Elder Ezra Bauer: January 2, 2013

Las Canteras beach ...

... at sunset.

Well hello everyone over yonder!!!

I´m Elder Bauer still and I´m still here in Las Palmas. I know, that is a little of a duh moment, but whatever. Well, since I didn´t send you guys an email with pictures last week, I´ll send you a little something this week of what happened last week and Christmas week! It was all super fun!!! I´ll start with Monday, the 24th, how about that!!

Well, it was a pretty good day even though we didn´t really have anything planned in the morning. Just studies and we also did a bit of contacting since we didn´t have anything else to do. We did go and visit Oscar, Gabriela, Josue, and Cristian and had a little Christmas message about the Savior. Super cool!! We then went to a member´s house to eat Christmas dinner - Yanira´s house with her family that is, I don´t know their last name, but it´s okay, you get the point, we ate with members. The Eynon´s and the Hermanas [sisters] also came and it was a full house!! We were the members, which were about 7 or 8, and 6 missionaries! CrAzY rIgHt!!! Yeah!! We read the birth of Jesus Christ first before we ate according to their tradition and it was pretty cool!! We started eating at 9:00 and didn´t get out of there until 11:15. Pretty crazy and yeah. Not cool, but oh well. We were then picked up by the Elders of Vecindario and that was good!! We got to the mission home at around 12:00 midnight and didn´t get to sleep until 1:00.

Christmas themed sand art ...

... also at Canteras beach.

Tuesday the 25th was Christmas Day!!!! YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I woke up at around 6:00 and couldn´t get back to sleep. At 7:00 the cellphone alarms went off and we got up and got ready for the day. At 8:30 I went out to the living room and found Hermana [Sister] Voemba there already reading. I then started to read my scriptures too, and study and stuff. Then the rest of the missionaries pretty much came out and did the same thing. At around 9:00 or 9:30 we ate a breakfast casserole and it was really good!! We then went around the room and all of us shared a scripture about the birth of the Savior. We then did the "white elephant" gift exchange and it was pretty fun and funny!! I ended up with cookies made by Hermana [Sister] Eynon. We then opened the gifts that the Eynons gave us and they were pretty cool!! I got a tie that was a Texas tie so I´m ready to get to Texas, hahahahahaa!! Then I also got a BYU shirt which is great because it adds to my P-Day clothes, haha. I then talked to you guys and it was fun to see you guys. I was just thinking that every time I called you guys, you were in a different place. Hahaha, pretty funny!! We also ate dinner and it was really good as well. Hermana [Sister] Eynon makes really good food!!! I love it!! We then had a little Noche de Hogar [home evening] with the Nealson Family and they were also nice enough to drive us home after! We got home at 8:00 pm and it was really not a good idea to do any contacts because no one was out. We pretty much walked around for a while and at 9:15 we went back to the piso [apartment].

Gifts: A Texas tie, and a BYU t-shirt [yes, my son has been corrupted] ...

...but everyone in the district was equally corrupted.

[The blog editor attended the University of Utah - this is meant in jest.]

Wednesday we ate with a member from Chile and it was pretty fun!! We then tried passing by some people but no one was at home. We did visit Fani, and that was pretty cool!!! We taught her the Plan of Salvation and it was pretty cool how she´s understanding everything!! I love it!!! Super cool, but that´s it.

The view from the mission home in Las Palmas.

Evidently, the place is for sale - Any takers?

Thursday was started with...Weekly planning!!! We then went out and had lunch with Lourdes and her family (Gabriela, Josue, and Oscar), and shared a scripture with them! They are a super cool family!! We then left and went to see Jose and talked to him about the Law of Chastity and he understood everything, but now, instead of saying his classic, I want to get baptized and I´m going to get baptized, he´s saying, now I can´t get baptized because I have to get married. We´ve kept telling him that he can and he will, but he has to live the commandments. Pretty hard sometimes to be able to teach him, but we´ll continue until he gets an understanding. We then went back to Oscar and taught him the Plan of Salvation. We made a mistake by teaching him the whole thing, but it´s fine, we learn from our mistakes. I´m trying to think of ways to make him participate more in the lessons. I´ll continue thinking, but it´s something that I would really like to master. Later on we went to the Port and shared a message with Maria. It was pretty cool and I liked it. It was the same as with Lourdes and her family earlier.

Friday we saw Cristian and taught him about Priesthood and it was good that we did. He didn´t know that with the Melchizedek Priesthood he could give blessings and stuff. We taught him a little bit about that and he was really interested and amazed. We then didn´t have anything else planned so we did contacting and got 4 references which was really cool!!!! That´s the most references that we´ve gotten in a day since I´ve been here!!

Elder Claus (I mean Valenzuela)

Saturday we played a bit of fútbol [soccer] with some non-members and it was pretty fun, but at the same time it was way too cold to play. We then went and got ready for the day and then saw Gabriela and helped her with her talk. It was the first talk that she gave in sacrament meeting and she wanted us to go over and help her out. Later on we went and saw Fani and talked to her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ! She keeps saying, "So, when I get baptized..." and it´s really cool that she has that mind set. She understands everything that we teach her too so I´m sure that she will get baptized soon!!! That´s it for the day!!

Sunday we went to church and it was a 5th Sunday so we had 3rd hour combined! The branch president shared the plan that he has for the Branch and it was presented really well!! He´s a really good public speaker! We then went to eat at a member´s house who lives near 7 Palmas, still in Las Palmas, but it´s a section of the city called 7 Palmas. We then were driven back down to be able to meet with Jose and he said the same things that he did last time about not being able to get baptized until he gets married. We were planning to teach him the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but held off on that to explain a bit more of what the Law of Chastity is. I´m not sure if he understood or not, but that´s fine. We got him to start the process of marriage, so he´s understanding little by little. We then had correlation meeting and then went to the last Noche de Hogar [home evening] that the Eynons are having. It was pretty sad too, but it´s something necessary.

Elder Bauer trying to look as good as his father. I give him some credit for the pocket square, but where is the bowtie?!

Monday was a day of nothing. Well, not quite, we did help Jonatan with a bit of his service to others. We helped him take clothes to a family in need and we will also pass by later to give them a little treat! When we said that, their faces lit up like little children when they get presents! It was awesome!! We´re going to see if something comes out of that and if they will listen to the message we have. We then went to Fran and Raquel´s house to eat and the food was good!! Pasta with tomato sauce. Right after that, we went over to Jesus´ house and ate tamales. Super good, but we were super full!!! We then decided to walk to Gabriela´s house and see her, but there wasn´t a guy at home so we couldn´t. So since we were still full, we decided to walk home. It was a pretty long walk, like 45 minutes to an hour, but at least the food went down, haha.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It´s 2013!!!! That´s crazy to think about. Time has gone by so fast, like seriously!! I remember a year ago I was in Valladolid, and then I realized that in 2012 I was in every single one of my areas in Spain!! Valladolid, Alcobendas (San Sebastían de los Reyes), Parla, and here, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria!! This is probably the warmest January I´m going to have in my life!! Not much went on, but we did visit Oscar and taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He´s getting better at understanding and so it´s all good!!! I´m glad that he´s wanting to do everything. He read too so that´s a double thumbs up!!! Wait...he read TWICE!!! Quadruple thumbs up, even though I don´t have 4 thumbs, but oh well, do it anyway!! Super cool, but he still needs to go to church. I hope that he does that soon!! We then went to San Telmo to try to get our January bonos [monthly bus pass] because we sort of started the New Year in a dumb way. We put in our December bonos to use the Guaguas [bus], but it didn´t work. I thought, "That´s kind of weird," but then I realized that it was not December anymore, but January. The place to buy the bono was closed too, so we had to wait until today. We´ll go see if it´s open later, but who knows. We then went to see Roberto y Lola and shared with them a New Year message!! Super cool!! That´s it.

Really long email, so I´ll just end it here. Today is P-Day and we´re cleaning the piso [apartment] really well. Deep cleaning!! Elder Eynon said yesterday after the district meeting that he was going to check pisos on Friday morning. I´m tired of cleaning, seriously. I spent all morning on my super dirty bathtub since other missionaries don´t know how to clean it. It´s now shiny and clean, more or less. Well, have fun reading this eternal letter. Love you bye!!!

Elder Bauer