Spain is Different!

 No, this is not a photo of Jabba the Hutt and his court, it is a photo of a going away luncheon for our dear friends the Evans. They're headed back to sunny California after being our senior missionary district leaders. It was fun to have so many of the seniors together. Sister Heckmann was pulled away before we were able to have the picture taken. The Evans leaving means that I will start trading with Elder Johnson in teaching Institute for the last few weeks I am here. I think that will be fun, but I will need to make sure to include lesson prep into my schedule. 

This last week had some interesting adventures which reminded me just how different things are here. The first was a trip to the bank. We had a few missionaries who paid debts to the mission with cash, and so I needed to make a cash deposit in the bank. It was my first time for that. Going into it, I was more worried about the accounting type stuff that I will have to do in our missionary systems to get the deposit coded much more than I was about my trip to the bank. I mean, how hard it is to go to the bank and make a deposit, right? Well, this was a foolish assumption as I was soon to find out! Elder Johnson and I pulled up the bank schedule on the internet and saw that it was going to close at 2:30. This was the first oddity. Banks, I assumed, wanted to be available to take care of customers who were probably working during the day, and would like to stop by the bank in the afternoon or evening. However, we decided that we would swing by there at about 2:10 or 2:15 and have plenty of time to give them money, right? When we arrived, we were told that the "caja", or teller function of the bank, closes at 2:00. Furthermore, we did not have an appointment to be there. We were informed that you had to make the appointment the day before. As I was trying to get my brain wrapped around the fact that the bank was denying me the chance to give THEM money, we asked if we could make an appointment for the next day. No, no, no, was the response. You see, if we made the appointment today at 2:15 for tomorrow, the 24 hour MANDATORY wait would, once again, put us past the time when the Caja would be closed. 23 hours would just not do! We were given a phone number to call to make the appointment. They then told us that we could make the deposit in the ATM outside. I told them that we didn't have an ATM card, but was assured that we wouldn't need one. Sure enough, we were able to go outside and there was an option on the ATM to do certain transactions by just identifying the banking account number which I did. When it got to the point where I could put the money in the ATM, however, THERE WAS NO SLOT OR DOOR, to put money in! There was also no option to select English instead of Catalan that I could find either. By this time it was starting to sprinkle, and it was definitely past 2:30 so I couldn't ask for help. So, we went back to the office. The next day I called the number to make my appointment for the following day. They gave me two options. 12:34 or 12:53 or something like that. The following day we went in to deposit the money at 12:34. They guy that took my money was the same guy who told me that the caja was closed 2 days before! GRRRR. He then gave me some helpful advice that the next time we had money to deposit, I should come in the bank and get him to show me how to use the ATM. This told me that he and his buddy in the bank two days before, were watching our efforts at the ATM two days before, and having a great time seeing two Gringos as they tried to use an ATM. When I told my story to our area support person (who is from Spain) she simply said, "yes, in Spain you need an appointment to deposit money", as if this was the most logical thing in the world. 

The next adventure was on Friday. It had been a long day, and we needed to get home so that we could go to Institute and take a portable stove that the mission has so they could cook for the kids. We decided to drive instead of walk. It was a real "tender mercy" because when I went down to go and get the car, I was met by the building door man who asked me if a certain storage room was ours. I told him that it was, and he said that water was coming out of there. I looked, and sure enough the wall was all wet, and the little vent near the ceiling had little drops of water splashing on it. I ran and got the key and we opened the door to find that a water pipe broke and was spraying all over the place. A lot of boxes of personal belongings of the Heckmanns were in there including a box full of their son's personal papers that they were going to have shipped home with them. It had his and his wife's mission journals and scriptures and all kinds of personal papers. Completely soaked. It took a long time to get the water shut off, and call an emergency plumber. I have no idea when, or even if he ever showed up. I do know that the Heckmann's spent most of yesterday washing clothes and trying to dry stuff out. What a mess. 

It wasn't all sad adventures, one of the missionaries in the office made an authentic Valencian Paella for lunch one day. It was wonderful! Today, we were invited to dinner with the Johnsons, and it was delicious. 

It is starting to get a little scary as the Heckmanns only have about 32 days left on their mission. Even more scary is that they have to be out of the mission home by the 9th of June to allow the FM people to come in and paint etc. to get it ready for the new mission leaders. So, the poor Heckmanns will be travelling gypsies going around the mission to each of the zones to have final interviews and to give each missionary a blessing before they go. We are going to miss them something awful. However, I know that the new mission leaders are called of God, and will keep the work going here, even if they aren't Frank and Maria Heckmann!

Anyway, I hope that your week goes extra special, and that we can all take the same advice that the Lord gave to Joshua to be strong and of good courage! We love you billions!