July 18, 2012

The group that came with us to the Palace.

From Left to Right, top to bottom: Elders Alvarez, Antola, Hilton, Bauer (Alex), Beatty, Christenson, Hermanas [Sisters] I´m not sure, Mercado, Clark, Frandsen and Farias. Bottom, Elder Soriano, Hermana [Sister] Miron, and Elder Simmons.

Elder Bauer (Alex) with Elder Hilton, his first MTC companion ever

The Royal Palace of Aranjuez...

and surrounding gardens

Elder Simmons with s'more failure in (and on) hand

Family

So this week was pretty good!! Thursday nothing really happened except for weekly planning and contacts. Pretty boring actually, but that´s fine. Actually, something super cool and awesome happened!! So we had interviews with President Jackson and he got to know us more and we got to know him more! It was cool and fun!! The interview was really informal and that was different and interesting, but it´s fine!! I loved it!! He did make a mistake on going to the interviews and went to Parla when all of us were in Leganes, but it´s okay. He´s new and lost and green, but that´s fine!! He´s a great guy!! Friday we had to go to Leganes at 2:00 to give a blessing to someone´s baby since he was sick. The sisters are teaching the mom of the boy and so yeah. We had to go over and give the blessing and that was fun!! Later we had to go to Valdemoro to meet with the Branch Mission Leader so that he could introduce us to one of his friends to begin teaching him. We left Parla at 3:00 and got to Valdemoro at around 4:00. It´s not really that far, but he gave us a route that took us directly in front of his house so yeah. So we got there and his friend that he wanted us to teach didn´t show up, but we still ate without him. I don´t remember what the dish was called, but it had vegetables and raw fish as well as lemon juice. So it was my first time eating raw fish. I was praying that I wouldn´t get sick, and I didn´t. After eating that we ate rice with fried fish, then had flan for dessert.

After a while we were still waiting for his friend but he didn´t come, so we didn´t really want to make it a waste of time, so Amador is the name of the Branch Mission Leader of Aranjuez, talked to his other friend Hugo, who was there the whole time, and yeah. Hugo has had missionaries before but has been a bit hard on them and told us the whole story and yeah, pretty funny!! He then told us about other things and that´s when I started talking to him about The Family: A Proclamation to the World. He was having trouble finding a woman that wouldn´t just leave him after a while and he didn´t want to pass through that again and again since he´s already had it happen twice. The proclamation has one of my favorite paragraphs that I used and he started crying in the lesson so I´m sure that we hit a sweet spot there so yeah!!! I was happy!! So after talking to him for a bit, we had to leave so that we could get to Noche de Hogar [Family Home Evening] on time.

Saturday we had an okay day. We got to meet with a Muslim guy who we contacted in the street and yeah. We talked to him and it was a bit shaky, but good too. Later on we went to a less active´s house and saw her, and tried to animarla [cheer her up] a bit more. I don´t speak English, hahaha. After that we went back home. Sunday we also had another lesson with a referral sent to us. He lives in Ciempozuelos so it´s a bit far. He was super hard. We´d say one thing and he´d say, "No it´s not like that." So we showed him plenty of things that were easy to understand, and he kept saying that. I then just said, "Look, read, ponder and pray, that´s all you can, and have to do. You can´t listen and fight with us, pray and you´ll have the answer." He doesn´t believe in that either since other people pray for their books and receive an "answer" so yeah. I wasn´t really very happy. Not much else happened Sunday.

Monday we had set up 4 things and all of them failed us so we did contacts and former investigators. Tuesday was interesting. So Metrosur [southern subway line] has been cut off right at Getafe Central, the Renfe [commuter train] station two stops away from Parla, that is connected to Metrosur that takes us to Leganes. So instead of taking metro, we took a bus to a metro stop that was actually working. It was the longest trip to Leganes ever!! So we had district meeting and on the way back, Hermana [Sister] Frandsen told us how to get to a Renfe stop close by that would get us to a different Renfe stop to take us home. So we tried it, and it took just as long as the regular route with the metro, just more walking. We then met with Ana and she had a few doubts that we resolved and then we went to a less active’s house to eat dinner. They gave us a lot of food!! We showed him a Mormon Message about trials and how things will get better, from Elder Quintin L. Cook on Hope you Know, I´m having a Hard Time. It was good!! We then went to the Piso [apartment].

Today we went with a group of missionaries to Aranjuez to see the palace and the gardens there as well as eat s’mores. The palace and gardens worked out well, but the s’mores were a fail since we couldn´t melt the marshmallow. It was fun though. We then visited Cristina for the first time since her baptism just to see how she´s doing and to share a message with her. It was good!!! Take care and I´ll talk to you soon!! Love you all!!!

Elder Bauer