Christmas Conference and First Week with Elder Hulterstrom in Valdemoro

Note from Mom: Gabe had a big Christmas conference on Monday, December 8th! This was kind of a rare event because it's the only time when ALL of the missionaries in the whole mission are together in one place. (I guess the mission president just found out that he technically isn't supposed to do this... so it will probably be that last one ever! :) Then after the conference stuff was over, Gabe and his new companion, Elder Hulterstrom, traveled to their new apartment in Valdemoro together. I guess Gabe doesn't really know him that well, but I know his mom a little bit because she's been in my Espana Sisters group chat on Facebook for the past year and a half! Gabe actually rode sitting next to him on the airplane from the MTC to Spain back in September of 2024! Hopefully, they get along for the next six weeks! I think they will. 

Here are Gabe's notes:

Christmas Conference was super fun and it was amazing to see some of my old companions (Elder Adams, Elder Jara...). Maybe for the last time of my mission.  Elder Bright (who went home to Valencia, Spain a few months ago) even came which was super funny. 

Besides Carlos and Cinthia, we also found a really nice family the other day in the streets and we had our first lesson with them yesterday in the house. It was great and they loved the Restoration lesson. They are catholics but don't practice and already said they would come to church next week!!

Monday, December 8 - Sunday, December 14, 2025 

Monday, 8 of December: We woke up at 5:30am and traveled from our hotel to the church for the big Christmas conference because we had to be there at 7:30😭. Then we had the first part of the conference which was great and it went till lunch. We had super good empenadas. Elder Adams gave his goodbye testimony with the other missionaries leaving. (He is going home now because of his health issues.) Then we had games and stuff that were kinda weird, like making notes for our companionship or making paper ornaments. They didn't want us roaming the streets of Madrid, so they were trying to keep us busy with little things at the church. Then we had the second part of conference until dinner. It was awesome to see lots of my old companions, and even Bautista and Bruno came! It all was super good and president talked a lot of improving teaching and helping us apply ourselves more in the work. Then we had dinner which was super good also. It was crockpot meat and potatoes. Then we finished around 8:30 after eating and singing hymns outside the temple.

Tuesday, 9 of December: We woke up this morning at 5:30am again, but it was so we could go to the Temple, so it was fire. We had Obando in our group, which was also cool. Then we ate afterward in the office and I met up with Elder Hulterstrom (my new companion) and we went back to Valdemoro with all his stuff. After he got organized, we planned out stuff for the transfer and street contacted. He seems chill so far. *Note - He was at the MTC the same time as me, but he wasn't in my group. I ended up sitting next to him on the plane ride from Utah to Spain, but we didn't really know each other besides that.

Wednesday, 10 of December: We had a super good lesson with Adin today and he's super cool. We taught him the first part of the plan of salvation. Then we traveled to Aranjuez for the abono of elder Hulterstrom. I then stole the fan from Aranjuez and some food. Then we street contacted in Valdemoro and found sooo many people. I went super well and we met some super cool families.

Thursday, 11 of December: After pstudy and daily contacts, we journeyed to Madrid for MLC (mission leadership conference). MLC is usually an all day thing, but today it only lasted 3 hours because they had just received all the new missionaries and we just had Christmas conference. But it was still super good and I got to see Elder Taylor (my former companion that just left for another area), which was fun. After that, we traveled back to Valdemoro and organized a bunch of zone stuff then street contacted for a bit. 

Friday, 12 of December: Today went super well. We had ZLC Prep and ZLC and we had a really good meeting. We had a lesson with Jean again and he still struggles understanding the priesthood and other things. Then we met with Cecilia and Ariana outside and talked about temples and them going together. We are going to have Ariana get her temple interview Sunday. (She was just baptized by us recently.) Then we had a surprise lesson with Juana. She was a street contact we met a couple days ago and she called us and told us she could meet in 10 minutes. But she wanted to meet like 5 minutes away. We taught her the Book of Mormon and she promised to read it! Then we met with Cecilia and Carlos. We talked about the sacrament and they agreed to come to church on Sunday. It would be their first time. So that would be amazing. 

Saturday, 13 of December: This morning we met for the first time with 2 different guys. One named Luis and the other was named Sebastian. Luis liked the Restoration lesson we gave him and he understood it really well. With Sebastian, we talked about baptism and he basically started quizzing us about random things. Like who was born first, John the Baptist or Jesus. But they were both chill. We also met with Boyan, which went well. He hopefully will pull up to church tomorrow. Then we street contacted the rest of the night.

Sunday, 14 of December: We did the journey to the chapel this morning and picked up Boyan, Cinthia, Carlos, Yhamlik, and Yhamilk's 2 friends. It was quite to group, but we all took the bus and we made it to the chapel and they all loved it! After church we had lunch with Bruno and Bautista which was great. Then, when we got to Valdemoro we had a lesson with Rafael, his wife Susana, and their daughter Milagros. The lesson went great and after we went home and did weekly planning.

Baptism of Ariana, Goodbye Elder Taylor and Elder Plewe, Moving to the Valdemoro Piso

Note from Mom: All good things must come to and end, and it's the end of the Elder Rhodes, Elder Taylor, Elder Plewe trio! :( They found out this week that Gabe is staying in the current area, but moving to the new Valdemoro piso, Elder Taylor is going to be a zone leader down south in Cadiz, and Elder Plewe is moving to Alcazar (still in Gabe's zone). Gabe will still be Zone leader and will be companions now with Elder Hulterstrom, who will be moving up after the Christmas conference in Madrid.

Gabe seemed like he had a REALLY busy week. In fact, in Gabe's whole mission so far, I don't think we have ever had a phone call that lasted less than one hour, but this week was the first time. It was on Sunday at about 2:00 and I was waiting for my phone to ring like it always does at that time, and i sat and waited...and waited... finally at about 2:30, I even tried calling him and he didn't answer. I was like, "What the heck? Where is he?" Then finally he called back and talked for about 30 seconds and just said, "Hey sorry, we just got to this hotel and we are trying to hand out keys to everyone and it's a big mess... Can I call you back?" 

So then another 15-20 minutes went by and he did call back, but even then he was really distracted and there were people all around him talking, so it was hard to have a good conversation. I was even more annoyed by this because this was a time that I had been REALLY waiting all week to talk to him because I knew they had gotten transfer news! I kind of had a feeling that he was staying in Valdemoro because I had messaged him on Friday and said, "Well, did you get any news? Are you excited about any news you ay have received about transfers?" and he did the crying face emoji! So I was like "Crap."

So I kind of new that was what was happening, but I was waiting to talk to him to find out who his new companion would be, where Elder Taylor and Plewe were going, and so on. I also wanted to ask him how he was feeling about it all. But we honestly didn't get to have a great conversation. He seemed like he was ok about it, but I don't really know because he couldn't really talk with people all around. I personally am bummed that his mission is 3 quarters over, and he still hasn't been to any of the areas that I really want him to go to in Southern Spain (Granada, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga....) He's literally going to spend HALF of his entire mission in the same ward. I guess that's cool in some ways, but... not what I was expecting. He's trying to have a good attitude I think though, which is good. My mom was like, "Well he's not there to be a tourist," and I was like, "Well I know, but still... it's not like there's NOT people he can teach in Granada or Seville too!" So that's my bad attitude for you. 

I am also bummed that he has to live in an apartment that smells like smoke in Valdemoro. I need to send him some air freshener and stuff. He said he would get moved in and settled and then let me know what I could send. At least I know he has a little Christmas tree. I forgot to even ask him who was staying in the Aranjuez piso! Hopefully they aren't too sad that he took his tree! 

Here are Gabe's notes:

Monday, December 1 - Sunday, December 7, 2025 (I will talk about the Christmas conference next time because he didn't upload the pictures yet.)

Monday, 1 of December: We cleaned a little in Aranjuez piso then traveled with stuff to spend the night in the Valdemoro piso. I spent most the day building furniture but we ended pday by going bowling which was super fun. After that, we had district councel and planned for the baptism of Ariana that we have coming up on Friday. 

Tuesday, 2 of December: We had originally planned today to be exchanges so our day was super full. We started our day with a lesson with Adin! We talked to him about baptism and gave him a baptismal date, which was awesome. Then we had a lesson with Katerin and her to little kids. They are super funny. Then we met with Jean which went well. He's super interesting, but he's improving. After mediodia, we had a horrible lesson with a mega nerd. He just wanted to bash and was super condescending. After that, we had a first lesson with a street contact named liana. She super nice and she basically said, "I want to get baptised, but let's wait till Thursday so my daughters can take a baptismal date as well." Then we had an amazing lesson with Cinthia and Carlos. They are super nice and funny and we also gave them baptismal dates.

Wednesday, 3 of December: I had exchanges with Elder Sircable and it went decently well. All 5 of us went to Valdemoro in the morning and I started the day with the companionship councel with Sircable. It went well and we came to the conclusion that the most fixable problem he has is he just never uses goal or key indicators because he doesn't think it can truly show the success of a missionary. Obviously it can't show your success with 100 accuracy, but setting goals helps you maintain a relatively constant level of motivation. We talked about that for a while and it went better than I thought it would. We will see now if he locks in. Afterward, we had some street contacting and a videocall with Ariana which went super well. Later we had a lesson with Mayerlin. The lady we met I think last week. She almost accepted a baptismal date, but wanted to pray about the day. After that, we all traveled back to Aranjuez. 

Thursday, 4 of December: We had a lesson in Valdemoro this morning so right after getting ready, we traveled over there, but when we got there he canceled😭. We had a bad lesson with Jean as well. As his grandma and her husband made out behind a curtain, we taught about 5 times why the principle of baptism with the proper authority from God was necessary. But every time he would just not agree and say all churches will get him to heaven. After that, we did studies and met with Ramon which went good. He's just kinda not all there. Right after we met a super nice mom and son (Diorelis and Luis). It was raining and they were on a bench crying in a park, but we had a super nice conversation. Later, we met with Henry and he was kinda weird and we talked about him getting baptized, which he said he would pray about.

Friday. 5 of December: We got transfer news!!! I found out I'm staying another in Aranjuez/Valdemoro😭. Elder Hulterstom is going to be my companion😭. Elder Plewe is going to Alcazar (where I was before this area with Elder Adams). Elder Taylor is going to Cadiz. Elder Sircable crashed out partially because of me and then also because he's staying in Toledo. But!! We had the baptism of Ariana, which was awesome! Although the hot water didn't work and the water was freezing, but it went great and she had a good time! So it was a good day. 

Saturday, 6 of December: We moved all of my stuff into the new Valdemoro piso this morning, and then I unpacked everything. After that, we studied and did some hype street contacting. We had the final Dominos come y bebe meal. Then we also met with Dora and Carmen, which was great. She remembered almost everything. Then we went back to Aranjuez so the other Elders could pack their stuff.

Sunday, 7 of December: We went to church and the bishop had his baby blessed and there was a bunch of random Spaniard homies. After church, we all ate and the others packed then we traveled in the evening to Madrid for a stake activity and Christmas conference. Every ward had a choir and they all took turns. Then, we all went to the hotel and it was chaos. They gave all 70 of the missionaries' keys to the rooms to us (me and Elder Taylor and another zone leader named Elder Robinson). So we spent like a whole hour giving all the missionaries their keys. But the hotel put some elders and hermanas together so we had to fix that. But the whole thing took awhile. (**Note from mom- Then we had probably the shortest and most distracted call EVER with my family. Mom was getting frustrated because I was talking to everyone around me and the call only lasted about 25 minutes.)

*The big whole-mission Christmas conference was the next day, Monday, but I will put that in the next post with lots of pictures!

Thanksgiving!

Note from Mom: This week was pretty fun because it felt like we got to talk to Gabe even more than usual! Last week Sunday, we talked as usual on the phone/Facetime. Then, his Pday was switched to Tuesday, so we had a day in between that we didn't talk, but then we messaged a bit on Tuesday. Then, Thursday was Thanksgiving, so he got to call us for a 30-minute call at the end of his day! It was fun because we were at Josh's parents' house and had just finished our Thanksgiving dinner and it was about 2:00 when he called, so we kind of passed the phone around and he got to talk with everyone there. He talked with Carter about his upcoming mission to Georgia (he leaves in January) and he talked to Brennen, who is working on his mission papers now. Then we didn't talk to him Friday or Saturday, but then it was Sunday again and we chatted again! It really made me grateful for the changes that were made back in 2019. I can't imagine just feeling like you're totally losing touch with your child for two years, and then they get home and you feel like you don't even know them anymore. That would be the literal worst. Anyways, the highlight of this week for Gabe was probably getting the new Valdemoro piso set up and spending a night there. 

Here are Gabe's notes:

Tuesday, November 25 - Monday, December 1, 2025

1. Exchanges

2. Transfers soon

3. Valdemoro Piso

I had an exchange with Elder Stucki this week! It went super good and we gave a super awesome guy a baptismal date over videocall. It was super cold in the morning though.

We will be getting transfer calls next week so we will be seeing if I'll be going for transfer 7 in Aranjuez... (I did 4 transfers right at the beginning of my mission, and 2 just recently now...)

We got the long awaited Valdemoro piso and it's kinda weird. Very small, smells weird, bold paint colors. But we got all furniture the other day, so we are going to do a crazy transformation video by the end of pday today. 

Day-by-Day Notes:

Tuesday, 25 of November: We woke up early and left for Madrid because of the workshop. Us and the STLs gave a pretty good workshop and after that, we all played sports for a while until we ate. The Frys (senior missionaries) had made an amazing meal for the whole zone. They are super nice. Afterward, we went back to Aranjuez and had district councel. 

Wednesday, 26 of November: I had exchanges today with Elder Stucki and it went pretty good. We did a lot of street contacting and set a baptismal date with a man on his first lesson with the missionaries while over videocall. Elder Stucki lives in my same apartment, but he is companions with Elder Brinkerhoff, who is training him. So he's almost done with his first twelve weeks of "training" now (he got here the beginning of September.) He reminds me of Elder Olson in al ot our ways. He's a good guy and we had a fun day chatting.

Thursday, 27 of November: We had 3 videocalls this morning, which was long. Then we had some hype street contacting in Valdemoro and that went pretty good. Afterward, we had an amazing dinner with Daguimar and her family. Bruno and Bautista, her two oldest kids, are gone to Switzerland right now because they are working there for a few months, so it was just her two daughters and a couple other women, and then us five missionaries from my apartment. She made a bunch of American Thanksgiving food and we had a great time!

Friday, 28 of November: We had the hype 3-hour goals call this morning and it went super good. After that, we traveled to Ciempozuelos and we met with Cecilia, which went great. Then we went to Valdemoro and had a super goofy videocall with a guy named Antonio. He looked drunk. Then we had some good street contacts and found a super nice mom and son we will hopefully meet with tomorrow. Their names are Mayerlin and Tito.

Saturday, 29 of November: Today was kinda weird, but it still went pretty good. We met with Ariana this morning and reviewed baptism and talked about some small details with her baptism. She is all set to be baptized on Friday, December 5. After that, we went to the new Valdemoro piso and set up bunkbund that the Frys had brought while they went and bought more stuff for the piso (pots, pans, dishes, desks, table, etc.) After we assembled the bunk beds, we had an interesting lesson like always with Jean (the guy who originally never wanted to come to church, but then got chastised by Jesus in a dream and now he comes) and then with a man named Luis and his wife Teresa.

Sunday, 30 of November: Church today went great! We had Adin, Ariana, and Jean come. After church, we did studies and went to Valdemoro to weekly plan and street contact a bit. Then we gave a baptismal date to a man named Luis. He lives with Ivonne and we think they're dating, which is a problem because they're probably not married. 

Monday, 1 of December: **Gabe didn't actually send this, so I'll just write what I know. In the morning, they woke up and traveled to Valdemoro I think. At Thanksgiving, Josh's mom gave me a $50 bill to deposit into Gabe's account as his Christmas present, and she told me to tell him to take his companions out to dinner with it and send her a picture. So, they went to this Peruvian restaurant and he said they got food to go, and took it back to the Valdemoro piso to eat it. I will post the picture here. Then, they went bowling for some Pday fun. Gabe didn't do very well. I got two videos and he missed all the pins both times. I think on the third video he knocked down a few pins. Elder Plewe and Elder Taylor were teasing him. lol Then they went back to the piso and set up some more stuff and got their beds made. They were planning on spending the night there and then waking up Tuesday morning, doing some street contacting and whatever else they do, and then traveling back to their Aranjuez apartment Tuesday night. 

They will find out on Friday if any of them are getting transferred or not! But they said they would just sleep in Aranjuez for sure the rest of the week and then see if any of them end up moving into the Valdemoro apartment next week after the Christmas conference in Madrid on December 9th! It will be exciting to find out what next week brings!