Mission Change - Facebook Post from Sister Henrie

The entire Mission together at Conference / Transfers Today!

Elder Gibbons, on the end of this picture

Elder Gibbons, background

Called to Serve - As District Leader - Staying in NOHO

Hola
  Sounds like life's been kinda crazy for everyone lately. Transfers have been kinda crazy for us also. So the final result of this transfer is that Elder Nelson and I both stay in our area. We were on exchanges with the ZL's at this point but then that night right before we were about to exchange back we get a call from the AP's to ask if Elder Nelson and I would accept the call of district leader. So this next transfer we are going to be District leaders!!!! Also we got a call from the AP's saying that we will be covering more area. We needed that a lot actually, it gives us more area to knock and find more people. So a lot of crazy changes are taking place and a lot of new people are coming into the Zone.
This week has been kinda all over the place for us. It started out with us going on a KO (knock out) exchange with the AP's and then from there going on a last minute exchange with the ZL's to take care of a baptism and the Book of Mormon Experiment at City Walk. We actually received a referral from the BOME but it turns out she wasn't there. We tried contacting her but we got the wrong number. However this week was an amazing week for us in finding new investigators, we actually found 10 new people who we taught the restoration to and they gave us a return appointment. 
  One of those 10 in particular was a miracle for us. So we were going by this one lady named Carmen who we met the previous day. We got to the door and knocked and actually her brother answered the door. He told us that she actually wasn't home right then but that he was really interested in the Book that we carry around. So he invited us inside and we talked to him about the first lesson and he LOVED IT!!! He told us that he would have to read before we came back because that's the only way he could know if what we are sharing is true. We have a pretty good feeling that he will discover the truth through the Book of Mormon. The funny thing about this story is that we wouldn't have met him if we hadn't had met Carmen and we wouldn't have met Carmen if we hadn't had been kicked out (not very nicely) of a complex we were knocking. There's a quote that I heard that I really like it says every time Satan tries to kick the church he kicks it up stairs. No matter what Satan does he can never stop the work from progressing (and he even sometimes helps it progress.) Other than that we taught some good lessons to some progressing investigators but we unfortunately were not able to contact Shawndell this week. But we will be able to the following week.
  Spanish is getting pretty good. My goal is to not have an English accent at all so really working on the pronunciation of words and also the conjugations and accentuation right now in my studying. Still studying the language really hard and trying to speak it as much as we can. I love the Spanish people and their culture, (Elder Nelson and I are going to the swap-meet today so I'll try send a package home for you guys with some cool stuff.) The swap-meet is basically like a huge supermercado with different cultures and things from their countries all in one location its pretty sick!
This week we also had stake conference!!! Elder Chistophersen spoke and he taught about how personal covenants are very sacred that's why we do baptisms for the dead the way we do, because the gate is so narrow to enter in that only one person can enter at a time. Therefore we do one baptism at a time so that person can make a personal covenant with the savior. Also we got to talk about the transfer chisme because basically all the Spanish wards were there so at least half the missionaries were there too. I got to see all the people from my last zone and we got to talk to each other for a minute and catch up it was super cool.
   I'll let you know how our first District meeting went next week. Love you all so much. Have a good week!
Les Amo muchisimo
Elder Gibbons

NOHO - A lot happening

 Well this has been an awesome week for us. We have been getting solid appointments and investigators. And we've been getting member presence and member inspireds like crazy. I know I keep saying it but the blessings of fasting are amazing. Beyond that nothing too crazy happened this week. Unfortunately David (Our bap date) dropped. He told us that he wants to go to his moms church instead of ours. Which is a really lame excuse because the man is 32 and still lives with his mom. But we made up for it and put Shawndell back on date. As far as new Investigators go well we have an Antigua investigator that we are going by and visiting right now. Her name is Miriam she's the nicest abuelita and loves to give us fruit and feed us when we go over and visit her. She says she knows that the BOM is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet. She is just having a hard time accepting a Baptismal date. It's almost like she is scared to do it. We are going to dig deep with her and try and find out the reason she isn't accepting a baptismal date. We've only picked up a few one lessoner's with a return appointment, but we will see what happens.
  The ward is doing good. We had Tortas after church which is totally a Latino thing to do but I feel like the ward is growing closer in unity and we are having a lot more success trying to get more members to come out with us to lessons. The new teaching opportunity we've received this week is again the BOM experiment. But this time we actually got a referral for our area to go by and visit. We are planning to go by and visit her today, her name is Carolina Lopez, Hopefully we get her as a solid Investigator. My Spanish is definitely improving a lot I feel much more comfortable with it, and feel like I can explain things a little more in detail and give experiences to try and teach people with. It's really amazing how the Gift of Tongues comes into play when you need it the most and when you're doing the things you're supposed to be doing, it stays with you. We are trying to talk as much as we can in Spanish which also helps us learn new words together.
As of right now one of the hardest things for us is not to be depressed when someone drops that was super close to baptism. We both cared a lot about David and wanted him to take that step towards baptism. So when he gave us the talk that he had to go to church with his mom we were pretty sad and it kinda affects the rest of your day. But PMG tells us that we can be sad for a minute but then to keep your head up and go back to work.
  Fantastic Stuff: Well this week we had an amazing Goldmine lesson with this lady named Rebeca Lopez and her husband. Listen to the recording I explain it pretty well in there. But from that experience I learned that we are both able to receive revelation for our investigators and I know that I received revelation for Rebeca Lopez's Husband. Haha see what I did there now you have to listen to the recording 😃. If I could teach you anything from this experience I would tell you to never be afraid to act on the promptings of the Holy Ghost nothing bad will come from it no matter what you are doing because it's literally God speaking to you through these thoughts and impressions you receive. You will also be blessed for following the guidance of the Holy Ghost and sometimes when you don't know what to do just listen. It says in PMG that we should be comfortable with silence during a lesson because that's when you can hear and feel the Holy Ghost. And right before I asked that question there was a solid 2 minutes of silence. Always relay on the Holy Ghost its the one and only GPS we can trust with all of our hearts. Also Jose Y Virginia got Baptized this week AAHHHHH YYYEEEAAAHHHH they had been waiting along time to enter into the waters of baptism and when they did do it you could see the joy in their eyes. I never realized this before but these people are literally waiting to receive the message of the restored gospel and at one time they had accepted this gospel and plan because they are here on earth right now. So when we teach someone and they say that it feels familiar thats because it is you've already heard this message before! As missionaries we are here to help them realize and recognize that this is the gospel that we were taught before this life. Also Gabriel and Diego got baptized this sunday It was cool to be able to go to that because me and Elder Lytle found them together but then handed them off to English Elders. They were so excited and you could tell that this is what they wanted.
  I love you all so much I hope that mom digs the dimmer light, and that the rest of the basement goes smoothly. Keep playing hard and practicing hard sissies and you guys might be as good as me one day (Heee heee 😃). Tell buddy I love him Love you all thanks for all that you guys are doing for me I appreciate it. Praying for you all every night Hope you have a good week!
Con Amor
Elder Gibbons

Book of Mormon Experiment and Jose Chavez got baptized!

Hola Familia y Amigos!
  This week went a lot better than our last week. For one we had appointments jammed packed the past couple days (Blessings of Fasting) and number two Jose Chavez got BAPTIZED!!!! It really all started out with me and Elder Nelson going to visit someone at about 8:30 monday night when we got a call. Elder Nelson answered the phone and said it was for me, so I take the phone and its Elder Horrocks calling to tell me that Jose Chavez was going to get baptized this saturday at 11. That lifted my spirits so much because we were kinda coming off a slow week with investigators and a lot people dropping. I got to give a talk at the baptism on the Holy Ghost (hopefully everyone understood it). It was so amazing to see your hard work pay off, I taught Jose Chavez all of last transfer, the first day I was companions with Elder Horrocks is when we found him. So to see all that teaching and work get him to the waters of baptism was so exciting. There really is no other way to describe the amount of happiness you feel for someone thats decided to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. (I've got pictures I'll send them).
   Also me and Elder Nelson have been so blessed to be able to have a lot of appointments this week. We have been jammed packed this whole week which is amazing and I know it comes from fasting. I'm so grateful for that opportunity we have to fast because I know it works. The ward is doing better thats for sure, we're still trying to figure things out as far as callings in the ward go but Bishop Menrequez is a stud. We are probably going to have a ward family night to bond the ward together. But other than that the ward is doing a lot better. Spanish is doing really good its kinda weird when you know that you both only speak a little spanish you start paying a lot more attention to what people are saying. As you start listening more you start to learn more. So to say the least we both learn a lot of new words everyday. The best learning experience this week was probably during District Meeting. We talked a lot about how to extend an invitation more directly to someone and give them the specifics of the commitment. This way there is no confusion and new excuse the investigator can make because of the how specific the invitation was. For example you could say,"Will you read the intro to the BOM?" or you could say, "Will you read and pray about the intro to the BOM before our next appointment?" That way they have no excuse.
   The hardest part of this week to be honest is when our Baptismal date (Shawndell) dropped. He was a super solid kid and loved recieving the lessons. He dropped because we lost contact with him. We're are definitely going to try by again and get him on date though. The way that I overcame difficulties on the mission is by looking at the good things that happen throughout the day. Like for instance this week when Shawndell dropped I remembered that we had Jose Chavez's baptism or I'll remember a good lesson we had that week. But it's really all about your attitude if you can focus on the positive things that happen then you'll be a positive person. That's one of the harder things with Elder Nelson right now. If we have a bad day he kinda gets in a bad attitude and its really hard to work with investigators when you have a bad attitude, so I try to cheer him up. (thats not to say that I've never been in a bad attitude either). But other than that we are doing fine he's a great missionary and a good friend. The new zone is super fun (Not as fun as the last zone we were all super tight but still super fun). We are going to the city walk today which is like a smaller part of Universal Studios should be super fun.
   Alright this week we got to do the BOM experiment again and this time we had a level 3 set up not a level 1 so this was the full deal we had posters and panels a table set out the whole 9 yards and it was amazing. So we are all undercover and we ask people if they would like to participate in a social experiment then if they say yes we give them a page from the BOM and ask them to mark references to God and Jesus and whatever else they liked. So I ask this one man (En Espanol) and he says yes he reads it and marks and then I asked him how he felt while he was reading it. He said it was very interesting and that he would love to learn more. However as soon as I revealed to him that it was from the BOM and we were Mormons he said that he didn't want anything to do with it. I was like, "Senor usted dijo que quiere aprender mas sobre este libro." He said that he refused to talk to us. I was like wow we must have the truth if people are this angry with us. We were right next to a Jehovah's Witness stand and I got bashed hardcore by one of them. The thing is though is that they are out to fight you, they want to try and prove you wrong even though it's right. The thing that bugs me most about people like that is that they try and tell you that the BOM is wrong and then you ask well have you ever read the BOM and they're all like, "Well no." and then you ask, "How do you know that is wrong then?" and then that usually will shut them up. It's the funniest thing they try to prove you wrong but what they end up doing is proving that you're more right (I love it).
  Well because of that bash I know without a doubt that the BOM is the most powerful key in the conversion process and that our church really does have all the truth revealed through a modern day prophet. I hope everyone has a good Week I love you all praying for everyone every night. Remember the BOM is true and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Les Amo
Elder Gibbons

Pictures North Hollywood - NOHO

Elder Nelson and I - NOHO

Feliz Ano Nuevo

Feliz Navidad Y Ano Nuevo!!
Holy Cow!!! These last few weeks have been insanely crazy! So It’s been about 14 days since I last emailed and I’ll start from the very beginning. Transfers is always a crazy day, I had to pack everything up and then load it into the car, and then we left. I said goodbye to Elders Cardwell and Garcia ( I’m gonna miss those guys a lot). So we get to transfers and I still have no idea who my new companion is, I’m looking around and then finally they show up. So we hug and all of that good stuff, and then I ask him, “So Elder how long have you been out?” and then he says, “I’m just out of training, you?” and then I realized that we were both just barely out of training. So now I’m thinking that we better learn how to understand Spanish real quick because neither of us really could understand Spanish very well. And then I asked him, “So I’m going to your area right?” and then he says, “I was actually gonna ask you the same thing.” So at this point we both realized that we were whitewashing our area.

I was pretty nervous for a lot of reasons and was even wondering if we were gonna be able to do it.  We had no idea where our apartment was, we had no idea how big our area was, we had no idea who the members were, who are zone was, who our investigators were, we didn’t understand Spanish very well, and we could only speak in simple phrases. We didn’t know where we would skype our families, nothing. We knew the only way we were going to be able to do this is through God. The first thing we did was pray; I’ve never prayed more earnestly in my life for help, just to know what to do. So we started from square one, we got out our map and studied it, then we took out our area book and started reading teaching records and studying bio’s of Bap dates, Progressing Inv., Potential Inv., Antiguos, Futuro, Part member families, Everything we could read over. Then thankfully we found a sticky note from the previous Elders telling us dinners for the week and where we were gonna skype from.

The next day during weekly planning we decided to devote certain days to investigators and certain days to members and part member families. During those days we visited as many people as we could whether Inv. or Member families and would introduce ourselves and try to learn as much about them as possible. Then from there we would make as many calls as we could to try and set up dinners and appointments. The first few days were rough we put in so much work just trying to know the area and the people. I know that the Lord helped us through it, there’s no way we would’ve been able to do half the stuff we did without his help. For example we learned that there was going to be a Christmas party for the ward 2 days after we got there. So we had the opportunity to go around to all of the members during the ward party and even one of our investigators came. Another thing is we received enough miles on the car to allow us to go around and visit all the investigators and members we had planned to go by and visit.

Another Milagro! Our second day in the area we put one of our investigators on Baptismal date, her name is Mayra and there’s no way she would have accepted it without the Lord’s help in our work. Another Milagro is that our investigators and the Members are really nice about how bad our Spanish is they will help us if we don’t understand something by using more simple ways of describing it. Sometimes it can be frustrating though when neither me or Elder Nelson understands what someone says. We try our best but we are still learning a lot about spanish especially now that neither of us are fluent. The blessing that comes out of this though is that we are both learning Spanish so much better now.

Christmas day was amazing, we woke up and opened our presents and drank some Hot cocoa. We went out to go buy groceries but everything was closed! We had a fun Zone Activity and then it was almost time to call home. I was super nervous beforehand, I was worried that I would get homesick and wouldn’t be able to focus on all the stuff that we still had to do in our area. Calling home was good though, I’m glad I got to talk to you guys and see you all. Turns out I got a little bit homesick but yet again I received the help from the Lord to be able to focus on the work more than on myself. One of the things I’ve learned is that work is the best, when you have a full schedule and a full day there’s nothing better. But when you have time in between tracting and visiting people that's when things seem to get harder. The more work you have the more you can focus. Luckily we had someone to go visit right after skyping so that helped me take my mind off of things.

So far in our new area we have had a hard time finding areas to knock. As of right now we only know of one or two blocks in our area that is latino other than that its mostly Armenian and Russian. I love the new area and the Investigators we have are the best. The members of the ward are super supportive and are always willing to help me and Elder Nelson out with our spanish. We are still praying and studying super hard so that we can really make our area bloom. New years Eve was awesome, we had to be in our apartments by 7 and we got to eat dinner with a Menos Activo so hopefully she will start coming to church. Me and Elder Nelson both set a goal to be able to contact all the member and part member families in our area by the 12th of January. I set a new goal to become more like a Preach my Gospel missionary and to follow what it says in PMG, and also to practice Spanish as much as I can so I can better understand my Inv. but also the members.

My new companions name is Elder Nelson he's a super awesome missionary and an awesome companion. He's an amazing guitar player and loves debate too. We get a long well and are both trying to figure things out in our new area. I'm super grateful that he's my companion and we have the opportunity to work together. Recently in my study I've been studying in Alma 40-44 where it talks about the resurrection and also about Captain moroni. I love the promise in Alma 40:23 where we will be able to receive perfect bodies in the next life. It's amazing to share that with people who struggle with self Image, or a disability because with faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ we can receive this perfect body and we can live with our families forever.

I hope everyone has a good week Merry Christmas and Happy new Year, Happy Birthday Buddy I love you. And tell Makaela that I'm gonna send something for her birthday in the mail. I'm very happy here in California there isn't a better work to be doing than this right now. Sorry there's no recording this week I will do one for sure next week love you all.

North Hollywood - Week 3

Hola Familia Y Amigos!
  Como Estan? Pues aqui en California todo esta tranquilo. Elder Nelson Y Yo estamos buscando y tocando puertas cada dia para encontrar mas personas que podemos ensenar. Ahorita es un poco dificil para encontrar pero estamos tratando. Well I guess if there's one thing I've learned this week its that sometimes in the mission field things get hard but no matter how hard it is you have to give your all. There's a quote that Presidente Henrie says a lot, he says, "As long as you give an honest sincere daily best effort you can feel good at the end of the day because you know you did your best". And he's definitely right, you seriously have to just leave it all on the field. (Get it mission field 😜). So this week was a lot better for us, yesterday we got a kid named Shawndell on date. He's a 15 year old kid with lots of good questions and really has a sincere desire to know if the Book of Mormon is true. I'm certain he will get his answer because of the power the Book of Mormon has in Conversion. It says in the introduction to the Book of Mormon that a Man will grow closer to God by abiding to its precepts than by any other book. I think that is so true, a lot of people have misconceptions about the Book of Mormon but if they would just read it they would know that It was written of God.
    We haven't really found any new Spanish areas to knock but my Spanish is improving a lot. Something cool about being equals in a companionship is that you both have to pay really close attention to what people are saying otherwise you both don't know what the person said. As We've done that our spanish has improved so much we can have normal conversations with members and investigators now. We can also answer questions too. This of course comes through help from the Holy Ghost and the gift of tongues. In order to recieve guidance you have to start your day off right. You can't sleep in, you can't start studies late and you definitely cannot waste time otherwise that spirit kinda leaves you. If you are exactly obedient you will have the influence of the Holy Ghost super strong throughout your day. But as you start to slack or waste time that influence grows weaker.
    We really didn't find out about the passing of President Monson until like a day later. It was sad to see the prophet go I really loved that man with all my heart but his mission was complete. Something interesting about that is that we were going to have a mission conference with President Nelson this following Friday which would have been amazing but due to the death of the Prophet he isn't going to come any more so super sad about both of those things. Alright I wish I had a little more time to write unfortunately its a timed session so I'm about to be logged off. I love you all so much hope you have a good week and I can't wait to see what the Basement looks like. Keep playing hard sissies love you buddy love you mom and dad. Con Amor
Elder Gibbons