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.