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

When September ends...

Hey everyone! Not much has happened this week so we'll touch some
 highlights shall we?

 So we taught our first lesson of the week Thursday. It was in an
 intercambio, I was with elder pitman from Pocatello Idaho.
 That night we had 10 elders come down to sleep in our piso because of
 zone conference the next morning. It was insane. I made breakfast
 burritos for everyone and they were delish. I never want ten elders in
 a piso ever again....

 Zone conference was awesome. We talked all about the BoM and how to
 better use it in the work. It was definitely inspired and we received
 a lot of revelation. Well I did at least, I hope the others did as
 well haha.
 Exchanges with the APs after was legit, I was with Elder Boyd from
 Murray! He loves basketball and music so we had a blast together haha.
 We had 6 lessons planned between the four of us and 5 fell through...
 the one that actually happened was with some Indian guy who came back
 20 minutes later to return the BoM and drop us. So that was sad.
 I had this feeling to knock every door in this building after a lesson
 failed and Elder Boyd has the same feeling. So we did! 12 floors of
 doors to knock. We met some cool people and found this Venezuelan guy
 who we'll visit later this week so that was definite inspiration to
 knock😊 that's all that happened though Hahah. We took out some
 people's garbage though! #servics


 Elder Trantham and I talked for like an hour that night about his
 life. He's a legit MMA fighter! He's from Green Mountain, up by Ogden.
 Inspired me to want to become a fighter too... but that won't happen.
 So naturally him and Elder Priest had a wrestling match😶 it was
 hilarious, elder Boyd and I just died laughing the whole time😂

 So we finished the week with 3 lessons taught so I don't have any
 super spiritual experiences to write about. So I apologize for that.
 But we have seen small miracles in our street contacting! We've been
 working hard to find new creative ways to find people and they've been
 paying off. Hopefully we actually get to meet with some of these
 people!

 I read a talk from April 2014 called "Your 4 minutes". Talks about
 this Olympian who trained her whole life for a four minute event and
 had the rest of her life to dwell on what happened in that event.
 Elder Stevenson related to our own lives. We prepared in the pre earth
 life for our own 4 minutes on this earth and we will have all eternity
 to think about our four minutes here. We need to do all we can to
 follow Christ so we have no regrets as we look back on our lives here!

 Hope you all have a great week!

 On Pushin,
 Elder Gearig

 I tried getting in all of elder priests goodbye photos haha

Sucker punches and Jinxing the Drought

Good day to all. Hope everything is splendid wherever this letter finds you. 

Let's get started.

So after PDay last week, we were walking around doing some lass byes and contacting and we come out of this building to this group of like 6 little kids. One yells "elder!" No clue who these kids are haha. He saw my name tag so that's how he knew my name. So I'm talking to this group of like 8 year olds and this little girl runs up to me, winds up her arm, and throws a mean right hook at me. She was 7 and I'm not freakishly tall, so just imagine where a 7 year olds fist would end up.😳 below the belt is correct. I dropped like a rock. It was pretty funny though. 

So I mentioned a drought last week..I meant that in two different ways, both of which were ended this week. Tuesday-Thursday consisted of freezing weather and nonstop rain. I was in heaven😍 it was awesome. The other drought was a little different. We've lost all our investigators and for the past three weeks we've been working super hard to find new people. So in three weeks of nonstop knocking and contacting, we received 1 phone number. 1!! The majority of every day is spent talking and we only got one number... so we switched a lot of things up, thanks to divine inspiration. It worked, we got more phone numbers this past week. Droughts=ended. 

Friday morning we had to head to Benavente, an area that was closed. We had to clean the Piso and take all the mission stuff out because they're shutting the area for good. So all morning was spent cleaning and salvaging things that were still good. The owner came by and she is a devil. But we softened her up and left on good terms. This member there helped us out and fed us with her and her family after. They made us Paella😍😍 then we ran to the bus and barely got it. Luckily she had to come up to León the next day for an activity and was able to bring her car full of stuff we got from the piso there so that was a huge help. Also Elder Thomas (from Bingham) happened to be here as well and helped us get it to our piso. 

Wednesday I did exchanges with our DL. From 4-10 we did not leave the streets. All lessons failed (weren't that many in the first place) so we contacted all afternoon. Around 8 I decided we would find a bench and offer another prayer. So we did just that, and decided to pass by a potential investigator. She wasn't home, so we knocked every door in her building, from the 10th floor down. We got nothing. I was hoping to have a cool finding story for you guys but I don't, haha sorry. What is cool is that at the exact same time we prayed, our companions (on the other side of town) prayed as well and they actually did find someone right away. The power of prayer! I think our prayer helped them as well. But that person they found failed the lessons we had set up. Such is the life. 

Here's a quote from President Monsons talk "Guided Safely Home"

Like the vital rudder of a ship, brethren, we have been provided a way to determine the direction we travel. The lighthouse of the Lord beckons to all as we sail the seas of life. Our purpose is to steer an undeviating course toward our desired goal--even the celestial kingdom of God. A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder, never likely to reach home port. To us comes the signal: chart your course, set your sail, position your rudder, and proceed.

Christ is here to guide us safely home! All we need to do is follow him. It's that simple. Follow him in all things and when we have doubts, focus in the things we KNOW are true, and then doubt those doubts before we doubt everything we know based off of not being sure on kne little thing (I hope that makes sense) 

Have a great week!

Dos Cadenas,

Elder Gearig 

Elder OBoyle and I during the exchange

 

For English class we made our dream islands. That's a house that goes under water FYI. And a '63 Corvette.

 

Looking to dunk on some people this fine P-Day😎

TO MADRID AND BACK

Goooood morning all. Hope you all enjoyed some stellar moments of silence for those of us outside of the USA yesterday. We took a 15 second one while we were contacting, then proceeded to contact again.
I love America. 

Basketball on Monday was super fun. Idk if any of you know Eric Brock,
he went to WJ for a little bit, but he's a beast and a long lost
homie, and we balled out for sure. With Elder Reese naturally, but I
talk about him in the majority of my emails so I'll give this one to
Elder Brock.

After that we went and visited one of Elder Priests converts there in
Madrid while we were there. He has always talked about this family and
how they're the best and he proved to be right...for once.?? no but
really, this family was awesome. We had such a cool talk with them for
like an hour about life. They were giving us marriage advice and such
and I left more motivated than ever to find families like them to
baptize. Meeting them once changed my way of thinking in a lot of
things. I will definitely be visiting them again.

Tuesday was MLC at the mission home and that's always a super
spiritually uplifting experience. Plus I sat next to Reese and
Campbell so it was an MTC reunion. We had a semi-decent Labor Day bbq
after with less-than-decent home made root beer (root beer doesn't
exist here(basically anything other than coke doesn't exist here)) and
elder Campbell got me to eat way too much of this dessert that will
melt your face off its so good. But I had a three hour train ride to
enjoy after so no worries. Also got my hair cut that night by a member
and it turned out decent.

Saturday we helped my favorite family here in León paint a room.
Thanks Dad for teaching me how to paint, should have taught my comp
how too as well ???? plus TwentyOne Pilots and other great groups came
on the radio while doing so #tendermercies

So we have been teaching his Colombian, Roberto, and this guy is
straight fire???? well...I should say WAS...because he was progressing
super quickly....then my luck came into play. Because he got a job in
Dubai and left for a few months. Fabricio, Adela, Marí-Sol, and now
Roberto. All these super super golden prepared people being swept away
by jobs before they're able to be baptized. Some even had their
baptismal interviews already. Super sad stuff but I have the faith
that he'll be baptized someday(: he was asking us questions about Gods
other worlds and other children and why it was necessary that Christ
came to save us on this world and it was a super deep lesson. Good
guy, good guy,..

Everything I've studied this week has been coming back to eternal
marriages and marriage advice. Like every member we visit, Sunday
school and priesthood lessons, conference talks I've randomly
read...idk what Gods trying to say here...??
Read an awesome, non-marriage related talk called "Yes, Lord, I will
follow thee." Super simple talk talking about how all our choices
should be based around Christ, and whether it will help us grow closer
to him or not. Here's a quote "As you strive to come to Him, you will
gain the power to relieve life’s burdens, whether physical or
spiritual, and experience a positive inner change that will help you
be happier."

That's about it. We're in a pretty big drought here in León right now
so I'm gonna have to play ball here and get it wet a little bit.?? but
we're pushing through and are gonna find some people, I'm sure of it.
Just trying to help Elder Priest finish these last 3 weeks strong!
Until the next one, my friends.


Fighting the fight,

Elder Gearig