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!!

july 11, 2012

Well this week has been a little different, I just want you all to know that first.  Second I just want you all know that I am still in Barrio 9, so I did not leave this past transfer.... Elder Woodbury did. He is now in the Canary Islands!!!!  How crazy is that!! My new companion is Elder Raiano, and if you were wondering, he is from Argentina :)  He has been out one year and 8months, so he has 3 transfers left.  He is really nice, funny and he speaks a little bit of English, just enough to help me out here and there :)   

Well, Benito loved his gifts.  Thank you all so much for sending that to me.  Seeing his eyes light up like that when he saw Marvel things was amazing, thank you for making that happen.  Also, Elder Woodbury gave him a white shirt and a tie and I put in a tie of mine.  He loved it all.  It was a great sight to see him just so happy.  They don´t have that much.  Diana does have work, but it still isn´t a lot for them.  What is so good, is that they still want to tithe out of their money.  Which is amazing.  I told them that they will be blessed for this.  The Lord always keeps his promises.  Well, Antonio just used his priestood and passed the Sacrament.  I was trying to look for him during church then I see this  45 year old man sitting with a bunch of 12 and 14year old boys :)  He was so happy and he was in his nice little suit.  Rosa is still on fire.  She really likes church, which is really good.  It´s an I told you so moment.  I told her she has to put forth a little action to know if this is the true church or not.  She just didn´t understand until she went to church.  Her daughter- in-law is great too.  Her husband came to church as well.  They really liked it.  They have 2 boys.  Jonathan and Christian.  They both love church and all the youth.  Our ward has a lot of youth.  They really like how we just are a family here.  

Well last week, I was a wreck.  It was a hard week for me.  I was just nervous for change, for the unknown.  It was hard for me to do anything, like speaking.  I finally figured out what was up.  It was because of transfers.  I didn´t want to leave, nor did I want Elder Woodbury to leave.  But the Lord needed him in Santa Cruz and the Lord needed Elder Raiano out here in Madrid. I have calmed down now and my stutter has gone away, well most of it. Elder Raiano is really helping me with it and speaking.  He really knows how to teach, which is good for me.  He really likes to work and everything.  

Things here are still good.  I am the area trainer and I am glad that I know my area pretty dang well.  I do have to do a lot more work, which is a little stressful, but Elder Raiano knows what to do also :) which is always good.

Thank you all for everything. This week has been good, change is a good thing.  Thank you for all your support and love :) I feel it :)

Loves all around!!!

Love You All!!!

Love,

Elder Alex Lobo :)

july 7, 2012

Hello All!!  

This week, wow.... it has been a lot of ups and downs if you know what I mean.  I would like to thank you all for the package, it really means a lot to me, I am sure that Benito will love those little Marvel things :)  He tells me every visit what I have missed that past week. It´s pretty funny.  Well on the topic of them, they could be a lot better, but they are still kickin!  They moved to a very small room.  They don´t have any work... until Diana fasted!! Now she does!!  It was a blessing that was very needed!!  We taught them more about why it is important to fast and to do those things.  So Diana did and now she has a job working for a family in Pozuelo, about 45min away, so some of our members paid for a Abono so she can go out there.  I love good members that care about our investigators. 

Well we have had many great blessings this past week.  First off, Rosa, is really good.  She told us about 2 weeks ago she didn´t want anything and that our church was a joke.  She hadn't been to church or prayed about it.  She likes the Book of Mormon but it´s just a book to her.  Well, we took another chance, we had a good lesson about doing things and having faith in our message.  Well, she finalllly went to church... and she LOVED it!!! She wanted to bring her sister inlaw and her family!! She just couldn´t stop talking about it. That Saturday we met with her sister in law and her son and they wanted to go to Engish class and come to church too.  That Sunday, I see a huge smile on Rosa´s face and her sister inlaw is there and her son!  Ahhh what a great blessing that was.  We had a lesson right after church, and her son pops a question  "how do I become a member of your church?"  Well let´s tell you how.  That lesson we set a fecha for all 3 of them.  Wow that really was a great help.  They love going to church, and they are really getting it.  The Lord can do some amazing things :)  

So with that said, we just had a great week of teaching and just everything.  We just have been really blessed this past week.  Elder Woodbury and I have been on our knees thanking the Lord for these great people and great blessings we have.  People just need to take a step of faith, then they will see what we are talking about.  

Well this week has been a bit tougher for me.  My Spanish is good enough to get me by, but I want to be better than that.  Unfortunately, this past week my stutter just wanted to come and say hi in full force.  It was really hard to speak.  I don´t know what happend.  It was hard and I just wanted to sit down and cry some days.  People couldn´t understand me and my Spanish just took a dive down.  It was hard, very hard for me this week, even talking in English was hard.  I tried to slow down, breath more, but nothing was helping.  I got very frustrated and very angry of why this was happening.  Then, on Monday I was reading in the Book of Mormon.  I was praying hard on what do you want me to learn?  Why is my stutter back now?  I had a very strong impression  to read in Doctine and Covenants.  I was reading in section 122, I was reading in this and i started to read in Verse 7.  It just hit me.  I don´t know why I was freaking out.  In the verse it just says that when you are in the worst part, in the hands of the bad guys, it´s all for an experience.  It´s gonna be okay.  I felt a lot better after that, I just thanked God after that, for giving me just a plain answer about what he was doing right now.  My stutter is doing better, my breathing is good still, it is still hard to speak but it has been better.   Just yesterday I had a lady tell me I didn´t sound like a person from the US.  I sounded like I was from Brazil or somthing :) that was new.  hahaha 

Well I have a food story (Dad I would skip this if I were you).  Well on Saturday we are at a members home that is known to give us bad food.  Well we get there and it doesn´t smell good.  She said she has spent 4 hours making this soup.  Oh noo... Well she said it is sheep.  Well that´s fine, then she said, well just the insides.  Say what lady???  Well I had sheep heart, liver, stomach, everything, even solid blood from the sheep.  Yeah that was gross.  And yes, I said no when she offered more.  

Well I love you all!!  I am home sick right now.  I miss you all so much.  We had a 4 of july party, and our new president was there :)  He is very nice and his wife is just so great.  That´s what got me home sick, just seeing them and she acted like mom, it just got me a little home sick.  I love you all so much, I miss you all like crazy!! I hope everything goes well!! I love you all!!!

Love your favorite son in spain!!

Elder Alex Laubaugh

june 28, 2012

Well this week has been really good :)  The sad thing is, weeks have been going by fast, a little to fast!  In one of my letters from dad, he said that this wasn´t a 2 year mission anymore, the time is ticking.  Something of that sort... I tell you what, that is so true! It feels like it was just yesterday that I was on this computer! Ahhhh!!  Welll last week I was a little weak on the response of how the language was.  Well I am happy to say that I can now translate for people :) I know, I was amazed myself,  the Church is true :P  I learned this from the barbaque and that next sunday.  Well we have a couple American families in our ward.  They just work here and they really don´t know Spanish, so usually we just sit by them and translate sometimes.  Well, one of them, The Bidolfs, had their parents come in.  Sister Bidolf had her baby so her Mom and Dad came.  Well, during Priesthood meeting, the dad looked a little bit confused.  I wonder why :P Well I asked if he would like me to translate, knowing very well I have never done that before.  I wasn´t sure if I could do it, but I took a leap of faith.  After the first sentance out of the teacher's mouth, words started to come out of my mouth.  Then the rest is history.  I got a good 70% of what the teacher was saying to us.  It was a great experience that really helped me out.  After the meeting I told him sorry that I didn´t get everything, my Spanish was still a little shaky, he didn´t mind at all, thank goodness.  It just felt good to do that, to know that I can understand more than I thought.  

Well This past sunday was a great one!! Antonio recieved the Priesthood!! He was so happy! The week before Luís recieved it.  It's good knowing that they are on there way in the church! We still meet with both of them at least once a week.  Antonio is so funny!  He just comes up to me and gives me a big ol´ hug :)  You will see that he is not the biggest person out there.  Well on Monday, we met with Antonio and we found out that he has read the whole Book of Mormon. I was so proud of him and he really knows his stuff.  He was naming off scripture about this and that, and I am just so happy for him.  

Well I just want to say thank you to dad :)  He sent me a great letter with one great question that I should tell someone.  "Where do you want to be in 5 years?"  Well in a lesson on Sunday, this same question came into mind.  The lady is just lazy, so I asked her.  I could tell that it hit her hard, but she just said, back in my country with my family.  It was a lame response but that´s what she wants.  I told her that our Savior can give her way more and can make her more happy than anything in the world.  She seemed to like it, but she was still in the lazy state..  So thank you dad for giving me that great letter. 

Well on the food side, I had some great dish from Ecuador.  It´s called Ceviche!  They don´t cook it at all.  They told us that they boil water then dunk the fish in twice real quick then put it into the lemon acid mixture.  It was so good!! It had shrimp, fish, and some other great seafood things in there!  :)  

Well today we went to the temple :) It was a great time and this was the last time I got to see President and Sister Watkins.  The new President comes in tomorrow!  Well the great thing is is that I got a picture with President :) Also I got a hug from Sister Watkins.  She was so funny.  We were just standing around, and she comes up to me and Elder Woodbury and just says "Give me a hug!  I´m allowed :)"  hahah it was funny but everyone really liked it.  

Well this week has been filled up with contacting and lessons like always.  It has been fast, really fast, but so good at the same time.  I really love how the Lord works on his servants.  He has taught me a lot this past transfer.  A lot with patience and just being humble.  He has put a lot of hard days in my path, and yes I hate it, but I have learned so much from them.  

I love you all so much and I can´t wait to hear from you all!  I love you! 

Love your Son and Brother,

Elder Alex Laubaugh

june 20th

Hollla!!

Well I have some big news this week!!! Okay, get ready, get on your seat belts everyone for a big ride!! So this week we got some great news from Benito.  His papers are in and ready to go!! His meeting went great he said and he has his second and final meeting on August 17th I believe.  After that he can get married!! So during Priesthood he announced that he was going to get baptized on the 18th of August, the day after his wedding!! AHHH!! I was so excited for him.  He really wants to be baptized.  He has literally told me every time I´ve seen him. :)  I love that guy.  Diana is doing great as well.  She has told me so many times that she is so thankful for us and for everything that we have done for them.  Benito wasn´t always so willing.  He was actually against the church for awhile.  Then one day it just clicked.  I am not sure what happened, but I am glad it did.  

We are still in the finding stage.  We have been for this whole transfer, but it has to be done.  The good thing is that God has blessed us:)  Well as you all know that we had this American BBQ on Saturday.  Well that day was very rough.  We ran out of time on our phone so we were going to internet cafés to use a phone and ahh it was just stressful.  Well we get a call from Fernando, our missionary leader.  He told us that only today that the All Beef patties at Lidl(like a walmart) were on sale, only today.  We were going to get 120, but he got 150 for about 30euros.  What a blessing.  We was able to buy more food for this event.  Such a blessing.  that night, we start up a little late, but that´s fine, latinos are always at least 20min late.  We get started and it is seeming a little low on the people, I only counted 80.  Throughout the night I was praying my heart our for a miracle.  At the end of the night we had about 150-160 people show up.  We ran out of hamburger patties and we also bought 120 hot dogs, we ran out of those too.  Everyone got something so that was a blessing.  Everyone loved the water activities, the tour or the church, and the food.  The members brought their friends and everyone had a lot of fun.  At the end of the night, we had about 15-20 member referrals.  From that, we now have a family.  Which we have been praying for for about 2 months.  I am so glad that everything went well.  I have learned from this that it´s all in Gods time, not ours.  I was wanting to get a family now, not then.  I was wanting blessings now, not later.  It just was a great activity that I will be doing a lot over my mission.  We split up the referrals will the hermanas in our ward.  We had about the same so we each have about 8 referrals. 

Well, that night we got back late.  I told our zone leader that we would be, and he was fine with it because he was there as well :P we had to talk to everyone and get numbers of non members.  Well I got to bed at about 12:30.  Thankfulllly the next day was a Sunday.  Well I woke up the next morning feeling like a truck hit me.  I said a quick prayer "Heavanly Father, can I just sleep in 10mins, just this once, I am so tired, Amen."  The words came very quickly "¿What, you don´t think I can keep you up?"  I feel those might have been me thinking, but I took it is as a spiritual prompting to get up out of bed.  That whole day I was great, I had the energy to work and get a lot done. :) Thank you Heavenly Father!  

On the food side, nothing really bad, just bad cooking.  We had fish soup.  Right before we ate it she said, it´s good, but just watch our for the bones.  Just to let you know, when I hit a bone, I am out of the race.  I hate that feeling of a bone in my mouth, but I got through.  Then she gave us a plate of rice and some fish with this sauce.  It was pretty nasty, she said again, watch out for the bones.  Luckily I had a good cut and didn´t have a lot, Elder Woodbury on the other hand had a lot of bones. :P  

One awsome story I have to share with you all.  So we get to the metro and we just missed it.  We had to wait 4mins and we were already late to an appointment.  Well we get there about 10min late.  On the way back it happens again.  I get off from the stairs and sprint to the door.  The door is shutting and I do not want to be late again to an appointment. So I stuck my hands in the door and yes I used my super human strength and spread the door apart so me and Elder Woodbury could get in. :)  Everyone on  the metro just looked at me.  I saw one guy give me a thumbs up :) Yes I felt pretty special at that moment.  

I love you all so much and I am so glad that Mandy and Baby Kellan are doing great!! I love you all so so much and think of you often!  I hope you all have a good week!  President leaves this next week!  I have a feeling that this new President is going to be changing a lot around.  But I don´t know till he comes :p I love you all so much!!!

Love,

Elder Alex Laubaugh aka The Hulk (Benito gave me that name:))

June 13th

Hello All!

How is everything going out there!?!?! I saw that Mandy had her baby and David was there for everything! That is such a great blessing!! I am so excited for you Mandy and David!!  Well I just want you all to know, that this week was good, but also very hard on me.  On the investigator side, Susi dropped us.  We have been calling her for a good week and a half and she doesn´t answer.  It is really sad, I really thought she was going to change.  We had a member call her and she answered.  She said she was just busy.  It´s fine, it´s life and people have their agency. 

On the other end, Benito is doing great! They had a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) on monday and it was great! We taught it just to show them how to do it.  It was a great time and the spirit was so strong.  Benito is going today to get his papers from where he was born in Spain.  I forget where, but he has his meeting in 2 days! I can honestly say that I love that family so much.  They are the best, even through the toughest times, they still keep a smile on their faces.  They might be kicked out of their piso.  We still aren´t sure why, but times are hard for them.  Hopefully the Ward can help them out as best as they can. Last friday, Elder Woodbury and I took them to the Temple.  I love going to the Temple.  The feeling of peace is amazing there.  We were in a rush to get there, the baby is crying, Arturo is yelling.  Everything was just all crazy.  When we entered the grounds, the Baby was happy, Arturo was fine, and things just slowed down.  The feeling of the spirit was so strong, they of course loved seeing the temple and being with us.  

Our other investigators are doing well, some are slowing down, others are right on their way.  We just have to keep on going.  

In other news, my talk was great.  I used Elder Nelsons talk from General Conference back in 2010.  I did mine on how the members can help, and how we can all be missionaries, not just the ones that are called.  It was great, I put in how we have an activity on saturday and the goal is for each family to have at least 1 non member friend or family member present.  I hope that they can do that.  After the talk a lot of people were saying that my spanish was a lot better and my vocab was a lot larger.  It was really nice to hear that.  It´s kinda funny, when we are contacting people often say to elder Woodbury that his spanish is great.... then they just look at me.  It´s funny.  I get a good laugh and just try harder to get this language down.  

Well I would like to say I have had a great week for gross food stories!  First off, I made medio dia meal this past saturday. It was very good. We had steak, grilled onions, and mashed potatos.  mmmmm that was good.  ON the flipp side we had a nasty dinner with some members.  Before she said, I´m not sure if your going to like this... but I made it anyways.  Ohhh no.  She said that it is called Leather and potatos.  Ohh no again.  She brings out this pan full of grease and little chunck of I don´t know what.  Well they put a bunch of rice and this stuff on.  I took a bite and it´s all slimmy and weird.  Well hold your breath.  It was pig skin and potatoes.  And yes I had 2 plates :(  the second was a lot smaller. The potatos were good, but it was the eating the pig skin that killed me.  It was just nasty!!!

I would like to thank you mom for what a great letter I got from you. I love that talk by Elder Cook.  His daughter is in The next zone over.  She is super nice.  I have been looking up a lot this past transfer.  Life here is just getting hard.  The work is doing well, but it´s the visits where they don´t want anything to do with you after you´ve taught them for a month that kill me.  Well it´s the mission life.  I have learned to lean on my Savior more during those times in my weeks.  Well I also want to thank dad for that great letter and that great picture of his new lawn mower.  Man that must be a beast to drive :)

thank you so much for everything!! :) I love you so much and this past week I have been having great experiences that I can share later on.  The Lord has blessed us a lot and I am so thankful for that.  We just finished a fast for baptisms today.  It was great at the end.  I felt so much more better.  I felt so much more peace and closer to my Father in Heaven after that.  I know that he will bless us, just in his time.  

I love you all so much and I hope that you all are having a great time with the new Baby!!!

Love your favorite brother and Son in Spain!!

Elder Alex Laubaugh!!

june 6th

Well Hello!! This week has been so crazy!! I have to tell you though, it has been really long and rough.  I just have had a lot of experiences this week that have helped me a lot.  It was really neat.  I got a letter from dad a couple weeks ago saying drink deeply - fill up that spiritual resevoir.  I can tell you that I have been.  Some things have really helped me grow this week and for the rest of my mission. 

One experience is with an investigator Janet.  She has a Spanish husband and she is meeting with us at her work, so he doesn´t know.  He is really against everything.  Our lesson was on the plan of salvation and during the lesson, she stops me and Elder Woodbury and says "Do you really believe this is true? Do you really know?"  I was taken back because to be honest, I´ve never gotten that question before on my mission.   I spoke up saying yes I do, I know for a fact that this is true.  I told her that I knew that the Plan God has for us is perfect, there is nothing wrong with it.  I went on with more of my testimony of the Plan of Salvation.  But just that night I was reflecting on my day and that experience just really hit me hard.  The second story is about the Book of Mormon.  Everyday I testify that this book is true and has answers for all of our questions, if we just read it, pray about it, and ask God if it is true.  One study day I was reading in Helaman.  Something just hit me like a rock to the head.  Just something very strong came over me.  I had a feeling to pray.  I wasn´t sure why, but I did.  During that prayer just the feeling of how blessed I was to have this book, In my hands, right at that moment.  After that when I express my testimony about it, just this joy comes over me, I feel like I am on cloud nine.  

That leads into my last story.  We have this great investigator Herling. He is Dominican and sometimes they are wishy washy, but I tell you what, He isn´t.  :)  Yesterday actually, we were watching the Joseph Smith movie with him. It is a short 20min video about the Restoration.  At the part when the first vision happens, he said he feels something strange, like a shiver down he back.  After the movie was over we asked him how he felt.  Our member there did as well.  He just looks at us, and just starts to cry.  The joy that he now knows just hit him like a brick.  He was saying that he felt different.  I told him that I know how he feels exactly:)  Right after telling him that that was the Spirit we asked him about this and that, then I had the prompting to ask him to prepare himself for baptism.  Elder Woodbury had the same prompting and asked him.  He was so happy that we asked, he said yes, a firm yes.  He said he would do whatever he needs to do:)  The funny thing is. Herling lifts... a lot.  Like he is big, short but very wide.  He could punch through me if he wanted.  Just seeing him cry and having this joy just made me feel so happy.

  

Well, those were just some of the experiences that I had this week. Well I just want to say that I have a food story.  Okay, so we were at our mission leaders home for lunch.  He puts on our plates, some nice yam, potato, and onion mix.  Very good, but then he puts on these short ribs.  With a good 1/2inch thick piece of fat on it.  Of course I get the biggest ones and are just filled with fat.  I am sad to say, I ate a good chunck of fat from both, I couldn´t get all of that down, but the other sad part is that there wasn´t a lot of meat on them.  :( So I had a good fatty ribs for lunch :/  

Well this week was good.  We had a really good pday also.  We went to the GoKart Track and raced!! AHHH YEAHHH!!! And yes this was allowed.  The AP´s asked president and he said it okay to do that.  This wasn´t the Rinky Dink cars, these were for rrreal gokarts.  The nice ones that can take a sharp turn.  Well we went on and they make us put on jump suits and helments, the full deal here. Well I was in the first spot, I thought this was going to be a slow car.  Ohhh how I was wrong.  We were flying!! I was a little too big for the car, but I was still flying by people and drifting, all that stuff.  I believe the fastest I got was a good 40mph on that bad boy :) hahah How cool is that!! Yeah it was awesome.  the track was really nice too, It wasn´t long, just a lot of turns:)  Well everything was good, it was a long week though.  A lot of good experiences that really helped me out, but at the same time, just a long week.  It was rough, hard, and I believe it was a good 100º out a couple of days, but at the end of the day, I could say I put my best work in.  I love you all so much and I hope that all is going well.  I have been praying that Mandy will have her baby!! I love you all!!

Love,

Elder Alex Laubaugh  (lobo):)  Love you all so much!!