On The Road Again

¡Hola!

Well this past week and a half has been interesting. The first half of the week was normal. Nothing that I can think of to report. I bought that awesome new suit, a valencia jersey, and a spain jersey with the star/world champs patch. I won´t be spending money for a long time. (at least not until january when that big sale happens).

monday evening elder lara and elder ames had a phone conference for zone leaders with president hinckley. we found out that the zone leaders in valencia were getting put back together, that the sister´s area was getting split (valencia barrio 2), and that another companionship of sisters was being added. one companionship of sisters and one of elders would be in barrio 2. and one of each in barrio 1 (my area). this meant that i would be at the least changing areas because the zone leaders would be in barrio 1.

On tuesday night i had a dream about transfers. i was pointing at a map on the wall, showing elder dalton my new area. i couldnt remember the city name when i woke up. the next day we had to go print something off at a locutorio so we got on google maps and looked at spain. looking at the map, i decided the city in my dream was zaragoza.

Then on wednesday night we got a call that Elder Corbitt in Alcoy needed to be in Barcelona as early as possible on thursday because he was going to be the new secretary to the president. So that means that Elder Anstensen needed a companion. So I went down to Alcoy with him and Elder Lara did a tripanionship with Elders Shields and Ames.
Alcoy was interesting. It felt like a Thanksgiving trip because Alcoy is in the mountains about 2 hours trainride southwest of valencia. It reminded me a lot of western pennsylvania. Also the missionary work down there is really slow. so we werent near as overly busy as we were in valencia. the people arent near as open. there was one point when we went to go ask for directions from someone and he yelled, "no!" and started to walk away. when we explained that we merely needed help, he was suddenly very nice. the ward isnt very strong either. of all the recent converts, one is still active. her 8 yr old son, danny, loves me and tried to follow us home from church sunday. anyway speaking of church, there was only about 40 people in sacrament and less in sunday school.

while i was in alcoy i looked at map of spain in the piso. it was just like the one in my dream! i realized looking at this map that the city in my dream was Lleida. i told elder lara on the phone saturday morning that i was going to Lleida. saturday evening the transfer calls came and sure enough i got transferred to Lleida!!! elder lara said he freaked out when he got the call. this was just like my dreams about the byu oklahoma game and the byu florida state game last year.

on sunday we returned to valencia. i spent monday morning with elder anstensen and shields. we went chair shopping for the piso. then monday evening elder anstensen came wiht me to say goodbye to people in valencia. and elder lara went with abram (a 16 yr old member) to visits. it was really sad leaving valencia after only one transfer. i hope to return there.

tuesday i left valencia in the morning. arrived in barcelona train station in the early afternoon. spent an hour or so there and then left for lleida with another elder coming to lleida. we had to buy the train tickets so the office didnt know when we were getting to lleida to tell our companions. neither of us had a cell phone and didnt realize so until it was too late. once we got to lleida i called the office from a pay phone and they called our companions and everything worked out.

my new companion is elder plaskett. he seems really nice. ill write more next week. one thing about him for now: he looks just like justin timberlake! there are two other elders in lleida. elder parrish (he was on the train with me) and elder da silva, who is from angola and is hilarious! i´m in another 4 man piso. it´s going to be really great though.

¡hasta luego!

love,
elder buchkovich