Note from Mom - This was a big week because Gabe and Elder Adams baptized TWO people! They were two women (not related to each other; in fact, they didn't even know each other until recently when they both started meeting with Gabe and Elder Adams). Gabe said they haven't had a baptism in this area in ten months, so it was a big deal to have TWO in one day. He said a lot of the ward members stayed after church and watched the baptisms, so that was good. They also did some big home remodeling service this weekend for a couple in their ward.
Also, Gabe's good friend from the mission, Elder Pires, came "home" this week! Gabe never served as his companion, but he was a zone leader and then an AP and Gabe got to see him a lot over the past few months. He was from Brazil, but his parents moved to Rexburg to work for BYUI a few months ago and so their son, Elder Pires, was coming here to live for the first time! Gabe actually sent some letters with him to give to us! It was so fun! We went to his open house/welcome home on Saturday, so that's what that picture is of! It was fun to hear his mission stories (some of which involved Gabe) and it made me really excited for when Gabe comes home next summer!
I am going to go ahead and put two weeks of emails here because he didn't take a ton of pictures in the week following the baptisms!
Here are Gabe's emails for the past two weeks!
Tuesday, August 26 - Monday, September 1, 2025
(Week 10 in Alcazar)
1. Gina and Carla's baptism
2. Amigos
3. Painting
We had Gina and Carla's baptisms on Sunday and it was awesome! It was actually the smoothest baptisms I've ever had. We had Jared Rivas (a member in the ward) baptism them both and they we both so happy. They were both crying👀. We also had the most people we've ever had at church. 53🤯. The first Sunday I got here there were 16, so 53 is wild. We are already prepping them for the temple. They both have cars😭🙏🏼.
We have been getting super blessed with amigos recently. Gina has been bringing her adult son to church who we are now teaching. We also have Alexander still and we've started teaching his brother-in-law and his wife. They're chill. Then at church, a Peruvian mom and daughter pulled up who I thought were members, but they were not. When I talked to them, they said they just got here from Peru and Google searched a church and found this one and that's why they came🤯.
A new couple who just moved in took us to their house for a 9-15h service project. It was lowkey Crazy! The house was huge and built in 1930. But it was a wine cellar/house thing. So we had a awesome time painting that house. They gave us food after though so it was a hype trade.
Good news - It also is greeting colder now🥳. We're getting to the low 90's high 80's at the hottest time of the day, so that's better than 105!
Monday, September 2 - Monday, September 8, 2025
(Week 11 in Alcazar)
1. Amigos
2. Gina and Carla
3. Pday
4. The fair😭
1. In regards to the number of people we are teaching right now... there's not many. Most people are just people we've had like 1 lesson with or are still trying to meet with for the first time. But Eddy and Alexander are still doing good. Alexander came to church yesterday and things are looking good for now with his baptism at the end of the month.
2. Gina had her birthday on Sunday and Carla had her birthday on Sunday. So they were both in Madrid and didn't come to church. Very sad. But! They are still hype and are getting ready to go to the temple with us. We are just finding a day some members of the branch could go to the temple with us.
3. We got to go to Ciudad Real with the District last pday for District councel which was hype. We went to a museum and played cover you assets so it was pretty fun.
4. This week felt really slow because there was a city fair. A bunch of people from out of town were here and all of our amigos were working extra hours so they couldn't meet with us. And everyone outside had white shirts on that said Alcazar and were splashing alcohol on each other. It was just all teenagers outside the whole week that were all drunk. We had some pretty funny conversations with some of them though. They yelled gringo a lot at us though(racism). Even though they're all white Europeans💀.
Day-by-Day notes:
Tuesday, August 26: We had a workshop in the church early this morning then had a really good temple trip which was gas. Then we hung out and got Venezuelan food which was cool. We had to leave Madrid pretty early though to get out train to go back to Alcazar.
Wednesday, August 27: We had some good street contacting this morning and this randmo (old spaniard) sang a song to us about how we must always drink wine to stay strong. But we found a couple of people and then had a good videocall with Gaby. After the call we went street contacting until our lesson with Alexander. He's hype and set another lesson up with us, his wife, and is brother-in-law. So he's a chiller. Then I had a call with Carla so we could finally get her baptismal interview done. After we had a good lesson with and inactive member named Brunilda which went well.
Thursday, August 28: Really boring day today. We had a lesson with Gina and Jesus her son. It went well, but Gina loves to talk so lesson are a little but of a struggle. But the rest of the day we just did street contacting.
Friday, August 29: We like always had a lot of hype street contacting today. But we did have a really good lesson with Gina and her son named Jesus. We had Antonio drive us there and the lesson went really well. Jesus seems like he will continue progressing as well. Especially with Gina's baptism this weekend. Anabel also canceled on us for the 4 time in a row💀😭.
Saturday, August 30: We had Anabel cancel on us again today, but then we met with Alexander the goat. He had brought his wife and his brother in law too and the lesson was great. They're Evengelical but understood the Restoration and are coming to see the baptisms of Gina and Carla on Sunday after church. Then we had a good lesson with Luis and Leo revising the Restoration. They both told us they knew the Book of Mormon is true and are coming on Sunday. Then we had a lesson with Carla about temples.
Sunday, August 31: We did a nice 6 hours of service this morning which was pretty hype. We were painting a house😭. Then we had a lesson with Carla about the plan of salvation. It went really good and she's all ready for her baptism tomorrow. Just like Gina. We also filled the font up half way so we wouldn't have to wake up super early to do it tomorrow.
Monday, September 1: We had some hype Pday activities today. We started out by traveling to Ciudad Real pretty early this morning and then me and Adams got Mercadona breakfast. We got tortilla de potata. Then, after waiting for a bit, we met with the Hermanas and we all went to a small Don Quixote museum. Then we got sandwich stuff and ate food at the park and played Cover Your Assets (mom sent me this card game). After that, we went back and hung out and talked in the chapel and then me and Adams had to get on our train to go to Madrid because we are picking up the new car tomorrow morning there, so we are staying the night with some elders in Madrid.
Tuesday, September 2: We woke up early this morning to get the car and to meet with president. I told the APs we would be coming so Adams could talk to President. When we got to the office we waited for a bit then president got there and started talking to Adams in his office while I waited outside about 30 minutes. Then the door opened and president had me come in. We talked for a couple minutes about how proud he was of the work we did and how happy he was about our companionship. I was pretty confident president would let Adams stay based on how president was before the interview and over email previously. Then president had me help give Adams a blessing and it sounded like he was staying based on the blessing president gave. But then as we were walking out, president put his hand on my shoulder when Adams was out the door and pulled me back and said in the saddest voice I've ever heard from him, "He's sad Elder, because I'm going to send him home." Adams knows as well. President is still doing one more call with the Doctors and the parents of Elder Adams.
(DON'T POST THAT)
After that, we picked up the car this morning we drove back down to Alcazar. We had a hype lesson with Gina over videocall and did lots of street contacting. We back on the finding grind😭. We gotta find more people to teach. But at least it's cooling down. We also keep running into a group of crazy 15 year old boys. They like us and think we are funny but hoooolllyy. They wild.
Wednesday, September 3: Super boring day, we had Anabel ditch us again and we basically did street contacting allllll day apart from 1 videocall we had with Carla. And that we well.
Thursday, September 4: We had a pretty good lesson with Gina and her son today. We basically just talked about the Restoration. We did that lesson with him a week ago, but he had forgotten literally everything😭. It's also hard because Gina likes to yap and cut me off every single sentence. We love her very much though🙏🏼. After we had a lesson with Eddy and Alexander. They are both elect and are very interested in the book of Mormón. We read all the introductory stuff today and just talked about the book and Joseph Smith. The only problem is, Eddy always has work on Sunday😔.
Friday, September 5: There's been a big fair and parties all week so every lesson canceled today and everyone is drunk and we just kept getting swarmed by drunk teens all night🙏🏼💀.
Saturday, September 6: The parties continue, so no lessons. We went to a different town though and met with some hype members from Brasil. Then we had a good lesson with a different guy who lives in a different small town named Reinaldo. Then we journeyed back to Alcazar. We had lots of driving in the car time today.
Sunday, September 7: Today was pretty good. It was Gina's birthday, so she was out of town and it was Carla's daughters birthday as well so they couldn't come today. But we had 4 people at church including Alexander🙏🏼. His girlfriend doesn't like us, but now he's trying to move out of the apartment they are living together in. (We want him to break up with her, so that's good.) Then we did studies and street contacting the rest of the day. We also tried to set up some member visits for this next week because we finally have this car and can visit all the homies that live in rural areas.
Monday, September 8: We had a pretty chill Pday. We didn't go anywhere special or see anyone else, so it was just me and Elder Adams. There was a weird holiday today, so all the stores were closed. (Note from mom/Google - September 8 is called The Day of Asturias (Día de Asturias) is a public holiday in Asturias in Spain on September 8 each year. It marks the birth of Mary, mother of Jesus.) We couldn't go get groceries at Mercadona. :( We washed the car though, then just hung out and wrote people all day. We went to Dominos though. We then spent the rest of the night street contacting after we had district councel. We also saw a weird parade with a giante golden Mary statue. (They worship Mary a lot in the Catholic religion.)
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