October 26, 2011

Familia,

Well, let me just say this week has been another interesting week, but first I´ll start off by answering your questions. The members give me really good food!!! I like it and though it´s different, it´s really good!!! As for the dinner invitations, we don´t get more than two dinners with members per week. That´s okay since my companion knows how to cook! Our branch mission leader is Johel (twin brother of Johrs) and he´s great!! He recently had knee surgery so he´s not really able to do too much [see first picture above]. As for exchanges, we don´t do too many. I´ve only done one with the district leader, but we do go on splits with members of the branch about once a week.

Now, my week has been pretty good! Not too many new things except that a couple that have been investigating the church for a while have now gotten things together to get married and will hopefully get baptized in the next few weeks! That would be really good! I´m pretty happy about that! Oh and another thing! Transfers are this weekend. I´m not sure what will happen, I may stay and I may go so for the meantime, I hope that whoever is sending letters to the apartment where I live, doesn´t do so for about a week and sends it to the mission office instead. I don´t want to be transferred and not get my letters and not be able to reply to them because they are sent to the other apartment.  Aside from that, nothing really too new happened. I hope things at home continue to go well!! Hey, another thing, I´d like the mailing address of Blake (my choir buddy) if you could send it to me!! Take care my familia and be safe!!  Keep going...Energizer!!

Elder Bauer

P.S. The other pictures are of a lunch we had with a friend of Elder Gallego [Elder Gallego is in the second picture above] that moved here. The soup had clams in it and the meat in the plate that Elder Gallego was holding is lamb. There was also a Bulgarian dish there and it was really good that I ate it all!!!! YUMMY!!!!!

October 19, 2011

Daddio,

Well, I´ll start off by answering your questions. Elder Gallego (no s at the end) is from Southern Spain. I forget the city but he is a native. He speaks a little English, but not much. My wish came true I guess. I have to either speak Spanish to communicate or just not talk at all. I do a bit of both so yeah. He´s the Zone Leader, which is weird, usually the Zone Leaders are together, but right now they´re spread out trying to "fix" the mission. I´m not sure what that means, but it´s okay. As far as the District is concerned, there are only 4 elders in our district, including me. Super small in comparison to Salt Lake, but I don´t mind. The distances are huge too!!! The District Leader lives in Salamanca and we either have to travel there or they travel here. It´s a 1.5 hour bus ride there and back, so a total of 3 hours on a bus. Here in Valladolid we have a branch of about 75 to 80 active members and Elder Gallego and I are the only ones that serve there. The food here is interesting, and the first two pictures [see above] are of something that Elder Gallego bought and had me try. I can´t say that it tastes good or bad. It just tastes weird. I don´t know how else to describe it to you, but yeah. Then there´s a cereal that I really like that is called Rellenos con Chocolate and it´s super GOOD!!! They´re like squares filled with chocolate in the middle!! Yummy yum yum! I´ll see if I could send some home for you guys to try! I also like a pudding here that they have in the stores! It´s called something like Natillas Chocolate and ever since the CCM I´ve eaten some everyday!! The milk, well, let me just say, with Nesquik it tastes good!!!

Nothing too new to report this week, except that I got letters galore!!! I got letters from:
Chelsea Bakaitis
The Christiensons
Barry, Cristina, and Edison
Megan Eden
This week we also did splits with the District Leader. Elder Gallego went over to Salamanca and Elder Verdu (District Leader´s comp.) came here. That day we saw a guy figure skating, which was weird, but it´s okay. Then, Monday we did splits from 5 - 9. Elder Gallego went with a member and I went with another member. This member´s name is Jonathan, no joke. So Jonathan and I went out and we had to do at least 15 contacts and have 2 lessons. Well, we got two lessons out of 4 that we had planned, but at least we got two lessons. Contacts are harder to get because people either don´t have time or just don´t want to listen. We got 17 contacts though so it was all good! Jonathan is one of those members that I really like! He´s great!!! Not much else has changed, walking a lot and contacting more than having lessons, and Medio Dia is great!!! Two hours in the middle of the day to sit and either study or rest. I´ve been doing a lot of resting, but I´ll probably start a bit of studying so yeah. I´m glad all is well.   Pues, eso es todo lo que paso esta semana. ¿Cómo está la familia? ¿Estan bien? ¡¡Cuidanse y tengan una buena semana!! ¡Hasta luego!

~Elder Bauer~

October 12th 2011

October 12th, 2011

Daddio,

This past week sounds like it´s been wonderful!!! I´m glad that Giselle got to go to the Temple and do baptisms for the dead!!! I hope all continues to do well over there!! Here things have been pretty much the same. Lots of walking and stuff. Elder Gallego does things differently, but I´m learning a lot from him!! I´m sure we will do well here in Valladolid!! We´ve been working more with the members and trying to get their trust so that we could get more referrals from them. I´m hoping for the best! We´ve taught quite a few lessons to some investigators and recent converts! It´s been pretty cool!! I´m also getting to know the city really well!!! I know how to get from point A to point B and it´s all going good!!! We´ve been experiencing technical difficulties with the phones so our work with calling people has slowed down a lot, but it´s okay I´m sure. The Lord is testing us and it will work out in the end. For sure we will have a lot of exercise so yeah!! All is well though. Wow, this week’s email home is super short this time. I´ll see if I can´t find more to say next week. Haha. Take care and I love you all!!!

Elder Bauer


P.S. The pictures are of the Plaza Mayor here in Valladolid [see picture above], and of Elder Gallego! Enjoy!!!



Mother,

Well, this week has been interesting running back and forth and everything. I sent an email to dad already, so yeah, you´ll have to ask him about all of that. As for the weekly bulletin, I was going to send it this week, but the bulletin this week said something about not sending it to anyone since it´s for missionary eyes only. I´m not sure what else to tell you except that I´m obedient to the rules and won’t send it unless you get approval from the Sister Watkins on Facebook. =( Sorry about that.

Everything else seems to be doing good!!! I was happy to receive your package last week and yeah! Thank you for it and for the letters that were inside!! As for the address of my piso, I´ve been thinking a lot about it and, probably best not to put it on my blog after all. Make it public to everyone at church, but yeah, not on the blog. I´ll also send letters to those that are my friends so they´ll have the address. ¡¡Gracias por todo!! ¡¡Te amo mucho!!

Elder Bauer

My Friend who showed up and will follow me around!

Historical facts about Valladolid

There are some interesting historical facts about Valladolid. The most interesting is that it was briefly the capital of the kingdom of Castile. And in fact was the capital, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella married (and they married there). They reigned from Valladolid as well, making it the first capital of Spain. When Christopher Columbus returned from his voyages to the new world, it was in Valladolid that he bought a house and lived until his death. His home is now a museum.

In 1561, most of the city was destroyed by fire, which is why some architectural wonders you might want to see are not there. Since the old capital was destroyed by fire, Philip II decided to move the capital to Madrid. But some aspects of what you might see in Madrid are patterned after Valladolid (for example the Plaza Mayor).

The capital moved back to Valladolid in 1601, under King Philip III. It didn't last long. There was a flood of the Pisuerga and Esgueva rivers in 1606. The flood again destroyed a large portion of the town, and convinced the king to move back to Madrid.

Another interesting person to have lived in Valladolid is the famous Spanish author, Cervantes. His most well known work is Don Quixote. The only house he ever owned that still survives today is found in Valladolid, and is of course a museum.

Yes, I'm here!

Cathedral of Valladolid

 

The Cathedral of Valladolid (its official name is Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Valladolid) was built in the 16th century and is a good example of renaissance architecture.  Note the horizontal rectangular design, typical of the architecture of the renaissance.  This cathedral was designed by Juan de Herrera, and is a good example of taking a renaissance theme and making it Spanish - instead of Italian.

The church of Santa Maria la Antigua in Valladolid

La Iglesia de Santa Maria la Antigua is very old.  Although they have found Roman ruins beneath the church, parts of the church you can see were erected in the 12th century.  Other components of the church are comparatively new.  As it turns out, the church is built on a not-so-stable foundation (one source says it is built too close to a river - but it is built right next to the cathedral, which doesn't have similar problems).  Like most churches of that era, they had pieces added and renovations made to it.  But this is one of the oldest church (even on average for the pieces) in Valladolid.

Alex, Elder Thurstin, Elder McGrath, and Elder Arjona

October 3rd 2011

Dad,

Thanks for that letter! I´ll try my hardest to know when meetings are and all of that stuff so that I can be a more effective and more well planned missionary. I agree with the "object lesson" thing. I don´t do any object lessons. For one thing, my brain isn´t able to think fast enough for one, and PMG says that they should be converted by the spirit, not an object lesson.

As for conference, we watched the first session of Saturday Morning General Conference at our church building. It´s not too far from our Piso. 10 minute walk so yeah. We watched it live at 6 pm. So much for Saturday Morning, that´s Saturday Evening. Sunday we watched the Priesthood session in the morning from 10 - 12, then the Saturday Afternoon session from 2 - 4, then Sunday Morning live from 6 - 8. We couldn´t watch the Sunday Afternoon session because it would have gone from 10 - 12 at night. We had to be in the piso by 10 and to bed at 11:30. Now we changed the schedule from a later schedule to this one. Later schedule must be for the summers and this is the Winter schedule. Wake up at 7 am, be back to the piso at 9:30 and in bed by 11. Different from Salt Lake, but oh well.

Well, I hope all is well over there in the lovely Bloomington, Illinois...well...green Bloomington, Illinois. Take care, get well, stay neardy and have a lovely week!!! Love you!!

Elder Bauer

[P.S. Could you combine this letter with the one I sent to mom on my blog? ¡Gracias!]

Mom,

Well, I´ll see what I can do about sending letters to William and Hayden! Now, for my mission address, it´s okay to put the address of my home if you haven´t already put it there. The Don Sancho whatnot, I don´t know it off the top of my head, but yeah. It´s okay to put that on my blog so that people know where to send letters so that I don´t get letters from people months after they sent them. That´s what I heard from the missionaries here. If you send it to the mission office, you´ll most likely not get them for a month or two so yeah. I hope that all is still going well over at home!!

Well, nothing really exciting is going on except that this has been the weirdest transfer of my life!! All of my companions are leaving at some point this week and a new companion is coming in. Picture #1 [seen in the post above this letter] are all the missionaries that live in the same piso (apartment) that I do. They are, from left to right, me, Elder Thurstin, Elder McGrath, and Elder Arjona. Elder McGrath, my real companion, left yesterday for the Canary Islands, Elder Thurstin is leaving today for Madrid, and my new companion is coming from Madrid, and Elder Arjona is going to the US for his mission. He was waiting for his visa here so yeah. Weird transfer this has been.

The next few pictures are some sights here in Valladolid so yeah. Figure out which ones are which, because I don´t know. Crazy day, and by the way, before I forget, I did get the package you sent me!! It was a fun package to get!! Thank you!!! I probably won’t need as much stuff next time, but it´s okay! =) Now, the last picture is of a friend that I saw here, and I didn´t think I´d see him again for two years!! For some reason, he just showed up and it was crazy!! We talked a bit and I told him it would be okay to follow me around on my mission for the rest of the two years, well, 18 months give or take a few days so yeah! We took a picture and yeah! Now don´t freak out or anything, because the Energizer Bunny is the friend I´m talking about so yeah! Thanks mom!!! Well, that´s about it. I hope to hear from you guys another time soon!!! How´s everything back home? Anything exciting happening this week? Take care and I´ll talk to you soon!!! Love you all!!!

P.S. Wish Giselle a Happy Birthday and a Happy New Year for me!! Thanks!! =D