April 22, 2013

Cuenca is a United Nations World Heritage Site.  It was established by the Moors in the 700s and has been walled ever since.  It is a well preserved medieval Spanish city.

Dad and Family,

This week has been full of buff fingers!! We´ve been tocando timbres [ringing doorbells] and knocking doors for a good while this week! Super cool, but also super crazy! We´ve become timbre [doorbell], door knocking machines here in Cuenca! I´m glad that all has gone well over there in Texas! So today I got my flight itinerary for the 30th of April. I got a crazy feeling of nerves as well as just missing Spain. It was pretty much the same feeling that I got when I opened my call, but not the whole shaking and nearly falling over on the floor dead, but the realization that I´m going home....just....crazy!!! Enya is calming me down as I write this email though so it´s all good. Haahahahahaaaaa. Anyway, on to my week!!

So Monday of last week we visited an investigator couple and it was a good visit, we actually ended the night with them. We talked about 3 Nephi 11 and watched the last scene of The Testaments and it was good. Little kids running around all of the time, but it´s really funny and I guess it´s okay if they are little kids. Before them we taught another couple and we pretty much talked about obedience to the commandments of God, especially the Word of Wisdom since he´s having trouble with that commandment. He´s a cool guy, but he just has a bit of trouble with that, and going to church, but his job doesn´t really allow him to do so. He did say that he´d come this next week.
 

More of the walls surrounding the old town of Cuenca.

Tuesday we had four lessons set up so we were pretty happy! Unfortunately little by little, they went failing. Oh well, we did just as you probably thought! We knocked doors, just like the grand machines that we are!! We did teach Jose, the recent convert from the Dominican Republic, about Temples! Super cool and he looks happy like usual! Aside from that, knocking doors! Later on in the night we took the last bus to Madrid so that we could go to the Temple the next day!!! Speaking of Temples, haha.

Wednesday we started early since our session in the Temple was the first one, at 8:00 AM, so we left and took the bus over to Pavones. It was a cool little experience!! I just LOVE the Spain Madrid Temple!!! Super pretty and just amazing! I stayed in the celestial room for a long time since I knew it was the last time that I´d see that Temple. Super sad. =( I just noticed that I use the word super a lot, as well as the exclamation points, sort of overuse them super too super much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well, it´s just that everything is super amazing and super cool that I just have to use the super word "super" a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As well as these ->! Anyway, moving on. We then did exchanges and I came back to Cuenca with Elder Shumway, our wonderful district leader and it was a great day of knocking doors. We had a good day too, but the lessons failed us again. We did have one lesson, and she´s pretty cool!! She´s known missionaries before and has a mini testimony of the truth, but it just needs to be nurtured a little bit more, just like in Alma 32!!! We then knocked doors some more!


Elder Bauer in Cuenca

Thursday was not weekly planning since I wasn´t with my companion. HA, tricked you guys!! We taught a cool Spanish guy! He´s super awesome and super cool!!!!! He pretty much said that the first visit was going to be to get to know each other and then we´d speak of religion a bit later. I thought, cool, that´s what the first lesson is for!! So we did just that, and then he asked us if we could share a 5 minute summary of what our message is. So, we did just that, pretty much putting everything together into a big mesh with the Plan of Salvation and mixing it up to make sense. Later he asked us what we would say to a guy that would have 5 minutes to live. Elder Shumway told him that he´d say that there´s the esperanza [hope] (English is bad) that he´d see his family again after death. Then he told us a bit of what Jesus Christ means for him. Super cool testimony!! We then talked over peanuts and Coca Cola. Super cool guy!! His wife is from Holland, and speaks English really well! Then guess what we did. If you guessed knock some more doors, you´re RIGHT!!!! You just won a prize!!! Go buy yourself a prize since I don´t have one for you. Hahaha. Elder Shumway then left and I was with Jose for 45 minutes until Elder Lyman came.

Friday we actually had lessons!! But before that, we had weekly planning!! Super fun!!!! We then had medio día [lunch break], then we went to the lessons! We taught one of our couple investigator, but the husband wasn´t there.  We took Jose with us so it was all good!! Super good!!! We pretty much asked her why she wanted to get baptized since she expressed desires for that. She pretty much just said that she would have to think about it and visit the church to make the decision. That´s fine, since I wouldn´t baptize someone that hasn´t gone to church. We then visited another couple, and that was a pretty stressful lesson. He was just sharing scriptures that didn´t have anything to do with the lesson and also asked really random questions. I eventually told him that he should listen to my companion since he was talking at the time. Since then he was pretty quiet. I´m not sure how things will work with them, but we´ll see. We ended the night with Petra and her husband. We shared the talk that Elder Holland gave, and they liked it!! They didn´t see it, but did watch General Conference. They missed the Sunday evening session, but that´s common here in Spain. We then ate with them.

As Elder Bauer explains this picture, "it is a waterfall thingy".

Saturday we had English Classes with Sabrina and her friend Elio, then had a lesson about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Super cool lesson, but to me it felt a bit long. We then ate with Sabrina and Elio and as usual, the food was good!! We then did what you could guess, yup, knocked some more doors!!! All of the lessons failed again!

Sunday we had Church and it was good, but weird to think that it was my second to last Sunday in Spain! We then had lunch with President Vaquera and his family there at the church since they live in Madrid. Crazy how far they have to drive to get to their branch that they are assigned to go to. We then knocked doors until 7:30 when we went over to an investigator couple’s house. He was tired so we just talked for a while and that´s about it. We then went over to Ana’s house. She´s really awesome and just loves the missionaries. She is less active since she can´t go to church because of her handicapped son. We sang a hymn and shared a bit of the significance of the hymn and then ended with another hymn. Super cool since she loves the hymns!! We then walked home the long way.

On a hike around Cuenca

Today we went on a 7 km hike!! Super awesome!!!!! We pretty much left Cuenca and came back! Crazy stuff!! Anyway, I hope that all is going well over there in Texas! I´ll talk to you next week...but seriously...in person!!!! Love you...BYE!!!!!!

Elder Bauer

Cuenca from the surrounding hills