February 20, 2013

The LDS Church Building in Las Palmas

Dear Family!
I´m glad to hear that all is still well over yonder in Texas!! Not too much has happened here except for the fact that all is well. I´ve learned a lot and am trying to apply what I learned to the work! I hope that I can do it well and that I can have a mission experience different than what I have had in the past. Not saying that it was bad, just saying that I´d like to change a bit while here on the mission. Anyway, here´s what has happened here in Las Palmas, and here on Gran Canaria in general.

Tuesday we had P-Day with all of the missionaries from the Canary Islands so it was really cool!! I loved spending time with all of them, and was really happy to see Elder Forrest, Elder Wride, and Elder Argyle again!! It was really cool!! We went to the mission home first and had lunch with the Buhlers as well as with President and Hermana [Sister] Jackson! It was a good lunch. We then went to try to play fútbol [soccer], but then it started to sprinkle and so we went back to the mission home. We then drove all of the missionaries down to Las Palmas for a proselyting activity, and that worked out super well!! We went off with different companions and walked and contacted. It was really fun!! I went with Elder Cloward and we drove the Beast up to Escaleritas [little steps – probably a part of Las Palmas], parked it, and left it there while we contacted people. We found a deaf guy, and that was interesting! I did the same thing as the last time that I encountered a deaf person and took out my planner, and started "talking" to him. It was cool, and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon so I hope that he will read it!! We then received a few more and at 9 we had to be at the JAS [young single adult] center. So we got there, drove the missionaries up to the Mission Home, and then went back to our piso [apartment].

The island "Beast"

So, Wednesday was a GREAT day!!! Elder Valenzuela and I got up early to be able to get to the Mission Home on time to be able to eat breakfast as well as take the missionaries down to the chapel and be there by 8:30. At 10:00 am, we had Mission Tour with Elder Patrick Kearon of the Seventy. We learned a lot about finding and how to feel the spirit in the lessons! It was pretty cool!! I really liked the way that he emphasized how much we have to change in order to be able to get different results. It made me think of how I do things and really made me want to change how I contact and teach a bit. It was AMAZING!!! After the amazing mission tour we took the missionaries of Tenerife to their boat and then dropped off the beast at the car rental place. It was fun to drive a beast again, but the Mission Tour was much better, and I´d prefer that over driving the beast any old day!! We then had a lesson with Fani and Anie accompanied us over there. It was more of a question answer lesson for Fani´s "boyfriend" that lives with her. His name is Gines, and he´s got some really good questions! I´m sure that he will be baptized a bit later on.

The Zone, with Elder Kearon (seated, front middle, next to President Jackson.)

Thursday we had a few lessons with some investigators and it was really cool!! Samuel we talked about how faith in Jesus Christ can help him quit smoking. We also gave him a quit smoking program and he´s really excited to try it out. We then met with Jose and talked about fasting. He told us a bit of how he has a medical issue with it, so we told him that if he can, he can do it, but if not, it´s not a problem either. We then talked to Juan about obedience and why it´s so important. We also confirmed with him to see if he was ready for his baptismal date, and he said that he is!! Hope all goes well. We then went to an intersection of a street to meet with a contact from Elder Wride and Elder Forrest from the proselyting activity called Angel. He´s a pretty cool guy and it was pretty cool to talk to him. We then passed by Maria to see how she was doing and see if she needed anything from us. It was a pretty good day!!

Friday we had Cristian and we talked to him about gratitude, and why it´s important to be grateful for all that we have. I think it may have opened his eyes a bit more to being grateful for Jesus Christ, but I think we will have to expound a bit more on Jesus Christ with him the next time so that he can more fully appreciate it. We then had Andres and he´s another less active because of work. We talked to him about being grateful as well, so it was a Thanksgiving Day...without the turkey. Oh well, it was better than turkey, it was a spiritual feast, hahaha. We then went back to that same intersection to meet Angel at the same time like planned, but he didn´t show up. We waited for about half an hour, but nothing. So we walked away, and I was a little bummed, but it´s happened before. About an hour later, we were talking to a guy in a store from Argentina, and in came Angel!! I was shocked and thought of it as a miracle!! It was super cool and I loved it!!! We then walked around and talked with him a bit, and the conversation got a bit weird, so we tried to get rid of him, and when we did, we decided not to meet with him again since he was a bit weird, but oh well. I hope to see him again and be able to talk to him about faith in Jesus Christ and that through Him, we can all change and leave the past behind. That was it for that day.


Arucas

Saturday was a crazy, awesome and wonderful day!! We decided to go to Arucas, a pueblo here in Gran Canaria, that is about 45 minutes away on bus, but yeah!! We visited less actives of the church, that went inactive when they closed the branch there. It was sad to see that there were some faithful members there, but that are inactive because of that. Oh well, that´s life I guess. We visited Claudina, an elderly lady, and Antonia, who is that faithful member. I hope that all goes well with her and that she is better. She wants her kids to get baptized, but with the lack of money, she can´t take a bus down since it costs about 2€ per person to get down, so 12€ round trip with her, and her two kids. Insane amount of money, but I hope that she can come by some other means some time soon. We then went back to Las Palmas, and since the 1st of February up until the 17th, there has been a carnival going on. And, that pretty much means, that people dress up, and go and have "fun." Pretty scary actually, especially on the ride back from Arucas, because everyone was going to the carnival. And guys are dressed up as girls and men dressed like women, and it´s just too crazy. So, when we got home, we saw that the carnival had come up to a street really close to our piso [apartment], so we decided to stay in for the night.

Sunday we went to church and it went well. Not many investigators came either, but oh well, I hope that they could come next time. We tried to have a lesson with Jose, but that didn´t work out. We also had correlation, and that was good. We talked about all of the investigators and what we could do to help them. We then went to the Noche de Hogar [home evening] and the Buhlers made enchiladas!! They were really good, but not as good as mom´s. Too much cheese for my taste, but that´s okay.
Monday, we contacted all day!! We talked to people on the street all day, and tried to get someone that was interested to listen to us, but it didn´t work out too well. We got two people´s numbers, out of like 50 or 75 people that we talked to. Oh well, that´s something that I need to work on. Tuesday we did exchanges and I went to Vecindario! It was pretty cool!! I learned how to do more effective contacts from Elder Rockwood, and it was pretty fun!! We had lots of lessons set up, but none of them worked out. So we contacted, and it was amazing!!! We also got a reference of a lady called Sonia, yeah, super cool!! She´s Canarian, and has a kid, and has a lot of potential!! Super awesome! We then did end up teaching two lessons, one with recent converts, which were two kids, and another one with less actives. Super fun!!

Elder Bauer, Luram and Elder Valenzuela

Today was an interesting day. We drove (I drove) up to Las Palmas to make the change again and we then walked out of the piso [apartment] to do email. Elder Valenzuela closed the door to the piso [apartment], and asked if I had the keys. I didn´t since I was gone, and he didn´t either. So, we were locked out of our piso. I must admit, that I could have gotten angry and such, but I learned from Elder Kearon that I need to enjoy every moment of the mission and of life. I just laughed and hoped that we would get in somehow. We left and did internet a bit, but I didn´t have time to write this email, so we had to leave and do other things. We ended up talking to Guadalupe, a contact we had since November, and she´s from MEXICO!!!! Super cool!!! We talked about the restoration and how it´s a great acontecimiento [event] (I don´t know how to say that in English) and I´m sure that she felt the spirit. We then left her with a Book of Mormon and committed her to read it. It was a good little lesson. We then met with the Buhlers and Elder Buhler helped us out with some money to pay the guy to open the door for our piso [apartment]. We then called the guy and he opened our piso [apartment] door, and then we talked to him about the gospel a bit, and he accepted to read the pamphlet about the restoration. He said that he was ateo [atheist] (another word I don´t know in English) but that he liked to read about different religions. Now we´re here emailing again. I hope that your week was great and I hope that you have another great week!! Take care and I´ll talk to you soon!! Love you all!!

Elder Bauer