Lithuania to Venezuela

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Hello loved ones. It's been a solid five days since I've last wrote,
but we've had quite a bit happen! Can't believe February is already
over! Got 5 months to get add much done as possible now!

So Thursday we had Elder Soares of the presidency of the seventy here!
He's spoken a couple times in general conference and is an absolute
spiritual GIANT. I learned so much from that man and his wife. It was
incredible.
We flew home Thursday night and got in at about 8:45. We were
absolutely wiped out. But I told my companion we were going to hit the
streets and get something done in 45 minutes. So we left and got
nothing. UNTIL. Two guys from a bar called us over to talk to us. They
wanted to know what we were doing so we started talking and 30 minutes
later, they drove  us home and we had their references. It was super
cool! The one wants his children to have good morals and loved what we
were doing, he thought I was 27 as well lol. The other guy grew up in
Argentina and the Mormons let his friends use their basketball court
so he already loved us too. Cool little miracle of what happens when
we give it one last shot when we're tired.

Friday was the best.! We met with two new investigators! Clever is
from Venezuela and is 23, he is super cool! We had such an awesome
lesson with him! The Spirit was really strong and he was asking solid
questions and was loving it! I was so stoked, I love teaching people
my own age. We invited him to be baptized and he said yes! 25th of
March! I asked him and he said " but I've already been baptized" so I
said  " remember what we said about the apostasy?" And he was like "
oh right! My baptism wasnt done with the right authority " and I was
just amped out of my mind. Solid guy.

After lunch we met with Saul. He's from Lithuania! (S/O to Elder
kendell) he's atheist but super open to talking about God. We taught
him in English so my companion was excited Hahah. We had a lesson and
just talked about who God is, what he's like, his characteristics and
nature and all that good stuff. I seriously LOVE lessons like that.
Something so simple yet so profound and the spirit is ALWAYS strong.
It was incredible.

Something I loved from Elder Soares visit with us was the faith to
work miracles and getting out of God's way. Ever since I got here, I
feel like I've been exercising a lot of faith in trying to find people
to teach. And I didn't see any results for two weeks. I've been
wondering if I really didn't have as much faith to find as I thought I
had or what was going on. But this past week I've been blessed to see
the fruits of the first two weeks. We have a couple new people to
teach and things are slowly picking up! We have to get out of God's
way in this work by being obedient and diligent and working with faith
and patience. There's no slowing down!!


Foot sleeping on the gas,
Elder Gearig

Lots of stretching

Met this cool Filipino with a Michigan hat #motherland. He didn't
wanna be baptized though..

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Hey everyone's! Hope you guys have had a fabulous week.
We're out here in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for our mission tour
tomorrow. Played a ton of soccer today and I got sunburnt. I flew here
yesterday morning for intercambios so I'll be here until tomorrow
night.

So the past 10 days have been quite uneventful. Things are just super
slow here. I feel like I know this place like the back of my hand
already because we've walked every street😂 but we will find somebody,
I'm determined to change it. My first night we met this young guy from
Venezuela and got his number and we met with him Monday! 2 weeks and
we finally taught an investigator! His names Gabriel and he's 22 and
super smart, he's already graduated from college with an engineering
degree and loves learning. So we met with him and got to know him and
he's a super cool guy.
Anyways, taught him the restoration and it went really well! He
offered the final prayer and it was super good! We invited him to be
baptized and he said he'll think about it but it went really well! It
was great! After we met him my first night, I turned to elder Tribett
and said "we just met the next baptism of Santa Cruz." So we'll see if
my prophecy comes to pass!

Elder Douglas says hi.

Met with a couple less actives and my first night we met with this guy
and the lesson went incredibly well. Well, I made a pretty bold
promise to him if he read a couple chapters we assigned. We returned a
few nights ago and sure enough, something crazy happened! He had a
pretty cool dream of his mom who passed away years ago and was super
stoked to keep reading and such. He came to church for the first time
in awhile and even came to our service project Saturday and Sunday!

It's been a tough 10 days but that's how I like 'em! To progress, we
gotta stretch and struggle! And I'd say stretching has been a good
word to describe it so far. But things are slowly getting there and
the best part is it's easy to see progress! We've had some good comp
studies together and are on the same page finally so things should be
good from here! Super excited for the rest of this transfer!

Trailblazin',
Elder Gearig

The island life is the life for me

Elders Romney & Gearig saying goodbye

Final goodbyes before the plane

Well hello everybody! Hope you're enjoying the cold weather back in
Utah. I've had a week in the mid 70's with a view of the beach
everyday. Life's good.

So this last week has been interesting for sure. Our flight landed
late Monday night and we got to work Tuesday. Haha the work here is
really slow right now. I think this past week was the first week of my
mission not teaching an investigator. Just a few less actives. So
we've been trying to find like crazy and received quite a few numbers.
So hopefully we can get these people into new investigators and get
them progressing in the next little bit. It's also weird being back in
short sleeves.

New Companions!

My comp is a cool cat from Payson Utah. Stands a little taller than me
and is super chill haha. He just got done being trained so is still
kind of scared of doing some things but we had a solid week getting
him out of his comfort zone, and we saw quite a few miracles as well!
It'll be a solid transfer!

We had a cool lesson with a less active on my first night. We had
planned to teach him how to teach the restoration so he could share it
with his friends. As my companion was writing stuff down, I was
getting to know him better and find out why he was less active. His
parents and brother died awhile back and he opened up to me about his
feelings and everything. So it was pretty clear that what we had
planned was NOT what he needed. My companion is still working on his
Spanish and kept trying to teach him the restoration 😂 so I had to
take control and we ended up having a super awesome lesson about
repentance and the hope that God gives us as we're faithful. He sure
liked it and committed to reading a few chapters we assigned him. Just
another example of inspired questions and following promoting of the
Spirit! Being a missionary is the best!

Well I wish I had more experiences to share with you guys but
hopefully I will I'm the next week or so. Speaking of which, next
week, PDay will be switched to Wednesday again because we have zone
PDay right before a zone conference. So 10 more days it will be once
more! Love you all and read the scriptures!

Gospel Preaching,
Elder Gearig