BIG NEWS!! (Week 12 In The Field)

I am staying in my area!! I am pretty happy about that, because I love the ward I am in. My companion however, is transferring to Alamosa and he is going to be a district leader there! I am so proud of him, he is such a great missionary, and was an amazing first companion and trainer. He's going to make a great leader. 

My new companion's name is Elder Requilmen. I haven't met him yet, but I heard he is really cool. My zone leader told me he is from Hawaii and plays the uke and sings really well! I am so excited to meet him.  I'll be meeting him at transfers on Wednesday. This week is going to be fun, because I'll get to see a lot of my friends, and my companion from the MTC at transfers! :) I'm super excited for a change, however one bad thing is happening... I am losing my car, and my district leader is getting it. LAME! Oh well, guess I could use some exercise. :) 

I don't have much to report from last week, because not much work was done because of Christmas. But I did have an amazing time at Christmas, because I got a lot of presents and I got to Skype my family!! :) It was really hard to get back to work the next day after hanging up with my family, but I was fine by Friday. 

Okay, so I do have something pretty significant to report from last week. I was put in my first, most uncomfortable situation, in my mission on Saturday. So, we were going to meet a referral we got from the spanish Elders. The guy's name was William, he's a black guy with dreads, and lives in a crappy apartment. We get there, he opens the door, and we are overwhelmed with the smell of marijuana. He wasn't smoking it at the time, so it wasn't as strong. 

He invited us in, because he wants to know more about what we believe, so we teach him the restoration, and after our lesson he invites us to try a product he sells for his business. I forget what it was called but he says it's a water purifier that Moses used to purify the waters of Marah in the Bible. I was super sketched at this point and the spirit was telling me you need to get out of here pronto. 

He offers us this pack of whatever it was, pulls out a water bottle and pours it in. The powder looked like Marijuana but he says it wasn't.  I'm convinced that it was, and he says it would help us out with what we do and give us power. I got up at that point, said thank you for having us, but we have to go because we are late for an appointment (which we were, I wasn't lying), but I had to get out of there haha. The smell was making me sick to my stomach, and he had a wife and baby in there with him! The poor baby having to deal with a constant smell of nastiness. 

Anyways, other than that my week was pretty awesome! 

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and remembered all that our Lord and Savior has done for us! :) Love you all, Have a great week!

Elder Greer

3 Month Mark On Christmas Day! (Week 11 In The Field)

How ironic is it that I will be out 3 months exactly on Christmas day? What a great way to celebrate that, with Christmas and being able to Skype my family!  :)  So I'll let you know my plans for Christmas because its going to be pretty fun! 

So In the morning my whole district is going to come to where we are staying (in a members home) and we are going to have a huge breakfast, watch a movie, and just hangout. After around noon, I believe we are going to go to the church and play basketball or something like that. Then around 3 or 4 my companion and I are going to the Campanellas' (really cool members in our ward), and there we are going to eat dinner, watch a movie and Skype with my parents! :) Pretty much going to be the best Christmas ever haha! Not only that, my parents got me a brand new suit, which I am so excited to show all of you after I get it altered. I hope all of you have an amazing Christmas too!

So this week was very filled with things to do. Tuesday, my companion and I went tracting for 2 hours, and from that we gained 5 potential investigators, 3 returning appointments and handed out like 10 copies of the Book of Mormon. It was a pretty productive day. 

On Wednesday, we had a Christmas Conference, where 3 other zones attended. That was a crazy fun day, because I got to see a couple of my MTC friends again. :) I get to see them next week too, at transfer meeting, which I am super excited for because I will get to see my MTC Companion as well as everybody else! 

Anyways, this past whole week, we delivered a plate of desserts to a bunch of less actives, which was awesome because we were able to visit with a lot of less actives. Hopefully we can get them to come back to church soon. :) 

So, Saturday was our ward Christmas breakfast, which we weren't able to be very much a part of because it started at 9:30, and we had a conference call at 10 with all the new missionaries and their trainers, which was alright I guess. I would have rather been eating food and socializing, but thats okay because we went to our zone leader's ward for their Christmas dinner. Oh, I forgot, and before we did that our whole zone went to a nearby retirement home and sang Christmas carols to all the elderly people, which was so much fun. They absolutely loved us! :) That was easily the highlight of the week. 

Anyways, That is all I have to report for you all this week. I hope everybody has a very merry Christmas, and remembers what it is truly about. :) Love you all, and miss every single one of you!

Elder Greer 

"And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said  unto them, fear not: for, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a saviour, which is Christ the Lord." -Mark 2:9-11

2 Weeks Left! (Week 10 In The Field)

I have 2 weeks left of the 12 week training program and I'm kind of having mixed feelings about it. I really want to stay because I love the ward I'm in, and the people in the ward also. However, I do want to see more of beautiful Colorado as well. So I don't know, we shall see what happens on January 1st when transfers happen.

Anyways, a lot happened this week, so lets start with Tuesday. So on Tuesday the sisters invited my companion and I, as well as my district leader and his companion, to help teach 3 seminary classes, which honestly, I thought was so much fun! Seminary is different here, they actually have a seminary building and I'm pretty sure the teacher gets paid. The classes start at 7:45, 9:15 and 2:15. Not for sure though if he gets paid, but I think he might. We taught the kids on how to invite their friends to church, or a church activity, and we role played with them, which was so much fun. At first I didn't want to help teach, but it wasn't too bad, and way more fun than I thought it would be. 

Anyways, later that evening something crazy happened to my district leaders companion, Elder Robison. They were riding their bikes down a steep hill, and he was in front while Elder Bond was 100 feet or so behind him. He says he was probably going about 20-25mph. Anyways, they were riding on the sidewalk because there was no snow on them. But apparently somebody must have left their sprinklers on (I don't know why), but the water froze on the sidewalk and turned into black ice. They were on their way to dinner and it was dark, so he couldn't see it. When he went over the patch of ice his bike slid out from under him and his left shoulder nailed the fence right next to him. When my companion and I heard this, we rushed right over there to see what happened. His left shoulder looked like it got popped out of place and was hanging lower than the other.  So the next day we drove him to urgent care, only to find out he just has a huge bruise and will have to be off bikes for the next week. So, lo and behold, we had to give them our car for the week. So, my companion and I rode bikes this past week, which wasn't too bad, but I miss my car haha. But we should get it back this Wednesday :) 

So yeah, very crazy start to the week and Thursday we had an appointment with our potential investigator Donna Weaver, and we invited our ward mission leader to that. She is a 75 year old lady who is non-denominational, but loves to learn about what we believe. The lesson went really well and we invited her to read and pray to see if the Book of Mormon is true. She accepted our invitation and we plan to follow up with her this coming week, so I'll keep you posted. :) 

Oh, we decided we are going to completely change our ward mission plan, because the one we have now has too much info on it, too cluttered, not well formatted, and displeasing to the eye, haha. So my ward mission leader is going to work on formatting it, and us and the bishop are going to help to put what info needs to be on it. So that should be fun! :) 

Anyways, that's my exciting week for you all. I really miss everybody and hope you are all doing well. Have a great week!

Elder Greer

But Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added upon you. --3rd Nephi 13:33

Parent Update (Week 9 In The Field)

From Darren & Janae: Andrew didn't have a lot of time this week, or any major updates, so instead he shared with us a scripture, and some pictures.  He'll send us a larger update next week.  

Surely the Lord God will do nothing saveth he revealith his secrets to his servents the prophets
  -Amos 3:7

Missionaries that went into Colorado Springs at the same time as Elder Greer

Elder Greer decorating the tree with his crown...because apparently he is "king of the basketball court" :)

Elder Greer really loves Christmas :)

Elder Greer praying before the tree (Flash in the window is supposed to represent the star in the sky) :)

Hey Everybody! (Week 8 In The Field)

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This week was pretty unsuccessful mostly though because of Thanksgiving, and everybody was either out of town, or just didn't want us to bother them during this time of year.  However, This week has been extremely fun though! :) 

Let me start off with Thanksgiving day! Thursday was like a P-day on steroids (for lack of a better term haha), but our day started off with football. Since our Ward didn't have a turkey bowl going on, we were invited to play with our zone leaders ward. We played for 3 hours, and there were so many people there, we had to split it up into 3 different games. It was seriously so much fun, and my companion was really happy he got to play football. He played rugby in college and is really good at it. Since football is pretty similar to the sport, he was the happiest guy that day, haha.  

After that, we hung out in our district leader's apartment until we had to go to our thanksgiving lunches. I had thanksgiving lunch at 2 with the member I am staying with, Sister Gallegos, and her family. There were at least 25 people jam packed in her tiny house, but it was super fun. Sooooo much food, I was stuffed haha. 

After that we went to my favorite members house, the Campanellas, and we watched Despicable Me with them! :) Now, I know what your thinking, "What? He can watch movies on his mission???", I was pretty surprised myself at first. It says in our policy and guidelines packet, that on Thanksgiving and Christmas we are allowed to watch any two G or PG commercial movies. I was so excited about this, but that could possibly change next year when we get our new mission president. 

Anyways, afterwards we played basketball with a bunch of other missionaries. We play basketball so much here! At least twice a week we play. And, I am thoroughly convinced, that by the end of my mission, I am going to be amazingly good at basketball haha. Anyways, we finished basketball at 9 and then went back home, it was such a fun day! I had such a great Thanksgiving, even though it was weird without my family there.

As far as the missionary work goes, this week was horrible haha. We did however, get to see our investigator Curtis a couple times. We gave him a blessing, after he got his surgery, and I think he really felt the spirit during it. But we saw him a couple days later, and he just seemed like he had gotten worse :/ Poor guy had to get a bunch of shots on Saturday, and he said he wouldn't be able to make it out to church this Sunday :/ My companion and I fasted and prayed for him this Sunday, so I really hope that works and he gets better soon. He has a couple more surgeries he has to go through though, so please keep him in your prayers. 

We tried to visit a bunch of less actives this week, but we didn't have much luck. We tracted too, but no one was interested in our message. So yeah, as far as the week goes, not very good. But we did find out for the past month we did awesome! 19 Less actives came back to church this month! My companion and I were so excited about that! 

Anyways, thats really all I have to report.  I'm sure this week will be better and I will keep you posted on our investigator! I hope All is well! I love and miss you all!

Elder Greer

2 Month mark Today! (Week 7 In The Field)

Well, today marks 2 months I've been out here serving a mission and let me tell you, it only feels like it's been 1 month so far. Time is just flying! The weeks feel like days and the days feel like weeks, I cannot describe it. I really wish I had something interesting to tell you that happened this week but not too much happened. I have a couple good stories, but nothing too exciting, so sorry about that. It did snow all this past week though, and it was my first time ever driving in the snow. It was pretty exciting! I promise I'll be careful though! Oh, and I slipped and fell on my butt the other day walking to my car, it was pretty funny, my companion was like what the heck, where did he go. He was already sitting in the car when I fell.

Something interesting that happened this past week was that there were transfers. We got a whole bunch of new Elders in our zone, and they are all really good at basketball. So yeah, basketball just got a lot tougher. And we also got one new sister in our district, she's pretty cool, doesn't really like how we play during basketball though, haha. Oh, our new zone leader is super tall! Holy cow, he is 6' '7". He isn't very good at basketball though, which I thought was weird. But, he is super cool, I can tell I am going to like the new Elders in our zone! :)

Tuesday was a horrible day, no luck on anything. However, we did go visit our potential investigator Janay. We weren't able to teach her though, because she had to take her 2 year old to the hospital. We asked if she needed a blessing, and she said we could give her one. So we did, and after she thanked us and we left. I don't know what she thought about it, I hope she felt the spirit. Anyways, we are going to go back there this week, so I hope everything works out all right. 

Wednesday we visited a bunch of less actives, and no one answered the door. Thursday was fun though, because we went on exchanges again! :) This time it was Elder Robison and I (2 Junior companions) and I was in their area again. We taught 2 lessons, one, to one of their investigators and one to a member after dinner. With the investigator, we taught a 15 minute lesson on the Plan of Salvation, which was so hard, because that should be a 45 minute lesson. He had to go to work, that's why, but he was very interested in what we have to teach, so hopefully they baptize him, haha. 

Friday, I went back with my companion, and this was our miracle day. We went tracting to find somebody's apartment number that the bishop gave us. Nobody answered the door, except for the person we had to find, it was so crazy! And the same thing happened Saturday, only we handed 5 Book of Mormons out in the process and gained 2 potential investigators. The Bishop was pretty proud of us. :)

So, Sunday was the day where I had my most interesting story to tell you. So a spanish lady in our Ward comes up to us, and asks us if we can bless her home, because she feels evil spirits in her home. Never thought I would have to cast out devils on my mission, haha. But, we agreed, and went over to help her. My companion and I both said a prayer to bless the home so the Spirit of the Lord can reside. It was so weird, I didn't feel any evil spirits in there, but they did. Anyways, it was pretty interesting, she was so grateful after we had done so.

Anyways, that's all I got this week, hopefully next week will be more interesting! I hope everybody has a wonderful thanksgiving this week without me, haha. I love you all, and I am so thankful to be out here serving the Lord for 2 years. Hope all is well back at home!

Elder Greer

"But, Behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; and then ask me if it be right, and if it be right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it not be right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me." -D&C 9:8-9

Great Week But Not So Successful (Week 6 In The Field)

So the week started Wednesday because my P-day was last Tuesday. It didnt start off so great, our appointments on Wednesday, with our potential investigators, all fell through except for one which I will talk about later. Oh, by the way, this potential investigator's name is Janay, how weird is that?? She's black though haha. 

Anyways, there was this one potential investigator we had an appointment with, so we go there and her two little kids answered the door (she's a single mom). So, her kids tell her mom we are at the door, and her mom tells her kids to tell us one moment. Anyways, 10 minutes later she still hasn't come out, so we knock again. Kids answer the door, same thing. We ended up standing out there for 40 minutes! At that point we were just like forget it, and we left. We came back the next day though, and we knocked, no answer but we can hear them inside. We knocked again, and no answer. Needless to say I just think she wasn't interested, haha.

Even though this week was pretty unsuccessful, it was a great week because, on Thursday night we had a devotional for the missionaries, and all the ward auxiliary leaders, with a guest speaker from the 1st quorum of the 70. Elder Bowen! He is such an amazing speaker! Dad, I wish you were there, because this devotional mostly pertained to the ward auxiliary leaders and ward missionaries. He talked about how important it is for members to work with the missionaries in sharing the gospel. Then he asked the missionaries, how long we are going to be here for. We replied 24 and 18 months. Then he asked the members, how long they will be here for. Longer than that for sure. He then said, we are the part time missionaries, and the members are the full time missionaries. Just because you dont wear a tag, doesn't not make you a missionary. Paint one on your heart and remember the baptismal covenants you made, one of them was to stand as a witness of God at all times, so that makes you a missionary for life! :)

The next day we had a mission tour with Elder Bowen again, but this time it was just for the missionaries. He stressed on the importance of keeping all the covenants we made so far. And then he talked about how when we are baptized we are adopted in the Abrahamic covenant and how we can receive all the blessings Abraham received if we continue to stay righteous. Anyways after we all got to meet him, we talked for a little, while which was awesome! I got to talk to a general authority! 

Afterwards, when he was leaving, I went up to him and said, this will be the last time I ever see you again huh? He smiled and responded, until the next life. I was kinda bummed and said okay, well say hi to Elder Holland for me! He laughed and said okay, I actually work on the same floor as him. I was stunned and said no way, so since I know you personally now, does this mean I get an in? He laughed, looked at me, pointed up and said, your only in...Is through Him. It was awesome, I will never forget that, such words of wisdom haha.

On Saturday I attended my first funeral ever. Some elderly lady I didn't, know who served a mission here in colorado springs, died. It was kinda sad, but happy at the same time, because you know she is in a better place now and she received all the necessary ordinances to make it to the Celestial Kingdom. So yeah, that was interesting. But what made this week even more fun, was the fact that I got to see a lot of my friends that I came out with from the MTC! :) But not all of them, because some were hours away. The mission tour had to be split into two days.

Anyways, I'll end with Curtis and Janay. We got to see Curtis on Saturday, he is having 2 surgeries this week, one for his eye, and one for his stomach. He isn't doing so well right now, so please continue to pray for him, and that his baptism will go through. 

Janay on the other hand, we gave her a book of mormon and told her to read and pray about it. She accepted the invitation, and we have a follow up appointment with her tomorrow! Please pray that that will go through also haha.

I hope you all are doing well and aren't missing me to much. ;) I absolutely love it out here, every day is a growing experience, and I become closer to my Heavenly Father as I learn to rely on him more often. 

I love you all and miss you so much!

Elder Greer

"The formula for faith is to hold on, work on, see it through, and let the distress of earlier hours - real or imagined - fall away in the abundance of the final reward" -Jeffery R. Holland

One of Andrew's New Ties We Sent Him

He and His Companion Got A Kick Out of This Old VW Bus

My Roller Coaster Week (Week 5 In The Field)

Wow, this Week really had its ups and downs, let me tell you. So, starting with last monday when I last talked to you guys. It was our p-day obviously, so we played basketball with everyone. In the middle of the game, I have the ball, and my Zone leader is defending me hard core. He swings to knock the ball out of my hand, misses, and upper cuts me in the jaw! I bit my tongue in two places and it was bleeding everywhere. Needless to say, I didn't eat that night because my jaw was super sore. But everything is okay now, I got a blessing from my Bishop and that made me feel better. So yeah, thats how my week started, which was horrible, but it did get better. :) 

We went on exchanges for the fist time, and I went with my district leader in his area, and his companion came in mine. That was the most fun I've had so far, and I learned a lot too. So we went to a members home for dinner, and they had a super nice home, and they cooked an amazing dinner. But anyways, my district leader shared the ward mission plan with them and we had a lesson on how to invite others to church. They were an older couple who served as missionaries before, but we still talked about the importance of it. She told us how she has this really good friend of hers, who's actually their neighbor, and every time she brought up the Book of Mormon or anything about our church, her friend would stop her and say, "Stop now, before we lose our friendship forever." She cares about her friend a lot and she was really sad because she read a quote from a general authority basically saying anybody that knows about the gospel, and has a chance to accept it, but does not, is damned essentially. This made her tear up because she loves her friend and doesn't want that for her. 

I then told her, look, you have to know that everything will be okay in the end. Sometimes it takes a while for people to accept the gospel. I then told the story about Great Grandma, I told her how she knew about the gospel ever since Grandma was a kid, and how we tried getting her to be baptized, but she never did. Until last summer, she decided she was finally ready, and she's in her 80s now. Anyways, I told her that there is always hope and to never give up, it will all be okay in the end. That made her really happy, and made her tear up. She thanked me and then we closed with a prayer and left. That was a really cool experience that I'll never forget. I told Great Grandma that story when I wrote her. I hope that makes her happy :) 

So after that, the week kinda started going bad again. Our investigator won't be able to get baptized until next month because you have to attend church 3 times and he's been going to the hospital 5 times a week because of his diabetes and other medical issues. My companion and I are really bummed and we don't know what to do. Guess we just have to continue to keep praying for him and hope it works out. On the bright side, we had 9 less actives come to church last Sunday, don't know how, but they did, and it was awesome! 

And yesterday was such a good day. It was supposed to be our p-day, but it was a holiday. But I'm glad they switched it to today, because we had such success yesterday. We gained 3 potential investigators and have return appointments with all of them. We gave 2 of them a Book of Mormon too. It was awesome! So hopefully they turn out to be something good :)

Anyways, I love all of you, please continue to pray for Curtis, he really needs it. I hope everybody is doing well, I'll update you next week!

Elder Greer

**My Bishop and his family

**Finally wearing winter clothes

**Gorgeous view the night we went on exchanges

5 Weeks In!! (Week 4 In The Field)

So this week nothing really happened too much. Other than Halloween, which by the way, I hope everybody had a great one! :) Us missionaries had to be in at 6:00PM on Halloween night. :/ Which was kinda a bummer because there was a chili cook-off, and trunk or treat in our ward going on. Not only that, but it would have been a great missionary opportunity because there were 7 non members there! Ugh, such a bummer, but it's alright I guess. Oh, and the trick or treating in our neighborhood, is absolutely horrible! Haha! There were only 3 kids that came to our door, nothing compared to how many kids come to your door in Florida. 

Oh, not only that, but my companion had never even heard of Halloween, so for this being his 1st time, was kinda a let down since only 3 kids came to the door. He told me he doesn't like the idea of Halloween, and then he said if he was to hand out anything to kids at the door, it would be a Book of Mormon! I got a good laugh out of that! :)

So like I was saying, nothing too exciting happened this week.  However, we did manage to get 4 less active members to come back to church this past Sunday! Hopefully they will continue to come every Sunday. 

Oh, our investigator is still committed to baptism on the 16th of this month. We need to plan for that ASAP, because we haven't even started, haha. :p Guess this next week we'll be super busy! Continue to pray for him, because he is really sick with all the meds he has to take, and how many times he has to go to the hospital for a kidney dialysis. So please pray for him, and that the baptism will pull through! 

Oh, another cool thing that happened this week is that we gained a potential investigator! We met him the same way we met Curtis (the one who is getting baptized). He is another elderly black gentleman, and he told us to come back this Wednesday to share our message! :) So hopefully that works out as well! 

Anyway, like I said, nothing really too much happened this week, but I'll continue to keep you updated! :) Hope you are all doing well! I'll continue to pray for all of you! Have a good week! 

Love you Guys! 

Elder Greer

P.S. This weeks scripture thought: Mosiah 18:9 "Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life"

BEST NEWS EVER (Week 3 In The Field)

I reached my 1 month mark last Friday which is really strange because it feels like Iv'e only been out for 2 weeks. The days just fly by here, its absolutely bizarre. But anyways, this week was very successful!

We were able to get 2 less active members to come to church last Sunday and our investigator Curtis came too. He said that he really enjoyed it and wants to come back next week. The members here are very good at fellowshipping, it seemed like everybody came up to him and made him feel welcome. We had a lesson with him last Thursday and taught him the Plan of Salvation. Everything we teach him he believes and he also has no problem with the word of wisdom and the Law of Chastity. This guy is golden! After the lesson we asked him to be baptized and he said YES!!! We set the baptismal date for November 16th! I am so excited! It's hard to believe it's only been 1 month and we already have a baptismal date set for an investigator. Please continue to pray for him, that he will follow through with this.

We also have another investigator as well, however she is a little bit more difficult. I don't know if I already told you about her, but her name is Amy Hou. She is 25, she travels the world for wrestling, and she has absolutely no religious background whatsoever. She didn't even know anything about Jesus Christ, so we had to teach her all about the Godhead. She always believed that there was a higher power out there, however her parents never taught her much, and when she moved to the States we were the first religion she had ever encountered.

Anyways, we taught her the first vision the other day and invited her to be baptized afterwards. she turned us down, and said that she wanted to investigate other churches before she just jumps into one, which is understandable I guess standing in her shoes. We told her that she totally should, but do so prayerfully and ask for Heavenly Father's guidance. Pray for her as well, that she will be guided by the spirit as she searches.

That's pretty much the exciting things that had happened this week. It's my first baptism as well as my Trainer's first too! :) We are so excited! I hope all of you are doing well and I will continue to pray for you each night. Love you all!

Elder Greer

Week Two (Week 2 In The Field)

This week has been our most successful week so far! We visited a bunch of less actives as usual, and then invited them to the Halloween party. A couple of them accepted our invite so hopefully they will be fellowshipped and want to come back to church. 

One of the less actives we went to go visit moved out, and an older black man answered the door. We told him who we are and told him about the message we had to share and asked if he was interested. He said he was and he invited us into his home! We shared an hour long message with him about the restoration and how we now have the priesthood authority as well as prophets and apostles here on this earth today. His name is Curtis Windham. 

We gave him a book of Mormon and committed him to read and pray about it. He said he would like to, however he lost his glasses and is pretty much blind without them. :/ So we asked him if we could come back tomorrow and read with him a couple chapters, and he said we could.  By the way, he lost his leg from diabetes, and he also has to have both kidneys transplanted. So I guess you could say he's going through a rough time in his life. Anyways, we went back the next day and read 1st and 2nd Nephi with him. He really enjoyed what we read with him, and afterwards we committed him to pray about it that night and ask if what we taught him is true. 

Our next appointment with him will be Thursday, so we will follow up with him then and hopefully he did what we asked him to do. :) He also told us he would come to church as well so he is really progressing! 

Anyways, this week went by so fast, probably because of all the set appointments we had as well as the success. I am absolutely loving it here.  Everybody in the ward here is super nice and feed us every dinner. I'm still getting along with my companion very well and learning a lot from him. My testimony of this church has grown exponentially, and every day I get a firm confirmation of its truthfulness. :) 

I hope everybody back home is doing well and not missing me to much ;) I hit my month mark in 4 days, so only 23 more months to go. I'm sure it will go by fast! 

Love you all and have a good rest of the week! :)


***ADDED BY DARREN - Elder Greer was very happy about getting to drive a new car in his first area, so much so that he sent these pictures to us.  Thought we'd share :)

First Week In The Field! (Week 1 In The Field)

Hey Everybody! 

Sorry I missed last weeks letter, I didn't have a P-day because we were flying out to the field that week. And I would have written yesterday, however the library was closed because of Columbus day. So today is our P-day instead. :) 

Anyway, I am absolutely loving it here! My first area, and I have a brand spankin new CAR!! Its a white Chevy Cruze, 2014! And, guess who's the driver, this ELDER!! :) My companion doesn't have a license because he is from Samoa. His name is Elder Manase. I really like him a lot.  He is very spiritual and soft spoken. Maybe that's because he is still learning english, I don't know, but he picked up the language really fast, so I can have a normal conversation with him. He is only 5 months into his mission, so I am the first person he gets to train. Whenever he finds a certain situation or person amusing, he has a little catch phrase, he will laugh and then say "So much fun". The way he says it makes me laugh every time. All in all, he is a great first companion and a very good trainer. 

My area, and also where I am staying, I really lucked out on. Everybody here is so nice and we get fed dinner every single day by members. I am pretty sure I will never have to grocery shop while I am here. The lady my companion and I are staying with, her name is Sister Guyegos. She is a widow in her 70's and she is the nicest lady of all time! She cooks us breakfast every single morning, and it is always something good. I am so spoiled here, it is great :) 

Oh, so I enter the area Wednesday afternoon, and my companion tells me we are speaking in sacrament this past Sunday, and I had to give a talk 16 to 18 minutes long talk on how to become more Christ-like. So that stressed me out really bad. However, in the end, the talk went great! :) Our Bishop is a super cool guy though, I can tell he will be a big help to us. :) 

So far my companion and I have just been going around visiting a bunch of less active members and we aren't having much luck at all. :/ However one of the less actives we visited was praying for someone to give her a priesthood blessing because she just had plastic surgery on her face and was in a lot of pain. She said we were an answer to her prayer. :) My companion gave her a blessing in samoan, even though we couldn't understand, the spirit was so strong. Hopefully after that experience they will want to come back to church more often. 

One other thing that happened that was really interesting happened yesterday. We tracked into a Jehovah's witness and had a 40 minute discussion at her door step. She was really nice but was really strong in her faith. We had no luck, but we gave her a Mormon.org card, which is something I guess. Anyways, everything is going super well and I am still continuing to learn and grow. Hope everybody is doing well back at home, I miss you all! :) 

Elder Greer

Quick Update - First Area Address

We were able to get a hold of the Mission Office (Thanks Kathy Greer), and were provided the address of his first area location.  He's staying at a members house.  The address to use is:

Elder Andrew Greer
C/O Gallegos
5032 South Raindrop Circle
Colorado Springs, CO 80917

As a reminder, his email is: andrew.greer@myldsmail.net

Elder's love to get care packages and letters if any of you are so inclined, please send them along to the above locations.

On His Way To Colorado Springs!

We received an unexpected phone call today from Elder Greer.  In our last set of communications, we thought that he had mentioned he would be heading to Colorado on Tuesday of this week, and that he'd be able to call us from the airport then.  That or we just assumed a full two weeks in the MTC.  Either way, Janae received a call from an unknown number and was surprised to hear Elder Greer on the other end!

He was calling from the Denver airport, as he waited to hop on another plane over to Colorado Springs.  We only had a few minutes, and he gave us some quick updates.  He had a blast in the MTC, and seems to be ready and raring to hit the ground running in Colorado.  There is a large group of them heading out, about 20 Sisters/Elders, all heading into the area today.  He didn't have any information as to what his first area, or who his first companion will be, so we'll update you all as we know more later.

It was great to hear from him, and can already sense a growth in him, after just a short 12 days in the MTC.  We'll post more as we have it.  Thanks for reading!

MTC

I just want to let everybody know that I am having a great time here
at the MTC! The second I entered, I was thrown into a long process of
getting everything i need for the MTC. It was super overwhelming at
first, however, as the day went by, it got a lot smoother. I am not at
the main campus of the MTC which is an amazing blessing because I
heard the main campus is like a prison! At least here we can go off
campus if we really wanted too and go out to dinner and shopping. :)

So my fist companion is sooo awesome! We hit it off the first time we
met which is a good thing, I guess. His name is Elder Palmer and he is
absolutely hilarious! But he is also super spiritual when he needs to
be.

Anyways, I leave a week from today! I am not quite yet ready but I
have a feeling I will be by the end of the week. :) I have grown and
progressed so much the past couple of days in ways I have never
thought I could. Roll playing is a big help as well as our mock
investigators. Just yesterday my companion and I met our real first
investigator, and let me tell you, I have never been so nervous in my
life! But as soon as we met him, my nerves went away. He is an amazing
guy! His name is Gabriel, he is from Chile and he absolutely loves
his family! Which was a good lead in because we were able to teach him
that in out church, we believe that families can be sealed forever and
he seemed to really like that concept. :) We didn't have a book of
Mormon to give him because they ran out which is really odd to me. So
next time we meet with him, we will leave him with a book of Mormon
and a commitment to read it! :)

I hope all is well at home, and I want to let you know, that I pray
for all of you every night! I look forward to hearing from everybody!
:)

Love, Elder Greer.