Hello my beloved beloveds. Hope the week has been splendid because
mine has been just dandy! Happy birthday to Andrew Gray, shoot him a
happy birthday-> Andrew.gray@myldsmail.net
Also good luck to Bailie leaving on the mish tomorrw!

Well a lot happened this week so let's get to the fun stuff.

So Tuesday we met with an old investigator from a while ago, he's a
Romanian gypsie. All this guy wants to do is fight. He has a super
cool story about finding God in his life, he was in jail and found a
bible and has a super cool and powerful story. But because of that,
he's completely closed to any other beliefs and is 120% convinced that
he knows everything. He hates Joseph Smith and basically us in
general. But he said he would read and pray with an open mind and
heart so we gave him a shot. The first lesson wasn't bad with him, I
just had to keep Elder Priest under control. Then we bid him farewell
until Saturday.

Wednesday-Friday was spent in Oviedo and Gijón doing exchanges. I saw
elder wright again so I was stoked. Good father son bonding time😎
elder doxey and I taught this Nigerian family and it was a crazy
experience. Four little kids running around naked and their mom
yelling at them in like three languages. It was....fun....I suppose.
The 10 year old was actually participating though and when we invited
them to read and pray, he said "not a problem" and started praying on
the spot. I thought that was neat☺️ no wonder Christ says to be as
little children.

Elder Priest got super sick Saturday. During comp study he ran
downstairs and starting making noises I've never heard before.
Apparently he threw up. So an hour later I made him get dressed so we
could go play soccer. My baaaaad. He didn't play, and we ran to the
church so he could continue making weird sounds and throwing the rest
of the day was spent in the chapel and we had a couple lessons there.
One of which was with the gyps again. And this guy is a gyyyyyps
people. Straight up gyps (not in a good way). The moment he saw us he
started saying it was stupid they call us "Elders" instead of our real
names and he wouldn't drop that. So we start the lesson and he really
liked what he read in the BoM so we talked about that. Then he started
fighting about the sabbath day and why it's on Sunday and not Saturday
so we showed some scriptures in the bible and he just laughed and
called us liars. Elder Priest was dead at this point and was having
none of it. I kept my cool but he lost it. He started calling us liars
and antichrists and Joseph Smith worshippers and a lot of other things
I won't repeat. We called the lesson after that and sent him in his
way. As he walked out, him and my comp were fighting back and forth
and I told my comp to go inside while I cooled the guy down. I told
him to keep going with his faith and keep reading and stuff then he
turned around and started walking at me and yelling and saying he
knows I'm wrong and am going to hell and all that stuff. So I just
walked in and locked the door.

Roberto came to church yesterday and really liked it. Had a good
testimony meeting even though three 70 year olds tried one-upping each
other's testimonies and took like 15 minutes each...
I bore my testimony based on the poem "footprints in the sand". For
those that don't know, it's a poem and there's two sets of footprints
on the sand. The beach is the persons life and one footprint is his
and the others is Christs. During the difficult times there was only
one footprint and the man asks Jesus "why did you leave me?" And
Christ responds "this were the moments when I carried you." That's the
jist of it. But it's true, we are never alone in our trials. Christ
literally cannot leave us, it's against His nature. We just need to
turn to him more than before and continue in faith with hope and trust
and He'll carry us through.

Yesterday was spent all day in the piso taking care of my dead comp.
he's still super sick. But we're in Madrid now and I'm gonna play some
ball while he watches and rests. Love you all!


Wake me up when September ends,
Elder Gearig

I thought it'd be a good photo.

Elder Priest