On the island

Dear Everyone,

I´m safe in Spain! Last Monday morning I flew out of Salt Lake at 11 in the morning and got to New York at about 5:30 their time. I then hopped on a plane to Barcelona at 7:30. The cross-ocean plane ride was nice, even though I didn´t get a wink of sleep. They had blankets and pillows and complimentary meals and snacks. So with the 8 hour flight and the time difference, I arrived at 9:30 am Tuesday morning Barcelona time. I got picked up (I was the only one at the airport, everyone else came in by train from Madrid), then I got taken to one of the church buildings in Barcelona. That´s where I met all the other new missionaries. They loaded us on a bus and took us to a castle called Montjuïc for a tour. After that, we went to the mission home and got a brief overview and temporary assignments for the night. I got assigned to be in Badalona (an area just outside of Barcelona) for the night while I waited for my real assignment the next day. The next day we had a meeting with the government to get residency then we had an orientation and introduction to the mission. Afterwards we got our assignments. I was assigned to go to Palma, a city on the island of Mallorca in the Balearic islands. It´s commonly known as Palma de Mallorca (Palma of Mallorca). So that´s where I am right now. My companion is Elder McMahon. He´s from Indiana and he´s been out about 16 months. He speaks really really well. I´m still working on that. Everything here is quad lingual, well everything important is. All the signs and important info is in Castellano, Catalán, English, and German. There are a lot of things different in Spain. For example, all the doorknobs are dead center in the middle of the door and have no purpose except to pull the door open. They don´t turn. Also, I heard things were going to be expensive here, but some things are so much cheaper than the States. Some things are expensive though. I´m going to McDonalds later today which is super expensive, but groceries and corner stores and buses and a lot of things are super cheap. Anyway, that´s all for now. Until next week.