Re: hola!

Hola everyone!

 

So just to address the not much time to email thing, Jalen and his district let me in on a little secret. If we hold down the mouse button while clicking on the minimize button for the window, it pauses the time! So right now after reading both emails I have 29:45 left :) It's awesome! I've learned so many little secrets since being here. I can't wait till the newbies get here this Wednesday and we can act all knowledgable and helpful haha :) We are supposed to get 8 new elders and 4 new hermanas. So that should be way cool! I am hoping since a whole district is leaving from our zone this week that Chris will be in my zone and have class two doors down from me! That would be great. But we will see! So I was super excited to get mail today and we were all sad and down in the dumps after Friday when only the same elders got mail (every single day almost, I SWEAR it gets really annoying haha, and some guy sent my roommate 100 bucks and he doesn't know the guy that well. He's lucky. But I prefer the heartfelt letters of love and wishes from home;) ) So yeah, when we remembered it was Memorial Day, it really bummed us out! But then I remembered I got email so I'm super glad to be doing this right now haha, it is definitely a spirit-lifter.

 

Well I'll be honest, the food has started affecting me. Nothing so terrible or anything. Just annoying stomach grumbles in the middle of an "investigator" lesson. Oh well. Everything is okay, the Spirit can still be there whether your stomach hurts or not. Oh and yes, they gave us the little newbie envelope with all our stuff in it like the keys and everything. And it had our mail address, and on it it says ARG-MEN 0716 so I guess I will be leaving the 16th! Jalen is supposedly leaving the 17th so I'll be out a day longer. WHOO HOO!!! I really am super excited. Even with my white-boy Spanish accent (which has improved I must admit, if I do say so myself) I still want to just get down there and get going. But I think I'll survive learning more Spanish for another 6 weeks haha. And I kinda would like to stay here since I get mail so quickly instead of the supposed 2 week wait. That will be one of the hardest things. But I know I will be busy doing what the Lord wants since it is His time I'm on after all. So I will adjust I'm sure! (albeit grudgingly.... haha just kidding)

 

I'm glad you had the missionaries over! After being out in the field and cooking for themselves I know how much they appreciate it!!! The food here is good I guess but.... yeah. You know what I'm talking about. I have days where I can hardly eat anything and then days I eat two or three entrees. The latter never ends up feeling very good but I'm just so hungry I do it anyway. I'm so desperate in here! *hint cough* a package with outside treats and knick-knacks would be cool.... *cough* just kidding--that can definitely be expensive. But the drop off thing if anyone is in Provo would be great! I could use some caffeinated drinks like REAL Dr. Pepper not caffeine free. Grandma Gibbons I know you can feel my pain. You can't do that to a perfectly fine drink. Just ask her everyone. haha  I will be honest, I laughed when you told me about dad's maiden voyage with his new cooking displays. I can imagine him wearing an apron, talking to a camera, explaining his meal, and being a tv chef. Tell him to try it out for a home video. That would be a good family home eveing I think! But that's cool, that made me really jealous of the good food out in the world. There may be bad people and bad things, but food, nah it's just delicious!!! Take advantage of it while you can.

 

So today we sent off our two Zone Leaders that were so cool and friendly and pretty much the main reason our first week here wasn't crappy. It was sad to see them go, but our new Zone Leaders are just as awesome, and probably the most odd-looking companionship here, since one is 6' 8" and the other is probably... 5' 7"? Not sure exactly, but they are just so funny and really nice guys. So I'll miss Elder Rose and Elder Surmik but they were so excited to get out of here and get down to Santiago Chile! So we sent them with the best of wishes. They'll be great missionaries, I know it. And my district is all hoping that we get to ride the same bus or van to the airport before we go separate ways. That would be nice. I'm gonna miss these guys when we leave. But that's still a long 7 weeks away! Oh man. I have got so much more to learn. But I'm doing my best to be humble.

 

Tonight we have our next investigator Fernando, from Mexico (really it's just our teacher Hermano Snyder, but we teach him and our other teacher Hermana Christensen, who will be acting as people they taught on their missions, which will be awkward but kinda nice since we'll know him. Oh, and the Isabel woman I told you about is actually our other teacher, Hermana Christensen. We were all mind-blown when we found out. Apparently Hermano Snyder will be acting as the investigator for the next group, that will be fun to hear about) But yeah I'm excited for that! I feel like I can actually talk and have a conversation somewhat now, and Elder Johnson has improved SO much since we got here, we are speaking about half and half now which is great for me and for him. So I'm glad he's learning so well. I've been giving him little private lessons when the teacher is gone with simple basics of Spanish since they don't really teach us that, everyrthing we learn is Gospel things, so I'm teaching him grammar and conjugations and things like that. Thank goodness for Mr. Rekow and all the drilling he did. If you see him tell him thanks a million for all the great Spanish teaching! It's really paying off now.

 

It has only been about 2 weeks but everyone in our district is hitting it off well so I'm so thankful for my district. We all get along great which really makes me glad because we hear stories of other districts who have people go home because they don't feel welcome. Yeah we're doing our best not to do that! We do everything together so I hope it stays that way from now on! I am doing laundry now though so I should probably get going. I'll write all you guys back after this since I got your letters Thursday (you were right!) and you'll get those hopefully this week! I miss you all but don't worry about me, I know I'm in the Lord's hands. I'll be fine as long as I get to do what I'm supposed to and teach those people I meet. I'm way excited for this next week. Talk to you in a week! Don't have too much fun without me :) Just kidding. Live your lives! But in accordance to all that is right and good. :D it's da BEEEEEST!! (our district has a major fascination for Nacho Libre, so watch it in memory of us. Elder Allen can quote every great line from that movie, and he sounds exactly like Nacho and Steven hahahaha. Just think of us when he says " I ehate you're eSTUPID orphans!" ) Anyway, Adios! Hasta luego! Mucho amor!

Elder Tyson David Gibbons

Hola de el CCM (MTC in spanish, cool huh?)

Hola Familia! Y amigos tambien!

 

So the past five days have felt like a month at the least! But it has been a really good five days! I have already improved my Spanish immensely. (Kelly--I know how to answer those questions the lady from the MTC asked once again.) So that has been really cool. Randomly during a lesson from our teacher or even during my lesson as Elder Johnson and I are teaching our investigator Isabel, I will remember words from Spanish 1 and be able to conjugate things. It's amazing what the Spirit helps you with when you are doing the Lord's work, especially some white gringo like me trying to learn Spanish! But of course the first day as we got our name tags and sat for the opening fireside thing, President Brown listed off every single country that people had come from to learn English, Spanish, German, Korean, Armenian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Tagolog, Sebwano (not sure how to spell that one) and other crazy languages I've never heard of. And when he got to Idaho, he asked who milked cows which was a weird question, but just like President Chick and whoever else always says, he was so excited to have Idahoan elders here, because all the cow-milkers wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning and work all day. So even though I don't milk cows, I was still recognized as an Idahoan Elder. Woo Hoo!!

 

Yesterday was such a great day. I thought it was going to be so long with meetings spread out, a fireside, and a devotional video despues de este, pero it was so inspiring and I even went to choir to learn our song for tomorrow that we sing at the devotional! It's a sweet song and I have to sing baritone because I have lost my low bass voice :/ oh well. So I'm singing baritone with Elder Romrell from my district and it was just really fun! I'm kinda upset at how high I am able to sing now but I will live.

 

Let me tell you about my district. First of all, we are the BEST. We are Branch 1 and District B, and my companero Elder Johnson was called as District leader, I think mostly because he's almost two years older than the rest of us. But we are the perfect companions. He's super outgoing and spiritual and just awesome and I have helped him with his Spanish a lot, which sadly I think is the only thing I have really helped him with. But it is okay. We have only been here for five days right? Our zone leaders are really cool, Elder Rose looks like Joseph Smith in all those paintings, and Elder Surmik is from Canada so that's why he's awesome. And they're both spiritually inspiring guys. Oops ELDERS not guys. Lo siento!! And Elder Harmon was a really cool Elder that has been here for 16 weeks!!!! He punched a door when he got mad and shattered his finger, so he had to stay a little longer haha. But he finally got to leave down to Argentina Buenos Aires today!! We sang God Be With You Til We Meet Again as a district and he was very moved. So we were all happy for him.

 

In my district we have Elders Christensen and Waite, Elders Hardy and Chipman, Elders Romrell and Allen, Elders Braithwaite and Peterson, and then Elder Johnson y yo. Oh and I apologize for my Spanglish and my bad grammar (mostly apologizing to you mom :) ) and we all get along so well. Elder Braithwaite and Peterson are our roommates and we all get along just perfect. And our teacher!! Oh my goodness he is the neatest guy ever. His name is Hermano Snyder, and he is just so encouraging and nice, and honestly if I knew how great a teacher he was and I had to go with someone else, I would want to go home. That was an exaggeration, but he has made these past 5 days as amazing as they have been, because I may be feeling down and discrouraged and as soon as he walks in the room we are all just uplifted and excited to teach our next lesson! It is amazing the spirit he brings to the classroom.

 

I have seen Jalen and his German district (which included Brian Robins, Kelly's cousin, by the way. I knew it!) and I have seen them every day, almost every meal, and we live in the same building so we see them there tambien. That has been a blessing to me, just to give me a little strength to see people I know. I've also seen at least five people from BYU so that is awesome too.

 

Well my laundry is probably almost done so I should go! But the temple was so cool too. It was a very uplifting experience that has made me and Elder Johnson just super uplifted and excited for today so far, so moral of the story is, go to the temple haha. It will be a really great blessing to you of course. Well I love and miss all you guys! I'll hopefully make it through the next five days and then what? The next hundreds of five days haha. I know I will. It is so cool here and I know I'm gonna be anxious to get on that plane to Argentina, even though it will be sad not to see half my district again! Oh yeah, five of us are going to New Jersey and the others are going to Argentina Mendoza, so that will be sad! But I'm defintely going to keep in touch!

 

Okay I know I'm not supposed to ask for things for people in the mission I'm serving, but I would just really appreciate if you would pray for Elder Romrell. His dad died when he was really young and I just learned today he and his sister have Cystic Fibrosis! And he is technically only supposed to live until the 30's but he is very active so he hopes for longer! But that almost ruined my good mood because he is just the coolest and nicest guy, and definitely the strongest since he seems to be going through so much more than the rest of us. So yeah I just wanted to share that. Anyway, all the guys in my district are great so we could all use prayers as well!! Well I must be going, so Hasta luego! Until next monday, Lots of Love and Best of Wishes! Buenasuerte en sus vidas.

 

Elder Tyson Gibbons