Gabe's 19th Birthday
Gabe celebrated his first birthday away from us in...well, FOREVER! :( I was pretty sad that he wasn't with us for his 19th birthday, but he hopefully felt very loved. Not only did we send him a digital birthday greeting video with all of his many family members and friends wishing him a message (I think I had over 30 messages that I put together into a 12 minute video) but he also felt some love from his fellow missionaries. All the missionaries in his zone put together a video for him too (which I didn't even know they were doing). THEN, one of his favorite people from his last area in Aranjuez, an 18-year-old boy named Bautista, came on the train and brought him a surprise birthday cake and meal! It was so sweet. Bautista's mom, Daguimar, was so sweet to Gabe when he was in Aranjuez. She's a single mom with four kids. Her oldest is on a mission, then Bautista, then she has two daughters that are like 16 and 13. She basically treated Gabe like one of her kids and had him and his companion over for dinner a lot when he was in Aranjuez, so it was super fun that Bautista showed up at church on Gabe's birthday with a cake! He ended up being so tired that he fell asleep on the tables in the church classroom. lol
A New Greenie - Elder Jara
About a week after Gabe's birthday, they got transfer news and they found out that Elder Bradshaw would be leaving Cartagena and Gabe would be getting a greenie to train! Gabe was sad that Bradshaw was leaving because he only had one transfer with him (six weeks) and he really probably got along with him the best of any of his companions so far. But he was excited to become not only a trainer, but also a district leader. So in the beginning of April, he took the train to Madrid and met his new greenie, Elder Jara! They also found out there would be two other elders added into their apartment, which turned out to be Elder Leal and Salmeron. Long story short, they were fun guys, but not really great at following the rules. Gabe was not too sad when the mission president decided to transfer Leal and Salmeron away by the beginning of May. Now it's just Gabe and Elder Jara in their apartment and things seem to be going well! Elder Jara likes to cook Peruvian food for Gabe, and Gabe likes to do the dishes, so they are like a happy little married couple. ;)
Church Ball Tournament
One thing that was going on here in Rexburg in March was church ball. This year, our ward dominated. Like, we actually did. We ended up winning the championship! We had Robby and Lucas Matthews and their cousin, Kamden. Then also Caleb, Sebastyn, David Elliason, and Gabe Appleby. It was pretty fun to watch them play every Wednesday in March and some of April. All together, I think there were about 10 wards in our stake that they had to play over the course of about 6 weeks. We won every single game!
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