Dear family (and friends),
This week has been an interesting week, to say the least. I'll start at the beginning, and I'll give you lots of details...
Monday, we had p-day. We were already in Cartegena for a baptism Sunday night, and there was no bus to bring us back home, so we bunked with the elders, there and stayed there for p-day. We spent the p-day with the zone, and caught the bus back home so we could buy the ingredients to make a paella.
This week has been an interesting week, to say the least. I'll start at the beginning, and I'll give you lots of details...
Monday, we had p-day. We were already in Cartegena for a baptism Sunday night, and there was no bus to bring us back home, so we bunked with the elders, there and stayed there for p-day. We spent the p-day with the zone, and caught the bus back home so we could buy the ingredients to make a paella.
Tuesday we had district meeting, and I prepared a short little lesson about the Book of Mormon, and then when we finished the meeting we sang the mission hymn, and we were pretty sad, because every companionship in the district was changed this transfer. The elders area in ward 1 got merged into the sisters area, so both elder simón and elder child were getting transferred. Sisters stradling and knowles also were getting transferred out. So, after district meeting, everybody started writing their farewells, and taking pictures as I made a bomb paella (it was so flippin' good). I made it from chicken this time, and it turned out super good. But like, so good that everybody was just blown away by how delicious it was.
It wasn't perfect, but this life is the time for men to prepare to make perfect paella. I think the next one I'm going to make is going to be a rabbit paella. I think that could be delicious.
Later, we said our goodbyes to the district and headed home. Upon arriving home, we checked our bank accounts to try and pull out some cash, and it turned out that between elder pond and I, we had about 2,50€. We were a little worried, because that evening we were going to cook chipotle style burritos for the branch, and we had no ingredients besides the veggies. So, I made a couple of phone calls to the members and assigned them beans, rice, drinks, etc. so that with what little we had, we'd be able to get this done. We got to the activity, and wow, it was so much fun. Elder pond taught everybody how to make Mexican tortillas and we served the burritos, and they were a hit. Everybody loved it. At the end of the activity, elder pond and I needed to head out early to go print out his bus tickets (which will be another story later). Turns out that all of the members wanted to gather in a circle and say one thing that they love about elder pond, and something that would miss about him. They all said some pretty nice things about him, and when it came to be my turn, I couldn't speak. The words choked up in my throat, and a few manly tears rolled down my cheek. It had just hit me that one of my best friends ever was going to have to leave soon, and that was so hard. Man, that was hard. He really is like my little brother, and it was almost as hard to have to send him away as it was to say goodbye to my brothers and sister back home. After the crying fest, we ran to the locutorio to print out his bus tickets, and we had a horrible realization. The office elders had bought us tickets from the wrong city, and 2,50€ wasn't going to get us to where we needed to be the next day. So, we went home, packed his bags cleaned the apartment, and prayed that God would help us find a way out of that mess.
After he packed, elder pond and I brought our mattresses up to our roof, and my paella burner, and we totally had a camp out. The only problem is that we didn't have any s'mores.
Wednesday, we woke up, and realized that not a single problem from the night before had magically been resolved, and our money still hadn't arrived, so we totally missed his bus to get to Murcia. The office elders wouldn't answer their phone (it was the end of the month, and everybody was broke because the reimbursements didn't come on time, so everybody was probably having the same problems as us), so we called our ward mission leader, explained him the situation, and he drove from cartegena to mazarron to pick us up to take us to cartegena, where we could probably bum some money off of the other elders. We arrived to cartegena, and the elders informed us that the money had just arrived, so we literally ran to the bank(making a pit stop at a döner kebab on the way to order) and I pulled out my money. However, elder ponds money didn't arrive, so his kebab was on me, and I had to buy his bus ticket to Murcia.
We said our goodbyes, sent him away, and started to relax a little. However, there is no rest for the weary. I got a phone call from the zone leaders in Murcia asking if elder pond was almost there, because his other bus was about to leave, and I told them that he wouldn't be arriving for a while. So, in the end, he arrived late to Murcia, and had to wait there for about 4 hours to catch the next bus. I don't know how many phone calls I made trying to organize people and send them to the right places to make sure my hijo arrived safely. He arrived to his area super late, but he did arrive. His new comp is elder day, from my group.
I returned to the bus station to meet up with my new comp, elder salcedo. We hopped on the bus back to mazarron, where he chatted my ear off. Actually, we didn't talk that much but after everything that had just happened, I just wanted to sleep. We got home, he unpacked his bags a little, and we went out to visit a couple of members before returning to Cartagena that night (for an important meeting the next morning--I wasn't feeling like waking up at 5 the next morning. We got to their apartment, and met the new elder to Cartagena. Elder harris (elder Datwyler was here already) has got about 9 months in the mission. He is huge. Like, we walked into their apartment, and elder salcedo looked rather frightened. Elder harris is about 6'1" and used to be a bodybuilder. Enough said.
Thursday was the day we've been waiting for! The mission wide digital upgrade finally came! We're officially missionaries of the 21st century. There are all sorts of restrictions on the devices, but that really doesn't bother me that much. However, we've got a bunch of great language learning tools, teaching tools, and assorted useful tools (like the hammer app
Friday was a normal day (if you only have one normal day a transfer, does that make it a abnormal day?) we did some cool online training for the online proselyting, and we organized a big activity here in mazarron for Saturday, la cosecha, or harvest. I took mazarron and divided it up on google earth and dropped it into my device from which I'd be able to wirelessly transfer it to anybody else with a device.
Saturday was the cosecha. All the missionaries from the zone came, and we had an amazing time. A ton of members came, so we were all able to go on splits. I had the privilege of working with Ángel, with whom I did the baptismal interview two weeks back. He was super excited to go out and share the gospel, and he and I found a decent number of people who are willing to listen together. At the end of the activity, we all got together again at the chapel and our ward mission leader made a huge paella. It was so delicious, and all 70 of us there to eat left stuffed. It was a good day, and we ended by getting 77 references that day. That's a lot of people. (Organizing all of the names, we realized that couple had been contacted twice, by two different sets of missionaries, and had given them both the same information. I guess those are going to be the most open? Jaja)
Sunday was a pretty chill day. Two people that had been contacted on Saturday came to church, and as they left at the end, they told me that they loved the meeting and that would come back next week, so we'll see. Later I commenced with taking the district's numbers and it was super weird using an electronic device. However, it went over pretty well.
Monday again, elder salcedo and I went to a barbers, and got our hair cut (if you want to know how many, I got all of them cut). Now we're just chilling here in the apartment typing up our emails to send when we get to the locutorio.
I hope y'all have a great day!
Os quiero mucho,
Elder Oliver
¡Baptisms por miles habrá!
ps. Happy Birthday Dad, I hope you enjoy the long email:)
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