Monday, November 7, 2016

A lot of Milagros (Miracles!)






Well the cold has arrived. Short sleeves are packed away and the
scarves are now out. And it's not even "cold" yet.
Happy birthday to Chayden, Aussie, Emmet, and Morgan!
Well I have a lot to say so let's get it.

Tuesday we had a lesson with our Venezuelan family and wow, this
family is the CUTEST. Like seriously just goals. I gave a CTR ring to
the little 8 year old because she kept stealing mine last week. It was
cute. Read out of the BoM with them and watched my companion get
covered in pillows by a 2 year old. It was adorable.

Wednesday everything failed. Nothing new. So we said a prayer asking
God to guide us to where he needed us to be. We went to the train
station to print out a bunch of schedules for villages and stuff. Then
we went to the bus station for the same thing. As we were in the bus
station we hear a "hola élderes" and we turned around to a man who
approached us. He just moved here from Chihuahua Mexico two days
earlier and has been inactive for awhile but said he wants to come
back and start fresh here in León. And gooooooodnight this guy had a
thick accent. It was cool though. Just how God literally put us in the
bus station out of all places to find a guy who was looking for us. It
was neat.

Thursday we went out to a village to do an hour of contacting. We
actually planned to go to a different village but missed that train,
so God told us to go to a different village. We got their snd started
contacting and nobody wanted anything. No biggy. We knocked one door
and the lady was nice but not interested. The next door we knocked a
miracle happened. A little woman opened up and she was totally open to
our message. We taught her lesson one on her doorstep and left her
with a Book of Mormon. We as,es if we could send the Hermanas back to
teach her and she said "I'm actually in León on the weekends." So are
we! We invited her to church snd she was super pumped and said she
would read and would love for the hermanas to visit her again. After
we left elder Reese and I looked at each other snd said "that's why we
came here..." it was just a cool experience and how God sent us to
this little pueblo we had never heard of becsuse he knew his daughter
Luzmari was there waiting for us.


Friday we had another lesson with the Venezuelans. Taught the plan of
salvation and it went great! Yajaira offered the closing prayer and
starting bawling. They're going through a really hard time as a family
for reasons that I can't legally explain. And she was just feeling the
spirit during her prayer and thanked God for sending us to her to help
her and her family and it was just a tender moment. Gods the best.

Saturday we had a District Family History activity. It was awesome! I
basically just read stories from my ancestors and the spirit was just
super strong. I read the story of John Sorensen, my great great great
grandfather who was baptized on a small little tiny island in Denmark
in the 1800's, and he made the voyage to the states! He crossed the
plains SIX times to help other saints and there's so much to tell
about this man. He was impressed and a hero of mine. Thanks to him, my
mom could grow up in the church and now here I am! I love family
history! Go read stories about your ancestors people. Unless you don't
like crying.

Saturday night we had two missionaries get stranded in a village with
no means to get home. No members would go get them so Pres told them
to get a hotel. In the end we had them get a taxi back which cost a
lot but it was interesting that nobody would willingly go pick them
up. It was a stressful situation for us over here to deal with. But
there's a member here who I knew would have driven the 90 minutes to
go take them another 60 minutes home at 11:00 at night. I asked him
the next night about it and asked "if we were stranded and called you,
would you come get us if we payed you gas money?" And he said "elders,
I'd do it willingly and lovingly for nothing." Then he went on to
explain that if we are bold enough to say that we have everything we
have thanks to God, we need to be willing to use every resource to
help Him out, especially if it means driving 90 minutes at midnight to
pick up his servants. I just sat the rest of the ride with tears in my
eyes because this guy is dirt poor, his sons about to leave on a
mission, and they have no money, yet he's willing to drop everything
to rescue a couple missionaries and use his precious money for the
gas, and wouldn't accept money in return. I know it doesn't sound like
much I just can't explain my feelings over email.

Kalifa is progressing well and is on track for the 10th of December!
It's super awesome teaching him because we have to teach in the most
simple way possible because of the language barrier. Oddly enough, the
thing he understands the best is baptism and so he's excited, and
we're excited. He's a walking miracle.

Everything this week has been centered around The Plan of Salvation. I
bore my testimony in sacrament yesterday based off of President
Uchtdorfs talk from Saturday morning conference. He talks about taking
things for granted and how we tend to take for granted the gospel
truths. Especially after reading about my grandpa sorensen and other
ancestors sacrificing their lives for the gospel so that I could have
what I now have. We all need to think about our future generations and
the choices we make right now and if they're going to help our future
children and grandchildren live a comfortable life centered around
Christ or not. We are their ancestors.

Love you all! Stay warm!

Bones a chillin',
Elder Gearig

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