Letter dated 3Jul2012

[Dear family and friends, greetings from a stormy Michigan! (We're getting some much needed rain with lots of lightning and thunder!) Here is the letter we received from Weston yesterday (it took it 11 hours to make it to us from Gerona!). Friday is Weston's birthday!! Thank you for all of your birthday wishes. If you have any more notes you would like me to forward to him, just send them as a reply. I hope this note finds you well and safe. Have a GREAT 4th of July and holiday weekend! Weston's editor - BWS] Dear Family, Thank you so much! I did get the first little package that you sent to me! I´ll be sure to be making some brownies this Friday and then send some pictures in a few weeks with the sick [as in "cool"] balloon you sent too! The pictures are also fantastic and I´m so glad to have them now. I finally have a family picture right next to my desk and sometimes I catch myself staring at our amazing family while I´m studying. Maybe it's not the best way to spend my time, but it was a fantastic early birthday present. I am also excited to use these recipes I´m receiving now. I´ll hold off plans for gyoza until after transfers just because this week is going to be super hectic, since we have an intercombio [exchanges with other missionaries] this Tuesday till Thursday, we have three people being baptized who are planning to be baptized this Saturday, it´s my birthday, and I might get transfered. It sounds like you´re all just doing everything that there is to do from what I´m hearing from back home. I hope Joseph and Daniel are having a good time working so far. I know this is their second day but it´s a whole lot of fun. [Joseph and Daniel are working at Paul Bunyan Scout Camp; Daniel as a cook and Joseph as a wall climbing and zip-line instructor!] Today we went to Barcelona and I hope you get the pictures I´m sending. I saw the Sagrada Familia once again but this time got a few pictures! We have so much planned for this week and I will be e-mailing on this upcoming Tuesday. That will be when I´ll let you know if I´m still going to be with my Gerona or moving onto new and exciting things! I´m really hoping I stay in Gerona a little longer, but I know I´ve done work here a while so we´ll see what happens. I have a list I have to make of all the funny stories that happened to me during the week, but here were a few that happened recently. When we were teaching Jean yesterday he asked me if I used make-up to get my cheeks so red. I suppose that´s just an international question people have for Weston Schindler! Today we also were asked by some people to sign a paper and donate to a cause that they had. I´m a pushover so I donated one euro, but then we had some police dressed as civilians who came up, told the women to stop what they were doing because they were frauds. They asked us if we wanted to prosecute them but we said we didn´t want to, since it was just one euro! We also came back to Gerona and saw two people playing the bagpipes and riding unicycles to get money from cars parked at the red light. I think the world's going crazy, but that could be just me... As always, I just love you all to death! Elder Xander Weston Chicle (Spanish for chewing gum, but it´s easier for people to call me Elder Chicle (^_^´)! P.S. I´ll let you know when I get the next letter but hold off for just a week before you send anything else, since I could be in another part of the world (maybe closer to Hogwarts, I don´t know).