August 1, 2012

Renfe Avant Train to Toledo

Toledo - with the Alcazar on the top of the hill

Entry into Toledo

Elder Ezra (Alex) Bauer in Toledo

Exterior picture of the cathedral in Toledo

Interior picture of the cathedral in Toledo

Family!

Well this has been a pretty good week!! So I learned a lot from what Elder McGrath told me after exchanges. We have a bit more as far as investigators/less actives. As far as reading things in Spanish, I can read perfectly. I read the scriptures and Preach My Gospel in Spanish so I have plenty of practice. Well, so here´s my week since Thursday!

So Thursday we had a total of two lessons and it was pretty good!! We had the elders quorum president come with us to a less active´s house that was found with Elder McGrath. It was a good lesson and he said that he´d come to church so that was really good!! We then had a lesson with Fabian and Maria who seem to be progressing pretty well, even though they may not notice it!! They read and stuff so it was all great!! Fabian also found a job last week so it was really cool!! Even though Spain is in an economic crisis, miracles still do happen! They have a greater desire to learn more and so that´s good!! Not much else happened Thursday so yeah!! Friday we had a lesson with Vincent and he´s pretty good, but not really progressing that much, but whatever. Then later that night we went to pick up a less active girl that Elders McGrath and Soriano found so that we could take her to the church for Noche de Hogar [Family Home Evening]. It was cool!! She moved here about four months ago so she doesn´t really know Parla super well and so she needed us to help her go back home so yeah. It was a pretty good day!!

Saturday we had pretty much nothing planned so guess what we did! We did contacts pretty much all day and got nine references out of it!! I was really quite happy about that! I told Elder Simmons and Elder McGrath all about it. Sunday we had church and that was pretty much it. Not much happened this week now that I look over it. Monday we went to see Maribel, she´s an elderly Spanish member, and she then took us out to eat at a Chinese restaurant and it was really good!! Talk about filling! We then got to the piso [apartment] and rested a bit then went out again! We then passed by the less active we visited Thursday and he didn´t go to church because his little girl had a tongue infection thing so he couldn´t go since his wife works and didn´t want to take her crying so yeah. Hopefully next Sunday. We then got a call from Ibet asking why we weren´t there at a Noche de Hogar [Family Home Evening], so we had to leave and run over and we gave the message unexpectedly so I shared a little something that Elder Hodges showed me which I´ll show you later!! It´s pretty cool!!! The Noche de Hogar [Family Home Evening] was good and super spiritual!! I loved it!!!

Tuesday we had zone conference in the morning and it was really good!!! President Jackson spoke and he told us about the goals that President Watkins had had about contacts and stuff and why they were taken off. He told us that he was getting a lot of letters that said that they didn´t get 105 contacts in the week so they failed and he said that he wants us to have success so yeah!! It was good!! Then the Assistants, Elders Ashworth and Jeppson, spoke on how to get good references and that was really good!! They used marbles for their presentation on three different examples on how to get references! One was contacting like crazy, the other was just staying with the members, and the other was doing a bit of both! Their message was that the bit of both works best and that we should try doing that in the mission work!!! I liked it! We then broke off into zones and did some contacting practice to get better at that! We then went back to the chapel (we were in Pavones in the stake center) and had closing remarks from the Jacksons and then we went to the CCM [Missionary Training Center] to eat! I haven´t been in that cafeteria since November so that was fun!! We ate and took zone pictures and left. Elder Forrest, my office companion has finally gotten out of the office and was put into Barrio 8 [Madrid 8th Ward]!! Super cool area and I´m pretty jealous!! He´ll have fun!! His replacement is Elder Bagley whom I´ve cursed into the office just like Elder Argyle, haha!! It´s been fun!

Today we went to Toledo and took the Renfe Avant [train – see picture prededing this e-mail] over and it took less time in a Renfe than in a car. In a car it takes up to an hour, hour and 15 minutes, but in the Renfe, it took 33 minutes. We looked around and went into the cathedral. We had a guided tour (not really, just guided since we had headphones and were listening to the recordings as we were looking around at the appropriate things). It was pretty cool!! We went in as a district, except for Hermana [Sister] Farias since she went with the others. We then went and ate pizza and chocolate ice cream as we were waiting for the rest of the missionaries to get there. We then looked at the statue of Don Quixote and left through a different route which was cool and I took tons of pictures!! We then returned near 5:00 and now I´m doing email!! I hope that all is well and that everything is going good over yonder!! Take care and I´ll talk to you soon!! Love you all!!!

Elder Bauer