Logan - Barcelona Week 2

Date: Mon. 4 Jan 2010

Well this morning we caught a flight to Palma de Mallorca which is an Island located off the coast of Spain. It was a very short flight and I slept the whole way. I was up late last night because we had a ton of stuff to do to get ready for the conference and then this morning we got up at like 5. I am pretty wiped out right now but hopefully I'll catch up tonight. This week has been crazy and it feels like I've already been doing this forever.

Well the area of the Ayudantes is quite dead right now, but I am going to change that. My companion is Elder Laney, the kid I actually facebooked before the mission, who is friends with Jenny Roberts. who would of ever thought we would serve as Ayudantes togther? We get along well and I have to keep him a live becasue he will be going home in 5 weeks. He is suprisingly super focused and dedicated so it makes things nice. He is also excited about getting the area going as well. Speaking of which we found a lady this week in the few hours that we did missionary work and set a baptismal date with her. She also came to church and liked it a lot.

Mondays we have a meeting with the President and his wife. I love how Hermana Hinckley is so involved in the mission. She comes to all the meetings and helps him with everything. It's amazing to see how united they are in everything they do. I also love kneeling down and praying with them. they are such spiritual giants and its great to be around. For New Year's I had everyone in the zone email me a thank you note to the Hinckley and I put them all together and printed it on nice paper and then left it in their house. They need to know how much we appreciate them. I can't believe how much they trust us. I really respect that about President Hinckley.

Tuesday was a crazy day becasue that was transfer day. So basically I was on the phone all day fixing everyone's stupid mistakes. We also picked up the New missionaries and then drove up to Montjuic which means mountain of Jews in Catalan. It's the largest Jewish cemetary in Europe, and we showed them the city of Barcelona. It was fun to feel their enthusiasm.

Wednesday we dropped off the old missionaries and then got lost in Barcelona for an hour in the misison car arriving late at our meeting that we had to give to the Zone Leaders. They were patient with us and the meeting went really well. I felt guided and helped throughout it. We also played ping pong after to celebrate the new year and ate churros.

Then Friday we had another meeting with the Zone Leaders and President. We had that meeting most of the day and I felt like President and I are on the same page and share a lot of the same ideas and vision.

Before the Ayudantes did lots of office work, but I am going to change the role of the Ayudante a little bit and work in our area a lot more. I want it to be the example area. I want to lead the mission in Key Indicators and try all the things that I am telling them to do. For example in every conference this transfer I'll be teaching about being united with our local leaders in purpose and how we can go about doing that. So I want to try everything I am telling them to do and that way the teaching will have more power as well. Before it seemed like the Ayudantes told us how to do missionary work when they really weren't doing it that much.

It's weird not being on the missionary schedule. I like it as well. We have to study whenever we have a minute which will be good preparation for coming home. I have had fun preparing my message for conference. I have done some researching and have looked up and called some missionaries that have gone home to ask them what they did to have good relationships with the leaders. Some missionaries are famous for it. I have also talked to a number of Bishops to ask them what they want and expect from the misssionaries.

Well there is a lot more going on but no time. I sent a good letter home that will explain things better. This week we will be traveling a lot to do all the ocnferences. Don't worry about a b-day package. I'll just buy somthing here. Rebajas start soon and I want a few clothing articles for after the mission. Thanks. Oh and send me your CHristmas letter you sent out this year. Love you lots!

Elder Gogarty