They found a piso in Valdemoro! And Jean returns!

Note from Mom: Gabe was really excited when we talked on Sunday because the senior housing missionaries called the day before and told them they found an apartment in Valdemoro! This was something Gabe had originally been like, praying for every day when he first got back to Aranjuez about 11 eleven weeks ago. But then as he kept living in Aranjuez, I think he really got to like living with Elder Plewe, Taylor, Brinkerhoff, and Stucki, and he realized the Aranjuez apartment really wasn't too bad. So now they found this new apartment, and Gabe was all excited to go see it the next day, and then his excitement quickly faded. lol I guess it was really small and smelled like smoke! So they were like, "Umm... let's actually not move into this right away, let's wait until we find out about transfers next week." He's feeling pretty sure that either he or Elder Taylor or Elder Plewe will get moved, so he doesn't want to move all his stuff only to move again a few days later! 

Here are Gabe's notes:

Tuesday, November 18 - Monday, November 24, 2025

1. Amigos(Jean comeback?)

2. Piso

3. Stake conference 

1. Jean was a media reference we were teaching for about 2 months and he had a baptismal date on the second lesson. But he might be the most lazy man I've ever met. We explained so many times why church was important and why he had to come in order to be baptised, but he never would. We ended up dropping him (deciding not to teach him anymore) after an hour long lesson we had with him during our AP exchange. We had explained everything super boldly and he basically just said he didn't care😔. 

Then after a month of us not seeing him, he chased us down in the street and wanted to meet. When we met, he said he had seen Jesus Christ in a dream and he got chastised🤯. He said he felt horrible for weeks and decided to met with us again. Then he came to stake conference. He still pretty lazy and super weird, but he's improving.

We had a super good lesson with Cinthia and Carlos the other day. We were almost certain Carlos would take longer to gain a testimony but during the lesson he told us he believes everything we have said and he knows he needs to be baptised. Cinthia is doing good too and reading more but still isn't certain. Prisila is having some health problems and is in Madrid so we haven't seen her all week. But her family is so nice but is just having a really hard time right now.

2. The piso in Valdemoro that we picked up the keys for the other day is super weird. Pink room, blue room, and orange kitchen. It's also super small and smells like smoke but we will probably wait till transfers to move in for when some of us get moved. It'll be super nice though not to travel 3 hours a day.

3.Stake conference was fire and we had Elder Alliaud speak which was cool. Then formed the new Stake and our zone is going to get a bunch of new missionaries because of the new area divides.

Day-by-Day Notes:

Tuesday, 18 November: We had the mega side quest to get my blood test done. (Because I now started taking Acutane, I have to get my blood taken every month just to make sure it's not doing anything crazy.) Then we went to Valdemoro and did some street contacting, but Elder Taylor starting dying of an unknown sickness so we went back to the piso and he rested for the night.

Wednesday, 19 November: Elder Taylor was cooked this morning (still sick) so me and Elder Plewe left him with the the other Elders to go to Valdemoro to street contact and teach Prisila and Cage another lesson. They are learning and remembering everything super well and are super nice. They are basically waiting till they can find anything to rent then they'll leave😭. We had a lot of good street contacting after that and then went back to Aranjuez to do all of our studies. 

Thursday, 20 November: Elder Taylor was still mega clapped today (sick) so he rested all morning while we had our studies. Then we went to Cecilia's house and had a great lesson with her and taught her about the family tree system and answered questions about the Book of Mormon. She's doing amazing and is on a reading plan to finish the Book of Mormon in the next month. Then we visited Ivonne and her non member boyfriend and talked about baptism with him. His name is Luis and he was going to get baptised but didn't long ago because he got offended by someone in the church. But now he's open to baptism and we are trying to get him a baptismal date.

Friday, 21 November: We had a pretty good day, but it was super cold and we were in Valdemoro all day. We met with Boyan (a guy I baptized about a year ago here) in his house though, which was funny. His mom is super normal which was crazy because he kinda weird. Then he asked a bunch of weird questions. After we had a super good lesson with Carlos and Cinthia and Carlos said he believed everything we had taught them. There are super nice and during the lesson we got a text from Brother Fry (a senior missionary in the office) telling us they got a piso in Valdemoro!!!!

Saturday, 22 of November: After doing all of our studies this morning, we went to Valdemoro for a lesson with a woman we met a couple days ago in the street named Patricia. It went super well even though she a level 10 Catholic. Afterward, we had a bunch of street contacting but we found a lot of really cool people.

Sunday, 23 of November: We had stake conference today so we traveled up to Madrid super early with the other Elder Smith and some of the Elders friends. When we got there, Jean and Henry pulled up. I was super surprised Jean came, but I guess he got chastised hard enough in his dream. After we journeyed home we basically had enough time to weekly plan and that was it. We also called families from 10pm-11:30pm.

Monday, 24 of November: We had to pick up the keys in Valdemoro today for the new piso early this morning and when we got there they changed the meeting time to 4pm🤦‍♂️. Then we had a lesson with Carmen and Dora, but Carmen slept in so we street contacted all morning then finally had a fire lunch with Dora and Carmen. After that, we went over to the apartment and it was kinda cooked. Super tiny and weird layout. We might just live in Aranjuez until we get transfer calls. Because the earliest we could even get into the new apartment would be next week anyway. 

The Blitz, the Rain, and seeing Damaris at church

Note from Mom: It seems like it's been getting rainy now in Aranjuez. Gabe is often in his rain coat in a lot of the pictures from this week! I actually Amazon shipped him a new gray sweater because every time I saw him in pictures this week, he had on his one black sweater that I sent him last year. Then when we were on the phone, his companion was like, "Do you ever even wash that thing?!" (Friendly joking, of course!) But Gabe was like, "I just washed it!" But I still felt like I should send him another sweater! So now he has two... a black and a gray. He's a very simple boy and never asks for anything, but sometimes I have to force new things upon him! 

He DID buy a really cool Madrid temple tie though from a local Peruvian lady who makes them. He said this is actually his second one because he gave his first one away to Elder Gil when he was unexpectedly sent home for tearing his ACL! It's a really cool tie. (See the pic with him, Elder Taylor, and Elder Plewe each wearing one in different colors.)

Here are Gabe's notes:

Tuesday, November 11 - Monday, November 17, 2025

1. Amigos

2. Blitz

We have had a super sad week because of Prisila and her family. They are getting kicked out of their house with nowhere to go so we've been trying to get the relief society to help them. We met with Cinthia and her family again and it went well they are just progressing slowly and have yet to come to church.

We had a blitz in Valdepeñas on Saturday with the whole zone and it rained like the whole time. But we found some cool people and then we had a workshop where we had some members pretend to be amigos for roleplays. After that, we had a testimony meeting with all the missionaries and talked about how we could be more diligent in the work. 

**At church, we were able to see Damaris again! She was one of my first baptisms on my mission. I baptized her with Elder Olson in early February when I was in Aranjuez the first time. Then she moved away to Madrid, but she came to visit our ward here in Aranjuez on Sunday! It was fun to see her again!

Day-by-Day Notes:

Tuesday, November 11: We studied this morning and had horrible travels to Valdemoro! It took like 1 hour and 45 minutes. Then we had a super good lesson with Cindy, and then we had an amazing lesson with Priscila, Cage, and Kimberly. They are so awesome, but told us they are getting kicked out of their apartment and will have to move. I would be so sad if they left. Then we had a lesson with a member who just got here from the Canary Islands. Overall it was a pretty good day. I'm just praying super hard Prisila and her family will get to stay. 

Wednesday, November 12: We had SO many lesson today planned and confirmed. We had 4! And they ALL canceled except Boyan. So we street contacted the whole time but found some hype people. The coolest one was a Columbian family of 5!! We also got churros and chocolate. We also met a lady who ran up to me and said in English, "I remember you! You're from Wisconsin!"

Thursday, November 13: We had what could have been our last lesson with Prisila and her family, which went really good. We had Amon there and he speaks Portugués and we gave them a baptismal date which went good, but they are for sure moving. Then we had a great lesson with Yhamilk and after that we met with an older Venezuelan guy named Ramon.

Friday, November 14: We had a crazy long videocall with the STLs (Sister Training Leader) to plan stuff. Then we had a mentoring session for Elder Plewe. When we finally left the piso, we went to Ciempozuelos and had a great lesson with Magaly and she super nice. She just can't come to church because of her job. Then we went to Valdemoro and it was pouring rain so we did like an 1 and a half of studies under a pine tree and planned lessons under the same tree for like 45 minutes. After that, we had a great lesson with Cinthia and Carlos and they are super nice! 

Saturday, November 15: We started today off by traveling in train to Valdepeñas for the blitz. When we got there we mixed up the companionships and everyone went street contacting for about 2 hours and it started pouring rain😭. After we all ate in the chapel and had some members come and pretend to be amigos so the missionaries could teach them. Then we had a testimony meeting about why we are on the mission which went great. After that was over, we all traveled back in the train to our areas and me and Elder Taylor made plans for the next talller. 

Sunday, November 16: Church today was great! We had 140 people there because it was the primary program. We also got to see Damaris (a lady I baptized earlier in my mission but then moved away) who was there visiting! After church, we did all of our planning and traveled to Valdemoro for a lesson. When we got there, I called the guy and he had gone to Madrid...even though we had confirmed the lesson just 4 hours before. Crazy play. So we went back to Aranjuez for the night. Sunday nights are always cooked when our area is an 1 and a half hours away. 

Monday, November 17: We got up and cleaned the whole piso and then went and hit a huge buy at Mercadona.  (We bought lots of food.) After that, we went to the mall and bought a basketball and sweatpants for Elder Plewe. Then we took a nap and then went and played basketball and frisbee which super fun. Very high quality Aranjuez pday.

Mission Leadership Council, Exchanges, and more

Note from Mom: 

Not much new to report! Gabe and Elder Taylor got over their sickness, but they apparently gave it to their greenie, Elder Plewe! So that was nice of them. I had sent Gabe a bunch of cough drops and cough medicine and stuff, and Gabe said it arrived at the mission office like, the day he started feeling better, so he said he gave it to Elder Plewe and he was very grateful for it all! ;)  

Here are Gabe's notes:

Tuesday, November 4 - Monday, November 10, 2025

1. Mission Leadership Council 

2. Amigos

3. Exchanges 

4. Eddy!

We had MLC (Mission leadership conference) this week, which was fun. We had to wake up at 5 in the morning to take the train and go up to Madrid and we were there from sunrise till sunset. We got to go to the temple and the conference was super good. It was a lot about working hard through the Christmas season because missionary work in the whole world goes down during Christmas.

Right now we are teaching some amazing people. On Thursday we meet Pricila(mom), Cage(Daughter), and Kimberly(daughter) in the street. We met with them on Saturday and on Sunday they traveled all the way from Valdemoro for church. They are from Brazil and super nice. Then we also had a lesson with Cecilia (recent lady we baptized who is in her late 40s) and Ariana (her 19 year old daughter) and got the temple recommend for Cecilia and talked about the soon to be baptism of Ariana. It was a super good week and we have some hype people to teach. 

We also got to go on exchanges with Alcazar this week and I was with Elder Chivers. It was super fun to have them over even though it rained the entire exchange.

Eddy (a guy that Elder Adams and I had found during street contacting in Alcazar) also got baptised by the Alcazar Elders! He was an amazing guy we found one day while I was serving there.

Day-by-Day Notes:

Monday, November 3: We basically did nothing all day. We did go to Mercadona though. But I've still been sick the last couple of weeks so I took the whole day to rest.

Tuesday, November 4: We woke up this morning at 5 in the morning and traveled up to Madrid for the Mission leadership councel. It was really good but really long. We went to the temple in the middle of MLC which was great. We finished the whole thing at like 6 in the evening and we traveled back to Aranjuez. Pretty good day.

Wednesday, November 5: We had a very busy day today. This morning we met with a man named Miguel who is from Chili and very inactive. He was great and wants to come to church. Then we met with a women we meet street contacting names Magaly who was super nice and liked the Book of Mormon. Then we went to Valdemoro and has a lesson with Miriam who speaks perfect English because she was an exchange student in Idaho🥔 and we had Gabriela help us with the lesson. It was also pouring rain. Then we taught Carmen about temples with Dora's help. Then we went from Dora's house to Cinthia's and taught her whole family with Dora and Carmen helping us. Today was super busy but really good.

Thursday, November 6: Today was super cooked because Elder Plewe was super sick (I got him sick) and all of our lessons canceled but one. She complained about the cold the whole time😭. We also came home early so Elder Plewe could rest. We were working on all the stuff for the blitz that was supposed to be on Saturday but we had to cancel it because of problems with the train tickets. We will postpone that and do it in a week or two.

Friday, November 7: It was raining all day but it was a good day. Me and Elder Chivers were with each other because of exchanges, and we had a good lesson with Cecilia and Ariana. Then had a visit with the Daguimar family, which was awesome like always. 

Saturday, November 8: We started the day with a super good lesson with a street contact we meet the other day. She's from Brazil and named Pricila. She doesn't really speak spanish but she understands spanish. Then we street contacted for a while and found a BUNCH of people! Then we had a good lesson with jaime(different street contact) and Ademir helped us.

Sunday, November 9: Super chill day. We had church like always and had Pricila and her 2 daughters pull up!!! Ariana and Henry also came! So church was awesome and after that, we did our studies and went to Valdemoro for some street contacting.

Monday, November 10: Nothing this pday again. But we played frisbee and footbal in a park which was cool. After that we ate with a Melice and Julio!

Halloween, Exchanges, and speaking Norwegian

Note from Mom: Since this will be the start of the third and final book, here is a quick recap! Elder Rhodes is currently living in Aranjuez (for the second round) and he is sharing his piso with his ZL companion, Elder Taylor, and the greenie they have been training since September named Elder Plewe. There is also another companionship that lives with them, Elder Brinkerhoff and Elder Stucki. They all seem to get along and Gabe and his two companions are technically over the Valdemoro area, but they don't have a piso there, so they all still live in Aranjuez and travel by bus every morning to Valdemoro. The work is going well, and Gabe is enjoying being a zone leader! I think he will be ready for a change of scenery in December though!

For Halloween, Gabe said everyone was dressed in little to no clothing! He also got to have a fun exchange with a brand new elder who just got here from Norway. He recorded a funny video of him speaking some Norwegian, so that was funny. He's also been fighting off a cold all week. He said he lost his voice for a couple days and when we talked on the phone on Sunday, he was having a hard time going more than two sentences without coughing. I knew he was going to be in Madrid on Tuesday for a leadership conference, so I had a bunch of cough drops and medicine sent to the mission office for him to pick up. Hopefully those help and he gets better soon!

Oh, Caleb got his patriarchal blessing on Sunday afternoon, right after we had talked with Gabe for our weekly phone call. That was exciting! I was hoping it would give Caleb some encouragement about serving a mission, which it did, so I kind of talked to Gabe about that on Monday when we were messaging in the morning.

Here are Gabe's notes:

Tuesday, October 28 - Monday, November 3, 2025

1. Halloween

2. Amigos

3. Exchanges 

Halloween was kinda cooked because everyone was trick or treating and nobody really wanted to chat. Literally all of our lessons canceled that day. But I was on exchanges with an Elder who is a greenie from Norway and we found a super cool guy from Columbia that lives with a super less active member. People here already hate wearing clothes, so Halloween is a crazy sad day for modesty. Elder Plewe was scared😔.

We have continued meeting with Cinthia and her family and they are awesome. We also have a lot of people we are teaching more frequently now. But we are finding and dropping a lot of people every week. It's been super fun though.

This week started with a super hype exchange with AP Elder Ence. He's a cool guy and goes home this transfer. We had a really good day and a great lesson with a guy from a reference. We had a recent convert there too that was an amazing help in the lesson.  

On Friday, I had an exchange with Elder Weggersen. He's brand new and from Norway. He tried teaching me a bit of Norwegian and I was more grateful for Spanish after. We had a pretty good day every though Halloween tried to ruin our day. He's a great missionary.

Day-by-Day Notes:

Tuesday, October 28: Today was pretty good. I had exchanges with AP Ence so he picked me up from Aranjuez early in the morning so we could drive up go Madrid. We did office stuff till about mid-day then did some street contacting. We found some hype people then met up with Leo and taught an amazing lesson to Alirio. He was having a really hard time with everything in his life and was suicidal, but Leo had a similar experience not too long ago and was amazing support in the lesson. The spirit was so strong and we gave him a blessing. After, Alirio accepted a baptismal date! After Leo took us to churros which was fire, he's a legendary recent convert!

Wednesday, October 29: We drove down early this morning to Aranjuez to drop me off. After that, we had all of our studies and went to Valdemoro and spent our first 30 minutes with a D1 yapper. Then we had hype lesson with Sebastian and Rosalia. Then we had a videocall with Janeth which also went good. Then we journeyed back to Aranjuez and finished our day with some fire crepes. 

Thursday, October 30: After our studies this morning, we left and met with Ariana and she's great. She remember a good amount of the Restoration from like 2 months ago. After that lesson we street contacted until our lesson with Katiuska. She always flames Elder Plewe because of his Spanish, which is a rip. She kinda dumb but she's chill.

Friday, October 31: Elder Taylor, Elder Plewe, and I started exchanges with Elder Weggersen and Elder Day. I was with Elder Weggersen who is from Norway, but speaks really good English. He says everyone in Norway speaks English. We had like 4 lessons cancel then, but we visited a less active member and taught his roommate and we are going back next week. He was great. Then we street contacted and saw crazy Halloween costumes. 

Saturday, November 1: We switched back this morning and we went back to Aranjuez for our studies. Then we went to Valdemoro and had an amazing lesson with Cinthia and her family. They really liked the Restoration lesson and they made us some amazing food as well. After, we went to Katerin's house and shared a message with her. Then we street contacted a little and went back to Aranjuez for the day

Sunday, November 2: Church was really good this week. (Week 4 since bishop sighting... He is basically inactive.) We ate an amazing lunch with Daguimar and her family. Then we planned for the week and had some of the DL calls. We also called our families.

Monday, November 3: (Gabe forgot to send his notes for today, so I will write what I know. He stayed in Aranjuez today for Pday and stuck around his apartment. I think he even took a nap this afternoon, so it was a low-key P-day. Tomorrow, they have to get up early to go to a mission leadership council or something in Madrid, so I know he has to get up at like 5am to travel.)