October 24, 2011

So this week, I did something that scared me for life, I believe. we ate at an investigators house and they fed us something.... something terrible that still gives me the shivers! so we heard that this investigator makes really good canelones and so we wanted to learn how to make canelones which are basically Argentine enchiladas. she made them with a red tomato sauce that was pretty good. just what she put inside made us quiver! lol she put in the canelones ceso which is........ in spanish the cerebro.......lol or in english....the brain.......................................yucky!!! but we ate it so that we could have an awesome story to share. lol brain has a weird flavor. oh and it was cow brain not like monkey or dog or anything else. we watched her prepare the brain. the are about like the size of like two hand put together. but still it had like this dead flavorrrrrrrr. and I still feel queezy thinking about it. gugh! lol and she thinks we liked it. I hope she doesn't make anything else with ceso. but anyhow that checks off brain from my list of weird things I ate. 

As for the missionary work, it is going great! we have so many new families we are teaching. one guy we found yesterday owns a chicken farm and we were able to see 2,000 little chicks in one like green house kind of thing. lol I can't think of the word for what type of thing they were in. but ya we taught him about the first vision and Joseph Smith and gave him a book of mormon or a Libro de Mormon. it was great. lol the only thing not great was the big walk to his house cause he lives out in some fields of wheat and there were a ton of mosquitoes there. the mosquitoes here are crazy hungry for human blood. lol my arms are all deformed with mosquito bites. but we did see two owls yesterday which was pretty sweet. and lol there is these two dogs that follow us everywhere and one of the dogs followed us to the guys house and almost got attacked by the owls. lol one of the owls like swooped down and tried to attack the dog. so funny. no lol I mean so bad cause the dog would have died. and the dog belongs to one of our investigators. 

anyhow, so we were having a meeting in the chapel and this hermana or sister brought her children. one of them is named Marcos and he is two years old. and so he was playing with the curtains and we saw him twist himself up inside the curtains. and we were like oooooh so cute he is having so much fun. lol and I think he was until he got trapped in the curtain. lol then he started whimpering and crying. lol soooo funny. you could see only his feet from under the curtain and he was just crying and then his mom came to save him. and everyone in the meeting laughed at little poor Marcos. but yes so that is what is happening in Galvez that is pretty funny. also we taught this man, Esteban, and he is way cool. he says he knows what we are teaching him is true. the only problem he has is committing to come to church. he just wants to make sure that once he starts going to church that he will stay active. which is great! Argentina has a bit of a problem with their members staying active in the church. so he has a great desire to stay active. now he needs to get married and for us to teach him all of the lessons. so we have quite a bit of people close to baptism here in Galvez. 

so yesterday, there was voting in Argentina for their president, and many people were not able to come so we were quite busy in church . but it was a great experience. it was the first time I taught all of Sunday school and in Spanish. so that was pretty fun. we had a lesson on tithing. and it was pretty interesting what I learned. I learned a little bit about king Melchizedek that I had not previously knew. for instance, he lived in a pretty wicked and dangerous city and he was called to be a prophet. as his duty, he preached repentance to everyone in the city and the city was turned around from a super bad a wicked city to a righteous God worshiping city. and therefore he is known as the prince of peace. and also that Abraham paid tithing to God through this king. sometimes it is hard to give up ten percent of our income but we have received and continue to receive more from God than we give. also I have been reading in Elder Ballard's book Our Search for Happiness. it is a great book and I recommend this book to whoever will read it. it is a great book that helps us understand life and how to find more happiness in life. and I have come to know that we find more happiness in keeping the commandments of God. its that easy. 

but ya so Elder Glad and I are doing good! lol we had a pretty comical week. lol

chow!

Elder Gibbs

October 17, 2011 (Pictures)

here are some photos form elder romero and I back in Gualeguaychu. the ones with the boxing mask is with the family ortiz. one is a drawing that Elder Twoner made which is really funny. there are some of here in Galvez with some of our investigators. but ya awesome love you all!

October 17, 2011

This week has been great too. lol but really short. I cant believe how fast the weeks are going by now. lol the first few weeks were like super slow. but now we hardly have time to get everywhere before the end of the day.

So last week, I found out that putting egg in your hair was good for your hair. supposedly..... so I put raw egg in my hair lol to see if it did anything. all it really did I believe is made a mess. so I am going to try it again this preparation day. lol but ya. that is like one of the main things that has happened. it has been raining quite a lot lately so my stuff is all soaked. but its cool. its kind of refreshing. 

This Thursday we went to Santa Fe for a mission conference with Elder Arnold from the 70. he was way cool. lol and funny and we learned a lot from him. It was cool cause Elder Towner was there and also Elder Birky. so my first two comps were there which was pretty awesome. they are both doing pretty good. Elder Birky is training a new missionary. so he is having a great time. 

after that Elder Glad and I did divisions. he went to work with a missionary from our district while I went with some other missionaries to Rosario. I had some work to do on my visa. that was great and after we went to Subway and McDonald's. I ate a foot long sandwich and a mcflurry! yay! I was in heaven. 

Then we went back to doing missionary work on Saturday. we were doing some contacts and we found this lady. we taught her the restoration. and after we told her about the vision of the prophet, she said that she got the goosebumps. and we were like cool! I am quite sure that she was feeling the spirit. we are going to go back to visit her. we teach a lot of first lessons and we have quite a few investigators. we will see what happens with them. its pretty hard for us to get a return appointment cause its like everyone's schedule is always changing. and this week has been pretty crazy cause there was a big festival. we tried to go see another man named Ariel. but weren't able to teach him. we are going back tonight to visit him. we are doing well. nothing too crazy. just missionary work. I loved to hear that you are all doing well and that Sam got his m&ms and his airplane ride :D I love you all and hope the best for you!

talk to y'all later!

Elder Chris

October 10, 2011 (Galvez)

Hey family,

How are you all doing? lol I am doing fine. well mostly fine.  We had a family home evening with an investigator and I was murdered by a flock of mosquitoes. I was glad to be their dinner. 

So everything is going real great in Gálvez. my companion and I are getting along well. and the branch here is nice but really small. they have like only 20 members. so we had fast and testimony meeting yesterday and the branch president asked me to bear my testimony and introduce myself. so I did. I told them that I was elder Gibbs, I am nineteen years old and so I am young. lol I meant the young part to be a joke. and it for sure was. apparently I kind of mumbled the word joven which means young and they thought I had said feo, which means ugly. so the whole branch thinks that I think I am ugly. lol so that was pretty funny. I didn't find out till after the meeting. 

But so this week we had some real awesome experiences. we did a lot of contacting this week. lol like a ton. but we found like 3 awesome new families and people. one guy is named Ariel. and we chatted with him for a bit and then taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel. then we gave him a book of mormon. when we returned, we found out two things. one is that he has a pet pitbull and the other is that he had read all the way to 2 nephi! so we were pretty stoked! and his pitbull is quite friendly too. We talked to him a bit about what he had read and he remembered it all. but the only problem is that he works a lot and so he wasn't able to attend church yesterday. 

another person we found was a lady named Gabriela, we taught her the Restoration too. she told us that while we were teaching her, she felt a peace that she has never felt before. and we knew that she had felt the spirit of the Lord. I know that our message is true and it has the ability to bring more peace into the lives of people. and the third family is awesome. we found them while we were contacting. we felt a little impression to go to this house that was not in the direction that we were contacting but we did what we felt was right. we knocked or well clapped ( cause they do that down here we clap at doors a lot) and they let us in. it was awesome! we taught them a bit and left them with a book of mormon. we were coming back to visit them and we found one of our other investigator friends who lived by them. apparently they had talked, but the family said that while they were listening to us teach them, they felt really peaceful. lol they also told them that they thought we were angels lol. so we will see what will happen with them. we are going to teach all of the about the plan of Salvation to them all next. 

but things are going really great. I am loving it here in Galvéz. its a really pretty city. oh and so I was talking to this guy named Santiago and he was telling me about how they eat frogs here. lol yeah, I kind of want to try it. I am getting over the grossness of everything and getting more adventurous about the way I eat. my companion was getting a little nervous when I told Santiago we should eat some frog. apparently it tastes like chicken. the only difference is that frog has a stronger flavor and that its a frog lol. so maybe we might eat it. soooooo well I am running out of time! but I want to tell you all that I love you! and that I know this is God´s true church and that we do have a prophet of God. and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. I know that this Church can bring a greater peace into people´s lives than anything else on this planet. I am so thankful that I could grow up with this peace and in an awesome family! love you all!

Chow Chow

Elder Gibbsy

October 3, 2011

All I can say is  wow. What a great general conference!!! I learned a lot this general conference. this time I tried to have a purpose for why i  wanted to listen. I wrote down somethings that I needed and then listened. I probably learned more from this General Conference than from the others. especially cause I didn't sleep through this one lol. well okay so I only slept through 2 talks. Talk about improvement. it was pretty cool. we got together with the other missionaries in Santa Fe and watched General Conference in the Stake Center. all the Americans and English speaking missionaries got together to watch it in English. but super awesome conference. Its amazing that we have a prophet who talks with God about how to help us HIs children. 

sooooo how is it going family? I am doing well! I hope all is well with you guys. so I got moved to another state in Argentina. I was in Entre Rios and they moved me to the state of Santa Fe in a city called Galves! Galves is really small!!! really really small. so in a way I am kind of happy! cause Gualeguaychu was really really big. and so we wont be having to walk as far. which is really good. my comnpanion´s name is Elder Glad. He is a great missionary and really obedient to the rules. also he is fairly new to the mission. He has almost a year in the mission. ooohh and also he cooks really well! lol he made a German pancake the other day! lol I was in heaven. so I am happy and I do like Galves, its really chill and calm. they have a train that runs right through the middle of the city. lol I know it was a bit random just to say that there is a train that runs through the middle of the city but I have a reason to say that cause...well no I didn't have a reason to say that. but this city reminds me a lot of Grandpa's city. cause I always hear the train going whoooowhooo. 

so the apartment I am in now isn't as nice as the other one. lol it is actually a house and so it is pretty big compared to the other apartments. the things that are bad are that we have to wash our own laundry......., and it has a bucket shower, and that the refrigerator freezes everything!!!!! lol it was a pretty interesting experience to learn how to use a bucket shower. lol there is like a faucet that pours into this bucket that has a spout. so the bucket fills up and then you plug in a cord that is hooked to this heating devise in the shower. once it is hot, you unplug the cord and open the spout and whalla you have a warm shower. lol you have to be careful and to unplug the shower or you can get shocked while showering which I have heard that it is not too fun to be shocked. and the bucket runs out of hot water so you have to be wise with how much water you use. lol such a hassle. oh and I got shocked two days ago. for some reason the fan´s electricity runs through everything metal and so if you touch any part of the fan you will get shocked. lol I got shocked twice already. lol it was fun....not. but no other wise the new apartment is really great I love it. 

lol on the way back home from the conference I was talking to this one lady in the ward. she has this daughter that is really fun. the daughter is 5 years old and I like to make ugly funny faces at her. cause when she finally sees me she freaks out and says ¨te como!¨ which means i´ll eat you! so funny, she used to say I´ll hit you. but that didn't scare me so she had to change what she said lol. but the ward is pretty good here. it is really small. they have 15 members or so and they meet in a warehouse that has been changed to be a church. but also yesterday I got to see my first companion again, elder Towner. He is doing great. he will finish his mission in like 5 weeks.crazy!! but it was fun to talk to him and to goof off. Before I left Gualeguaychu I had to say goodbye to all of my friends there. pretty sad. the family ortiz kids kept giving me little gifts, like notes and little broken toys. I am going to miss them but its cool I know I am supposed to be in Gálvez now. so is there anything new going on out there. not too much going on here. we have a couple of people getting closer to baptism. I know that God will help us help these people. its crazy how He helps us in our lives. I know that he answers our prayers. He has answered many of mine in the mission. its crazy! and like the prophet said, nothing is too small for God to help us in our lives. but ya things are going great in the mission! Love you all! peace!

Elder Gibbs