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.)
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