Aug 30, 2012

Well the title is just a little something that Elder G and I came up with :) hahah yes we have had a great time here.  Ahhh I love Ferrol!!! It is so beautiful.  Well, a little bit more about this great area. It is a pretty big port city.  There is a base here for the Spanish army.  A lot of people come in and out, but most are cargo ships.  Yes I can see the ocean everyday :)  It is a bit cooler, which is soooo nice.  The Elders are dying in Madrid. It is super hot now down there, but here, it is nice and cool and there is always a breeze.  The bad thing though, is there is often a suprise weather change.  So in a matter of an hour, it could be raining, but ohhh well!

As I said, I love it here, the members are amazing!  They are just so nice, so giving.  No wonder every Elder that has served here, loves it.  The other good thing, and bad thing, is that they love us sooo much, they like to feed us... a lot.  No lie... on Tuesday, we ate 3 times... yes 3. They just feed you, even when you say, No, I am fine, thank you..  That is just a trigger to put more on you plate.  Well I have a little experience for you.  We were at a members home and we get in and get to the table and I see this huge roast with these potatoes.  I´m down for that, but no, she gets our plates and she opens up a pot and scoops a ton of a rice, mussel, clam(with shell) mixture.  Ohhh thank you.  I eat it and it was soo good.  Then she starts to cut up the roast.  Oh, it smelled so good, but she cuts off a good quarter of this roast and slaps it on my plate!  Good thing a lot of it was fat.  Then she cuts off some more and slaps it on mine again.  Ahhh I ate so much. I said I was fine, but she didn´t believe me :(  Thats just a little bit of my life, but I have been running a lot more in the mornings, don´t worry, I still work out. 

Well this week has been really busssyy!  We talked with the President and we set up the mission plan and they all love it.  He said if we have no investigators at church we are going on splits.   We will just go out and contact for a pretty long time to get more numbers.  I said lets do that now, we can get to know the area a little better, this area needs it.  Well as I said about contacting, that´s what we have been doing all week.  I was really thinking about our plan, but for some odd reason, Elder G and I had a good feeling about just setting up more time for contacts, going to larger areas with more people, and just contact!  So we did that.  The hard thing is, this isn´t Madrid.  There are a lot more hardend hearts here, which is fine, I can pry one open, but people just don´t listen.  I´m used to that, but its just a little bit more here.  Here´s an example, we knocked a good 5 or 6 apartment buildings, each one had a good 6 floors.  A lot of people right.  Well we knocked each one, and not one person listened.  Yeah I´m used to that, but wow, just a lot of hard words and doors slammed on my face.  It´s okay, This week I have grown a little bit more, used the Lord more and just leaned on Him more.  I am so glad that I am here, This area needs 2 elders that just love to talk.  The great thing is, I can talk off an ear in English and in Spanish :) Hows that for talent :P  hahahah but really, I am so blessed to be here.

It has been a real weird time too.  Not really sure that weird is the right word for this experience. So we get to a members home and met them said hi and that´s about it.  For some odd reason, I saw them before.  I asked if they were in Madrid or in Ohio for a period of time, but no.  I thought and thought and I couldn´t think of anything.  Then it happend again.. and again.  Just a lot of people, members, investigators that I have seen before.  I was telling Elder G about this and he said maybe in a dream or something.  Maybe, or maybe not.  I am not sure, but it was just so weird. Maybe the Lord is trying to say that I am meant to be here.  No Se! Well one thing that is different is that there are a lot more athiests here, not sure if that´s the spelling but it´s ateo in Spanish.  With that, I get challenged a lot.  How do you know God is there, How do you know this is true, that is true. How do you know if Jesus really lived. Blah Blah Blah.  This has been a really good time for me to bear my testimony.  Some odd reason they don´t talk after I bear it.  One man told me,  How do you know there is a God.  I have heard that about 30times that day and I told him straight up, because I know, I know he lives, I know there is a God.  Do you know why?  Because I have prayed I have done the things that I need to do to know.  He then just stopped... looked at me, and said.. Vale, or Ok.  Yes I might have gotten a little bit angry, but not that much, he got the point.  He just starred at us and I said, now, do you want to learn more about our message? No, okay, heres a card, have a nice day.  

You just can´t beat a testimony.  No one can, if they know you do believe it, they´ll feel it.  I want you all to know that I am meant to be here, that I am meant to be in El Ferrol at this time with my new comp, Elder Gonzalez.  We are having an amazing time. He is such a great worker and Elder. We have a blast while contacting.  We just crack little jokes and laugh and just have fun.  People like that, they always comment to us that why we are so happy, why? Well, we´ll tell you why.  Well that is about it for this week. It has been rough, but I can get through it.  I love you all so much and I am sorry that this letter is a bit long! Thank you all so much for the support and for everything!! I love you!!!

 

Love,

Elder Alex Laubaugh!! 

Aug 20, 2012

Well the title of this letter says it all!! I have been transferred!!  El Ferrol is in the North of Spain...the WAY NORTH!  El Ferrol is a great place.  I will love it here.  It is the farthest area the mission has and it is right on the coast.  That is correct, I can walk 5 minutes and I will be on a port.  Well that also means I had to travel.  That was a story.  I was in a train for a good 8 hours just to get to A Coruña, then a  45min bus ride to get to El Ferrol.  It´s fine, but just a lot of sitting down.  Well I have a new companion.  Elder Gonzalez is a great missionary.  We are going to light up this area.  We have a lot of the same ideas.  El Ferrol gets a good amount of baptisms, but they don´t have a very good retention rate, so we need to work on that.  We plan to work more with the less actives and get them active, and work through them to get more people to teach.  Well I still don´t know a lot about Elder Gonzalez, all I know is that his parents are from Guatamala, and he already knew Spanish.  He is from California and just loves his mission.  He has a good year and a couple months.  He only has 1 month in this area so we are both new, which is a good thing.  We both really don´t know where things are but that just means we need to use the members that much more.  This is just a new adventure, a new chapter in my life, in my mission.  Ohhh I forgot to say one thing.  El Ferrol is known to get Elders really big.  They feed us everyday, sometimes twice a day. I talked to many past elders and they said they all had at least one meal a day with the members.  This is good, meaning we have a lot of trust and they like us, but bad, because well, we gain weight.  I will work out hard in the mornings Mom and Dad.  Don´t you worry.  

Well I just have to say that, leaving was hard, really hard.  One thing that I wouldn´t think would happen is that they just started crying.  It hurt, a lot, I wanted to stay in B9, oh so bad.  I love it there, they were my family.  I just told them that I still have a long time left and I will be back, I will come and visit you all when I am back in Madrid.  When I got up to bear my testimony just a feeling of thanks came over me, so I bore my testimony thanking them for being great members.  Don´t you worry, I took many pictures with me in them, not just the members Mom and Dad.  I have many pictures that I will send.  Wellington, one of my faves, hahha we were talking and he just started crying, just thanking me for everything.  Well, I don´t know, transfers are hard when you have to leave.  When you see that when the members are just so sad when you leave, well, it hurts a lot!  The hardest part was saying bye to Diana and Benito.  They said many kinds words and they are going to be missed.  I told them that I will be back, maybe not in B9 but in Madrid.  

I just want to say something about what they said, it really helped me out and it changed my view of me as well.  They said something to the effect of when I walked into there home, the church, anywhere... they could feel something about me, they could see something different.  Diana said that there is a light about me, just this light that enters the room when me and Elder Woodbury or ·Elder Raiano entered the room.  It just got me thinking.  It was a very nice comment and it means a lot. But just yesterday I was eating with one of the members here in Ferrol.  He said to me, "What is different about you?"  No one has this but you.  You just are happy, this whole time, you have had a smile on your face, you have this glow about you.  I feel this is going to be something great in the near future here.  It is the North, yes it is a lot harder to A. talk to people, B. get a lesson, and C. to even baptize here.  I am here for a reason, me being always happy I think is going to be a good thing to have.  Elder Gonzalez has the same thing, we are always laughing, having a good time working.  That is what this area needs.  

Before I forget, I have me new address for this area.  Ohhh by the way, our Piso is beautiful.  I would live here if I could. It is big, has 2 bathrooms, a big kitchen, a big family room, a nice big bedroom, and another bedroom.  It is just amazing.  We have a lot of room, but there is only our companionship here, so maybe in the future we might get another one, who knows.  Okay here ya go!!

Rua Bolivia 19, 2

15404 

Ferrol (a Coruña)

Spain

Well all, I love you so much, I am way excited for this new and exciting area.  We are going to Light It up!! I actually told President that, I told him that We will Light Up El Ferrol!  I love you all!! Have a great week!! I love you!!!!

Love your  favorite son!! Take it Mitch,

Elder Alex Laubaugh!!

Aug 15, 2012

Helloo family! How are all of you doing?  Doesn´t it feel like I was just on here about 2 days ago? Well that's what I feel like.  The first thing that I want to say is that transfers are this Friday.  We'll we find out who is staying and going.  I am not sure about this one.  I could stay or go, pero, No Se,  Well just pray for the best.  If the Lord needs me here, I will be fine with that.  If he needs me somewhere else, I´ll be fine with that.  I really don´t care.  Well, on to the juicy stuff. This past week we had a baptism!  Rosa, Patricia, and Jonathan!  Wow what a spirit filled day that was.  I tell you what, Rosa has a spirit that can knock. you. out.  It was so strong when she bore her testimony after her baptism.  All three of them had amazing baptisms.  I was honored to confirm Patricia into  La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Dias.  That was a great experience in and of itself.  It was just so amazing, I just started talking.  Things that I wouldn´t have said, but the spirit told me to do so :)  Well, I have some very sad news.  You all know that Benito and Diana are going to get married.  Last week we found out when.... In October :(  the 5th to be exact:(  Okay I might have cried a little after hearing that.  It is just so sad because I probably won't see it.  That is in 2 transfers.  How sad is that.  I really wanted to see it.  I will just pray that I will still be in Madrid when It happens.  Well on a good note,  we have another family.  I will write about them because well, they are doing great!  It´s a mom, her sister, and her two daughters, Jacaline,  Elizabeth, Kimberly, and Fernanda.  They are doing great and we are going to set a date with them this week.  Just to let you all know, my talk went great.  Everyone said that my Spanish was perfect.  It was dead on and they just knew I was trying my hardest.  It just felt good to hear that from the members.  It was about how we can bear our testimony with everyone, and how we need more effort in our daily life with the missionary work.  I used some of my own experiences with that one.  Many people afterwards said that they will talk to many of their friends about the church.  This is a great sign :)  It just went great.  I am happy that it did go well.  

Well now I have a food story. It´s about Ice cream.  Here they just don´t know how to scoop it.  I kinda want to have a clinic on how to give a good scoop.  Well one night we are walking back to our Piso and we past a shop.  My companion and I wanted some so we went in.  I saw some of these scoops and they were weak!!!!  So when it was my turn, my Dad sense came over me.  I said  "I want a big bowl, okay.  I want big scoops, don´t be giving me  small scoops, okay."  I looked her right in the eyes, she understood.  She gets out the big bowl which is our medium, and she scoops it, it was still small, I said, no, I want  big scoops.  She put it back and she loaded it up! I said I´ll pay for it if you want.  Well i didn´t have too :)  Yeah that´s right, I did that :)

Okay now I have a first timer.  So we get to this lesson.  We were teaching Diana and Benito's friends.  We were talking and I scratch my nose, not that hard.  Well I feel something coming down.  It was blood.  So I get up and get out my hanky, sorry dad, and I blow my nose.... there was a lot.  I fold it up and sit back down.  Well Diana saw that and just freaks out, Ohhh Noo Sangre!!  She wips out her wet wipes for her baby and gives me 3.  I hold it up to my nose and wow their was a lot of blood.  I used 6 wipes.  She rips some and roll it up and said, put this in your nose.  Yes I felt like mom when I did that.  It just wouldn´t stop bleeding, just more and more blood.  Well 30min passed by and it isn´t stopping.  I said that we can just hit on the first 2 points of the Plan of Salvation and we did that.  After the lesson, it stopped, my luck.  hahaha  I said I was so sorry for this but they understood.  It was all good, just really weird.  

 Well family that is it for this week.  Elder Raiano and I are doing great.  We are like best friends right now.  We are just working our butts off over here.  If I go, I´ll be sad but I´ll know that the Lord needs me to Light up another area! :)  I love you all so much! Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Alex Laubuagh :) XXOOxxooxoxoxoXOXOX

Aug 8, 2012

Helloo from Spain!! This has been another great week of growing and learning.  I just want to first say that I love my mission.  Yes it is hard, yes I want to die sometimes, but I love it.  I just love everything about it, the people, the language, the food, the times that I grow, everything!  I also want to say thank you.  Thank you family for pushing me to do my best, to be better everyday.  Thank you for just everything.  Now being in my mission for 7 months I have seen a lot of change.  Yes I am a little thinner, yeah maybe a little taller, but more of a spiritual change.  It just started to hit quite a bit this past transfer.  I have to say, I wasn´t the humblest elder out here.  Yeah I knew that I had to rely on the Lord, but there was something missing.  One thing that I have learned is I can get along with anyone I want to.  I am everyones friend.  By that I mean everyone asks, why do you have a smile on your face, why are you so happy alllll of the time?  I just say, well, I love life and my mission, what´s more to ask for?   Lately, I have had to rely more on the Lord.  I have had to pray harder, to read more, to just do more.  With that, I have noticed that I have grown.  I have learned more and more everyday.  I have seen so many blessings from this.  Just putting forth more action has brought me so much more blessings.  The Lord is the best!  :)  

Well this week we had a baptism!  :) It was a great day.  The sad thing, is that Renzo backed down.  Jorge is doing great, but Renzo just wasn't ready.  He prays but not for an answer.  He just doesn´t have any action.  But on the flip side, Jorge is doing great.  He is just loving life.  On Thursday he said he would like to be baptized on Friday, not Saturday:) How great is that!  Benito and Diana are doing great! He had his meeting for his marriage yesterday.  We need to call him to see how it went, but I am so proud of him.  He is just the best of the best!  He´s paying tithing, living every commandment, just doing great!  

Well one thing that I would like to say is that Elder Raiano is a good Elder.  He recently stood up for me.  During a lesson I started to stutter a little bit.  Nothing big but they all noticed.  Well one of our investigators just starts to giggle and laugh at me.  The mom is just oh it is okay, we understand, but this girl who is 22 is just cracking up.  Elder R just rips her apart.  He says "you know that he has a stutter, right? You know that this is very hard for him to say, right?"  He just said some other things and she just stopped and stared at me with sorry eyes.  I went on and started talking like normal.

On the stutter note I have to say something.  When we were in a lesson with Diana and Benito, they said something very nice, just really hit me hard.  Benito was saying that during the first part of him taking the lessons he didn´t really understand me.  But he said when I prayed, bore testimony, he could feel something, very strong.  Just this feeling of this is true.  It was so nice and I just was so thankful that he said that.  I have been having some trouble with just knowing if the Spirit is there.  I feel it but I am not sure if they do.  It was just nice to hear. 

Well I have no food stories which is good, but I had a really good talk with President :)  He was at our district meeting and he stayed just to talk to us.  Wow what a great person he is.  Both of them.  They just are so nice and just so caring.  They really do love the missionaries :)  We just went off on football topics.  He was a surgeon in Utah and also a doctor for BYU.  He has been everywhere.  He just is so cool.  I love him and his wife so much.  He always says that we need to marry a women like his wife.  It´s pretty funny:)

Well family that is it.  Thank you so much for everything, for just supporting me.  I do really love all of you.  If you have any advice, or anything, please send it my way.  I love you.

Love Your favorite Elder in Spain,

Elder Alex Laubaugh!!

July 25, 2012

The title says it all.  Week of miracles.  I tell you what, we had a great week.  Right after I finished writing you all last week, we had a great lesson with Renzo and Jorge.  They have accepted a baptisimal fecha for the 4 of august.  Just on Monday we had a great lesson on the for Strength of Youth.  Renzo has about 4 piercings.  I think that´s how you spell it, but while we read this, we talked to him about this little thing.  We asked him if he will take them out for good, and you guessed it, He said yes.  We actually took them out.  Elder Raiano took them out for him.  He looks so much better.  He had one in his Eyebrow, and 3 in his ears.  It just didn´t look good at all.  Rosa is doing great.  She is just loving church.  Her family is doing great as well.  We had to push back her date just a little bit because she wants to be baptized with her family.  I love that family.

This past Sunday was a great one as well.  We had 7 people assist church :)  One of our investigators that we didn´t teach because he wasn´t home came.  He came with one of the members.  I was so glad he made that great choice.  He said that the last time we spoke I said for him to come to church and learn for yourself.  Another one of our investigators is also doing great, but we did have a little bit of a bump.  It´s nothing that is going to hurt his progress, but something he needs to work on.  He and his family don´t have a lot of money and live in a very small room in a Piso.  Well he loves video games and has his PS3 and a lot of games.  Many of those games are upwards of 70euros each that could easily pay for a good weeks worth of food for them, and then some.  Well we had a great lesson on what matters most, your games or your family.  Well, he is in his little world and just says all of this stuff about technology and that this helps people learn and a bunch of things that didn´t make sense at all.  It´s just something that he has a problem with.  

Well onto some other really great news about my life in Spain.  Since we use the Metro a lot, I have made a lot of new friends like the Security guards of the Oporto Metro stop.  Every single time we  go in or go out, we always say hi, have a nice little chat and then go on to do more work.  They just love us.  They talk about us and how we use it so much.  We have tried to work with many of them, but they do work a lot, and it is hard to meet with them.  Many of them don´t live in our area, but just wait, I´ll get one of them to listen some more.  I have a little bit of a story to share.  It´s about Diana and Benito's son, Arturo.  During the Sacrament, I hear this little kid say, mommy, daddy, my stomach hurts... then I hear a bunch of water splash on the ground.  Now I am right infront of Arturo and Diana, Beni is up front with me.  I look back and I see nothing wrong untill he pukes again but even more. Let me tell you again, this is DURING the Sacrament.  Benito takes him and he throws up again a good 3 times on his way.  There is puke everywhere in our chapel.  Good thing we have tile and not carpet.  I go out and a couple of the members come out too to get mops and water.  Wow that was a little experience. 

Well I have another talk, and you guessed it, it´s on Mission Work, like always.  I am starting to put some things together.  If you have any talks just send them my way :)  

I've learned so much on my mission so far.  The Lord has blessed me so much with his love in my life right now.  It just makes me so grateful to have a Father in Heaven that loves each one of his children.  It just hit me the other day.  Wow, Our Father in Heaven loves me, and all of his children.  I love you all so much and I hope that you all are doing great!!  I love you and miss you.

Love,

Elder Alex Laubaugh!!

6-18-2012

Hello again!  It has been another great pday and now it is almost over.  First of all I just wanted to say thank you.  Thank  you for the great letters that past few weeks.  It has really helped me out with adjusting to new circumstances.

Our investigators are doing well.  We are trying to get some new people but it´s getting harder to find more.  We do have 2 new people.  We met a less active woman right before Elder Woodbury left.  She has 2 boys that are not members.  Well the 2 boys have gone to church with their mom, and they love it.  Renzo and Jorge :)  They are the best ever.  We are going to set up a baptismal date with them today actually :)    Well also we have a less active father.  His family is great.  They are great members and come every Sunday,  but he doesn´t.  We found out that his wife wants to go to the temple, but the father has a drinking problem and just isn´t on the right track right now.  We will be making sure to fix that  :)   I love our investigators so much.  I love being on a mission so I can see how much a person can change in a matter of months.  It is so great to see!  

Well my Spanish is getting better.  Elder Raiano complements me a lot saying that it has been getting better.  When we were in a lesson he said I sounded different for a good 3-4 minutes.  Just perfect Spanish, nothing was wrong.  The accent, the grammer, everything was perfect.  That night I thanked the Lord for that.  That wasn´t me, I know that for sure.  That was the gift of tongues all the way :)  It was good for me to finally hear, wow that was perfect.  That was the first time.  

Well as Jana has been saying, a new President is different.  President Jackson, is a street President, as he says.  He wants to be with us in our lessons, contacts, everything.  He told us he doesn´t want to be in the office, he wants to be with us.  He has a kid quality to him, which is really nice.  He is one of the missionaries :)  He told us, no more numbers.  I don´t like them, I want it from the heart, I want the lessons from the heart, not a book.  I am going to love President!  That´s what I like to hear! :)

Thank you so much for everything! I love you all so much!  You are all the best and I love you.  Thank you for the letters and the support over the week.  I needed it.  Nothing on the food end, which is good I guess :)  

Thank you again for everything!  I love you!

Love, 

Elder Alex Laubaugh!!