More "Lasts"

 


The passage of time seems to be accelerating. The Heckmanns will be leaving in only 11 days, and that is truly sad. This week was the final zone conference for them in Hospitalet which is close to Barcelona and therefore one of the zones that we support when they do zone conferences. Because we were there, President Heckmann called Brenda and I forward again to bear out testimonies as two of the "salientes", or people leaving before the next zone conference. It also represented the final zone conference that Brenda and I will attend. The two that remain are in Valencia and on the Islands. We no longer need to worry about pulling everything together to support the zone conferences. One by one, "lasts" keep happening. 


The missionaries are all trying to say their goodbyes. We have a Tongan missionary named Elder Leo. In the zone conference in Zaragoza, he taught the missionaries how to do the "Haka" which they did for President and Hermana Heckamann. President Heckmann has been doing his final interviews in conjunction with the conferences, and giving a priesthood blessing to each missionary. Brenda and I got our turn this afternoon. They truly love their missionaries. 


They have been saying their goodbyes as well. Carolina is the lady that is paid to keep their piso clean. She also cooks for the mission functions because she just loves the missionaries. She has been serving the last 6 or 7 mission presidents. Sister Heckmann had a shirt made for her that says "Carolina, The Angel of the Mission Home. Thank you for your work, your kindness, your counsel, enthusiasm, and your cheerfulness" In reality she really is amazing. We will miss her as well.

This weekend was stake conference for the Barcelona stake. We had two visiting authorities. One was Elder Valenzuela from the Presidency of the 70, and the other was an area authority 70 from Switzerland Elder Weidmann. He and his wife don't speak Spanish, so they needed a translator. Brenda and I attended both the adult session on Saturday, and the general session today. It was kind of funny. Brenda and I decided to do our video call with the kids after the meeting on Saturday while sitting on the Rambla. As we were chatting a lady came up to us all excited and wanted to take a photo with us. She was with a couple of sister missionaries, and we thought that was a little strange, but it was fun. Then today, after the meeting, I had an older sister from Peru come up to me and thank me for the talk I gave. We finally put 2 and 2 together and realized that they thought I was Elder Weidmann. I guess because we both have white hair. and similar builds. His wife has brown hair like Brenda, and so some random lady has a photo of us. I understand that the sisters explained that we weren't who she thought we were, but she wanted to take our picture anyway. Anyway, it was good for a laugh.

In the call to the family yesterday, Jared asked us how many P-days remain. I was alarmed when I counted and only came up with 3! We talked to the Lamberts who are our official replacements and gave them a virtual tour of the piso. They are truly excited to serve, and it reminds us of how we felt when we were getting ready to start this adventure. I hope that we can have the same amount of enthusiasm for whatever the Lord has in store for us after we return home. One thing we do know is that we will try to continue to consecrate ourselves to the Lord. His work is the most important work in the world, and it has been a privilege to wear these black nametags for a little while. As we put them on every day it gives meaning to the promises we make each Sunday at the Sacrament table that we are "willing to take upon us His name". It will be kind of sad to have to take these tags off once we are released. In the meantime, we have a ton to do, and not a whole lot of time to do it. 

The Church is true. Heavenly Father lives and loves His children. Jesus Christ really did suffer and die for each of us individually. We really can have hope in returning home to our Heavenly Father as eternal families! There is nothing in this world that compares with these sacred truths. We love Him, and we love all of you. Have a great week!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crazy Transfer Week!

Image
  What a wild week! There were very long days, and a ton of excitement. We received 21 new missionaries! Along with all of that we saw two of our office elders moved into other assignments. We have a brand new Assistant to the President, Elder Bernabeu, and a new technology secretary, Elder Olmsted. They were thrown right into the fire with this huge transfer. We also said goodbye to 5 missionaries who finished their missions.  Wednesday was the real crazy day for us. Not only was it transfer day, we also were saying goodbye to Brenda's sister Carla and her friend Misti. The plan was for President Heckmann to take one missionary to the airport and pick up two who arrived super early. He was then going to take them back to the office, I was going to trade cars with him so that I had a bigger car to help pick up a group of 15. However, what happened was that as President was hurrying to get to the airport someone cut him off. This caused him to swerve into the curb which blew tw...
Read more

Russell M. Nelson 1924 - 2025

Image
  It almost seems wrong to talk about the happenings here in Spain when I have lost someone who has impacted my life in a very personal way. However, this is supposed to be a blog about out missionary experience, so here goes.  This week has been pretty exciting. Gerald and Tammy were here again, and we put them to work. Monday, they came into the office to help us. We were grateful to have them finally get to meet President and Sister Heckmann, and then, of course, go with us to eat Sushi! We ended up staying kind of late getting everything ready to go to the zone conferences which is always a chore. Tuesday and Wednesday were zone conferences here in Barcelona and they graciously jumped right in to help us make them successful. They claim to have enjoyed themselves, and we are very grateful for their selfless service. On Tuesday after the Zone Conferences, we went down to the Rambla where there was a surprise parade that went on. It was really fun to watch complete with fire...
Read more

Catching Up

Image
 When thinking about this week the phrase "no good vacation goes unpunished" comes to mind. We had an amazing experience in Rome and surprise, surprise no one did our jobs for us while we were gone! How rude! Add to that the fact that Brenda's sister Carla and her friend Misti came to visit and we were busy! Monday morning we picked up Carla and Misti from the airport and dropped them off at the piso. We then went to the office to try to dig through all of the stuff that had stacked itself up in our absence. After Carla and Misti got settled, they walked to the office to see where we worked. I'm afraid that we haven't been as good of hosts as we would have liked, as they had to just hang out and wait for us to get done. At least they were able to catch cat naps on the couches while they waited. We tried to get done at a good hour so we could take them down the Rambla to get a taste of Spain, and get a bite to eat. Unfortunately, we weren't able to break away u...
Read more