March 7, 2012

Elder Forest (the financial secretary), Elder Jeppson (the former mission secretary), and Alex (the current mission secretary)

An Opel Furgoneta (which Alex calls "the beast")

P-Day Activity (Alex is back row on the right)

Family,

Thursday in the office we had an office meeting, like we do every Thursday, and we talk about all the stuff that we need to in the office. Elder Ovard is in charge of piso (apartment) management and just piso stuff. Hermana Ovard is in charge of pedidos (other requests) from the other missionaries. Elder Forrest is the finance guy so if you have advice for him on money management, haha, he may appreciate it. Just kidding. I´m in charge of residency here in Spain, which you know nothing about, so too bad. I´m also in charge of the cell phones that all of the missionaries have and that´s a fun job. Not really. A few weeks ago some Hermanas (sisters) lost their phone, and asked me if they could get a new one with the same number that they had. It took about a week and sending many emails out and calling Movistar (the cell phone company that we use) and I finally activated a phone, but whatever. That´s in the past.

Monday was supposed to be transfers, but since we have 12 American missionaries waiting in the CCM (Madrid Missionary Training Center), we´ve held off transfers until the 16th of March. So this transfer is a bit longer and the next one will be shorter, how interesting right? Yeah so Monday in the morning we had Elder Jackson, from the Canaries (come the night before from there) who was going home, along with 3 others who were going home. We had to go to the stake center there in temple square and take the Opel Furgoneta, which is a huge car, probably bigger than your Highlander by a bit, “stick shift beast” is what I call it. Anyway so we drove Elder Jackson and his luggage to the mission home at 9:30 am, dropped off the luggage and left our small Opel Corsa, then got the Furgoneta and Elder Forrest drove to the stake center. We had a little farewell and stayed for the little meeting. Then I picked up their residency cards and Elder Forrest took their JPMorgan Chase cards, loaded the Furgoneta with all of the luggage and I (yes you saw right, me myself and I) drove the Furgoneta back to the mission home. It´s engine is super crazy and let me just say, I should have practiced driving your Highlander more, but whatever. I drove the Furgoneta better than I can drive our little Corsa which is weird to me, but whatever. Later that night at 9:30 pm we went to the mission home to say goodbye to the four great missionaries that left, eat, and pick up my phone. Super cool day since I got to drive "The Beast."

Yesterday we found out transfers and it´s pretty interesting. I´m not allowed to say anything about them so I´ll just leave it there as far as where people are going. My job is to get a train for whoever is moving to or from the north over to Madrid, and a plane to and from the Canaries. I also have to make sure that people aren´t left alone so it will take some brain power, but it shouldn´t be too hard. 12 people coming in and 4 have left, it shall be interesting is all I can say.

Love you all!!
Elder Bauer