It's a small world after all

The Utah family

Good day to all. On a bus traveling to Toledo, one of my old areas
with the district for PDay. Should be pretty fun!

Well we had a pretty solid week here in B5. Found a couple new
investigators and had some cool experiences!

Yesterday we ran into a family from Salt Lake City! The dad was an
announcer for KSLs SportsBeat channel and is working here in Madrid.
We knew each other so it was fun to chat Hahah. He filled us in on the
playoffs and such. Falcons are taking the Super Bowl!

Saturday we taught a family who walked into the chapel earlier in the
week asking to meet with us. They took the lessons a few years ago in
the DR and mlvdd here and lost contact with the missionaries then
stumbled across the church. It was an awesome lesson! The little 2
year old was a tornado though. Super hard teaching when there's a
child throwing crap around the room haha. It was super great though!(:
straight golden situation too. Said they'd give up working on Sunday's
to come to church. Thennnnnn they didn't come. So that sucked. Still
excited for them!

Hahah we were knocking doors in this building full of future
investigators one day. We knocked this guy who always answers drunk
and told us to come by. So we did and he was cracking the door open
and looking at us then pretended like he didn't see us. It was funny.
He did it like five times. I kept trying to talk to him and let him
know I could see him! So he did it one more time, then I heard him go
to the kitchen and heard a drawer open. So I had this feeling to leave
and I did! We were walking away and he opened the door and had this
huge butcher knife! Before I knew it, elder Romney was sprinting down
the stairs hahahahaha. I don't know what would have happened if I was
standing there still but I'm glad we left!

Saturday to Sunday we did a fast with one of our investigators,
Beatriz. Her husband/boyfriend won't let them get married so she can't
be baptized. We, along with a few other missionaries around the
mission, joined in fast to have God touch the heart of her
husband/boyfriend. We'll see what happens this week!

Yesterday we picked up two new investigators! One is a Colombian kid
who is like half Jewish half something else. Interesting beliefs but
he's open to giving us a shot! We got on our knees st the end of the
lesson snd he offered the prayer. It was going great until in the
middle he stopped and said to us "I can't. I feel terrible. I can't
keep going." And I just stared at him with wide eyes. I thought a
demon was controlling him because he started heaving and it was
sketchy. Then I told him to finish, so he did and it was great. Then
he explained sometimes he randomly gets sick. It was just a sketchy
thing but the prayer was stellar!

I'm also started to learn Portuguese because we've been finding a lot
of Brazilians and people like that. So I'm hoping to pick it up
somewhat quick. There's a member helping me(:

Well I'll stop there but yesterday I have a talk in church. Probably
my favorite talk I've given on the mission. I talked based off of D&C
58:27, being anxiously engaged in a good cause. It went pretty well I
was happy with how it went. We all need to do things out of our own
free will and not do it because we're commanded to! If we're always
anxiously engaged in a good cause, others will follow and we'll all
make it together.


Cause engaging,
Elder Gearig

The Utah family

Zone Conference

Hey hey hey. Happy MLK Day. Just got done playing soccer and basketball so I'm pretty tired. So this is gonna be pretty short. 

Tuesday I did an exchange with elder Meeks. Haha he's got a solid 2 weeks on the mission. It was fun to be with a greenie again and see that greenie fire and attitude. Haha we had a lot of fun together👍🏾 I don't know why the calligraphy just changed but oh well. Anyways..we taught this guy named Aitor. It was unreal! The guy was 1. Spanish and 2. Super interested! He was just a huge testimony to me that there are Spanish people prepared in this country. But he's just super legit and I'll never forget get that lesson. More information to come!

So y'all remember that guy from last week with the university of Utah jacket? We met with him Saturday! And in the words of elder Romney "he's either the most prepared guy I've ever met, or ex communicated. Because that was insane." Haha. So he accepted to be baptized. Haha after we were like "if you hadn't have worn that jacket, we wouldn't have seen you." And he said "yeah that's true, Gods trying to tell me something." Haha so we were pretty stoked to say the least. More updates to come 👍🏾

We also met with this Spanish girl who speaks perfect English. She doesn't really believe in God but we had an awesome lesson about the nature of God. There are few things I love more than preaching about the nature of God. The Spirit is just super strong and it's the best! Hopefully she keeps progressing.

Things are slowly picking up here. Weather has been great and we're finding people to talk to! Life's good and I'm happy(: have a good one fam.

Just believe,

Elder Gearig 

Michigan, Utah, bodyguards, and selfies

First week of the new year is down in the books, and frankly I don't
remember much of it haha. But this week we had some cool experiences
so I'll hit the ones that come to my mind. Let's get it.

Monday we had elder Reese and elder kiser down here from León and had
a good time. We tag teamed an appointment with a family at night and
it was just super cool for me. Four elders from Utah who are like best
friends testifying to this family and the spirit was just super cool
and definitely flowed between us. It was a cool experience for me.

Tuesday was MLC and it was awesome as always. Always great to hear the
inspired instruction from President and Hermana Pack and from the APs
as well. Should be a good transfer!

Wednesday was insane. We had a service project with a local church and
they were in charge of it. It was extremely unorganized. We had 2500
people getting free presents for their children because they couldn't
afford presents this year. But like I said it was not organized at
all. For four hours elder Romney and I acted as bodyguards trying to
keep very inpatient people from braking into this church, it was so
stressful and not very Christlike the way everything ran, but we got
everyone brought through eventually.

Thursday we had a cool experience. We're tying to visit all the active
members and do a quick fifteen minute pass bye to get to know them and
leave a message, so we went to this Dominican ladies house. We were
talking to her when the other elders randomly show up. So us four are
their with Javi, a YSA member, and the lady got super tender with us
because the missionaries hadn't visited her in a few months and the
day before she was wondering why. Then randomly we were all there. It
was cool.
THEN. We were running back to get home on time and we ran past this
street and elder Romney and I saw out of the corner of our eye, a
familiar logo. We stopped on a dime and there was a large man wearing
a University of Utah jacket! He's from Guatemala (shoutout Alyssa and
Cam) and his uncle sent him the jacket. We were freaking out and super
stoked and he was getting stoked and we're gonna teach him this week(:

Saturday night we were going home again, when I saw another familiar
logo! University of Michigan baby! The guy played waterpolo from hem
and is from Flint, so we had a long conversation about our motherland
and he has a friend in Italy on a mission so we had a sweet talk
together(: God just making us feel at home left and right.

We got a solid 5 investigators to church which is a mission high for
me. A lot of stuff to be done here in B5 and I'm enjoying life(: hope
everyone is enjoying life and keeping on!

Life livin,
Elder Gearig

3 Kings dinner