November 21, 2011 (with Pictures!)

Well another week has flown by! lol I really cant believe that! days go by super fast its amazing! oh I am in a computer lab in the city and this guy just asked me where I was from. haha pretty cool!  but ya this has been a super awesome week! yesterday we ate an awesome asado! Asado is a Argentine barbecue! I cant believe how good they can make the meat taste. they literally don't put any spices on the meat. only salt but they make it taste sooo good! I love it!  but we have been doing a lot of work lately. 

we are teaching the father of the family that made the Asado. His name is Santiago and yesterday, we read about Faith in Alma 32. and we had a super awesome discussion. It compares a faith or a testimony to a seed. and that we need to keep feeding and strengthening the seed so it grows or it will die. just like a testimony of the truth of the gospel, if you don't feed it by reading the scriptures or praying constantly it will die. and sadly that happens a ton. so we are trying to put more emphasis on continuing to do these things after we are done teaching people. we are trying to make the way we teach more effective and to help more people. and the work seems to be going well! and I have quite enjoyed this week. its been a little tough but very rewarding. my testimony is growing a ton! 

but ya. other things that have happened. two days ago we were in the chapel and we were doing an activity and we left and then it began to rain a ton! it was pouring. lol I was so soaked! lol my shoes were so full of water that it looked like I had walked through a lake. but it was fun. we have some really sweet investigators and we were able to teach them. one of our investigators asked us what was it that we are expecting of them. and we were able to answer that we were there to invite them to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored Gospel through Faith in Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receive the gift of the holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. and that through this we can return to the presence of God. so our goal was to help people return to God. 

it is amazing how many missionary experiences we can have if we just look for them. I just had a quick discussion with the person next to me about Christ. which was pretty awesome!  anyhow, so my companion finished a year in the mission last week. lol so I got to watch him burn his tie. lol it was one of Elder Glad´s finest moments! no he has many finest moments. so yesterday, this guy was telling us that we needed to pray to God to ask him if what we were doing was right. cause he said that if it wasn't, we were leading people to hell. I was able to give my testimony to him that I had already prayed and found the truth. and then my companion did the same. we felt like Alma and Amulek talking to Zeezrom in the Book of Mormon. We have had some awesome experiences here. tough ones but great experiences. But I know the Book of Mormon is a true book! and I love this book a ton! it is written by God´s prophets! and will help us have a more happy and blessed life. and will bring any person unto God! and I am super grateful for this Gospel! well I gots to a go. but I love you all! have a great week!  we are going just keep on working as hard as we can! well love you all!

Elder Gibbs

[Editor's Note:  And now on to some pictures!!!]

November 14, 2011

Hey family,

This week has been pretty good. quite a killer week. lol by that I mean that we walk a tooooonnnnnnn! but its cool. we have some cool investigators. they just need to keep listening to the messages we have and change their lives. the problem we have is that people are super hard to find. but when we find them, we are often able to have an awesome lesson and the spirit is so strong. yesterday we found this man whose father just died. It was a great experience to be able to tell him exactly where his father is right now and what will happen to him. I have learned so much about the plan of Salvation while teaching it to people. its great! I love it. I am so happy that we have a Heavenly Father who gave us a perfect plan. in which we can return to live with him forever in our families. 

So this morning I cut my own hair again! and it didnt turn out bad. lol I remember the first time I cut my hair and I cut the back of my hair at different levels and it was just a mess! lol this time I just buzzed it all off. like an inch long. Also I tried to cut my hair into a mohawk first.....buuut that didnt work. it just looked like I left a triangle of hair on the top of my head. so I just cut it all off.  I was just going to play with my hair by making it into a mohawk. but now my hair is following mission standards. so that was my adventure today.

oh and so like five days ago we had a super strong storm. lol I woke up by hearing a super loud bang. there was just a ton of lightning that cut the power. and it rained a bit. but that was it.

but so I am fine just working a ton. I am also learning a ton too! but I hope that you all had a great week. I will see you all later!

oh and Elder Glad and I are going to buy an ice cream cake! yay!

see ya later,

Elder Gibbs

November 4, 2011

So we are yet again at another transfer. I think that Elder Glad will be leaving Galves cause he has been here like 4 and a half months and I have only been here a month and a half. but we are doing alright. we have been doing a lot of walking. like a lot a lot. and its quite hot here. I am getting so tan from all the sun and my hair is getting blonder each day lol. but ya we are doing good.

okay well so we just found out that there are no changes. so Elder Glad and I are staying companions in Galvez. lol that was easy. and I just found out that my trainer Elder Towner just left Argentina to go home after two long years. he is super awesome! but ya its crazy that he has already left. like six months seemed so much time. but it flew. but anyhow. we are doing great here. we have some progressing investigators. who should be getting ready to be baptized soon. so that is cool. lol there wasn't much that happened since the last time I wrote you guys.

oh but we did happen to lose our dogs! that was great!  there was this one dog that followed us for 3 or 4 days straight. lol we didn't feed him or anything. he just liked us. and we didn't like him. but we couldn't get him to leave. but anyhow we entered into the super market last week and he had to stay outside. and then when we left we took another exit and so we lost them. it was great! but ya so we are doing great. the mission work is tough but is going well. I hope that you are all doing good! have a great week!

Elder Gibbs

October 31, 2011

Hellos families,

So this week I saved a life! I felt real awesome for doing it. but not many people know about it. but anyhow, so we were walking from an investigators house out in the middle of nowhere. like there were only fields of wheat for like acres.and we were walking to contact this house. and we did but no one was home and so we started heading back. and I heard this yelping. and I looked to the left of the road and there was a little puppy! there was a train track that went over the river  and the puppy somehow ended up on the other side. and it was scared and like all alone. so I went over it and I happened to have a plastic bag with me and I picked up the dog with the bag cause I was not sure how many diseases it had. lol I began to think it was a mistake to have saved the puppy cause it really seemed to like us and followed us. we tried to find out whose puppy it was but couldn't find out. so we were kind of stuck with the puppy. then a man passed and I asked if it was his puppy. he said no. and so I asked him if he wanted it. and he was like sure and so he took it. therefore, I saved a life! I was quite proud. 

So we also have these dogs that follow us everywhere here! they wont leave us alone. so we ditched those dogs by going in the grocery store and leaving out the other side. it was awesome. lol unfortunately the dogs came inside the grocery store but they were quickly expulsed! or thrown out. lol expulsed works right? any how that is about all that has happened that is funny. 

we had some awesome lessons this week. we decided to go visit this one lady who had once talked to the missionaries. we taught her the plan of salvation. Apparently she has been feeling very isolated and the knowledge that she could be with her family forever after this life was really helpful for her. It was like the first lesson I have been a part of that the person we taught began to cry. it was quite awesome! and it was cool to see how the Lord works through us to help the people. we also found this 19 year old guy named Juan who was quite cool. and also we were able to teach the plan of salvation to a man named Santiago. it was an awesome lesson too. you could really tell that he wants to do what is right. and we tried to help him as much as we could. we are good friends with him and his family. we had some other great experiences this week but these were the main ones. 

Well now my first companion, Elder Towner is going home this week.  it is so weird that he is already leaving. it seemed like such a short time ago when we were companions. time is flying. we are already at the end of another transfer this week. I believe I will be staying in Galves and Elder Glad is going. but anything could happen. but anyhow it was great to hear from you all. hope you all have a good week!

Chow!

Elder Gibbs

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