April 11, 2012

Elder Forrest, Alberto, and Alex

The missionaries serving in the Alcobendas Ward, at the bishop's house

Churros con chocolate

Missionaries at VIPs (on P-day)

Hey there me family!  (Yes, that me is on purpose.)

I´m glad that all is going well over yonder in Bloomington, Illinois. Well this week has been super cool!! I´m starting with Saturday!

So first thing that I have to say is that...WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!! Yeah, that´s right! So this guy is called Alberto and he´s read the Book of Mormon like 10 times, and I may have mentioned that, but I said it again! The time of the baptism changed to 12 noon just for convenience on his part, but all went well! We had a lot of coordination to do with the elders of Barrio 6 [the Madrid 6th Ward] so that the font would be filled and that everything would be ready for us on time. We (Elders Forrest, Wride, Torres, and I) got there at about 11:00 AM , and the Barrio 6 elders were there watching over the font. Those B6 elders are just awesome!! Elder Thurston, he´s super awesome, and SUPER tall!!! He´s 6 feet 5 inches tall!!! Taller than dad and Jonathan! Then Elder Thurston´s temporary companion for that day was Elder Paredes and he´s cool too!!! Both great guys!! Then I found out that my electronic key works for the whole stake center, as well as the CCM [Missionary Training Center]!!! Super cool since I got to open the doors to everything there and we actually needed it so that we could open the door to the font! Anyways, so the services started a bit late, but it´s okay. Elder Forrest and Alberto dressed in white and the program started in the chapel. Bishop Vierbuchen conducted the meeting and the spirit was there super powerful!!! I can honestly say that I haven´t felt it that strong at any baptism or any other meeting of the church than at that time. Probably because I was paying more attention than usual to my feelings, but it was great!!! The talks were super good and super well organized, and the ordinance itself was good!! Alberto then bore his testimony about why he joined as well as how grateful he was for the chance that he had to do what he did and have taken that step of baptism. His testimony was just amazing and I loved it! Afterwards the ward had brought a lot of refreshments and so we ate afterwards and all was well!! Later that day we had a lesson with Jennifer from the Dominican Republic and a friend that she brought. Not too much happened after the baptism, but that´s fine.

Sunday was a great day too!! Alberto got confirmed a member of the church, and I had the privilege of doing that. Super cool experience for me to do that too!! My words were definitely guided and it was pretty cool!! After the confirmation, we had a nice Easter sacrament meeting. Lots of talks about Easter and the resurrection as well as hymns played and sung! I liked it a lot!! After church we went to the bishop´s house to eat lunch with him and his family as well as others which include the Ovards. He and his family made a great Easter dinner for us and it was amazingly good!!! We then talked a bit about the traditions that we had for Easter as well as the history of our family in the church and it was a great little conversation!! Everyone around the table, except for the Bishop´s kids, spoke on the history of their family members joining the church. I´d like to know more about my ancestors since that experience so if you could send me stuff on that, that would be amazing!!! Then the desserts came out. Homemade carrot cake, super yummy, chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting, super good, and cheesecake with raspberries on top, SUPER YUMMY!!!! Yeah, all was yummy, and we left super full!!! They also gave us as a present a hollow chocolate bunny for Easter and that made everyone´s day as far as missionaries are concerned, so yeah!!! Fun day!

Monday we didn´t really do too much except for finding out transfers and having a lesson with the Portas family and it was good!!! Super fun, super interactive, and not just "Let´s read this scripture right here, and what does it mean to you" kind of stuff. We did read scriptures, but we had an activity with them also. They fed us right before, like always, and it was just awesome. They are just the best part-member family ever!!! We went back home after that lesson. Tuesday was a pretty crazy day for us! We had district meeting in the morning, and then went to the office from 1:30 until 3:00 PM. At three we left and drove to Pavones to pick up Elder Thurston for a baptismal interview for the Elders in Alcobendas (Elders Wride and Torres). So we dropped Elder Thurston off at the piso [apartment] and after about half an hour we left for the office again. Transfers are going well since everything is pretty much done. I just have to buy tickets now and send them to the appropriate people as well as make the sheet telling people what to do. We then found a Churreria [a place that makes and sells churros – see picture above] and had churros con chocolate [churros are a fried pastries flavored with sugar and cinnamon, eaten in Spain with thick hot chocolate – or coffee], and it was the best churros con chocolate that I´ve ever had in my life!!! Super yummy! Then we had a lesson with Javier, taught him a bit more on the restoration and then dropped Elder Thurston off at Pavones, and picked up Elder Perez so that he could go home to get residency done and then he comes back Thursday. Today we dropped off Elder Perez super early at the airport, then at 1:00 PM got together with all of the missionaries at a restaurant called VIPS and I had ribs with a chocolate shake. Yummy!! Now I´m writting!! I hope that everything goes well with you guys!! Take care and I´ll talk to you soon!!!

Love you all!!
Elder Bauer