It was held in the Olympic stadium, and was quite the fun event. Lots of noise, lots of passionate fans, and a lot of fun. It was different from any major sporting event that I have ever be...