Hello everybody! So, I can't believe how time just slips away so quickly! I never thought my last transfer would arrive, even after being around a lot of missionaries who have been heading stateside now. This transfer had two from our zone, and this next will be me and one of the Zone Leaders. It has been kind of funny too, it seems like everybody is coming to Barcelona from Zaragoza and Sabadell. Elder Ballam came here to Barcelona (although to the other piso) and an Hermana, and a lot went from Zaragoza to Barç when I was still out there. So, kind of wierd but fun to see familiar faces too. I saw Elder Judd in the station today, and he goes home tomorrow as well. My new companion is Elder Dean, from California. He started in Ibiza while I was in Menorca so we were in the same district and so already kind of know each other. He's a great guy, so we should have some good weeks.
We had a good week. I think it helped a lot with Elder Rasmussen leaving, we were able to get a lot of visits in to say goodbye and to meet some other members and menos activos. We have been struggling lately with finding some new investigators, so I think really that is what we are going to focus on. I continue to pray that we can find news, especially through the members and this month as our goal. As we have been passing by menos activos, we have found that many do not live in our area anymore, so the number of members in our area went down pretty quick :/ I am excited to really start to work with some of the good people in our area though.
A miracle from last week: We were able to catch a menos activo family all together right at the perfect time, and normally it sounds like they have a busy schedule and are hard to meet with together. We knocked their door right after they had gotten home and a little before they had plans to leave again! They are a really nice family and I want to try to work more with them. They were super nice, I don't know why I haven't met them until now!
I enjoyed working with Elder Rasmussen. He is a fun and funny guy and was a good example at gaining the member's trust just with who he is. They were all sad to see him go. I am excited to work with Elder Dean for my last few weeks, he is a good guy as well. I'm thankful for the high caliber of people the Lord has put me around to learn from and just because the work is great =) That's probably where I have learned the most from on my mission, is the people, both those we preach to and companions and members and stuff.
Oh, so an embarrasing moment of the week... I know, you are probably all excited and sitting on the edge of your chairs now. It's actually not too embarassing. So, in our ward of 150 or whatever members nobody plays the piano, usually just some tourist passing through or acapella. Well, this month being the month of invitation, each organization signed up to do a special musical number on one of the sundays. We stayed after with a couple of the Elders Quorum to practice our song (parts of it, like the bass or tenor) and I played the notes on the piano for them, since that's easy cheese. Well, some lady from the primary saw that and thinks I can play the piano now, so she begged me to acompany the primary on their song, Army of Helaman. So I practiced throughout the week and played it for them. It wasn't anything great, but it worked I guess. It was kind of funny, one of the kids came up to me after and said "you play the piano baldy" (all of this in spanish of course) and I was like "Well, sorry...?" "Was that your first time playing this song?" "Umm, yes." "Oh, then you did really good!" "Uh, thanks..?" It made me laugh a little. So lesson learned: practice piano, especially hymns! *wink wink nudge nudge brothers...*
This week, especially last night and today are San Juan festivos, so there have been fireworks and those annoying street bomb firework things that kids have been playing with nonstop...it has been getting kind of annoying...So yeah, lots of craziness. It has also been starting to get super hot, and our dagon piso doesn't have AC Probably because it's a super old one...I think ours is probably one of the few left in the mission with one shower and no AC. But hey, I suppose I count my blessings that we have pisos and not tin shacks!
This week I am going to try to improve on my integrity. I recently listened to a talk by Tad R. Callister about integrity and there were a few new insights and perspectives I gleaned from it that I would like to put into practice. I feel like it is one of those attributes that has always been important to me and that I feel like I do demonstrate, but I always feel like I can be more =)
Just as other random sidenotes, as I show our family picture to people, they always say everytime 1) Wow, your mom is so young and pretty! 2) Your dad looks like a movie actor ( I don't remember his name right now though) 3) I can't believe you have all brothers 4) You all look alike. So congratulations I guess! Also, a member here works in a watch factory thing and said that she could get us 70% off on watches! So I might be buying a few in the next couple of weeks =) They said the website was www.marea.es if you wanted to look and see one you like.
The World Cup has been pretty interesting. There is a member here who updates us on all of the scores and we've drawn out the bracket and teams and stuff on a whiteboard in our piso. Ever since Spain got it's butt kicked they haven't really been super interested, and there aren't a lot of people who even go to the bars to watch the games anymore, unless it's a good one, and just look up the scores I guess. But yeah, it sounds like the US has been playing pretty well! To move on they just have to tie or beat Germany, or if the other teams tie we go on, and if one of them wins, Ghana would need to score 2 more goals than the US does to win on the deficit thing, and Portugal like 3 goals, so our chances are pretty good actually. I wish I could watch the games though. Maybe on youtube when I get home or something =)
Well, that's about all for this week! Have a great week! Thank you for all of your prayers and inspiring comments and for everything. Always trust in the Lord and see what He would have you do for Him each day!
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