Musser Mission Blog

 What a crazy week! I don't even know where to start. I don't know when we have had a busier week, even during transfers. Of course, for us, all roads led to Thanksgiving. We had a General Authority in town (Elder McConkie) for a mission tour. That complicated everything. Last year, we had Elder Garff and Elder Peery as our APs both of whom were amazing cooks. They decided to cook a Thanksgiving meal for the Barcelona Zones. They did an amazing job and pulled it off. This year, the APs also wanted to put on a Thanksgiving dinner for the 4 Barcelona Zones, with the added stress of having it be in a Zone Conference, with a General Authority. They got the ball rolling, but then said, "oh, by the way we want the senior missionaries to cook all of the turkeys!" First was the challenge of actually finding turkeys in Spain. They do not celebrate Thanksgiving here, and you can't just go to the local grocery store to purchase those wonderful butterball turkeys. They do not...

  She's My Angel! This week has been pretty tiring. The President's car has been in the shop, and so that means that we get to rely on the "shoe-leather express" and the Metro. It's all good though because we really need the exercise. We decided to make a conscious effort to make driving the exception and not the rule. We bought some better walking shoes to not only be more comfortable, but to keep our toes warmer now that the weather is starting to turn cold. We actually turned on the heat for the first time this winter, and we're glad that it works. We don't need the weather app to tell us it's getting colder, we just need our phones as Brenda has been getting a lot of "how do I turn on the heat" calls.  Barcelona has turned on the Christmas lights, and so we look forward to going around and seeing them. There are places that have outdoor Christmas shopping kiosks spring up, and we look forward to taking it all in. Last year, we were just t...

This last week was as busy as always. Monday and Tuesday President and Sister Heckmann were in Madrid. It gave a chance to catch up a bit, but we had the added drama of trying to close a deal on a new Piso in Viladecans. It went back and forth between the company that represents us and the owner's lawyers, and finally closed. The elders were happy because they have been living with other missionaries and if you have 6 missionaries in one apartment with only one bathroom, things get a little bit crowded! The preparations for the new mission split has us at 160 missionaries so it feels a little like sardines in some pisos.  Once President and Sister Heckmann got back from Madrid they started doing the interviews. They brought missionaries from around Barcelona into the office so that President could be a little more efficient, but it's still quite the process. I can't get over how hard it must be to be him. It's ok to be up to your ears in alligators every so often, but h...

 It was another blur of a week. The new MAV(Mission Assault Vehicle) actually showed up! Not only does it have sliding doors on both sides, it is also a "plug-in Hybrid". That will be awesome if we can figure out a place to plug it in! The office Elders are excited to have two MAVs except we have to figure out the parking situation with these beasts. Driving in Barcelona is bad, but parking is way worse. Therefore, one of the MAVs is just going to have to sit and wait until the Area comes to get it. We had to take President's car in for warranty work. It would have been better if we could have done it last week while he was away, but we couldn't get an appointment until this week. That left his parking place at the office open so I could test out the plug-in feature on the Mini-MAV (also a plug-in hybrid).  This week was also the Mission Leadership Conference where all of the leaders from the mission come to Barcelona to meet. It's always fun to see these amazing ...

Time seems to be a curious thing. Some days seem to have 1000 hours in them. Some Weeks seem to have 50 days in them. Yet, the months seem to be almost more like "don't blink, or you'll miss them". I have no idea where October went, but the calendar doesn't lie. It's now November! I have gotten out sweaters a time or two, and things have cooled down nicely. I have yet to feel really "cold" so this is a nice time of year for me. Cool enough to sleep well at night, yet warm enough to be able to either go in shirtsleeves or with a sweater.  This week kind of flew by for us. We said goodbye to Elder Noble who was one of the Assistants. He stayed an extra week because his family was on a cruise. That sounds bad, but they had booked it before he extended a transfer. So, he stayed one week extra and helped out in the office. We will miss him, but since he lives in Farmington, we'll see him again.  President and Sister Heckmann were gone all week at a Mi...