Exploded Toe and Seviche with Cecilia

Note from Mom: Gabe had a couple of health setbacks this week! He started the week off on Sunday night through Tuesday morning being pretty sick with explosive diarrhea. Then, he stubbed his foot really bad and actually went to the ER (Caleb was "flaming him" to Claire and saying, "Yeah, Gabe goes to the ER for a stubbed toe..." haha) Then he even had a random nosebleed, so there were a lot of bloody pictures in his album! Yikes. I will NOT be posting the bloody toe pics though because they are so gross. 

Here are his notes:

Monday, October 20 - Monday, October 27, 2025

Exploded toe

Hype street contact

Seviche/ Baptism date🐟🍋

This week went pretty good but the beginning stunk! Me and Elder Taylor were sick until like Wednesday. Then on Wednesday morning, I destroyed my pinky toe when I tripped on my ripped sandal. We took a little trip to the ER and they let me keep my toenail, so that was nice.🦶💥

While doing street contacting this week we found a lady who was super nice. She gave us her address on the spot and told us to come over in 2 days. When we went it was her, her husband, and her son and his 2 teenage friends. We had a great lesson and halfway through the lesson they distraughtly said, "Oh no! We forgot to make you guys food!" Then they ordered us pizza! 😭. So they're great, and we are going back for lesson 2 and dinner next Saturday.

We met with Cecilia, the woman who got baptised the first week we were here, and her daughter Ariana (who is about 19 maybe). Cecilia was a police officer for 26 years in lima Perú and told us a bunch of storied about it while eating the Seviche she made us🙏🏼. It was so good! Then when we were all full she brought out a second dish of chicken and rice🤰. After all the food, we talked to her daughter about baptism and she accepted a baptismal date for the first week of December🚀. Super hype lesson.  

Day-by-Day Notes:

Tuesday, October 21:

Wednesday, October 22: The unfortunate effects continued today as me and taylor woke up better, but still sick. Then I destroyed my pinky toe nail and had to go to the hospital. They said they didn't have to rip the nail out so that was a win, but it hurts a lot and I can't walk that well. But after that side quest, we had a lesson in person in Valdemoro and a videocall with a woman named Janeth. The in-person lesson was with Katerine and her 2 very energetic children.

Thursday, October 23: Today went pretty good! We had a mentoring session for Elder Plewe this morning and then we had 2 lessons in Valdemoro. One with Steven, who we met on the streets the other day. Then we met with Cindy, who also we met on the street. They were both cool. 

Friday, October 24: We started of the day with a crazy 3 hour goals calls with the mission leaders. Then we went to Cecilia and Adriana's house. The mom got baptised last month and the daughter accepted a baptismal date for December while we were there. They made sooo much gas Peruvian food. Seviche and pork and rice and a bunch of other stuff. Then we had some hype street contacting and finished the day eating with Ivonne and her husband Luis. 

Saturday, October 25: This morning after studies we ate with Jackeline and her family. The husband is hilarious, his name is Eddy. After that, we had a street contacting in Valdemoro and a amazing lesson with Cinthia. She was a hype lady we found the other day and she invited us to her house. It was her, her husband, her son, and the sons 2 friends. The lesson went great and they were so nice. There were offering to order pizzas for us mid-lesson because they "forgot to make food for us". They were super nice. 

Sunday, October 26: We had a pretty good day at church and after we did studies and planned for next week. We tried to go to Valdemoro, but didn't make it so we lost the train😭. So we did street contacting in Aranjuez and planned members to come to our lessons during the week. 

Monday, October 27: We had a really chill P-day today.Me, Elder Plewe, and Elder Taylor all got hair cuts. We went to Mercadona and sent emails while in the garden. Then we went back to the piso and napped. After we had district councel and messaged people.

Transfers: All 5 Homies Staying! Baptisms of Carmen and Fabrizio!

Note from Mom: Gabe found out a couple days ago that he is NOT getting transferred! I wasn't too surprised because he only has been with his greenie, Elder Plewe from Texas, for the past 6 weeks. I know that Elder Plewe's mom was excited too because she had messaged me on Facebook and told me how she was praying they would all stay together (Elder Rhodes, Elder Taylor, and her son, Elder Plewe). Gabe was sort of thinking he or Elder Taylor might move, but I think he's content to stay too. He loves being in the same ward as the "Daguimar family" (even though Daguimar is the mom's first name) and they spent Sunday night there making Argentinian empanadas. She is so nice, she even sent me pictures as they were making them! So sweet. Love her. They will definitely be that special family that Gabe remembers after his mission. Them and the bishop's family in Cartagena!

Here are his notes:

Monday, October 13 - Monday, October 20, 2025

Baptisms 

Amigos

Transfers

We had the baptisms of Fabrizio and Carmen this week and everything went pretty well. There were some funny moments like when the guy baptizing Carmen almost drowned her and when the guy who baptised Fabrizio forgot his name 3 times. But they were both super happy so it was great.

Leonardo sent us a breakup text today saying he would be moving to Barcelona, so that was tragic. But we still have Scarlett🙏🏼. She's hype and is always taking notes during the lessons. Jean (a guy we were originally really excited to be teaching) has been super lazy and hasn't come to church so we gotta flame him in our next lesson. Besides them everyone else we are teaching is pretty new.

We got transfer news and everyone in our apartment is staying in the same place🥳. So that's fun. I'm pretty excited to stay actually. This has been one of my favorite transfers in the mission so far. 

Day-by-Day Notes:

Monday, October 13: We journeyed to Toledo today for P-Day and had a pretty hype day. Toledo has a lot of castles and cool, historic stuff to see. We ate Dominos and walked around sword shops and saw a torture chamber which was crazy. Then we had a district counsel and had some street contacting memes before bed.

Tuesday, October 14: I had exchanges with Elder Eng today in Toledo, and it was pretty good. Toledo is a really cool town. We had 2 lesson that went pretty good. Elder Eng was hype. He's from Cambodia and is learning English and Spanish. He is super nice though and pretty funny. 

Wednesday, October 15: We spent all morning traveling to the hospital to go get my tests so I can get on Acutane for my acne. Then after we had a fire lesson with Scarlett and Abby. It was so awesome. They are great. Then we had some good street contacts and ate with Ivonne!! She made us pancakes which was gas. 

Thursday, October 16: Elder Taylor, my companion, went on exchanges with the other elders of Aranjuez today (Adams and Chivers) which meant I was just with Elder Plewe all day. It was pretty funny. We met with Jean and he still hasn't come to church because he's too lazy to get up in the morning. Then after that, we had some hype street contacting and ate a lot of Papa John's pizza. We then had a lesson in Ciempozuelos with Katiuska and a member named Helena came and helped. The lesson went good but Katiuska is kinda weird. It also started pouring on our way home so me and Elder Plewe got soaked.

Friday, October 17: We prepped a lot today for the baptism and we had to build the font which was crazy work like always. Afterward, we did a little bit of studies and we finally had the baptism for Carmen. It went great and Mitchell (the ward member doing the baptizing) barely fit into the jump suit and his cute baby was crying like a maniac until he got to be held by his dad again. But Carmen shared an amazing testimony and everything was good. 

Saturday, October 18: This morning we went straight to Valdemoro and did some hype street contacting. We only found one person which was some poverty success. We usually find way easier. But the people out today weren't for it. Then we went back and filled up the font for Fabrizio (9-year-old boy) and his sister. The baptism went well with only some minor mistakes. Very good day I would say. 

Sunday, October 19: We had a pretty good day at church today and after church we went and learned how to make Argentinian empanadas with the Daguimar family. After we got done, she said it wouldn't usually take so long to make them but we were there😂. Then we did our studies and me and Elder Taylor got destroyed by some sickness. I was up all night pooping liquid diarrhea and it sucked. I wasn't sure if I would go to Madrid for P-day the next morning, but I decided to risk pooping my pants and go because we had gotten special permission to go to Madrid and spend time with Elder Gil before he gets sent home for his ACL surgery. 

Monday, October 20: Me and Elder Taylor woke up super sick this morning but still decided to go to Madrid to see Elder Gil for his last pday. It was pretty fun, but I felt horrible the whole day. I almost pooped my pants on the bus. I was sweating. When we got back to Aranjuez, we had district counsel and then a call with the district leaders to set the goals for next month.

General Conference Weekend and Teaching Carmen, Leonardo, Fabrizio, and more!

Note from Mom: I am kind of trying to play a little catch-up here! I think I forgot to update this because my mom was visiting over spud harvest break and she didn't leave until October 1st and I forgot to write this for Gabe! We got to talk on the phone with Gabe while Grandma Sue was here, which was fun, but some crazy things happened in the world these past couple of weeks! First, President Russell M. Nelson passed away at the age of 101 on September 27th. Then, the next morning, which was Sunday, September 28th, a bad dude in Michigan drove into an LDS church building and started shooting. It was all over the news. Then a few days later, we had General Conference on October 4-5th. Elder Dallin H. Oaks is going to become the next prophet, and it was good to have conference after such a crazy week!

Meanwhile, there have been some protests going on in Spain because people are mad about the U.S. helping Israel in the Palestine/Israel war. I honestly don't know enough about it as I should, but Gabe told us that his mission president told them not to speak English in public, which is a bit unsettling as a mom! Other than that, things are going fine for Gabe. He still is having fun with his 4 room mates and all seems well! They are teaching so many people that I am having a hard time keeping up!

Here are his notes for the past 2 weeks:

September 29 - October 6

1. Zone Pday!

2. Amigos

3. General Conference 

We had zone pday this week which was why we had pday on Tuesday. We got to go to the temple and me and Elder Taylor did a workshop which went pretty good. We did a day of nations at our ward building because we have people from a lot of different countries in our zone. This was like a day to honor people from different nations around the world. So we all ate some hype food. 

As far as amigos, we are teaching Cecilia's daughter. Her mom (Cecilia) got baptised last week. We also have been having a great time with Jean, who also has a baptismal date. Besides that though, we've eaten with a good amount of members this week also. Which has been awesome.

Because of the time difference I only got to watch like 3 and a half sessions of conference, but the talks we did watch were awesome. 

Here are his second "summary of week" notes - October 7 - October 12

1. Amigos

2. baptisms 

3. Transfers soon

We've had a super great week with people. The worse was this guy that showed up on drugs to our lessons. He was kinda tweaking but it was still pretty good. Then we found a guy on Thursday that we got from a reference and then met with him Friday, he came to a church activity on saturday, then on Sunday we gave him a baptismal date at church. His name is Leonardo and got he got deported from the states buts super hype. He's about 40 from Honduras. 

We have the baptisms of Carmen and Fabrizo this week so we are busy prepping that. Carmen is a women we've been teaching this whole tranfer that one of the members is friends with. She's awesome but always be flaming me for my gringo accent😭. Fabrizio is a 9 year old kid from the ward. His family is less active and we've been working with him so he can get baptised and hopefully bring his family back. We also got exchanges in the hype city of Toledo today so that's cool. 

We will get transfer calls this week which is crazy because this transfer has gone by so fast. It's a 5 week transfer but still feels like I just got here. It's been awesome seeing all the members again and its been such a good transfer. I'm excited to see what happens this transfer though. 

Day-by-Day Notes for the past 2 weeks:

Monday, September 29: We left early this morning for Alcazar. We have exchanges with them on Tuesday so we decided to pass Pday with them. We had a very boring day. We ate kebob and that was about it. 

Tuesday, September 30: We had a booty exchange in Alcazar. All the lessons canceled so me and Adams just street contacted all day😭. It was like deja vu from when I first got to Alzacar to be companions with Elder Adams.

Wednesday, October 1: Today was hype. We left the apartment and visited Carmen (the woman who has a baptismal date) and her member friend Dora. The lesson went great and they gave us Causa after🙏🏼. Then we had a gas lesson with Jean. We gave him a baptismal date for October 25 and he asked us, "Why do I have to wait so long?" Then we had a lesson with Scarlett and her daughter Abby, who is 16, and it was awesome. She speaks perfect English and she had notes from her last lesson and asked for homework because "It's for the eternal life of my family I need to study"🙏🏼. Crazy good day. 

Thursday, October 2: We had a crazy long call this morning with the STLs planning things for next week. After that though we had a great lesson with Fabrizo (the nine-year-old boy) and his mom. He and his sister are getting baptised next week then we got some food for Dora (the hype member). After, we just street contacted and then Elder Taylor made a very high quality dinner while I made some bunk beds. I will not need to sleep on the couch anymore!

Friday, October 3: More calls today with the district leaders. Then we had a hype plan of salvation lesson and then we visited Boyan (my second baptism of my mission way back last year). He's chill, but he has not been coming to church as much as he should. Then we street contacted the rest of the night.

Saturday, October 4: Today was pretty boring we spent the morning in Aranjuez doing all of our studies and then spent mediodia in a McDonald's in Ciempozuelos. After we had a hype lesson with a women we met yesterday named Katiuska. She believes in God but has never prayed before. Crazy work. But after that we watched conference and traveled back to Aranjuez for the night.

Sunday, October 5: We watched general conference most the day (at home in our piso), but we did have a great member meal with an awesome family from Brazil today. General Conference is on here in the evening, so we watched the first Sunday session from 6-8pm, and then the second one from 10pm-midnight.

Monday, October 6: We woke up this morning and did all of our studies and took like 2 hours to get to Valdemoro because of bus problems. Then we had a gas member lesson with Carmen, the women getting baptised soon. And Dora the member was there. Dora is amazing and always giving us hype Peruvian food. Then we left for Madrid because we have a workshop tomorrow. We also had a crazy videocall with the whole mission and president gave us some new rules so we wouldn't be targeted🙏🏼. Theres a lot of worry because of all the Palastine protests. The biggest rule is we can't speak English in public now. 

Tuesday, October 7: We had a pretty good zone pday today. We all went to the temple and then had a workshop. Everything went pretty good. After that we all ate food that people had brought from their home countries which was hype. Then we had sports and call family time. After that me Elder Gil, Elder Taylor, and Elder Malachowski all had a couple lessons and then got Mcdonalds.🙏🏼

Wednesday, October 8: Today was pretty sad. Elder Gil hurt his leg yesterday playing soccer and while we were playing he messed up his ACL. I was with him all day because of the exchanges and we found out he was almost certainly going home. He's an awesome guy too so it was pretty sad. We only had like 1 lesson and the rest if the time was trying to fix his leg.

Thursday, October 9: Today was super hype. We left the apartment at 9:30 and traveled to Valdemoro for a good lesson with a street contact named Pedro. After that we street contacted until our lesson with Manish (random Indian guy who barely speaks english and no spanish). It went good too. With google translate he understands the Book of Mormon. Then we randomly stopped by an inactive member named Jhon who I visited once with Elder Bright. He started crying mid-lesson and his friend was there while we talked and gave Jhon a blessing. We set up on lesson for Sunday to go back and teach the friend as well. After we returned to Aranjuez and I had a super funny call with an elect guy who spoke perfect english and lived in the United States. 

Friday, October 10: We started the day off with a hype lesson with Leonardo. The guy from the phone call yesterday. He was super interested and the lesson was awesome. After we traveled to Ciempozuelos and had a gas lesson with Cecilia and her daughter, Ariana. Then we had a lesson with Fabrizio and his mom. He's getting baptised next week. 

Saturday, October 11: We had a hype lesson this morning with Jean and talked about him coming to church. Then in the evening, we had a hype day of nations where all the members brought food from their countries. It was all so good. Leonardo also came and some of our of her amigos. Leonardo was telling us crazy stories about him getting deported👀. But it was all super fun. 

Sunday, October 12: We had a pretty good time at church. During the second hour we had a lesson with Leonardo and gave him a baptismal date. He's so elect. Then we had a super funny member meal with the Yubero family. The dad dropped the Nword😭. Then we traveled to Valdemoro for a lesson but one of them canceled and the other named juan was off the wok. He was tweeking mega hard but locked in for the lesson. It went ok all things considered. Then we journeyed back to Aranjuez for the night. 

Monday, October 13 - ** from mom - I am pretty sure this is the day Gabe went to Toledo for P-DAY, but I will include that in the next post!