La Seu Later!

October 23

Alright! Here I am on a train again. The transfer has just ended and I am getting shipped out to a city called Burgos in North-central Spain. It is out of Catalonia and for that I am eternally grateful. I was getting tired of all of this "Independentista" and "weird-sounding Spanish that is called another language" mumbo jumbo. All of the street signs and advertisements will be in my beloved Spanish once more. I don't know too much about Burgos, so feel free to look up fun stuff about it. My new companion will be Elder Ortero from Texas. He, like Elder Harris at the beginning of this last transfer, is just out of his training. I met him at the past two zone conferences, but I only really know that he ran cross country. 

Burgos is the burial place of El Cid! Lots of history here.
Photo by Jardoz - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15795579

This week was pretty good. Tiring and long, but good. We had a zone conference in Bilbao again. It fell on a Tuesday, so naturally the zone wanted to have a zone activity all together in Bilbao again, only this time we were joining up with the Bilbao zone to play paintballll!!!...until there was a last-minute audible that left us with an even flimsier plan than the one we had last time with just our zone. This lack of a plan led us all to a mountaintop only to realize that there was nothing to do on said mountaintop. So after a "lunch" that consisted of the chips, jamón, and cheese that they told everyone to bring, a group of us decided to come down from the mountain like Moses of old to ball up. As we reached civilization, we walked for at least 40 minutes in search of the courts along the river, discovered that we had been walking down-river when we should have been going up-river, turned back, walked double the distance in the right direction, then played a fun team-rotating session of basketball for a couple hours. As the sun set on the horizon, we went to the nearby mall and feasted at the food court. Shout out to Burger King for having 1€ sundaes for the month of October. So to sum up the day: Rode train for six hours, walked to chapel to drop off luggage, moved luggage to Bilbao apartment due to change of plans, climbed mountain, walked back down mountain, walked along river, walked back up river, hooped for three hours, walked to mall to eat, walked to apartment to sleep, did not sleep because people like to talk (me included).

The zone conference the next day was really good. I like how President Galli teaches. A member made chicken and rice (it was kind of like arroz chaufa for those who know what that is) for everyone and it was very good. I had two plate-fulls. 

Peruvian Arroz Chaufa is one of our favorite dishes in our home. It's like Chinese fried rice.

President Galli was nice enough to leave open the option for those in farther reaching areas (like the Zaragoza and Bilbao zones) to have a face-to-face interview with him that evening, so I did it. Video calls are fun and all, but interviews are much better without the screen. Once again, not much sleeping happened that night, but it's all good! Because we had a train leaving early that next morning!

I woke up in a daze at 5:20 with people saying that we needed to get going, so I hurriedly threw my stuff together and we headed over to the train station. When we arrived at the train station at 5:40, I was conscious enough to remember that our train was leaving at 6:45 and I was a little peeved. I was so rushed that I forgot my flip flops, when in reality, there wasn't that big of a hurry. I slept off my annoyance in the train. I wisened up and brought my neck pillow this time so sleep was actually attainable. We arrived around noon, walked to the chapel where our car is parked, then drove back to Andorra. From there, things get a little fuzzy.

For the rest of the week we set up a bunch of visits to say goodbye to as many members as possible. Jhoselin has been noticeably struggling for this last little bit with something (she wouldn't say what) so at the end of our visit with her things lead to us asking if she would like a blessing. She said that she would and I ended up giving it. It helped her. She looked much happier and less troubled when I saw her the next day, and she mentioned it in a goodbye note that she wrote me. Unfortunately, her boyfriend (the only priesthood-bearing youth in the branch) just broke up with her yesterday over text, sooo we'll just have to see how that goes. She's just been sent through the gauntlet recently. Teenagers live such a fun life, don't they? Isabela continues to do just fine. She turned 17 on Saturday and invited us over for her birthday lunch. We met some of her friends and extended family and it was pretty awkward for us at first, but things warmed up as time passed. We ate some pretty dang good German sausage. She's pretty set on going to one of the BYUs next year, which would be really great for her.

I've enjoyed my time here and the members have been a big part of that. On Saturday Pájaro, Rosa, Ana, and Jhoselin threw me a little farewell party and gave me a couple gifts. It was really nice. Nobody has really done that for me before--one of the downsides to leaving every two transfers, I imagine. We made brownies for a couple different families because we promised them for different reasons (apology brownies, birthday brownies, gratitude brownies, goodbye brownies...man, we really made a lot of brownies). The members really appreciated them. I think Elder Harris has set up a good relationship with mostly everyone in the branch which should help the missionaries immensely in the area if they keep that up.

Pajaro y yo.

This last little bit of the email has become more and more disorderly, but that's fine I guess. My mind is kinda everywhere at the moment. I was able to say my goodbyes to pretty much everyone that I was closer with, so I'm not feeling too remorseful at the moment. I'm really happy to be serving out here. I know this is where I need to be and that this truly is the Lord's work. I'm interested to see what these last three transfers will yield.

P.S. I've passed by the Guggenheim like twenty times over the past two transfers so I should probably send something about that, right?

Here you go.

Until next week,

Elder Jensen :)

North-central Burgos. The country of Andorra is directly east on the French/Spanish border. Best wishes, Elder Jensen!