greetings from the hot and humid barcelona. i remember a couple years ago lori telling me a story about when she was on her mission that slightly disturbed me....she told me about how her and her companion would go home from being out all day and strip down to their garments and lay underneath the fan together. i just couldn’t understand why she would do this. talk about uncomfortable. well let me tell you people i understand. summer has finally hit barcelona and it is hot....growing up in arizona i am able to bear the heat but on top of that it is humid and then on top of that no building has air conditioners. i am now like lori, any time i walk into the apt I strip down to the garments and just lay there in the humidity. im constantly sweating with damp clothes. so i bought a spanish fan that is basically glued to my hands now. (see picture for further detail....this is my scandy missionary with fan picture)
monday night our pdays end at 7pm. we finish off the night by going to FHE over at a members house where a ton of people from the ward go...recent converts, members, investigators. super fun. k so listen to this one dream. one of the recent converts name is reinaldo...he has word of wisdom problems....he’s a smoker. (except as of yesterday he had quit long enough to be able to get the priesthood....wootwoot for worthy priesthood holders) anyway so he told us about this dream he had... he went home one day and into his room to go to sleep. he rents out a room so he locks it every night (this is an element to the story) so he goes into his room, locks it, puts his box of ciggs on his dresser and goes to bed. he had a dream that night of hermana eyre, hermana reeder, hermana cruz, and me all on our knees praying for him to stop smoking. and he wakes up and his box of ciggs is gone. nowhere to be found. the room was locked so nothing was able to leave or come in. he still hasn’t found them to this day. weeeeeeeeeird.
every tuesday we have district meeting....our district leader, elder greep, always directs district meeting with a drum stick that was passed down to him from some other elder. so this past week i brought my VERY OWN WAND to district meeting and we dueled wand vs. drum stick. spells were cast. i don’t think it is even necessary to state who won. (see picture attached for further detail)
this was week was filled with soccer games. the eurocup was going on this past week. there was a spain vs. portugal game on wednesday night and a spain vs. italy game last night. of course as missionaries we have no tvs. however our balcony faces other apts... so you can see into peoples windows. i will relate to you the story of wednesday night. the following story is told by hermana sara stephenson from the point of view of hermana michael ann oslund.......
it was a clear muggy night, june 27 2012. i was walking home from a hard days work with my companion and an unnamed member (Reinaldo...the bringer of anguish to all missionaries in the hospitalet area at stoplights) i had previously been made aware of possible current events in said area...aka a soccer partido...aka cristano ronaldo vs the world. we subtly peaked in the windows of bars filled with animated joyous crowds of expectant soccer fans. the score was 0-0 but wouldn’t remain so for long. except for it did. suddenly an assailant lept from behind a garbage can and thrashed me to the ground. i came to the realization that my assailant was none other than H. Eyre. as we stood there stunned at the sudden turn of events H. eyre and H. stephenson were filled with hysterical laughter that sounded a little bit like revenge. SKIP FORWARD 45 MIN. i stand in agony gazing across the way from the window of my room. flashes of green, red, and white. the colors of the teams i know and love. only the images are far too obscure. suddenly it seems the game is over and we knew not who won. this is when we heard one lone man scream portugal and we knew the fate of the night had not yet been sealed. H. Stephenson aka Sara and I raced to the balcony to see if we could catch a glimpse of this fight to sudden death...the shootout. our nails dug into the bar as we waited for a sign, a signal, a glimmer of hope that the beloved team had not yet lost. SHOUTS! joyful explanations that were louder that usual coming from every single window, every single building, every single person, except for us. every single man, woman, and child in spain was witnessing this historic moment and we were left to catch lonely morsels of obscure cristiano ronaldo closeups...or at least that’s what we thought it was...cause why else would you do a closeup of anyone else? an explosion of noise, the sound waves of celebration hit us and enveloped us like a wall of freshly painted cinder blocks. our ear drums may have started to bleed. fire. explosions. more fire, more explosions descending from balconies as if it were norberts birthday all over again. a strange song pierced our souls. it sounded like the hope of a nation, the hope of a new future, the hope that wrongs could be righted and joy once again would prosper in the land. we supposed it to be the national anthem of this strange country in which we reside. monstorous fireworks illuminated our eyes. we danced for hope. we watched shirtless man set off one last firework. fire. close, far too close. farts of terror followed in wake as we ran for the safety of our dilapidated piso. after it appeared that national emergency was not in measure aka an entire block of buildings full of children and puppies had not burnt to the ground. we crept back out to our solemn perch only to be greeted by the sight of shirtless man and old shirtless man dancing around a bonfire not unlike dear rumpelstiltskin. photographs were in order as we reveled in the glory of one last crooning strain of the late lead singers name we cannot remember.. we are the champions...we are the champions....we are the champions. of the world.
last night was the spain vs. italy game. the finals of the eurocup. it happened to fall on the day it decides to be cold and rainy so it was harder to find a tv in sight because everyone’s windows were closed. this resorted to me yelling across the balcony as people walked out side to ask them for the score. "perdon, hombre.....que son los goles?? podria decirme los goles???"
well friday was NEW MISSION PRESIDENT DAY. yeahhhhhhhhhhhh. however, this also meant that hermana pace came had to come out proselyting with us that night. i had never been so nervous....this was not only her first impression of me, but her first impression of the mission as a whole. talk about pressure....i was pacing the whole day! (hahahaha true AND funny) hermana dalton prayed right before we picked her up...."please bless them that they will be able to see the pace for the rest of the mission...." her coming out meant i had to be on my best behavior for the night...no singing, no ginger/dred/ nun punches, and no dumpster diving for thrown away newspapers. the night was perfect though. we went to fatimas house. hermana pace bore her testimony at the end of lesson which was super powerful considering her limited knowledge of spanish. (see attached picture for picture of me and hna dalton with the paces) we had zone conference with them the next day also (russ and peggy....the zaragosa zone came into barc for it so i was able to meet the churches form your ward!) it basically was a get to know you conference. they told us about themselves and then each district leader introduced each person in their district to them. Here’s the best part though...president pace dropped the usage of the a word....awesome. he said awesome. which means the list of undignified language that was shoved down my throat since entering the mtc can now be thrown out the window...my english vocabulary just exponentially increased.......its only totes the best hun cal for yo. rofl sesh. def perf. they are super cute though. his brother is in our stake actually. or i think one stake over...lindsey and brown. i don’t know.
church yesterday was the best church I’ve ever had on the mission. well actually let me rephrase that....it was the first church i have enjoyed haha. church as a missionary is the worst...you just sit there worrying about your investigators...how they are getting there, if they are there, who they are sitting by, who is going to take them to class after sacrament, etc. its just stressful. something has happened in the ward though. everyone has gotten super excited about missionary work. so everyone brings their friends to church and then invites us over to there house to teach them. my job as a missionary has never been easier. then everyone bears there testimony about how great it is to share the gospel with people and then more people do it. i don’t want to leave the area. (we get our transfer calls on thursday...which means pday could possibly be on tuesday only if something happens to one of us....which I’m really nervous for cause if anything happens it will be to me...I’M NOT READY TO LEAVE) the best yesterday was a man named marco. he was running late so we went outside so to see if he was there. and there he is....we see him in the distance leaving the metro waving his hands at us. he then starts off at a slight jog towards us and continues to pick up speed until he is basically sprinting towards us and embraces hermana dalton with a huge bear hug. uhhhhhhhh that awkward moment when a sister missionary is hugged by a man and both her and her companion just freeze cause they don’t know how to react to male contact.
so i feel like now i should leave you with spiritual food for thought. the white handbook says to share spiritual stuff with your family and i feel like i lack in that department...so here it is one of my favorite quotes from conference and a personal application...
"we can write of christ by writing letters to those who are away. missionaries serving, sons or daughter in the military, and those we love are all blessed by letters we write. letters from home are not just quick emails. real letters provide something tangible that can be held, thought about and cherised." --elder david f. evans of the seventy.
I’m sure if you are reading this email you can all think of a missionary serving who enjoys getting letters. perhaps specifically one serving in the spain barcelona mission. go send her a quick letter that can provide her with something tangible that she can hold think about and cherish. (maybe write them and then send them next week when we find out if said missionary gets transferred or not so you can know if there is an address change or not.)
K LOVE YOU ALL.
love the one and only michael ann oslund.
meow.
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