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.
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