Just a few sidenotes.  Elder Gearig's companion is Elder Jones from Rigby. (Idaho, it must be, I didn't ask though)   and I thought I'd share part of a personal note from him to me .... Love Elder Gearig's momma

 Momma tonnnnnnnaAAAAA. 
So I'm in a city called Vigo. About 300000 people smashed into a 
 City in the mountains next to the ocean and Portugal. It's sooooooo so
 pretty. Add it to the list if we ever come back. We're helping open
 the area so we have no investigators yet. Lots of contacting in the
 street and working with the members. It's raining a lot. Like a lot a
 lot. They say it doesn't stop for four months during the winter so
 that's cool. I love the rain how are you though? I thought about you
 during elder Hollands talk Saturday night. Mothers and sons... Nothing
 quite like it. Thank you for being the best example in my life and
 making me the person I am right now. I love you so so much️ 
 Hope sojo is treating you as well as Spain is treating me.



 Finally got our apartment today. Since we're the first missionaries in it we had to go buy all of the stuff necessary to live lol. Spent about four hours cleaning and sanitizing the whole place #WifeMeUp. Seriously though it's hard not having my mom around but it's a good experience. Elder jones is a great guy. Really fun and we get along pretty well. Vigo is absolutely beautiful. I said I didn't want to go to the islands because it'd be too hard to stay focused because of how beautiful it would be, but from the other missionaries, Vigo is the prettiest place in the mission so I got what I asked for. It's unexplainable. Pictures don't even do it justice.  We walked about 4 miles on direction and found out it covers about 1/10 of the mission in that direction so our area is pretty big. We bought a pet crab for a day to raise for dinner tomorrow. His name is Larry also here's a funny story. So we had a lunch appointment with a member. We arrived (Howard, müller, jones, and myself) and met them. They have two beautiful little kids and I was playing with them while the others talked because their Spanish was understandable lol. So elder Howard tells me that we're eating a Venezuelan dish made of potatoes and Dog. Yes, I said dog. So I'm getting nervous and he proceeds to tell me that they get offended if I don't eat the food. So now I'm freaking out he then tells me it's a custom to eat in a circle on the ground. So we sit in the circle and the father brings a bowl of raw, bloody meat into the circle. He tells me that during the prayer, my hand is in the bowl, holding the meat. Super weird. If you know me, you know I h8 raw stuff. So I'm manning up lol they pray and after he tells me I have to eat it. So I was Afraid to hesitate out of fear of offending them, so I eat the raw bloody meat. I hide the look on my face and proceed to the bathroom. We gather at the table to eat the cooked Dog now. He tells us to eat and so I figured the longer I looked at it the less likely I'd be to eat it, so I went for it. I took a bite and the father says "welcome to the mission elder Gearig." They all pranked me. 😑 on my mission...psh. The bowl of meat was pieces of bread in tomato sauce, and the dog meat was straight rabbit. We laughed for about 10 minutes straight. I'll try sending the video later. It was hilarious. #initiation. The rest of the week was good. We gave a blessing to a member in the hospital and another one later tonight to another member. General conference was absolutely amazing. I've never gotten that much out of it before. Pres monson didn't look too good though Sunday morning  

So yesterday started the rainy season here in Vigo. 

First week down and many more to go. Thank you to all who send prayers and love. Love you all and am praying for you! Keep it real🏼