May 7, 2012

What is up peeps!

so this week has been really tiring. we are still getting used to the new area. we are getting used to using the buses and everything. this week we had some really cool experiences. this week we talked to a lady named susana. She is protestant Christian. we were talking to her about the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. it was a great experience and we could feel the spirit real strong. she too felt the spirit. I was able to teach her about the book of mormon and its importance for us and that it was more of God´s word to help us. and what impressed me even more is that i did it in very good spanish. I didnt doubt what I was saying and she could understand me very well. it was awesome! it was way fun teaching. I am really enjoying it. not too much happened this week! I  am quite tired. lol on weekends there is a house across the street from us that throws parties. lol and on weekends they turn the music up super loud and it wakes us up. but I am not whining. i love waking up to music. well i got to go. I love you all! have a great week everyone.

les quiero

Elder Gibbs de San Nicolás 

April 30, 2012

[Email Subject: We got robbed!!!]

Hey family,

So this week has been a little crazy! I had to say good bye to all my friends in Galvez: Mariel, Oscar, Monica, Marcia, and everyone. it was sad! I am really missing them and I really miss Galvez. in Galvez I could walk in the most dangerous part of the city and nothing would ever happen. San Nicolas is a lot different. we have to be out of some areas at 7 o´clock because it gets dangerous. I miss the small cities.

The second day we got here we got robbed. lol talk about a nice welcome to San Nicolás. We were walking down this street at night and we noticed that nobody was around. these two guys then ran up behind us saying they had a gun and that we had to give them our cellphone, camera, money and expensive stuff. So I gave them what I had which was 7 pesos. talk about a lot of money. that is about two dollars. they were pretty depressed when they found out that that was all we had to give them. lol all that work for 7 pesos! we had left our cameras and phone in our apartment. so they let us go and told us to take another street. so we left and apparently they did not have a gun at all. but it still kind of shook me up a bit. but it was a good experience. lol I am not going to walk down that street again.

Also we were able to teach a 10 year old of a recently activated member and we will be able to baptize him in a week or two. He likes to draw cars and motorcycles and he drew us some pictures! we also are going around meeting the members and doing a lot of contacting. the ward here has 100 people. lol my comp and I were so surprised to see so many people come to church. we were shocked because we came from places were there were like 15 to 20 people that came to church. but I still miss Galvez a ton. I miss Mariel a lot and her family and everyone! they are soo great! I will send photos we took when I left Galvez.

Also my new companion was not able to come. he is stuck in America because of his visa. so I was put with an Elder Farley from utah. and he is way cool!  we are having an alright time in San nicolás. they have this pizza store next to us that sells pizza cones. a pizza cone is like a icecream cone but made out of bread and then filled with cheese and pizza ingredients! its soooo good! well I love you all! we are having a lot of fun being missionaries and helping people! love you all! have a great week and dont get robbed!

Chau,

Elder Chris Gibbs

April 24, 2012

Hello America,

Lol, so Transfers came and I am getting transfered to the city San Nicolas in a neighborhood called Alberdí. Also I will be training a new missionary and so I am going to have to play some jokes on him. after all, that is what we have to do. lol just kidding, but I am going to be with a new missionary so that will be cool. but I am going to miss being in Galvez alot! The people here have changed my life and I have grown to love all of the people here! especially Mariel and her family! 

This week we had some crazy experiences. one experience that we had was we were teaching a family and the mom had a lot of questions. one of her questions was ´´why should I read the book of mormon? I already have the bible.´´ I then was able to tell her about the book of mormon! but this time the words came soo easily and I was able to teach with ease! it was amazing. I taught her about the blessings that you can receive by reading the book of mormon and how the bible is a wonderful book full of the word of God and stuff like that. I felt the spirit so strong and the God helped put the words in my mouth to speak. I didnt feel like it was me actually speaking because when it is me speaking the words dont come so easily. but I know that I could teach these people like that because I read the book of mormon that morning. I felt the spirit very strongly while reading. That was just one of the awesome experiences I had this week. 

lol so today I am going around saying goodbye to everyone. lol also I had to buy food from my favorite restaurant here for one last time! lol I love food. oh but I did not love food on thursday. on thursday, we went to Oscar´s house and ate an asado! lol I ate so much meat! I was filled to the brim! later that night we had a little Family Home evening and the family made us pizza! lol and again I ate and filled myself to the brim. actually I passed the brim!!!! cause that night I was throwing up like crazy! it was quite nice. lol not. I threw up like 5 times that night until I had nothing left in me to throw up. the next day, I woke up and felt fine and got back to work! I love you all! and hope all is well! see ya later!

Elder Gibbs

April 16, 2012

What is up family?

so this week has gone by really fast! lol we are already at the end of another transfer. lol I cant handle how fast time flies. This week we went to Santa Fe to have interviews with our mission president. my mission presidente is so cool! He taught me a bunch of importante and cool stuff. We talked about things to do to get more faith and he gave me the suggestion of looking up examples in the book of mormon. 

this week I have been reading about Abinadi in the Book of Mormon. I love the awesome example that abinadi gives. Abinadi was a bold and good man. He went in before the king to tell him what the king was doing wrong. lol I would be afraid just to go in to talk to a king. but Abinadi did it because he had faith in the Lord. To the death, Abinadi showed his faith in God. Abinadi was such a great man! I want to meet him someday lol. I loved having the interviews with the president. I felt his love for me and he wanted me to achieve the blessings that God has in store for me. I have been blessed with a great mission president. also he is an engineer! lol we have a lot in common i think. 

So we have an investigator that can be baptized this week. Elder Montes, Mariel and I went to teach her about the importance of reading the book of mormon, praying, and going to church. it was a great lesson and we felt the spirit a lot. the investigator had a sister over who told me that I speak really good Spanish. lol I told her I don't think so. but I felt really good inside that I can communicate myself well in Spanish. Also we taught this family of three. we were teaching them the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. and we used the DVD of the restoration to explain how God restored His gospel. The spirit was so strong during the movie! the investigators felt the spirit and so did I! I have had so many great experiences in the mission field! well I love you all! have a great week!

Elder Gibbs

April 9, 2012 [with Pictures!]

Hey family,

How is it going? Things are going great here in Argentina. I am just loving the food! my companion has been cooking some really good argentine food. and so this week I had quite a fright! we were walking down this street that we usually take. but this time there was this mean old dog this time. We didnt think that the dog would cause problems. We walked a little bit closer and the Dog started charging us! lol and then it stopped like 4 feet in front of me and started barking a ton. I was so scared! I bent down and pretended to pick up a rock to throw at it but it didnt get scared. luckily the owners were close by and called the dog off and told us ¨dont worry he´s really a nice dog.¨ and I as thinking ya right. why dont you come over here and stare this dog in the face while its growling at you and thinking of a million ways to eat missionaries. but we are okay. lol I just got scared. 


also this week, we did a service project with Mariel for a widowed woman. It was a lot of fun. I was trimming trees like crazy! While contacting we also found this cool family of a Father and a daughter. They have had lots of struggles in life and at times have doubted the existence of God. we taught them the plan of salvation and told them that God knows why bad things happen to good people and it doesnt mean that God doesnt care for his Children. We taught them that in this life we come upon trials to learn and grow. This life is a time of testing and learning and preparing to return to live with God. that was one of the cool experiences of this week! I am doing fine and working hard! love you all! have a great week!

Elder Gibbs

April 2, 2012

Hey family,

How did you all like general conference? I loved it. I could really feel the holy ghost testify to me that they are messengers of God. I really liked the talk by Elder Uchtdorf where he talked about judging others and how we should just stop it and not judge others. cause we dont know what others have been through. I also like the talk about how the mission is a mini life of learning. and its so true. I have learned so much while being here on the mission. and I am still learning more and more everyday. it was real fun watching general conference and hearing the choir sing come thou fount of every blessing. what a powerful hymn!!!! I loved it. it was a super great conference to go to. we traveled to the stake center in Santa Fe to go watch it. then we stayed over night with some other missionaries and returned the next day to watch the rest!! it was awesome but past by so quickly. just like Elder Eyering said our trials make time seem to make time go by slower. and I believe the opposite is true too. when we are enjoying something it goes by so quickly. and so it was for general conference. 


This week we taught Oscar and Monica about the book of mormon. we read a chapter in the book of mormon. they understood very well the scriptures. we talked about how Lehi was obedient to the Lord and he was blessed and how Laman and Lemuel murmured and were not blessed. it was a great day. we also taught Marcelina about the Word of Wisdom and how God gave us these rules about what we can consume and not for our own good. later Mariel came and we cut her lawn and trimmed her trees as a service project. it was a lot of fun. Mariel told me I was like one of those wind up toys that never dies. I kept trimming and cutting cause it was soo fun. lol I love doing service it helps me relax and forget all my problems. Those were the main things that happened this week. nothing super funny happened this week. these were the highlights of the week! well love you all! have a great week!


Elder Gibbs

March 26, 2012 [with Pictures!]

Dear Family,


How are you all? I am doing great! Had a great week with some awesome experiences! this week we were able to do service for our friend Veronica. She lives in a tin shack and her house was getting overgrown with big grass, which made it hard for her to do the laundry for her 3 kids. so we went and we brought Mariel and Marcia to do some service. It was super fun! everyone had a great time. Marcia, Mariel, and Veronica became good friends. Mariel, Elder Montes, and I had a great time hacking at giant weeds! lol Veronica had a Giant Machete! lol I felt like a knight from the middle ages with the machete. we also had some branch cutters and a little knife to cut the grass. everything was going great. we put the grass in this blue barrel that had been cut in half. so I filled up this barrel with grass and then I put one of our dogs in it and transported our dog around. the dog loved it and I have some really funny videos of it. but when I returned, Mariel noticed that I had a giant spider on my shirt!!!!!!!!! I started to freak out. It was a a huge old nasty old spider! Mariel had the machete and flicked the spider off with the machete. I have some photos of the spider and stuff! afterwards everyone said that they felt so good for doing service. 


I now have a testimonio of service. I know that God wants us to serve others. just like it says in Mosiah 4:17 or 2:17 (one of those lol) that when we are in the service of others we are only in the service of God. I feel so good doing service. next week we are going to cut the lawn of one of our investigators named Marcelina. oh also we taught a lesson to Marcelina with Mariel. Mariel shared her testimony of how she felt after her baptism. The spirit was sooo strong!!! I loved it! and I know that baptism in God´s church is the only way to return to God. Marcelina after this was really excited to go to church the next day and to get baptized. She is going to be baptized the 13 of April! we are working hard and having fun! I love you all! and I know that I am preaching God´s true gospel! love you all! love you all! oh and it has been now a year that I have been out on the mission! lol its crazy! I dont feel like I have been out that long! well got to go! lol I will say it one more time....I love you all!


With love to all of you
Elder Gibbs