Here are some pictures we recently got of Alex at the MTC! He did great and is now loving his time in Spain!
Alex by the Provo Temple
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
This week's letter!
Hello Family!
Well hello all! How is
everyone? Let me just start out by saying that this past week was really
amazing. Many great things are coming to Barrio 9 :) First off,
Antonio has his baptism this Saturday!! How great is that. He was a
little scared but he is all good now and is ready for it. Luis is also
getting ready for his baptism next week:) He has been waiting for about a
month and he can´t wait for it. As I said before, his wife is a less
active member but she has been coming back and wanting to come. Benito also
is so ready! He would so get baptized right now if he could. He is still
waiting to get married, Diana is from Peru and she has been waiting for
her papers and has them, but Madrid is taking a little time with this. It
takes some time here so they should be getting married in about a couple of
months, no one really knows. It is just good to know that they are ready
for this. They have been coming to church every single week and attending
all the activities we have, which is so good. They really want to get
married and the amazing thing is they want to go to the temple and do work for
his father and get sealed in the temple. Benito is on fire right
now. As you can see, our investigators are doing well. They all are
progressing at their own speed, which is fine. Some aren't doing as well,
which is not so good. Amanda has her date set for the end of this month, but we
can never meet with her. She has time to go out and play, but not for
us. She does work a lot, but she always says, oh, I just have no time, I´m
sorry. We set up lessons with her, then she drops us, but we get to
meet with her almost every Friday and Saturday. Soo it could be
worse. Well other than that, our investigators are doing great!
Well, I have had some amazing food
this past week. First off, as I have said, I am in South America. Well
this past week I have had a lot of great dishes from Peru, Ecuador, Dominican
Republic and other places. Well the best are these two. First, I
had this drink from the Dominican, It´s called Morir soñando... ohhh wow this
was so good. It has milk ,lots of surgar, and a lot of lemon juice.
It might sound gross, but it is so good!! Second was this dish from
Ecuador. Our investigator, Luis, loves to cook and he and his wife made
rice, mashed potatoes, and a lot of meat. Well it was sooo good and yes
they gave us a lot of it. He gave Elder Woodbury and me a big plate of
rice, like a mound of it, basically, it covered the plate with a big dish of
mashed potatoes. Then there was a slab of meat on the side. Ohhhh
it was sooo goood!!! And yes, I ate it all.. And yes, I didn´t eat till
the next morning because I was so full!!!
Well something sweet is I Met JC
Carrol, He plays for Madrid Basketball and I guess he is pretty good. He
just came to Sacrament because he had a game that night, but he was super nice
and talked to us about the mission. He went to Chile I believe. Well onto
some funny things that have happend to me. Well we were talking to Diana
about a dream she had. Scary dream. She says that she feels
something dark is around their piso, but she said it was gone until this dream
she had. She said that she saw this Black Shadow jump onto their Piso
mate and come back into their piso. I was kinda freaked out but she says
that Fernando (the mission ward leader) came over and talked to them and calmed
them down. Well the funny part is we were talking about satan. Well
the word for satan in spanish is Santanas... welll I said Santana... kinda
similar but not. She looked at me and started laughing and said... like
the rocker?? hahah well ooops I corrected myself and said sorry for the oops I
just had :P
Well when we are on the street, I
stand out. I am a tan so I kind of blend in, but my size screams
American. We were contacting and I just stopped and turned around to run
down some lady I saw. Well as I turned around this little old
Spanish Lady runs into me. I stay still, she goes flying. Her
glasses about fall off and she is madder than a wet hen. Ohhh she was
about to scream at me. I of course am shocked and help her get her
balance.. I say sorry and just go on my way to get the lady I needed to
stop. Well that´s happend a couple of times, but not as bad. I tell
you what, Spanish old women are mean. They stare at you and say some
weired things..
I mentioned before, but the
transportation is really good. The buses are fast and get you to where
you need pretty quickly. Yesterday we needed to get to the church.
We walked to the bus stop and the bus was about to leave. Well, I start
sprinting. I tighten up my back pack and just sprint. I caught the
bus, and my companion, Elder Woodbury just takes his time seeing that I got the
bus. That's happend a couple of times. Well family I love you all
so so much!! I miss you all and I can´t wait to call in a little bit!! I
LOVE LOVE LOVE YOUUUUU!!!!!
Love Your Favorite Spanish
Missionary,
Elder AlexLaubaugh!
Last week's letter
Hello all!!!
How is everyone?? Well this week has been reallly good and yes still very hard. Well just to let you all know, I had an interview with President Watkins yesterday :) It went really well and he was really impressed how much we are teaching and how the members are coming along. Yes Mitch, I told President what you told me to tell him. I told him that I am here to work, and to Light up Spain. I also told him that if he needs a missionary that is willing to work, that I am that Missionary :) He told me thank you and we went on our way with the interview. Well this week we also had 19 lessons. Our investigators are doing so well!! I am so glad that they are really wanting to change their lives around for this. I am so glad for the people who listen. We have another investigator. It was a member referral and she seems really nice. I hope she wants to hear more after the 2nd lesson. Well, as I said, our investigators are doing well. Luis and Andrea are doing super good! Every lesson that we have had with them, he has cried. He wants to be baptized so bad! I love it!! :) She is already a member and so is her family, but this is a really big step for him. Diana and Benito are doing super well too!! On Sunday he spoke up during class and said a comment that he wasn´t a member, but he will be soon and that baptism is just the first step he needs to take. He wants to go to the temple and do the work for his dad. I am so proud of him. I am so glad that the Lord has poured these blessings on us. He has helped me out so much this past week with Spanish. Our other investigators are also doing well. Some are doing really well, but need a little help with some of their doubts, but it´s life and they want to make sure on this decision they are making.
Well, today I got my residency card! YAY!! I don´t need to bring my passport to get food anymore! :) While we were going there, we had a great time. When we got to Aluche metro stop we got off and saw a guy being held down by 3 gaurds and a girl yelling at him. He tried to break free... bad idea. I wanted to see a good fight but all I saw was a random guy take his head and slam it to the ground to help out the gaurds. It was getting really intense so we stayed and watched him get slammed up against the wall. Well after that I got my haircut. It was much needed! Well we went to this cheap place that did a nice job. Well before I got it, the lady got a phone call. Well she started yelling in Chinese. She went outside and started yelling and yelling and saying all this Chinese words. She then stopped, hung up and came over to me and said, what would you like. I was freaked out because I didn´t want to get this messed up haircut because she is mad at some person. But she did a good job :)
Well this week I have been is Alma. Wow I love the Book of Alma. There is so much about missionary work and I knew that, but not to this level. I now have a favorite chapter, Alma 26. Wow what a great chapter! I love 10-13 about boasting in God, it really hit me for some reason. I was just thinking about it a lot this past week and this week also. I also love Ammon. Man was he a great missionary! I love how he was saying everyone laughed at them for going up to the Lamanites, but he showed them and converted thousands upon thousands of people. Love it! Well that is about it for this week. It has been really busy and we had a great day of contacting yesterday. We had 9 people that wanted to hear more, so hopefully a couple of them really do want to hear this message that we have! I hope that the trip went well!! I am not sure if you are still in Utah, but I hope that it was great!! And Great Job Mitch!!! Way to go!! Muy guai!!
I love you all so much and I hope that you are doing great!! By the way Dad, the other Elders in the Piso are really hard workers, they are really good. Well all get along really well and we both have great investigators. They just had a baptism last week and it went so good! Well I love you all!
Love your favorite Elder,
Elder Alex Laubaugh
Another great week in Spain!
Hello family! This week has been crazy goood!!!! First off, most of our investigators are doing so good. Unfortunately, Pamela (the one with the doubts) dropped us last Wednesday. It was sad, but she just didn't want it. She doesn´t want to obey the commandments so it was hard for us to get to her. We had set the date with plenty of time for us to get her ready and for her to feel ready. Amanda is doing well. She wanted more time because she knew she was doing this for her kids, not for her, so she wanted to have a testimony. That was so good that she told us because she has been really good. But, I could tell that she needed more time. Antonio is going to get baptized a little later, not the 21st. He just wasn´t ready and he asked fo rmore time, but he is still good and ready for the future.
We have another fecha as well. Luis. He is married to a less active and is around 26ish. Well, he went to this concert at the stake center and felt something prompt him, so he wanted to get the missionaries over. He found the B3 Elders. They taught him and he started to cry and say this is what I want and need in my life. They set a date for the 12th of May. Well, they soon found out he was actually in our area, so now we have him. How cool is that!! By the way, Benito and Diana want to get married and they already have plans to do that!! He also wants to get baptized. He has been telling us and everyone that he wants to and he will. He is so much happier now that he has the gospel in his life. The members have taken him and his family in. The members here are so nice and take in all of our investigators and make them feel like family. I love it!
Well in other news, we have 3 new investigators. We have Miguel and Adriana. They are not married and have a little girl. They are so nice and really interested in it. We stopped her on the street and she didn't seem interested but, we went with it and I am glad we did. She is super nice and they both came to church after just teaching Adriana. We didn´t know that Miguel would come. We also have Eliana. She is single and we also contacted into her. She has a lot of questions about church and life in general. So we set up a lesson with her right away and now she wants to learn more.
Now it´s story time. Luis, our new fecha, made us lunch. Ohhhh wow!!!! He is really good at cooking. He made us this Lasagna and it was bomb! I gotta learn how to make that. Second, We got asked if we had drugs to sell. We contact/walk through some areas that aren´t bad but just different. Well we are walking trying to find this apartment building and these guys ask us for some random name thing. We say no cause I didn´t know what they were saying but Elder Woodbury was saying that it was for some drug that he didn´t know what it was. hahaha that was funny. Third story, well not really a story, but a miracle. We have been working our butts off over here. We had 19 lessons this past week. It was so good. Since everything is kinda far apart, around 20-30min metro ride, we usually don´t get a lot of time to contact and find new people, but we find time and make time. Well since we had a packed schedual we only contacted into 57 people (people who stopped and talked with us). We do more but those are the few that were nice and some what interested. Well, the awesome part is 21 of those, people gave us their info, and some where they lived. Wow the Lord has really blessed us this week. We have much to be thankful for. Seriously Elder Woodbury and I pray so much for what the Lord has given us. I am so thankful for the blessings we have. With that, there was a price for those. We had to work really hard and to take a step into the dark. It is really scary sometimes, but we do it. I have been getting better in my Spanish. It is still ehhh but it is better. Elder W says it is, but I think it was just to be nice :P haha but I have been stopping everyone I see, and I mean everyone I see. We might stop around 150 people and only a couple of those people stop to talk. It is hard when people just say I don´t care, but it pushes me to talk even more because what if someone does care. That is why I feel the Lord has blessed us with these people who stopped. I want the Lord to know that he can put someone in our path because he knows that we will stop them. He has put many people in our path and it has really been a great blessing.
This week I have been in Alma. Wow what a stud he was. I believe in am in the 19th chapter, but I love the book of Alma. Elder Woodbury and I are like Alma and Amulek, walking city to city preaching and teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Well I love you all so much and I pray for you all so much. I hope David is doing great with his new job!!
I love you all!!
Love,
Elder Alex Laubaugh (Lobo:)
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