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.