Tuesday, February 23, 2016

6 Months!!!

Okay so last Monday I made a deal with Hermana Staker here. I let her
cut my hair if I could cut her hair lol. Lol I was super nervous and
she didn't do the best job but Elder Holt fixed it up pretty good. I
took off 4" of her hair but it didn't look badFace with tears of joy I won't be a
cosmetologist or whatever they're called, too much patience.
Thursday morning the Herms went running with us. We ran to this castle and burned a tie up there for my six month mark! It was sad but I have a lot of time left to work!

We taught quite a few lessons this week which was rare but it was a
good week! We went to have a lesson with this guy I mentioned last
week and he wasn't home..but his roommate invited us in and we talked
for a little then I just started teaching him so we went from there!
Hahah turns out he's way more interested than our first guy! So now
we're teaching these roommates and they're both super interested in
changing their lives so that was a tender mercy(:

I had the chance to give a couple blessings this week so that's always
nice. Last Monday night we had all these plans fail us so we were just
kind of going with the flow. I had this feeling to stop by a couple
less actives. One let us right in and we sat down and started talking
and then he said he actually needed a blessing so it was a good thing
we came by. He asked me to give the blessing part so I start going
with it and I thought it went decently well. He gave me a hug after
and looked at me and said "those were the exact words said in my
patriarchal blessing." I don't remember what I said at all, so it was
definitely The Holy Ghost talking and an experience I'll remember for
a long time!
Right after, we stopped by another less active. We shared a video
about the Book of Mormon and talked about it for awhile. The Spirit
was super strong and we were really bold while talking to this guy and
we all had these tears in our eyes by the end so hopefully he's
keeping his commitment!
Wednesday we were doing more pass byes trying to meet new people and
since we were in a trio we went to visit an old woman whose always
home alone! We walked in and her grandson walks out. He's 20 and has
been inactive for quite a few years. It was a complete surprise to see
him there so we sit down and get to know him a little bit. After about
10 minutes he starts saying how he's had big desires to come back to
the church but has a lot of personal problems. He was super open and
he started crying telling us all these stories and how his friends
judge him when he helps old women in the street and stuff. And we all
have problems in our lives, it's a fact! But I was able to connect
with him in a super personal way and I feel like I've known this guy
from somewhere before. I don't know where but I know if I leave Vigo
in two weeks, I may not have baptized anybody into the church, but I
know I helped this one guy and made a difference in his life. He came
to church yesterday for the first time in years and I was soooooo
happy!Smiling face (black and white)️ gave him this huge hug and told him how proud I was of him
and how happy I was to see him back and he had a really good
experience. We had 5 less actives we've been working with come
yesterday to church and one random guy we invited in the street hahah.
The work is picking up(:

Have a great week my friends and don't just have a great night, have
an American night. Regional indicator for USARegional indicator for USA

Loving life,
Elder Gearig


Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Well another week bites the dust. Good week though, good week indeed.
I knew I forgot a birthday last week and I'm quite embarrassed so
happy birthday to Elder Brock Sivulich this past week! You're the
bestHeavy black heart️ also Alyssa Mecham's is this week, actually on my 6 month mark
too so that's an exciting day! Hah...six months....And Happy 14th to my cousin
 Ian and Happy 13th to my other cousin Stetson!

So Elder Howard got sick last Sunday, then Elder Holt and Elder Ferro
woke up sick on Monday so we didn't do anything last week for PDay. We
sent Elder Holt and Ferro home to rest while Howard and I worked at
night. He should have rested as well but insisted on working. Bad idea
because he couldn't get out of bed Tuesday. Nobody did! Except me. So
I studied all day and cleaned the whole piso and was sick of being
inside not working so I called a member, we dropped off my companion
at the others apartment and quarantined them all together while I
worked for the rest of the day. I felt bad for leaving my comp but I
worked and we taught an awesome lesson to a less active family so it
was okay! They felt better Wednesday, and Thursday I woke up sick lol.
But it wasn't bad so I didn't say anything. Slow couple of days though
hahah. Hermana Staker told me that elders think they're better
missionaries when they try working through sicknesses, but it just
makes them worse because they don't get better faster and end up
losing more opportunities to work. It's true! Elders are stubborn Winking face

Well we found a bar of gold this week. I'm not gonna say more about
him because I don't wanna jinx it. If he's still around next week I'll
tell y'all the story of him because it's unreal! So stay tuned.Eyes

Umbrella with rain dropsUmbrella with rain dropsSplashing sweat symbolSplashing sweat symbolIt hasn't stopped raining in a week straight and doesn't look
like it'll let up anytime soon. Again. Looooove Vigo. Lol we call our
umbrellas our "shoes" because if you leave in the morning without it,
it's the equivalent of walking around without shoes on. On the reals I
really love Vigo and I love the rain, but it makes contacting that
much more difficult so you feel like a terrible missionary all week
because there's not much going on. But hard work is paying off! I've
got a testimony of that for sure.

My ponderizing scripture of the week was Alma 26:12. "Yea, I know that
I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast
of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do
all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this
land, for which we will praise his name forever."
This is applicable to every single person out there. Especially to
missionaries because we can't do this work alone. We rely on The
Spirit in every moment of the day to give us strength we need. And
when something good happens, we can't boast of ourselves or think that
it was us. Because it's 100% about Christ, and it's 100% the Spirit
working through us. We simply listen to the Holy Ghost and let the
Spirit do the rest. We may experience miracles every day, all of us,
and they're because we have a loving Heavenly Father looking out for
us. We're just His instruments.

Iiiiiii wanna knowwwwwww...have you everrrr seeeen the raiiiinn....?,
Elder Gearig

Thursday, February 11, 2016

New comp and the Spec Ops


Elder Ferro from Argentina
I'm not a fan of how fast these weeks are going but here I am again. Yay.


So Monday we went and played football on the beach. It was leggiiiitttt. Elder Howard Elder Reese and tossing dimes. Fun stuff!


Elders Gearig & Reese




We taught a less active family that night and wow... There aren't words. Like literally. We invited them to repent in the most lovable way I've ever seen. I've never been apart of a more spiritually led lesson in these 5 1/2 months. Hahah like literally if one of us had a thought come to our head we just said it without hesitation. They sat in silence for a few moments and the spirit was just overwhelming. It was awesome.


Picked up my new compi Tuesday niight(: Elder Ferro from Argentina.
What a machine. We get along so so well and it's so much fun! Hahah the first night together we just talked and talked and realized he's the argentine version of Elder Reese so that's fine by me. He speaks decently good English too but we talk in Spanish and my Spanish has gotten so much better hahah I'm loving this kid!!


Saturday was the best day of my mission. Here's a cool story, long but worth the read.??????

So I'll try to put it into words here for y'all. So we were helping the Hermanas find another woman for their lesson that night. Literally through the whole branch list and nobody wanted to hahah. We had to leave so we left for lunch with a less active family and had a good lesson with them. After, we went to piso to get our umbrellas because Vigo decided we had had too much sun lately (like 2 days). This random guy called us and so I started talking to him and I taught him like
1/2 of every lesson we had over the phone lol. I've never felt he spirit through the phone before so that was a first. Turns out he didn't want anything but we're good friends now(: I ended the call and we had 4 missed calls from the Hermanas and one text that said "we need help!" They've had some creepy guys stalking them and told they needed us to let us know so in my head I was like "I've never killed a man before....there's a first for everything." Because the Hermanas are literally like my sisters. Turns out they just needed us to teach their lesson for them because they couldn't find a woman to help. So we hustle down to the church in the outing rain which is always fun but I'm used to it hahah. We had no game plan going in to this lesson and elder Ferro was kind of worried about that but for some reason I wasn't. We walked in and got a quick rundown from the Herms and started teaching this guy! Right before we walked into the classroom I jokingly asked the Herms "so what date do you want him to be baptized?" And we shared a quick laugh. So remember how I said that lesson with that other family was the most spiritually guided lesson I've had? Sike. This one topped it! Hahah we just started teaching this guy and the spirit was just indescribable. We talked a lot about him receiving answers to his prayers and shared a lot of personal experiences. Then out of nowhere I ask this guy to be baptized?? not even my investigator! He said he wants to be, yes! Hahah it was unreal! The thing is I don't remember a word I said to this guy so it was definitely the Holy Ghost. We bid them farewell and standing outside the chapel was a friend from English class. And so we invited him in and he says "alright let's read in your bible, the Book of Mormon right?" So I'm shocked. Like jaw dropped shocked. This lesson was in English so Elder Ferro didn't say anything. I taught him the restoration and again, I don't remember what I said. I started pulling these scriptures out of nowhere and asking him questions that he said he'd never thought about before then I asked him what he needed to do to be with God again. He read from 2 Nephi 31 and said... "Well... I suppose I need to be baptized." BINGO!! My man Kenneth. Elder Ferro chipped in with his only sentence of the night "to fulfill all righteousness." I invited him and he said he has nothing against it but that he didn't want to. Hmm.. But we'll meet again this week to follow up. It was an insane niight.
Herms called us later that night and they thought I was joking about this guy getting baptized and I was like No, like he's getting baptized by you guys March 5th. Here's what crazy. They told me if we were one minute late that night, we wouldn't have found Kenneth. ONE MINUTE! One minute more in the phone, one minute walking, one minute with their investigator, one minute anywhere! It was weird because we were like almost crying through the phone to the each other. Call us the Spec Ops, coming in to get baptismal commitments then disappering.
Spirit just working from all directions. The church is true, Christ lives, God loves us and is aware of our needs.


Feeding the Sheep,
Elder Gearig

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Hey amigos. We meet again.(:
Happy 35th birthday to Mama Jen on Tuesday!
So these past two weeks have been in the blink of an eye so I'll share
some things from my week.

So this was the last week of the transfer so we were all making our
predictions on who was going where. I was 98% convinced I was leaving
so I started packing on Wednesday lol. God showed me he's in charge so
needless to say, I'll be staying in Vigo which makes it at least 6
months here. No complaints here, I'm stoked out of my mindSmiling face with Sunglasses but Elder
Jones is on his way back to Madrid as I write this so it was sad
saying bye to my dad for the past 4 1/2 months. He's a machine and I
am grateful for the time we had together. 
I'm also receiving a nephew out here as my good ole friend Elder Reese will be training this week. Him and I will be together this transfer at least, Super excited...my new companion is from Spain and doesn't speak a lick of English so I'm stoked and motivated Thumbs up sign he doesn't come until Tuesday night so Elder Reese and I are in a trio with Elder Howard until then. Suuuuuuper excited. My 9 year old girlfriend broke up with me Weary face she said "how about I'll just be your daughter?" And just like that it was over. But it really released some tension because things were getting heated because she went inactive for a couple weeks. But I got her to pinky promise to come every week now lol. Ever taught a less active 9 year old? It's fun. I told her I was getting transferred on Sunday and she started bawling. I felt terrible. So I gave her a hug and told her I'll be here 6 more weeks so she has to come every week. She said she would Ok hand sign  #activated
K my miracle. Remember this woman we found three weeks ago who said she would be baptized after our first lesson? Remember how she blocked our number and we haven't seen her since? Well we've been praying super hard to find her and well... We found her! Hahah it was awesome! We taught her Thursday and it was crazy! The spirit was sooooo strong and we taught the plan of salvation and she loved it! It was a straight up miracle and I know God answers our prayers. We haven't put a new date on her yet since she was supposed to be baptized last Saturday but that's not really possible lol. But we'll visit her this week and talk more. God is good. Friday was the baptism of Jesús!Eyes (no, John didn't baptize him) The friend of the Hermanas here. We've all gotten close to him and he was so prepared. Super cool conversion story. Completely 180 twist. He's the 3rd baptism in the area in the past 2 years so the branch really rallied around him. It was cool. Hahah we bucketed water out of the chapel after and that was a riot. Saturday night we had a big branch activity we've been preaching about for months. A talent show. It was a huge success! We've had so many members come up to us and tell us it was the closest they've seen the branch in years and the funnest activity they've ever had. We put so much into this show so it was awesome to see the branch come together. I don't think anyone stopped laughing/crying for the 70 minutes. Us missionaries did a little skit and it was hilarious, they loved it. I'm never leaving Vigo! Like seriously, if president transfers me I'm just dropping off the face of the earth. This place is home. Yesterday we spent the day saying goodbye to families with elder jones. It was a little emotional because the members like him and I the best out of the missionaries here so they were sad to see him leave. But they're stuck with me which isn't the worst thing because they'll be feeding us every day because they know I'll eat their food lol. Yay. But my "daughter" and I played some marbles or something so that was legit. And this morning our favorite Peruvian invited us over for breakfast before elder jones train left. At 7. Which is early as it is...and here in Spain nobody wakes up until like noon. Plus We packed his bags until 2 am and woke up at 5:30 to eat with her. But it was delish! Quick thought/experience: So Monday night I asked God a question. "Why am I here?" Like don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking of going home, I know why I came out here and all that stuff but I just like receiving confirmation regularly about things yanno? So Tuesday morning during personal study I came across the talk from April 1983 by (at the time) Elder Thomas S. Monson called "anonymous." You should read it, it's amazing. A talk from 33 years ago answered my prayer. I sat back in my chair and had this overwhelming sensation that paralyzed me for a few moments. Tears came to my eyes as I received my answer and I heard these words in my mind, "you're here to love the people." It's been tough here in Vigo. Three lessons taught this week, 2 last week lol. But that's what Elder Jones and I did really well together. We both realized our calling here wasn't to baptize. It was to strengthen the members and activate less actives and that's what we've been doing and what I'll continue to do with my new companion. I think that's why this place is so close to my heart, the relationship with the members is unbelievable. I know I'll leave to serve the people somewhere else really soon and that'll be an emotional day for me. Goodbyes suck! Maybe I'll bust my ACL Schy-Shoe style the last day so I can stay here. Veremos. Much love. The Vigo Reign, Elder Gearig