Learn Spanish (Latin America): Conseguimos una mesa en el restaurante.

Yes, it can! For regular -ar and -ir verbs, the nosotros (we) form is exactly the same in both the present tense and the preterite (simple past) tense. Without extra context words like ayer (yesterday) or siempre (always), conseguimos can translate to either "we get" or "we got".

I thought this verb had a stem change (e to i). Why isn't it "consiguimos"?

You are right that conseguir is an "e to i" stem-changing verb (for example, yo consigo or ella consigue). However, in the present tense, the nosotros form never uses the stem change. It keeps the original "e" from the infinitive, which is why it stays conseguimos.

Why is there a "u" after the "g" in conseguimos?

The "u" is there to keep the "g" sounding hard, like in the English word "go". In Spanish, if a "g" is followed directly by an "e" or "i", it makes a soft, breathy "h" sound. Adding a silent "u" makes the gui combination produce a hard "g" sound. You will see this exact same spelling rule in its root verb, seguir.

English uses the word "get" for almost everything. Does "conseguir" work the same way?

Not quite. While "get" is a huge catch-all word in English, conseguir specifically means "to obtain," "to acquire," or "to manage to do" something. It usually implies that some effort was involved. So, conseguimos una mesa implies we managed to secure or obtain a table, rather than just randomly receiving one.