September 27, 2011

What is up fam!

This week has been pretty crazy! And especially today. Lol so many things to do on this preparation day. Tomorrow we have transfers and I am being moved to a smaller city in Santa Fe. Lol I forgot the name of the city. I am really stoked to be able to go there and teach the Gospel!!!! 

Oh and so today, I was preparing everything so I will be able to leave tomorrow. I first woke up early and got ready and then Elder Stull and I went to pick up my clothes and run some errands. We have like 5 missionaries visiting in our apartment last night. Lol I slept on the floor. Lol that was fun. So my companion stayed to guard the pench. We came back, and I had to go talk to the owner of the apartment because she was having people to come put in some fans in the apartment. There are now fans. I was so proud with myself cause I talked to her totally in Spanish! And was able to understand it. But ya and so now I am going to be going to visit the families that I will be leaving to say goodbye one last time. Lol I hope I don't cry. 

This week has been pretty good. We have been visiting a lot of the members that have not been coming to church which has been alright. We found this really odd guy. Or well some really odd people in this one neighborhood. Lol Elder Romero and I were like.....what just happened. Oh and by the way, some people here think we are spies from the CIA. But that is what we have been working on. I also made tacos for the ward. They turned out pretty good! Lol I forgot the garlic but they were good anyhow. The branch president loved it! And then I taught them all how to make their own tacos. 

So yesterday Elder Stull and I went on a division. The other elders went to another area. But we are both really new missionaries and so it was a bit scary speaking to other people and teaching them cause we both had doubts about if the other people would have a question and we wouldn't be able to answer them. But so we went out, did some contacting and we found this super cool lady and son. Lol we taught them and we were able to understand everything. We felt so pumped after teaching them. We really felt like we had helped these people and that we could feel the spirit testify to them. We won't be able to teach them any more but it was still great. I am going to give the reference to Elder Romero cause he is staying here. 

Oh and so I made a stir fry this week. Lol I am turning into quite the chef lol. Unfortunately my companion didn't like it. He didn't tell me that straight up. Lol cause he is such a good guy and didn't want to hurt my feelings. But I believe that he didn't like it cause it was a whole different type of cooking that he was not used to. I actually really liked it. I am doing pretty good! Just working. Hope everything is well in your lives. I know that God loves us and he gave us this life for us to gain experience and to learn. I know that His plan is perfect! Have a great week! See you all later!

Chow chow!

 

Elder Christopher Gibbs

September 19, 2011

This week has been pretty good. And really tiring. We were trying to find some of the members that don't come to church anymore and we ended walking for like 30 miles!!!! Sooo far. Lol oh and also, I was in the store buying our food, and guess what I found..... sauerkraut. Lol so I cooked up a hot dog and ate basically bratwurst and sauerkraut and bread. Sooooo good! Also I am turning into quite the chef. For some reason my companion doesn't want to do any cooking. So I do the cooking which is alright with me, but it makes me miss my mom a ton. I love your food mom. Oooohh and also it makes me miss living with Ryan and Stephanie. 

So we found this cool couple this week and we taught them about Joseph Smith and it made me think of what Joseph Smith was searching for. He was searching for a church to baptize himself in, because he knew that he couldn't return to live with God without being baptized and therefore he was looking for the true church. He asked everyone what was the church of God and everyone said that it was their church. I am grateful for the things Joseph Smith has done for me and for the world in Restoring the true Church of Christ. 

Yesterday we found a family that doesn't come to church anymore and we talked with them. They are super nice! The man has become an atheist or well sort of atheist. We are really not sure what he believes in. He has some atheist ideas but somewhat believes there is a God. We had a pretty interesting discussion with him yesterday. Lol he LOVES to ask questions. Lol it was driving his wife crazy! But, we were alright with his questions and happy to answer them. I think that they will be starting to come to church again which is awesome! 

Also this week I was reading in the Book of Mormon about the dream of Lehi.  It really has some profound things you can find in it. I especially love how it says that if you hold to the rod of iron, the devil will have no power over you. The rod of iron is the word of God. And so if we listen to the Prophet and read the scriptures the devil has no power over us. It makes me want to listen more attentively to General Conference this week. Or next week. Lol when ever it is. I am so confused about the time. It passes by soooooo quickly. I can't believe that I have been in the mission for 6 MONTHS. This transfer has flown by really quickly. Lol I hardly even know my companion. 

Oh and Gualeguaychu is so pretty right now. Oh man I wish you could all see it right now. Today we walked by the river and oh man its so awesome! So everything is going well here. We were pretty close to having some baptisms next week but they weren't able to come to church yesterday and so we will have to work with them some more. But I am doing great! My legs are pretty dead from all of the walking. And so is my body. We helped one of our converts destroy a wall again and then shovel all of the pieces out! That was a work out! I was so tired after but it was quite enjoyable. I love you all! Hope you all have a great week!

See yall later!

Elder Gibbs

September 12, 2011

Hey family,

Just so you know I sent some of the photos I have. [See Below.  Click on the photo to make it bigger] Hope you like them. But this week was a pretty good week. I was pretty beat! 

This week we were able to eat with one of our investigator families. We ate pizza! lol It was really good and they are progressing pretty well. Their names are Ruben and Evelin and they are super awesome! We have fun chatting with them. We were with them the other day and chatted with them. They are so funny and their little daughter is addicted to coca cola. She says coooooca which means that she wants to drink coca cola. They said they were going to attend church this week but they weren't able to make it which was a bit sad. But there is next week! 

Elder Romero and I are getting along pretty well. I am getting better at speaking everyday. lol We went to a restaurant today in Gualeguaychu. and they make sub sandwiches! Like Subway! And so we went to eat and I was ordering. It was a man and a lady working there. They asked me where i was from and I was like USA!!!!!! And they were like oh so you speak English we do too. Apparently they lived in New Zealand for 6 months or so studying English. While they were there, they loved to eat at Subway and so when they returned they had the idea of creating their own Subway in Gualeguaychu! It was soooo good! I felt really american eating a Subway sandwich and drinking Gatorade! 

Also this week we were able to help a new member of the church. She needed this wall torn down. So, we were happy to do it! I told the lady we helped that it was really fun to do this service project. I like to destroy things like walls and not get in trouble for it! Haha. Anyhow, that was fun. 

Oh and I tried to play the trumpet of one of the members we were visiting. It's so difficult to play the trumpet. I couldn't make it sound at all and when it finally did, it sounded like a dying cow. So I decided I would stick with the piano. We have some really cool investigators and hopefully they will want to be baptized soon. The ward is doing pretty good here. Every Thursday we have a family home evening that we have to do. This week we played a jeopardy game. The ward had a real fun time. We are still studying about the Atonement. It is so impressive what Jesus did for me! Well I have got to go! Love you all! I can't believe that it is almost six months into my mission. I am going to burn a tie! See ya later!

Chow!

Elder Gibbs

September 5, 2011

[Editor's note...Okay I am caught up now!  I didn't have time to edit for punctuation so, again, you get to enjoy Chris' emails in their natural state.  Enjoy!]

Hey Family what is up!!!!

This week has been good and tiring! lol I hope I dont fall asleep while typing this letter. I am going to start this email by telling you what I did today. 

so two weeks ago we had a little competition and the winner got to have a special preparation day with their whole zone. and we won and yesterday we traveled from gualeguaychu to concordia. lol we arrived pretty late and so me, Elders Romero, cortez, and castillo didnt want to wake up today. but everyone was just so stoked and excited for preparation day! yay prep day! lol and so we woke up and left to go play some soccer. we played soccer for 7 hours and then went to see an old abandoned argentine castle which was pretty cool. we returned and ate pizza and ice cream! lol soooooo goooood! and then we played some more soccer! so many missionaries are sunburnt! including me! I have been getting pretty good at soccer! lol I have been playing soccer a ton with some latinos so I should be getting better at soccer! I was one of the better yankee players ( pronounced shankee because y and ll make a sh sound). and ya they call us all yankees cause we are from america. but ya i scored some goals and showed people how we be playing soccer in the states! lol ya right! but it definatly was really fun and so worth to get sunburnt! we are going to leave soon from concordia. also the mission president came to concordia to enjoy preparation day with us. it was quite fun! 

anyhow this week has been pretty successful for the mission.  we have been teaching this awesome family. its a man and his girlfriend who have a daughter. they are pretty young. about 25ish. really funny. lol we are pretty good friends with them and we are going to eat with them tomorrow! yeayahhhhh!!! and she is making pizza!!!!!!!!!!! lol I feel like a ninja turtle the way that i love pizza! but they are doing well and are accepting a lot of the gospel. and super awesome! and the most awesome thing is that they showed up for church yesterday!!! we didnt think any of our investigators would show up. and they showed up. and further more they said they liked it! so we are going to continue teaching them. we found some more new people to teach. we taught this single mom and her family. she let us in and listened to our message and was really excepting. and the branch here is doing pretty well too. I am loving the work. 

Spanish is going really well. often I feel like I stink at speaking but then other times people tell me I speak really well. lol and so spanish has been like a roller coaster! but I am enjoying my time here. I love you all. sorry I cant write much more cause we are going to be leaving for the bus pretty soon! 

this week I studied a bit about the atonement. it is so impressive what God and Jesus have done for us. I learned that in another language atonement means to reseat yourself in the presence of God. and that is what it is. it is the Grace of Jesus that helps us reseat ourselves in the presence of God! without it we would be lost and could not return to God. I am so thankful for Jesus and what he has done for me! all we need to do is use this atonement in our lives by repenting of our sins and continually trying to live the commandments of God more closely and we will live with God again! once again i love you all! I am thankful for all you guys have done for me! see ya later!

Elder Gibbs who is red as a lobster right now!!!!!!!!

August 29, 2011

So this week has been good! lol we are working pretty hard! and playing lots of soccer. lol that is what you get when you have a latin companion. my companion, Elder Romero is way cool and way chill and is helping me a lot with my spanish and teaching too. We have been teaching quite a bit of families and they are progressing quite well. so we started out the week by going to concepcion de Uruguay. we went there for pday and spent the night there because we were leaving in the morning for Paraná. so we woke up and went to paraná and had a mission conference. everything went well. we finished with that and left to go to the bus station. lol and one of my friends was going to walmart and so I told him, if you see peanut butter, buy it for me! lol so he did and he bought it for me. Peanut butter is really hard to come by in argentina. but so now I have peanut butter! I am excited about that! 

so our investigatores are progressing real well but they didnt show up for church yesterday!!! lol they all said that they would. but they didnt. lol but we are not going to give up! cause giving up is for quiters and we are not quiters! so it was way cool my companion said okay so i am going to let you learn how to be senior comp and let you handle  everything. and I was like.........Okay! so I chose where we went and who we were going to teach. also he let me take the lead in teaching the lessons which was a little difficult but fun. I am getting more and more used to teaching which is fun and at the same time not fun. haha so I kind of have mixed feelings towards teaching. so my companion is the district leader and so we had to go to concepcion de uruguay again to do a baptismal interview which didnt happen for some reason. we had some time to kill there and so we played soccer. 

I was the only north american there. lol all latinos and they all killed me in soccer. as in they were a ton better than me and they pretty much almost killed me. I was going to kick the ball after the goalie had just blocked it and right when I was about to kick it, I got kicked in the back of the leg by the bishop of the ward. lol it wasnt on purpose and it didnt hurt to bad. it was just funny. we were on the same team. he didnt see me and went to jump kick the ball into the goal. and just happened to jump kick me in the leg. later I decided to take a little break and went to be goalie and that also turned out to be a mistake cause argentines love to kick the ball really hard into the goal. but all in all I came out alright. a couple of scrapes no more than that. but we came back to gualeguaychú and worked some more. 

we had a good church meeting yesterday but the bishop of the branch forgot to tell me the hymns to practice and so I had about 15 minutes to learn all of them. I said a quick and silent prayer and learned them. it is so cool how much the Lord helps me and answers all of our prayers. I was able to play fairly well too! I have a testimony that God really does answer our prayers and that he loves us! as a mission we have been doing a study on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. and it is so impressive to see what God and Jesus have done for us. By paying all of our sins, Christ made it possible for us to return back to the presence of God. Also, He took upon him all of our pains and sins. He knows exactly what each of us is going through. He knows what will help us in each of our lives. so when I have a tough time, I am going to look towards the Savior for His example and for His advice. God loves us so much to send His Son to die for us. I know that God again has shown His love for us by restoring the Gospel once again on the earth! Love you all! and I am glad to hear from all of you! Chow chow!

Gibbs Elder Austin Elder Gibbs Chris

August 22, 2011

This week went really well. my new companion is really cool and a great missionary. So I am happy even if he doesn't wash the dishes he uses. lol I bet I am going to get sick or something. we had a good week. lol it is really a strange feeling not being able to talk to anybody in english. lol I have passed a couple of days not hearing any english. but I am learning a lot now. and I think I am nearing fluency. not super close but closer and I can understand quite a lot now. 


but this week started out slower. Elder Towner left Gualeguaychú and so before he left he said goodbye to all of the people he cared about. which was pretty sad in a way. he was near to tears in some of the visits. I hope to develop this type of love for the people. so that is what happened from Monday to Wednesday. then my new companion, Elder Romero, came Wednesday night. and we had some hard days of working. Lately I had been a little bit discouraged about how not many people were progressing in our lessons and stuff like that. but yesterday we had an awesome day. we went to church as normal. and got back as normal. we visited our recent convert and she has been having a lot of trials lately. so we visited her. her testimony was as strong as ever, even in the face of adversity which was really awesome to see. lol they have the funniest little daughter named Patricia who is 7 years old and is just soooo funny. she laughs 24/7 which is way fun. we had a youth activity at the church this week and she came with her older sisters and she looked really sad and bored. so we played with a basketball. and I played volleyball with the other people. it was quite fun. oh and we also ate chorripan which is pretty much the same thing as eating braughtworst and bread. lol but they don't have sauerkraut and there isn't much spices in the meat which is kind of boring. but it was good anyway. I really miss spicy food. 


oh and so our awesome day. we visited the lady and went back to the apartment to eat lunch. after we left and went to visit julio. Earlier we had tried to visit him with a member named victor. victor has cerebral palsy and is at times hard to understand. But he LOVES to help us with missionary work. we invited him to come back and visit julio with us. but since we were running late we couldnt stop by. lol and Victor was there waiting at the house for us. such an awesome guy and also really intelligent. So we talked with Julio and his wife and then we taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was really cool being able to help out with the lesson and to have a member with us. it was so impressive to me how God prepares the people for us to meet. Julio has progressed a ton. we taught him and a lady that I found with another Elder while we had been doing some contacts. we stopped by and began talking with the lady. and then her boyfriend came into the room and we talked with him too. lol and then came in the aunt and began to talk as well.and then another lady also. (lol I just tried to talk to my companion in english. lol whoops). 


but anyhow we were talking and they had a ton of questions but were very accepting of everything we said. I was the only American there. lol everyone else were Argentines but the topic came up that I was american and the aunt started talking to me about how she had tried to learn english and how much she would have loved to learn it all. but she quit learning english. then she asked me out of no where why couldnt we drink coffee. lol and then I took off. lol It was so cool. i didnt notice till after the lesson that it was the gifts of tongues that was helping me speak. but I told her perfectly why we couldnt drink Alcohol and tea and coffee in spanish. and she understood all of it and it seemed to me that she accepted what I had said. 


I started out by telling her that our bodies are gifts from God and that he wants us to care for them. and also that when we care for our bodies we recieve blessings. but it was real cool to see how the Holy Ghost helps us missionarys speak. we are going to keep teaching this family. but it was just really awesome to be able to speak with her. lol I even made some spanish jokes. its just so cool to see how God performs miracles. 


I have seen quite a few miracles in my mission so far. these miracles are peoples hearts changing and turning toward God. alot of people depended on miracles to believe a church to be true. but that really kind of defeates the purpose of faith for me. so I think that the miracle of a heart changing is really big and is a miracle that will last forever! It was really good to hear from you all. sorry I dont have much time right now to write. Thanks for the emails and letters. My testimony is really growing a ton on the mission. I love you all. Spanish is awesome. paul keep learning Chinese. that is really awesome! oh and we played soccer with a bunch of latinos today which was really challengeing and I found out that I really stink at playing soccer. the church is true!


well see ya later, 
Elder Gibbs


PS oh and also I taught a bunch of missionaries arabic and I wrote their names in arabic!

August 16, 2011

[Editor's Note...I am a full 4 emails behind!  Sorry everyone.  Life is crazy.  Anyway, I usually edit Chris' emails for punctuation so they are easier to read, but since I am so behind you get Chris at his totally natural email state.  Enjoy!]

What is up?

I am going to send a couple of photos of Elder Towner and I. They are pretty awesome! but they are not sending to me yet. some problem or something. Gualeguaychu is a mix of South American culture and European. there are soo many europeans here. its pretty awesome but it just reminds me so much of europe. 

so we had a pretty good week. we had another baptism. ¨Her name is Gabriela. My companion baptized her saturday. She has waited 2 years to be finally be baptized. she has read the book of mormon 3 times and has a really strong testimony. so that was really awesome. The branch is doing pretty good here.we had a combined family home evening last thursday. we played the Adams Family game with the Whole branch. lol so funny. we had a great turn out and everyone was happy and laughing heartily. we did quite a bit of work this week we taught some good lessons. we taught this man named Julio and we taught him the importance of the book of mormon. It was awesome and my testimony of the book of mormon grew quite a bit. I know that it is the word of God translated by a prophet of God. it was cool everything is going great for him and his family is doing great too. 

so I had 2 impressive lunches this week. lol I cant help but just talk of food. The first was really good! its a Argentina classic. lol well in my book it is. its thinly fried chicken called a milenesa, fried egg, tomato, and mayonnaise. all of this on french bread for a pretty good sandwich. the other was a soup or Giso of mundungo. lol I dont know why but the people here just love mundungo. its like the 6 time I have eaten it. it is the stomach of a cow. lol really chewy. the really funny part is that it has these little fibers on it and so its like eating a towel. so we had fun eating that. I had 3 plate fulls of it. we had another missionary staying with us. Elder Cortez from El Salvador. lol he hates mundungo! he was having a really difficult time putting the mundungo down. I am starting to get used to it. 

transfers are tomorrow and I am going to stay in Gualeguaychu. I am being put with an Elder Romero from Argentina. He only speaks spanish and soooooooo I will only be speaking spanish for a whole month. lol this will be great and difficult. if I dont learn spanish well with him, I will never learn spanish. I am already able to get by with my spanish and I am developing an argentine accent with my spanish. so it will be awesome. everything is going great! it was great to hear from you. thanks for the emails. The Church of Jesus Christ is the true church and we have all the doctrine to help us return to live with our families forever. We had a tough experience and was told some hurtfull things. but it definitely strengthened my testimony and I felt the Holy Ghost telling me that what we were talking about was true! no doubt! hope everything is going well. Rachel and Paul have fun going back to school! Steph, Ryan, Allison, Jon, and everyone I love you a ton and am grateful for your examples in my life. I will talk with you all later! have a great day!!!! and week.

Elder Chris Gibbs