Happy Carnaval

Dear family,

Sorry for not writing the last week... I forgot to advise you all about the holiday of Carnaval here in Santa Cruz. Carnaval is a period of 3 days where all kids, youth, parents, grandmas, dogs, cats, uncles, and the 2nd cousins of the family get together for half a day and then go crazy with paint, water, music, and lots of drinking for 2 and a half days. We stay inside for all 3 days. It was the same as last year... I'm not sure if you remember. It all went well. We made it out alive and didn't get too bored in the house. We had a lot of time to study and clean and cook new foods. 
 

These two weeks have flown by and I can't believe we are in the middle of Feburary and that 3 days ago was the 2 year mark from when I got to the MTC. Here are a few things that have happened this week.
 

1. It rained. And I got very very very very wet. We invited a family to be baptized while we were dripping and they said yes. They have a baptismal date.

2. Un hombre, medio ebrio, nos acercó y me llamó ''Mister Esmit'' (MIster Smith). No paramos para hablarle pero fue la primera vez que alguien me llama por ese nombre.

3. Empezamos a enseñar a una familia de ciegos. No sé cómo van a poder leer y progresar pero son muy humildes y tienen deseos de cambiar. Tuvimos que aprender una nueva manera de enseñar.

4. A large lizzard called jaúci in native guaraní somehow got into the chapel. It was a baby still but the same lizzard grows to be about 2 meters when it is an adult.

Other than some other crazy things, I'm happy which is good. During Carnaval, we watched the World Wide MIssionary Trasmission from the end of January. I think it was ELder Oaks was the one who was talking but he said that as missionaries we should pray to be able to do the Lords work and pray to understand it's importance. Its something that deeply changed my prayers, my work efforts, and my respect and love for Christ. I have tried to do it every day since carnaval and I have come to understand on a deeper level the need for repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. We are so so so close to the 2nd coming. Its here and we are the only ones who have the truth. It is a matter of choosing life or death on a very significant spiritual level. I don't even know how to explain the feelings of responsability I have. Its something that I don't want to stop, and its my motivation to keep going. This work never stops and never will stop until it has filled the whole earth. I have been so blessed to be a part of this work. Its of such great value to me. In Moses chapter 6 around verse 48 until the end of the chapter, the doctrine of Christ which is eternal is taught with clarity and power. I came to understand the true importance of this work, and I love it!! Its the most meaningful work I will ever do in my whole life. Nothing I do can or will be more important than this.

I love you all and pray for you always.

Hurrah for Israel!

Love,

Elder Gehring

 

 

 

Baptism and Cambios

Dear family,

This week we had transfers. My new companion is Elder Lockling. He is from Chile!! Its my first companion from chile and he is the best. I also realized I have had companions from all over the place. Australia (in the MTC), California, Utah, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Cochabamba, La Paz, Spain, Argentina, Brasil, and now Chile!! I have been blessed during these two years to learn so much from such great companions. 
 

President told me last transfer that I would be training. I believed him and was anxiously waiting the transfers to see what time my meeting with the new missionaries would start. I saw Elder Lockling on the list and realized that he has been here in the mission for almost a year now. Im still a zone leader but Elder Lockling has never been a district leader nor zone leader. I realized that what president had told me 1 transfer ago was true!! The Lord just works in mysterious ways sometimes. All things aside, I couldnt have asked for a better companion. He is loving, humble, and teaches with the spirit. I have a lot to learn from him these next 6 weeks. 
 

He came from Villamontes (another area in the mission about 6 hours in bus). But there was a blockade from a few political protesters and he didnt get here in time so even though I wasnt ''training'' I still got to go to the trainers meeting so  I wasnt alone. President must have known I needed to learn a little more. He asked me to conduct the meeting which was a wonderful opportunity and I got to be companions for 3 hours with Elder Choque (new arrival from La Paz). Its amazing how the Lord thinks of each one of his children individually. I learned so much. 

I am doing well. My faith is growing as I have studied Preach My Gospel more this week than any other time in my mission. I have searched chapter 3 for doctrine over and over and over. And I am realizing the power that it has. Also, as a zone we started to choose activities from the back of each chapter to study during Personal Study, Companionship study, and then District meetings. We feel that as we have a foundation of PMG in each level of study (personal, companionship, and district) that our investigators will progress even more. The 3 serve as connected studies. I have often thought that the first 2 were connected and then once a week I go to District meetings but thats not right. They all 3 have to be connected in some way. And the key is chapter 3. The Doctrine in chapter 3 is the link between good personal, companionship, and district studies. Even in PMG it explains that the purpose of district meeting is D&C 88:77 and D&C 43:8. I love teaching the gospel. I think I might just study the Gospel for the rest of my life and be Seminary Teacher. I cant think of anyother way to be and stay happy. 
 

As far as the area goes, they took the 2 sisters out of the ward and Elder Lockling and I inherited their area. We are now the only 2 Elderes in the ward. We have some new families that are progressing and are excited to see them be baptized. Keep praying for the Callisaya family and Diego and Jaquelin. Also the Shiriki family. They all are coming to church and looking and searching their answers. Pray that they will find them. 
 

Quick: Baptism. Its the key to happiness. God knew that so he set the standard high so we could actually earn it and prove ourselves worthy. Read Moroni 6. To me it sounds like there were so many people begging to be baptized but they couldnt because they didnt have a broken heart yet. How wonderful would it be to have so many people begging to be baptized because they understand repentance and baptism but just need a little help breaking their heart and spirit. I wasnt to change the way I teach and focus in the doctrine of baptism and repentance. Then their hearts will break naturally. This week it was a new way I looked at baptism... I dont know if I am explaining myself well. Baptism is such a blessing. Baptism was intituted for us, not us for Baptism. Its not just to have more people in the church. Its salvation!!

Hurrah for Israel!
Love and more love,

Elder Gehring

 

Elder Lockling and I.

 

 

Elder Peñaranda didnt want to wash a cup...

How to give directions in Bolivia... It works though. I found my way.

 

 

The Holy Ghost

Dear family,

This is the last Monday of the transfer. On Wednesday I'll be with my new companion. I'm excited but nervous. I'm starting my last transfer as a missionary of complete time.

 

I am shocked by the amount of time I have to think each week. I didn’t realize how much time I really have until I started to use it a little bit better. Sometimes I talk with my companion, sometimes we are quiet. We talk to everyone we see. Sometimes we don’t see anyone. And I realized all the time I am silent is time given to me by God to think, ponder, pray, meditate, search for answers, solutions, divine help, etc. We have 30 min of exercise, 1 hour until personal study, and then 1 hour of pure personal studying. Before 9am each day I have 2.5 hours of time to search for revelation for my Investigators- personally. Then there are the hours of lunch, language, and companionship study- 2.5 to 3 hours more to see how to help my investigators- as a companionship. Then a ton of time in the street, in lessons, in contacts, waiting for meetings to start, etc. All of these thoughts came from how President Willard acted this past Wednesday while we walked from the lobby of the chapel to the office of the stake President where we had a meeting. He only talks about the work. Nothing else even crosses his mind. If I used every waking moment like Presidente does, looking for divine revelation for my investigators, more would repent, and more would be baptized. Its hard but its my new goal. Also Im going to carry around a little notebook and write down any tiny thought I have. Sometimes I dont appreciate fully the things the Spirit tells me.

This week I also read in 2 Nephi 32:5-6 and I learned something new about the relation between the My Purpose and the Doctrine of Christ. The Doctrine of Christ in centered in the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We have faith in Jesus Christ that He really did leave the Holy Ghost as our comforter. We repent to be worthy to feel the Holy Ghost. We are baptized to fulfill the commandment, so we then can receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then we endure to the end as we listen attentively to the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. The gift of the Holy Ghost is so precious to God that he asked us to be baptized first to show that we really are going to take care of such a perfect gift. I want everyone in the whole world to have this gift!!! They just have to repent and be baptized first. The Holy Ghost is the only way for us to be guided back to the Father.

The other good news is that the Calero family was baptized!! Also Fortunata. The best part was that 6 investigators came on Saturday night to the baptism and then came back Sunday morning for church. They all had a spiritual weekend which will help them so much with their progress toward baptism. The Callisaya family made up 4 of these 6. They are progressing so well! The ward council is super excited after seeing baptisms and realizing there are more here in the near future. We set the ward goal for Feb. for baptisms. The ward chose 8. I know we are going to make it.

 

Hurrah for Israel!

 

Love,

Elder Gehring

More white.

 

Fortunata

 

The whole Calero's family.

Avalos Family

Calero's

Deacons picking up less active Deacons on Sunday morning.

Eggs anyone?

Everyone!

It was a long day.

Mandy, Daniela, Trevor



New chapel in the Jardin del Sur ward. 

New chapel

Pineapple bananas

 

Best Week Ever

Dear family,

This week has been wonderful. And the next will be even better. I can't even put into words the love I feel for Bolivia. I have learned so much and our ward here is progressing quickly thanks to wonderful leaders. We have a new Ward Mission Leader who is on top of everything. He gets the members excited, he knows Preach My Gospel, and he teaches the Gospel well.
 

This Sunday the 24 of Jan, 5 new members will be confirmed in our ward after their baptism on Saturday. We are so excited!! Fortunata, Trevor, Daniela, Mandy, and then an 8 year old whos dad will baptize him. Pray for them all!!
 

Other than that, we moved houses this week which is great because we didnt live in our area and it took forever to walk to where all our investigators are. Living in the middle of the area will help us a ton with the contact we have with investigators. We are still pushing forward with our personal goal of taking a new investigator family every week to church and yesterday new ones came! They felt the spirit as the Sacrament was passed and will return next week. 
 

We are teaching like crazy, everyone says yes and it really is a miracle. God has prepared so many people in our small area. We were struggling to find new investigators this week and little by little we were finding some here and there but it was our focus the whole time we talked to people in the street, looked for less actives and part member familis, or just knocked doors. During a planning session on last thrusday, we practiced, watched THe District, planned a few lessons and talked about what to do about the low new families we wer finding. My companion remembered a family he had contacted several months ago who told him to come back in January. We looked up their info in the Area Book and called them. We made an appointment to visit them on Sunday. Sunday came around and we still hadent found any new families that had a high potential to progress but our faith was in this family! We went and they are wonderful! 4 kids, 2 parents, married for 11 years. The dad expressed his deep desires to nurture, care, and raise his children. He explained how his whole life, he had tried to do good even though God and religion were never a large part of his life. We read the first verse of the Book of Mormon, talked about how he too was a goodly parent and how this Restored Gospel could change his life. He and his wife and kids accepted a baptismal date for the 14 of feb.They asked how they were to prepare for baptism and committed to repent and be baptized! THe dad the knelt with his family and offered a beautiful pray expressing his love of his family to God. As I shook his hand, he looked at me with the Book of Mormon open and said '' Ahora sí. Esto es lo que necesitaba. Este libro nos va a guiar''. With no knowledge of the Book of Mormon, he could feel its power. I once again received a powerful testimony that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.

Miracles happen and are real!

I love you all.

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Gehring

Teach Repentance

This week we adapted a new slogan for the mission. It comes from Elder Dallin H. Oaks and the mission department. ''In our mission we teach repentance and baptize converts'' In Mosiah 18:20 we learn that they were sent to teach nothing save repentance to the people. They were all baptized. Thats our goal! 

 

Just a quick story. 

Yesterday we taught a family home evening lesson with the Calero family. The parents are less active members and their 3 kids are not members yet. We went with almost all the members of the ward council and there was a special spirit. We starting teaching the plan of salvation to the family and each person had a small piece of paper where they could draw a picture of their favorite part of the plan of salvation. The members of ward council drew the kingdoms of glory, the pre earth life, the judgement, etc. The parts that are the most thought of when we say 'plan of salvation'. Toward the end, we realized that the mom and dad of this family hadnt shared what they drew. We started with the mom and she timidly expressed that she had drawn 'baptism'. She then expressed such a pure and heartfelt testimony about her desire for her kids to be baptized. Then we went to the dad who had drawn a temple. He testified to his kids that the temple was the goal, and that baptism was the only was to get there. It was such a sweet and tender moment that we couldnt have brought without the pure testimonies of their parents. The kids all accepted a baptismal date for the 23 of January. Ill send fotos of their baptism. 

The parents taught repentance through their testimonies and desires to change their lives and make it to the temple. We were touched by the whole night. The ward council is excited now and we are going to baptize everyone!! 

The Vasquez family is progressing and we are praying that they will feel the need to be baptized for the 30 of January. Pray for Ronald. His wife is ready and wants to be baptized but the dad is having a hard time. 

Love you all lots and lots.

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Gehring