TRANSFER NEWS! Last Week with Elder Bradshaw

Note from mom: Big news! I honestly didn't expect there to be any news this week because it felt like Gabe was just settling in with Elder Bradshaw in Cartagena, but then on Friday, I messaged Gabe and just asked, "Have you gotten any transfer news?" and he gave it a thumbs up. Then I asked, "Are you leaving Caragena?" (Thumbs down) "Is Elder Bradshaw getting moved away from you?" (Thumbs up) "What?! Do you know who will be joining you in Cartagena?" (Thumbs down) So then we had to wait until Sunday to ask him what was going on! He told us that not only would he be getting a new GREENIE to train, but he would also be welcoming two new Elders into his apartment! Apparently, they are getting 22 new missionaries this next week and so Gabe's "piso" is going to make use of the extra bedroom! I think the thing he is most worried about actually is sharing a bathroom with three other people. He even made a little shower curtain so one elder could be on the toilet while the other one was taking a shower. (haha) He's excited to meet the new people and to train an elder, AND he got made district leader! It should be an exciting week!

Here are Gabe's notes!

TRANSFERS!!: While traveling to the visit Elders Sircable and Robinson for exchanges on Friday, President called us and Elder Bradshaw is leaving to be a Zone Leader in Seville. I'm going to be staying here in Cartagena and training a new missionary and being the district leader. They're also putting another companionship here in my apartment. One of their names is Elder Salmaron and he's also going to be training a new missionary. Salmaron only knows Spanish and only has 3 months in the mission, so it's going to be an interesting week.

Tuesday, March 25: Nothing too excited happened, but we got the opportunity to visit Nicolás. It was a really good lesson about the love of our Heavenly Father and our ability to change. He really liked it. He lives in a small town like 45 minutes away by bus. It starting raining the second we got to his house, and we had to run back to the bus station in the pouring rain. Then we came back and did street contacting. We also had a reference today from a guy named Sahr. He seems really cool and wants to meet. He also speaks English.

Wednesday, March 26: We had a lesson this morning with Enma (our recent baptism) over video call to recap the Restoration, which was fun. Then we took a bus up to the bishop's house and ate some really good Paella. They're awesome. Then we came back to Cartagena and while driving had a phone call lesson with Milagros. Praise (another amigo we have been working with) canceled on us after not showing up after 30 minutes. We had Emmanuel (a member who is 16) there so we filmed a video for a friend who can't come to church often because of her job. Then we went to a random location to meet with Sahr. He ended up not living there but at a compound for refugees like 20 minutes away by bus. We met with him and the lesson was really good and he has an amazing testimony about Jesus Christ and was super happy to have the Book of Mormon we gave him because he doesn't have his bible.

Thursday, March 27: We had a really good mission prep class with some of the youth in the ward. Then we journeyed over to Ana's house for another interesting lesson. We still have no idea if she's a member or not because at one point she said she was baptised, but then asked us what baptism was like 20 minutes later. So that was interesting. Then we just street contacted for the rest of the night.

Friday, March 28: When we woke up, we started the journey to Lorca to do exchanges with Elder Robinson and Elder Sircable. When we finally got there, we had a member meal. Then, we all drove up to a city called Huercal and me and Bradshaw did a video lesson with Victoria and her mom who were here and had baptismal dates like a year ago, but then something happened and they were vacationing in England where some hermanas found them and started teaching them again. But they just moved back to Spain. We had a good lesson. Then me and Elder Robinson had lesson with a really fun amiga they have who is getting baptised on Sunday. We hiked up a big mountain while talking where there was a Jesus statue. Then she bought us churros. She was awesome. Then we all went home and went to dominos for dinner. 

Saturday, March 29: We woke up and got ready to leave pretty quickly because we had to travel back to our area. The Elders actually drove us to a pueblo named Mazzaron so we could visit a member family and do a family home evening. Then we came back to Cartagena by bus which wasn't hype. Then we did street contacting for a bit.

Sunday, March 30: Church today was really fun and we took lots of pictures with people because Bradshaw is leaving. We had lunch with the Patriarch and his family which was fun and after that we came back to our piso to pack Bradshaw's stuff. We broke the breaker somehow and we had to call a maintenance guy and we then had to unplug literally everything which wasn't fun. We almost broke the fridge. But after that we just continued cleaning up the piso. 

Monday, March 31: We went up to Murica this morning, which was fun. We all hung out in the ZL's piso for awhile with all the missionaries. Then we all said goodbye to Elder Hogge as he got in an Uber and left for his plane ride home. After he left, we all got dominos and mourned his loss. But then we all hung out in the chapel and then me and Elder Bradshaw went back to Cartagena and got all packed up for the next week of travel for transfers. When we leave tomorrow I won't be back until Friday, but I'll be back with Salmaron and our two greenies.

Gabe's 19th Birthday!

Note from mom: This week it was Gabe's first birthday in the mission field! I was a little sad that it was the first time in his life that we haven't been with him on his birthday. :( But truthfully, he seemed fine with it! lol One thing we did this week for him was we made a birthday video compilation of lots of friends and family wishing him a Happy Birthday. The video ended up being about 13 minutes long, so I uploaded it into his Google Photos drive on Saturday night and then sent him a message to check his photos folder when he woke up on Saturday. His zone of missionaries also made him a video, which was so funny that they did the same thing we did! I had also sent a few small, wrapped presents (a watch, an Uno game, a magnetic pen, etc.) in the suitcase with Alex in February for him to open up on his birthday. So he opened those and I think he made some brownies that I had sent on Amazon too. The real highlight of his birthday was that his friend, Bautista, a member from Aranjuez ward, came to visit him! Bautista is 18-years-old and Gabe knew and loved his family. His mom, Daguimar, had even made this whole birthday meal and a little cake for Bautista to take along on the train! He woke up super early, rode the train, then a bus, and met up with Gabe at church. Then he was so tired that he fell asleep all over the church building. Gabe took pictures of him sleeping on various tables and benches. lol Overall, I think Gabe had a great birthday and felt loved by everyone.

Also, Gabe didn't put this little tidbit into his weekly notes, but when we were talking to him on the phone on his birthday, he said to us, "Do you notice anything different about me at all?" and we stared at him for a while, but the video quality was really bad and it was pretty blurry, so we were like, "No, not really..." but then finally after guessing a few things, he admitted to us that he had colored his eyebrows! Lol Apparently, Elder Bradshaw convinced him that the ideal eyebrow shade was two shades lighter than your hair color, so both he and Elder Bradshaw went to this drug store and bought some eyebrow color! So now Gabe has really dark eyebrows.... sigh... it looks weird. 

Here are Gabe's notes!

Monday, March 17: We went to Murcia for P-day and it was pretty boring. We ate a lot of Dominos and then did street contacting all night when we got home.

Tuesday, March 18: We woke up today and me and Elder Sircable went to a member's house and visited him. He got hit by a motorcycle and his leg looks like it got ripped in half and now is like 3/4s leg. He was cool though. We had a member meal with a Columbian family and that was really nice. They were very chatty and so was Robinson and Sircable, so I just nodded while eating. Then when I starting the spiritual thought, they had thought I couldn't speak Spanish and were confused when I started speaking💀. Then we went street contacting and met some real-estate agents at the piso (not our piso, in the area we were in for exchanges) because they are selling the piso here. Then we had a lesson with a recent convert who moved here from Germany. It was in English, so that was fun. Then we did street contacting again and this place is awesome for street contacting because there are lots of Latinos. Everyone in Cartagena is Spaniard😭. But I met this one lady in the street and talked to her for like 20 minutes. She joined the testigos de jehova but doesn't have any of the same beliefs. Hopefully we can get her to switch🙏. 

Wednesday, March 19: After we got ready and left the piso, we rode a bus to Murcia and discovered the bus schedules had changed because it was Father's Day here. So we had to wait like 2 hours for the bus. While there, we talked to a loaded diplomat guy who was selling some of his Iron mines here. Then when he left, Bradshaw had a District Leader meeting over videocall so I was just standing in the middle of the station. Nobody was working but the drivers and everyone thought I worked there and kept asking me questions about how the station worked. I did pretty well. Then this old Norwegian couple came up to me with a lost look on there face and just held out the bus schedule of one of the small towns outside Cartagena. They spoke Norwegian and only a tiny bit of English and less Spanish. With google translate to communicate, I talked to some bus drivers and sent them on their way. I hope they made it🙏. Then we made it to Cartagena and went straight to Enma and Brian's house. They're roommates (not in a romantic way - they just rent rooms in the same house), and Bradshaw baptised Brian and his wife in his second area and then they moved here and introduced Enma to the church. We had a really good final lesson because on Saturday Enma leaves to Ireland😭. It was really fun though.

Thursday, March 20: We had weekly planning this morning and then had a really good lesson with Yesleidy. She doesn’t quite understand the need of authority well enough yet, but everything is going pretty well. Our other 2 lessons had to cancel so we just street contacted all night and we stopped in a glasses store to get a missing screw for my glasses that I had lost. And the lady gave it to me for free!!! So that was cool.

Friday, March 21: We had district counsel this morning. Then in the afternoon, we had a lesson with Praise and he ditched us. We had Emmanuel and Samuel (two members from our ward) there so that was sad. Then we had a video call with Nicholas. He's really interested and wants us to come meet him in person. Then we had a lesson with Alex about the plan of salvation, which we were a little worried about because he had some pretty weird reincarnation beliefs. It went really good and we didn't let him go on rants this time, so the lesson was only 45 minutes instead of the 2 previous 1 and a half hour lessons. 

Saturday, March 22: We had like nothing planned today because everyone canceled😔. We literally did like a 6 hour street contacting block. It was pretty good because the weather was nice and sunny. But the people were not very elect today. We talked to huge family from London at Popeye's and heard some crazy pickup lines from teenagers, but no new people to teach. But when we got home, we made cookies for church tomorrow because the ward is all cookie addicts. 

Sunday, March 23: (19th Birthday! First birthday in the mission field!) Church today was pretty fun, but none of our amigos came. But, Bautista from Aranjuez came! That was a big surprise! He was passing through the area and he stayed after and took a nap on a table at church because he was tired from his travels. Then we ate some food his mom had sent with him that morning for my birthday. His family is awesome! Then we went and did our studies and had an awesome lesson with Nicholas. He liked the Restoration and said he'll read the Book of Mormon with the app and will be waiting for when we visit him in person(he lives like an hour away). Then I called my family. Overall, it was a pretty high quality birthday.

Monday, March 25: Elder Bradshaw and I stayed in Cartagena today because we had to stay and fill up the font for a baptism for a member today. Then we hung out and went and ate some very good Ramen in honor of my birthday. Then we walked around the touristy part of town which was super fun. We also went back to the piso and called Elder Bright and chatted with him. After Pday ended we had a lesson with Alex. I almost died💀. Bro was going at 8x speed and ranting for all 1 and 45 minutes of our lesson.

Mission Expectations VS. Reality

Note from mom: I also wanted to include this separate email from Gabe. I wrote to him and asked him a few questions and said, "Now that it's been one year since you opened your mission call to Spain, how has it measured up to what you expected it to be?" Here are his responses:

1 - What have been pleasantly surprised about in the Spain Madrid South mission, compared to what you had maybe expected it to be like? (Think of Apartment quality, foods, companions, investigators, ward members in the area, the mission president, learning Spanish, etc.)

So far it really hasn't been to hot since getting here, I expected to get off the plane and sweat for 2 years straight. But it hasn't been bad at all this whole time (soon summer is starting💀). I thought I would have ZERO baptisms my whole mission, so there's a lot more work here than I expected😂. The apartments are all pretty nice as well, I've also got lucky with pretty good apartments.






2- What has been more difficult to deal with on the mission in Spain than you may have previously expected it would be?

It's more difficult than I thought it would be learning Spanish. "Two weeks fluent" (what I told my mom I would be) was definitely a poor choice of words. But I understand almost everything and can always communicate what I want to now. But it's interesting to think about how every missionary feels like they aren't learning spanish as fast as we need to, when in reality, when talking to people on the street, people assume we have years trying to learn because of how long it would take to learn spanish without the Lord. Most people we talk to who have immigrated from other parts of Europe and have been trying to learn spanish are worse than us even though they have already been a couple of years in the country. I definitely should have studied more before the mission. But it makes me a lot more excited to go out everyday because everyday I can do more and understand more and enjoy the work more as my Spanish progresses. Not understanding everything for like 5 months isn't hype.

3- In what ways (overall) has your mission been what you expected and in what ways has it been different?

Overall, it's been what I've expected in the sense that people aren't lining up to get baptised and the Catholics haven't been eager to switch, and it's also pretty tiring walking so much. 
It's been different because we spend a lot more time finding people to teach than actually teaching. Also, we use public transport a lot. But overall it's been amazing so far and so fun to teach and see different parts of Spain. It's also fun getting to be more charismatic with people as my spanish improves and not acting like a robot. 

1 Month in Cartagena! Two Baptisms!

Note from mom: Well, we went on a cruise this last week with the Matthews family, so I didn't get a chance to post, so today will be a big one! It will cover from March 4 - March 16! Gabe is about a month in to his time in Cartagena now. I feel like his picture taking has slowed down... sadly... but he is still good about writing weekly emails. (I would kill him if he didn't.) We also talk for about an hour or two every Sunday. 

Gabe doesn't go into a ton of detail about this cool story, but in the last post he talked about his train ride from Aranjuez to Cartagena. He had told us on the phone that originally, he was supposed to sit in a front seat, but because he had so much stuff with him, the attendant told him he needed to move to a seat in the back. While he was sitting there, he ended up talking the whole ride to a man named Emmanuel. He gave him basically all the lessons about the restoration and Emmanuel said he was really interested in hearing more. So, Gabe got his contact information and gave it to the missionaries in that area where Emmanuel lived. It just so happened to be one of Gabe's favorite missionaries, Elder Bohn. So fast forward to now, about a month later, and Emmanuel and his two kids just got baptized this weekend! Pretty cool story about Gabe being in the right place at the right time and meeting someone who was ready to hear the gospel. So in addition to a lady named Enma that Gabe and his companion also baptized this weekend in Cartagena, I think he should count Emmanuel as well. ;) (see picture of Emmanuel with his two kids and Elder Bohn and his comp)

Here are Gabe's notes for the past two weeks!

Tuesday, March 4: Today we woke up early and traveled to La Palm, the smallest worst pueblo I've ever seen. The wind almost killed us, but we met with an inactive member and she wants to start coming again and her Daughter was never confirmed for some reason. Then we came back and street contacted for like 4 hours. Found some cool people, but nothing too crazy happened. Bradshaw bought a rain coat and left his name tag on one of the ponchos he tried on. Rip. Then we came back and met with another inactive member and he's coming to the family home evening Saturday. 

Wednesday, March 5: It was raining so bad all day. We had a really good lesson with Enma though and she's going to get baptised on the 15th!! Then we did our studies and had 2 lessons over video call. One of them just scrolled the whole lesson😭 and the other was telling us his whole life story and wouldn't let us speak(Alex). They were both chill though. Hopefully they read the Book of Mormon tonight.

Thursday, March 6: We did weekly planning this morning, and then did a little bit of street contacting, and then met with Alex again. The lesson was 1 and a half hours😭. He loves to talk🙏😂. We can hardly get a word in. It went really well though and he's reading the Book of Mormon. His spanish is crazy difficult; he speaks crazy fast and slurs his words like a drunk man. Even Elder Bradshaw barely understood. Afterward, we made videos for some of our amigos with Emmanuel and Samuel, two young men from the ward. It was really fun and they are awesome.

Friday, March 7: We had lunch today with the Bishop, Rosa(bishop's wife) and Rosi (daughter) at Popeye's. Then they dropped us and Rosa at a bar and we had a really good Restoration lesson with Sandra. She loves reading so we'll see if she reads the Book of Mormon. Then we went to a lady's house named Ana. A member said we should go visit her and prepare ourselves mentally because her Spanish is wack. It was, in fact, very hard to understand. We aren't she if she's a member or not because she said she was baptised and it sounded like it was in our chapel, but she also knew nothing about anything gospel related. She was very sad about her dead dog so we need to figure out if there's any doctrine about dogs in heaven. She only says we can call her because she doesn't know how to use a phone to text and her husband can't read (don't know why that was important, but she told us that was why we need to call😂). It was a very interesting lesson. Also, she said I look like Leonardo Decaprio from Titanic (she doesn't see a lot of blonde people I think). We also had a really good video lesson with Enma and she said she would stop drinking coffee. Also, Alex (the talker) read to Nefi 18 the other day and said he feels a calming presence when he reads. He might be elect.

Saturday, March 8: We had a member meal for lunch today, which was really fun. The food was really good and she was pretty funny; she kept flaming her husband. After that, we filmed a couple videos for a bunch of people. We have about 4 people we are teaching who work "internó". This is a really typical job for Latin Americans. It means that they sit with really old people all day and take care of them because they don't really have nursing homes in Spain. So we can't meet easily with people who work "interno" because they are always busy watching an old person. But after that we had family home evening as a ward which was fun.

Sunday, March 9: Church this morning was awesome. Yesleidy and Dicus came. Yesleidy is this woman who said we gave her a card in the street and then she texted us a couple days later. We both have never seen her in our life, so we don't know where she got the card. (It was probably some other missionaries.) But she's cool. When she texted and said she was there at the church, we went outside and this guy, Dicus was also just standing there and we thought they knew each other. They didn't; he just thought the church building looked cool and walked up to it at the same time as Yesleidy. They both liked church though. Then after church, we stayed for a youth class they had which was really fun. Then we did street contacting and our studies the rest of the day.

Monday, March 10: We woke up this morning and tried street contacting, and we actually found this really cool dude who can meet later this week and speaks English named Isaac. Then we had a lesson with a kid named Praise whose dad is a Evengelical pastor. But the lesson went well and the member kid we brought knew him from school. Then we filmed two videos for some friends with member kid(Samuel). Then we street contacted the rest of the night.

Tuesday, March 11: Today we woke up and went straight to Murcia. We meet up with everyone and did a scavenger hunt where we looked for random things in the city and took pictures them. The sister missionaries had put that activity together. Then we all went back to the chapel and had a pot luck lunch with all the stuff everyone brought. (We brought a salad, and I made a cookie casserole.) Then we hung out and talked until President got there and we did interviews. My interview went really good. Obando is awesome. Then we had Enma's baptismal interview which went super well and she's getting baptised soon😁.

Wednesday, March 12: Me, Hogge, and Hulterstrom sleep on the balcony last night, which was weird. Not super comfortable though. Then we had zone conference this morning, which was really good. We had conference till like 1, and then had Empanadas that the APs brought. Then we ate and talked and later had a videocall lesson with a women named Wendy. It went pretty well but she works internó(takes care of old people) so hopefully her schedule calms down.

Thursday, March 13: Me and Elder Walker (not Elder Walker from the MTC...thank goodness... a different one) started our exchanges today so when we all got ready, Bradshaw and Pires drove us to the bus station. We had a lesson with Alex which went pretty well. It was 1 and a half hours💀. He would not stop talking. But he has some pretty interesting beliefs that can be pretty close to ours. For example, he basically described the holy ghost and called it "intuition" and then said he knew those feelings come from God. Ammon missionary experience.

Then we had a really good lesson with Dikus and he's definitely getting baptised. Then we had a video call with Enma which went really good.

Friday, March 14: We had District counsel this morning over video call after Elder Bradshaw got back. We also had a really good first lesson with Yesleidy (the mysterious pass-along card lady) and found out it was two other missionaries like 6 months ago who gave her the card. Then we had institute and a young men's activity. 

Saturday, March 15: We had an Elders Quorum barbacoa today which was really fun. They we traveling to a small town named Mozzaron to meet with some members and had a family home evening with them. When we got back we just street contacted and a deaf guy yelled at me💀. He wasn't interested in a message about jesuscristo😭. 

Sunday, March 16: Enma got baptised this morning!! Everything went really smoothly, and not having to build a font was really nice. (The ward building in Aranjuez didn't have a font as part of the building, so we always had to assemble this mini pool thing.) After the baptism, we did our studies and then street contacted the rest of the day. Elder Bradshaw was a little depressed this afternoon because he really wanted to go to the youth sacrament meeting and we weren't able to. (By "youth sacrament" this means that it's like our age group, 18-24ish, but we can only go if we are bringing an investigator/amigo who is that age.) And we got rejected by the Spaniards again during street contacting. But Emmanuel (the man I had talked to on my train ride from Aranjuez to Cartagena and put in touch with Elder Bohn) got baptised today with his 2 teenage kids!!!! So today was pretty good. 

Goodbye, Aranjuez! Hello, Cartagena!

Note from mom: Gabe is officially in his second area! (This post will cover about two weeks because I've been kind of a slacker lately and haven't posted a lot!) So, we have talked to Gabe twice now since he has moved to Cartagena. However, he didn't have a few of his goodbye pictures of Daguimar's family posted in the Google photos drive before I printed the last book, so I'm going to also post some of his last Aranjuez pictures here. 

Gabe says he really likes Cartagena so far, and he likes Elder Bradshaw, but the work seems even slower than Aranjuez. He says that a lot of the people there are Muslim, so they have kind of a hard time street contacting. The area itself looks beautiful though! 

Here are Gabe's notes!

Spiritual thought: The best part about this week was when I got to go to the temple with Smith. He was so happy the whole time. The temple is truly one of the greatest gifts we have. Getting to go with Smith and seeing his happiness was amazing.

Tuesday, February 18: We had transfers today and me and Olson woke up early and had the opportunity to travel to the temple with Smith and do baptisms for the dead. I'm so grateful my train didn't leave until the afternoon so we could go to the temple with Smith. He has an amazing testimony and being able to teach him has been amazing. After the temple, I was dropped off at the train station and rode a bullet train for about 4 hours to Murcia. On the way, I sat next to a man named Emmanuel that I taught the Restoration to and showed him the Book of Mormon app. He had me promise to send missionaries, so I took his contact info and gave it to the missionaries in his area. When I got to Murcia, Elder Bradshaw (my new companion) picked me up and we went to the Piso. My first impression of the Piso was that it was nice and it was big, but it was a MESS. (More later...) We have a lot of work to do here because Bradshaw's companion left 4 weeks ago because his visa had arrived, so Elder Bradshaw has been with the ZLs for a while in a different area. Nobody has been in this piso or area in 4 weeks. But I'm excited to be here, and I can't wait to start.

Wednesday, February 19: Because Elder Bradshaw's companions left and he went with the ZL's with almost no notice, the piso was sooooo bad. The worst state I've ever seen. We spent all morning cleaning and by the afternoon it still looked bad. The worse part was they left a lot of food, all of which had gone bad. We filled 3 big trash bags with rotten food. We took a break and went street contacting for a bit and met 2 really cool people. One was named Oys. He only spoke English. The other one was named Estephano. Then we came back and finished cleaning. Now the piso is livable, and we can actually use the fridge and pantry.

Thursday, February 20: We did our weekly planning and a lot of organization with our Ward Mission Leader today and also called a lot of people in Preach My Gospel app. After that, we just did street contacting for a while. 

Friday-Saturday, February 21-22: I forgot to journal, but nothing to exciting happened. We got blocked on Whatsapp (our main source of "texting" people) Friday and then again Saturday for "Spam." We weren't spamming, we just got hated on. On Friday, we had institute class with all the youth, which was fun. We had a really good lesson with Emma, and the bishop's wife helped us with a different lesson. But we just did a lot of street contacting because we were blocked on Whatsapp.

Sunday, February 23: We had church today and it was pretty fun. The ward is really nice, and the bishop is awesome. After church, we had lunch with the Granadas. The dad is the patriarch and the mom was really nice and had a lot of cool stories from when she was a missionary in San Diego. We cleaned out Preach my Gospel app, which took forever, and then I got to call my family.

Monday, February 24: We went to Murica (kind of like the bigger city near Cartagena) for P-day and hung out with other missionaries and went to Five Guys for lunch, which was fun. After that, we all played games in the chapel. Then me and Bradshaw came back to Cartagena. It was a pretty fun P-day and after we found a really cool lady from a reference call from Brazil.

Tuesday, Feb 25: We did our studies this morning and tried to do a lot of pass-bys today during our street contacting. Street contacting here might be harder because literally everyone is Muslim. We did have a interesting lesson with a guy named Colin though today. He spoke English, and his sister is a member in Utah that sent us the reference. Then we had a good teaching call with Milagros and a member named Jennifer. Then we just street contacted the rest of the night.

Wednesday, February 26: We had a really good member meal today, which was super fun. We had a lesson planned in a small town a little ways away, but he canceled last minute so we just did street contacting all night. 

Thursday, February 27: After a stake call this morning, another lesson canceled on us, which is crazy. Literally every lesson in person has canceled on us but 2 since I got here. We had another scheduled for the evening, but she canceled too😭. We even had a guy named Samuel, who's about to go on a mission, come along with us so he could practice teaching. So when that lesson cancelled, we just decided to film 6 video lessons for the people who all cancelled on us while we had him there. (see the picture of us three) It went really well and all the people responded to the videos, and now we have lessons with them set again. So hopefully they don't cancel (again).

Friday, February 28: We had a member meal/lesson with a women named Kimberly, who is a member, and her best friend who is crazy Catholic, and her husband who doesn't believe in religion. It was an interesting lesson. Then we met up with Elder Robinson and Elder Sircable, who came up for exchanges for today and tomorrow. Then we street contacted and had an awesome first lesson over video call with one of Robinson's amigos, and we gave him a baptismal date. We also got swarmed by like 10, 17-year-old girls outside Mercadona. They did not understand what a missionary was😭. They thought we were confused and started dropping some of the craziest pick-up lines I've ever heard in broken English.

Saturday, March 1: We all woke up this morning planned the day and then me and Robinson ran to a store to get him a rain jacket because it was raining so hard. (Sidenote - I told my mom I didn't need a rain jacket, and then I was wrong and my little puffer jacket was SOAKED, so then she Amazon shipped me a better rain jacket.) We stayed there for like 3 hours contacting because there was no one outside. Then we got back to the piso and even though I had an Umbrella I was completely soaked so we both dried our clothes while we did our studies. After Brashaw and Sircable got back from their lesson, we did district counsel and then they left. It was really fun though working with Robinson though. 

Sunday, March 2: After Church, we all stayed and planned some activities with the Youth then me and Bradshaw left and did a lot of contacting and calling online because it was pouring. Then we had meeting with the ward mission leader and did our studies in the evening. So nothing too exciting.

Monday, March 3: P-Day again! We woke up and got haircuts this morning, which was nice. Then we took a bus to meet all the missionaries in the zone at the chapel in Murcia. We had workshop where we talked about a talk and about the purpose of key indicators. Then we all went out and ate at Dominos which was fun. Then me and Bradshaw came back to Cartagena and did street contacting and set up lessons for the week.