Staying in Alcazar for Another Transfer!

Note from Mom - Well, Gabe found out that he is staying in Alcazar de San Juan for another six weeks. I guess he had actually received an email from Pres. Obando a few days before the official transfer phone calls went out by the zone leaders, so he kind of already knew he would be staying. The mission president kind of told him in the email that he really needed him to stay in that area for a little longer to help watch over Elder Adams and keep an eye on him and make sure his new medication was working. If he switched him around right now, it would be hard for a new companion to have a comparison to know how Elder Adams had been before and if things were getting better with this new medication or not. So, the good news is, Gabe says the temperature there is tolerable compared to other parts of Spain right now (still hot, but not as hot as other places) and he will hopefully get to keep working with Victor and his wife and see if they can get baptized soon!  Here are his notes from this week!

Monday, July 28, 2025 - Monday, August 4, 2025

(Week six in Alcazar)

1. Transfer News📰

2. Hype lessons

3. Victor and Alejandra 

I will be staying here in Alcazar for 1 more transfer🎉🥳. Calls weren't too exciting though because a week beforehand, president and then AP Pires told me I would be staying with Adams 1 more transfer. 

Teaching has been a little frustrating lately. We have somehow went into every day with 2 lessons then had every single one cancel almost every day. We had 2 lesson this whole week. One with a random guy over videocall and another lesson in person with Victor and his family. So we've been on the street contacting grind all week. But it's always a fun time street contacting. I'm just excited for summer to be over because it's been 100 degrees when we've been doing street contacting recently. 

Victor and his wife, Alejandra, have still been progressing but Victor is way more dedicated and has been reading the Book of Mormon everyday. So when the time came for them to do their interviews with a zone leader for baptism yesterday, the wife got nervous and said she still wants to be wants to wait. So that made Victor nervous too. So we had a call with him to talk about everything. So he's going to do his interview tonight. He's super ready and already following all the commandments. But he really wants to baptise his wife so that should be a good motivator. 

Gabe's Day-by-Day notes:

Monday, July 28: We drove to Ciudad Real today, which was hype. Walked for 45 minutes to go bowling and it was closed so we had to walk back 45 minutes to get back. They we all ate and hung out in the capilla and played card games, which was fun. They we took a train to Madrid and went to the temple. A really cool thing happened when I was at the temple. We ran into Bautista and his brother, Bruno! Bautista lives in Aranjuez and his family was like, my second family when I was there a a brand new missionary. They would have us over for dinner all the time. His mom was a single mom with one son on a mission (Bruno) and then Bautista, who was a senior in high school, and then two teenage daughters. Bautista was also the one that took the train down to Cartagena on my birthday to surprise me with a cake his mom made and a meal. So it was awesome running into them and getting to meet Bruno, who just got home from his mission a couple weeks ago! Now we are staying the night with the Madrid Elders. This is the piso that Elder Rigdon Porter, from Rexburg, lives in. He lives with the ZLs and another companionship. It's nice to talk to all the Elders because we only have hermanas in our district😭

Tuesday, July 29: So We had some hype studies and then went straight to the chapel for a lesson. I was with Elder Izquierdo. We then had the worst lesson of my career with a homeless man who wouldn't let us talk. We were there an hour and a half. I finally stopped the lesson because Izquierdo is too nice and I told the homeless guy we had to leave. Then we went to lunch with Elders Porter (from Rexburg), Taylor, England, and Adams which was fun. Then we contacted people and did comp councel. Elder Izquierdo is fun though so it was a good exchange. Then me and Adams just spent the evening traveling back to Alcazar.

Wednesday, July 30: Today was really boring. Lots of street contacting. But Victor has been grinding the Book of Mormon and we were texting about the tree of life vision and he's loving everything. We also had a video call with an atheist and convinced him to pray tonight about God and we will be talking to him tomorrow.

Thursday, July 31: We did lots of street contacting today, which was pretty mid. Only old Spaniard challenge. We had a really good lesson with Victor and Alejandra and Jared (the hype member) came. We taught all the commandments too and they accepted and agreed with keeping all of them. They had served us coffee at the beginning of the lesson too💀. But then we went to a crazy Peruvian party and that was hype. The whole family is inactive because the ward was rude to the son when he came home early from his mission. So we gotta reactivate those homies.

Friday, August 1: Like all of our lessons canceled so we did more street contacting😭. The streets have been rough lately. Just old Spaniards. But we found 1 lady who seemed cool. We also had 1 lesson with Diego. He is reading the Book of mormon and had some good questions about the trinity. 

Saturday, August 2: We have had actually one of the slowest weeks of my career. We had 3 lessons today, but like almost every lesson this week, they all canceled😭. So much street contacting was done and nobody was hyped to talk about Jesus today. We also got the transfer call and found out we were both staying in Alcazar.

Sunday, August 3: We just had Gina at church today which was fun, but then our members started arguing over the priesthood in the middle of the lesson, so that was awkward. But she still liked it. Then we had DL calls and meetings the rest of the day and some hype street contacting. So nothing too exciting. Just the Victor thing. Then I talked to my family on the phone and that was fun.

Monday, August 4: Most boring Pday of my career. Elder Adams and I just stayed in Alcazar all day, just the two of us. I did message with my mom more than usual today because I was just home most of the day. We ate Dominos and the was the most exciting thing. But Victor passed his baptismal interview tonight🙏🏼🎉. So this Sunday he getting baptised! But we ate dinner with Kevin (a 20-year-old ward member) at a kebob place, which was fun.