Hola from Hospitalet

Querido familia,
It sounds like everything is going well at home. It´s weird that I´m not in the states for Halloween. I think that they´re starting to celebrate Halloween a little bit here, but it´s just an excuse for girls to dress even more immodestly than they already do, and for guys to dress up like freaks! It´s really a freak show. But oh well, everyone has their thing.
How are the Serbians? I remember in the MTC I met a kid that was going to Serbia I think. That´s insane. It´s also really cool to me how people know English. We meet people here all the time that know English. It´s really cool. Kids here in Catalunya (the city-state or region of Barcelona) know Spanish, Catalan, and some English. And us kids in America complain about how hard Spanish is! It´s crazy.
But yeah, this past week has been great. I did two intercambios, so that was a really fun time. I missed Elder Hansen though. We get along really well. It´s so weird to me that he only has 2 and a half transfers left! I always joke with him that we´re never going to get to hang out after the mission, because he´s going to be married! He refuses, and tells me that there is no possible way he could get married. I think he will thoug. He´s a really good missionary.
So we´ve been teaching this guy named Victor, and he´s pretty much the light of our life right now. He´s a Dominican guy, and his family was just baptized in the Dominican Republic a few weeks ago. He loves reading the Book of Mormon, and he loves the missionaries. We´ve been on intercambios a lot to his house, so he´s met about 10 different missionaries. We told him that he´s getting to meet a ton of missionaries, and he told us that he doesn´t care who comes, as long as he gets taught the word of God! We set a baptismal date with him for the 13th of November, and we´re very excited. He´s a really, really good investigator, and he loves his family. We had stake conference yesterday, and he came with us and he loved it. Hermana Hinckley spoke, and she doesn´t speak very good Spanish, but the Spirit was very strong. The temple president from Madrid was there, and he spoke a lot about prayer, and it was awesome. Then the Stake President spoke, and he´s a Spaniard, and it was so good. Victor loved it all, and I introduced him to quite a few people, including President Hinckley, and Victor was all shy. It was funny, but it made me realize something - how brave investigators are for coming to church for the first time. They don´t know anyone, just these two 20 year old missionaries. He came with his Book of Mormon in hand, and just came and enjoyed. It was a really good experience.
Yesterday morning, Elder Hansen and I left early for stake conference to go pick up Victor, and we got down the street, and all of a sudden the heavens opened up and it started pouring. Absolutely pouring. So we just started running as fast as we could towards the metro, and we finally got there, and we were absolutely soaked. We were both wearing suits, and it looked like we jumped in a pool. We got on the metro, and people were staring at us, because they had no idea it was raining outside. It was really insane that it rained that much in so little time. We were drenched. And when we got to where we were going, it was sunny, so it looked like it never rained. It was the weirdest thing. So we got Victor, and we were drenched, the gel completely ran out of all my hair, my skin was dry because the lotion was gone. I looked really good, let me tell you. It was a funny experience. I couldn´t stop laughing. It was really funny, but really uncomfortable during stake conference.
But yeah, everything is going really well here in Hospitalet. On one of my intercambios with an Elder named Elder Hughes, we figured out that we were at BYU together, went to all of the same parties and knew some of the same people. It´s funny how small of a world it is. With Elder Hughes, we both worked outside of our own areas, we worked in a different Elders area, which we both kind of knew but not really. It´s crazy how these 19, 20 year old boys get trusted to go out in Spain and do work. We had a really great time, talked to a lot of people, and set up that area really well. There was a 10 minute period where we were approached, or we talked to 3 people, and one was married to a return missionary and wanted to learn more, a guy was a week away from getting baptized and left the country and hasn´t seen the missionaries since, and a woman who was baptized in Bolivia and hasn´t been to church since. They all wanted us to come by, and so we got all their information and set up the Elders in that area really, really well. It was way good.
We also met with a menos activo named Marco Antonio, and I thought it was going to be like a 30, 40 year old guy, so I went up to the door, and this kid answered it, he looked about 14, and he told us to come in. I asked if I could talk to his dad, Marco Antonio, and he goes, actually I´m Marco Antonio. It was funny. But the reason why he went inactive is not funny. He told us that we thought the Church wasn´t being run right, and that playing football for Wednesday night activity is not acceptable. It was nuts. We didn´t know what to say, so we just asked him questions. We were thinking to ourselves, what 16 year old kid says this!? We then asked him if he wanted to serve a mission, and he said yes. But he hadn´t been to church in over a year. So we told him that if he wanted to serve a mission, he better come back. He could be a great missionary, but he just lets this little thing get in the way. I learned a lot about forgiving from him. I´m so glad that I´m on my mission right now, it´s really the best.
So on Thursday this past week, we had a really stressful day. We helped some members move, and they lived on the third story of a building, and they had some HEAVY stuff. I thought I was going to die trying to get the refrigerator down these super narrow stairs. Then after that, we had to find a man to come with us to an investigators house, and the kid that we got went off on a 20 minute rant about how to prove the Book of Mormon is true by knowing geography. Me and Elder Hansen were so frustrated. Then the kid made us late to another visit, and we already had someone else coming with us, and we made that kid wait for 30 minutes. So we had 2 missionaries and 2 young men coming with us, and me and Elder Hansen were so stressed. We were both sweating so bad and were so flustered. Oh the life of a missionary, isn´t it great! I love it, there is nothing better. So we ended up visiting this woman named Milagros, and it was a miracle how we got her information. This woman came up to us on the metro and said I know someone that you need to visit. She gave us the information and when to pass by, and we did, and it was this menos activa woman, Milagros. She is way good, and has had a rough, rough life. She wants to come back, and we´re so excited to work with her and to help her. She´s awesome. So the visit was good despite the stressful buildup. Then we had dinner with all 4 of the missionaries with this Dominican lady named Marienela. She is the best. She´s pretty old and she´s like our grandma, and we all just make her laugh and she takes care of us and loves the missionaries. She was looking at the church for about 10 years, and finally got baptized. Never give up on people!
But yeah, Hospitalet is great. We have great members, great missionaries, and a whole lot of work to do. We´re having a General Authority come this week, Elder Teixera, and I get to greet him. How nerve racking!
So it´s a fiesta today in Spain, so everything is closed down, and we have pretty much no food except cereal at our house. They party too much in Spain.
Well, thanks for everything. It sounds like everyone is doing really well, like you´re enjoying life. I´m doing fantastic here, I got my new jacket, and I pretty much love it. It´s so nice. I still have to buy a scarf, but I´ll get that sooner or later. I love the missionary work, and I love you family!
Love, Elder Pericle