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!
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment