Retreat, Regroup

Our goal is to take an overnight "retreat" once every three months, but this weekend we took our third retreat in 19 months, so we are a little behind. But after a fairly intense couple of weeks, we were glad we had made reservations for Friday night at the Parador de Tortosa.

Two weeks ago we did interviews all day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Then I flew to Frankfurt on Thursday for the semi-annual seminar, returning home late Saturday. Monday we had our regular office meetings to make sure the bills were paid and no missionaries had yet been ordered to leave the country.

Tuesday morning we had three new missionaries arrive. We sent them directly from the train station with the Assistants to do some contacting at Plaza Catalunya while we took the luggage back to the office and prepared a light lunch. After lunch with the nuevos, I interviewed them while the Assistants did some orientation. Then we sent each of them off for the rest of the day to work with a pair of missionaries in the Barcelona area while we met with the trainers and did a two-hour "train the trainer" session.

We then went back to the train station to pick up two more new missionaries who had to take a later train. By 10:00 we had everyone back in the office where the new Elders spent the night and the new Sister stayed in our little "Sisters Room" off the kitchen.

Breakfast on Wednesday was cereal, juice and yogurt and we began orientation at 10:00, brought in the trainers, and got everybody out and headed for their areas by noon! While we were doing that, our office couple was making an airport run to pick up Elder Paya of the Seventy who arrived in the morning. And when the new missionaries were on their way, we went out to the airport to pick up Elder Causse. The two Seventies were coming in to do some training with the stakes and hold a zone council meeting with the mission.

After getting Elder Causse into his hotel, we hurried home to take care of a few things at the office/home before driving across town for the 8:30 p.m. training session. We then delivered Elders Causse and Paya back to their hotel, went home and tried to get a few hours sleep.

But all too soon we were back on our way to the hotel to bring Elders Causse and Paya back to the mission home for the zone leaders council. It was a wonderful session, after which we had a quiet lunch with them and were able to discuss some issues that we have been working on. They left about 4:00 and we had a 3-hour "break" before going over to the training session with the Hospitalet Stake.

Friday morning we took Elder Causse to the airport, came home and changed our clothes and packed a suitcase, and headed south on the Autopista de Pau Casals to Tortosa!

We spent the night at the Parador de Tortosa, an old castle built by the Moors in the 10th century and enlarged by Jaume II, king of Catalunya, in the 12th century. It was one of Jaume II's official residences.

The castle sits on a hill high above the Ebro River and effectively controlled all traffic on the river - Spain's largest - which was navigated as far inland as Zaragoza during Roman times.

Of course, the mission does not take a retreat. Missionaries call with questions, they get sick, but with cell phones you can still get a lot done. And in some ways, the issues have a different perspective when the view is so nice!

We had time to review some notes from the MP Seminar in Frankfurt, talk a little bit about the upcoming transfer, and in general just have some time to ponder and think! We had a leisurely supper in the restaurant (a wonderful medieval banquet hall), slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, visited the local market to purchase some butifarra for Sunday dinner, and returned home in time to change back into suit and tie for the evening!

(All photos taken by my Android phone...)