Re: Happy July!

Hola everyone! :)

Okay well let me start off by saying we just got back from the temple. But we weren't doing anything but cleaning! It's closed until the 24th and we got the first day assigned to clean it and it was SOOOOO COOOOOOOOL. I was a security guard for the first 30 minutes with a cool huge Provo Temple Security Guard badge on my suit. Too bad I didn't have my camera! Actually no one did so sorry no picture there :/ But it was very cool to go all over the temple and see a lot and clean. Me and Elder Waite got to go into the basement of the temple and move probably 100 huge rolls of carpet/fabric and that was way cool. Other than that, we cleaned baseboards and lockers with q-tips and tooth picks in the women's locker room. It was much more fun to move the fabric. Two of our elders got to do a bunch of demolition since they are replacing all the men's bathroom plumbing, and their guy took them on a tour of pretty much everywhere, including the bride's room. So that is all well and cool, but now they won't stop talking and bragging about it, so we are all getting kind of annoyed. But we're kind of used to it, with Elder Johnson already being pretty proud of his accomplishments. But I love the Elder still! When he's focused, he's great! :) But yeah it's still really cool to just be in there and even just doing simple cleaning work, it's still an awesome experience! I'm still shocked at how big the Provo temple really is.

 

Anyway, I was thinking about you family on Saturday, wondering how the game was going and I KNEW you would go to Chipotle after. I was hoping you might slip something from there in my package but I figured that might not work out so well :) So sure I hope you enjoyed it enough for me. I have absolutely no doubt that you did! Especially Nathan.

 

Whoa that is so WEIRD!!! I was going to ask in my email if the Robins knew a Creed Richardson from Orem area who played for the BYU football team last year. I remember me and Kelly looking at the player roster and seeing that and she told me she knew him from somehwere but I don't remember where. But yes he is in my zone! And I know him very well. He is the nicest guy I mean Elder, and he's had a pretty rough life with his dad dying awhile ago, but he is so strong and has a great testimony. It's crazy how small of a world it is, because Elder Romrell from my district and Elder Christensen from my district grew up with him, and it was like a friend reunion when they realized he was in our zone. So yes, I know him very well! I give him a good night hug every night :) Since that is one duty of us zone leaders haha. That's way cool, I keep forgetting to ask him if he knows them! I'll wait to do that until I realize how they know him though. I love his whole district, we all play soccer together Wednesdays and Fridays and it's super fun. And seeing as how I might be here for another month possibly, they might leave before me! Oh well, I'm being optimistic :)

 

Thank you for attaching the pictures! Those are way cool, you're so close to the field! I was pretty jealous, but the updates on the scores from around the world in dad's letter were enough to keep me happy! Im SOOO glad Spain won!!!! I have been going for them since I went there last year. Wow it's already been a year... Crazy. But I'm glad to hear Messi was doing good for Argentina. Obviously that will be my new favorite coming up here pretty soon!

 

Yesterday we had some issues come up again, of course there's always issues here especially as zone leaders. But other than those, fast and testimony meeting was amazing! The branch presidency told me afterwards that it was in the top 3 meetings they have had since they had been serving here. So that was a really spiritual high! But then it just got better and better after that. The fireside was one of those presentations by those people who memorize word for word Joseph Smith History or other people's journals from that time, but this man, Ted Gibbons (I know, it was awesome simply because of the name right? :) ) was acting as Willard Richards who was with the Prophet in Carthage Jail. And all the hymns we sang before and after that were the Jospeh Smith songs, and then after we sang Praise to the Man and everyone stood up, even the MTC presidency, one by one and started singing. It was so powerful, I couldn't sing the last verse very loud. We were all pretty emotionally worn out! And then we stayed and watched Jospeh Smith the Prophet of the Restoration movie again, and that was such a good way to end that whole Jospeh Smith run of events. And the day! If there's one thing I will NEVER doubt, it is that Jospeh Smith was a prophet. I know that, I don't just believe it anymore

. So yeah yesterday was a really good day! And for our district meeting after priesthood meeting President Ricks came in and talked to our district about the importance of EVERY WORD in verses 16-19 in JSH. I would read that again if you have time and pay attention to every word. He is a lawyer (president Ricks I mean) or was so he loves words. Figures :) But that was a really cool meeting.

 

Well, Jalen had P-day so he camped out, we still had class until 4 so we got sent to the overflow. I was way disappointed, but I loved the talk unlike most of my district. It was kind of discouraging to here all of them saying " that was a waste of time, it wasn't even spiritual!" Yeah things happen like that here. I was surprised honestly. I loved the talk. But it was okay they all got over it after a while. Their loss! I got a lot out of it.

 

Well I don't know if you got my letter yet, but we didn't get a new district this last week. They moved them back to this week for some reason, so this Thursday we are going to be BUUUUSSSSSYYYYYY. Because they all come in on Thursday due to the 4th of July. So that will be a super busy day, but I'm way excited. I hope I can be a comfort and help them adjust quickly, beacuse the newest district really seems to like us so far. Hopefully we'll keep it up, since we're going to be Zone Leaders until we leave here! Which could be a little while longer. I'm praying for the visas to go through! But we don't even have that meeting until tomorrow. So then we'll see if we can figure anything out. I hope things work out for the best! No matter what that is. I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord. That's all I can say. So I will keep you updated on that, but as for now there is no news, since we have the meeting tomorrow. I was glad it was moved to Tuesday, because cleaning the temple as I said was such a cool experience!

 

Anyway, so not much news here. We "baptized" Ariel on Saturday as a district since we all had her committed, so that was a pretty fun experience! Now we're teaching Gloria who apparently loves to Bible-Bash and won't take anyone's word for anything unless it says it somewhere in the Bible. So that will be interesting, but very fun and we'll learn a lot! And with Fernando, we were the first to commit him to baptism and we've had amazing lessons since then, so that is all really fun too! His "baptism" is this week so we'll see how everything works out. Other than that, the Spanish is coming along well! Subjunctive (which Hermano Snyder calls the manly tense) is so easy for me to understand, so I'm worried I'm missing something! But then hardly any one else in my district understands it, so I thank Heavenly Father for blessing me with the brain and memory I have, because I've always been able to learn so fast. Now I just gotta survive the first 4 weeks in Argentina or wherever when I realize that the Spanish I learned here isn't the Spanish they speak. That will be fun! :) Super excited for that. But I see it as good timing that I will hopefully have been in Argentina for about 6 mionths when I skype, so maybe I'll be rid of my annoying gringo accent! Then maybe I'll sound sophistocated and speak the "beautiful Spanish" as many natives from Mexico and other Latin countries tell me. SO that's super exciting. Anyway, it's P-day today obviously so I will try and write EVERYONE back that I have a letter from, which actually isn't too many. But be patient please, there's only so much time to write especially since P-day ends at 6! Anyway, I love you all and hope everything in your lives is going well! And if not, remember you aren't alone in life. There was a sister who sang "Still Believe" in the mission conference yesterday, and one of the lines was this: "I never walked beside Him, but He is always right beside me" I know that's true. I've felt plenty of times when I've been helped with things even just here, when I feel like I can't study or learn more, I always have a little self-reflecting moment and realize, wow I'm so far behind where I should be right now, I've made stupid mistakes in my past, and I'm going to overcome them and change myself for the better, and just keep pushing through. And the best part is, we never EVER do that alone. Well partly because we can't, we need His help if we expect to change ourselves for the better, but He is there because He loves us. I know that's true! I can't deny it and I won't deny it, because I've felt that love so many times in my life.

 

Well I should probably be going! I will let you all know if anything comes up with visas and hopefully there isn't anything crazy going on that has to be told! Although wow--it really was just this past week, we had Elder Allen go home, not beacuse he did anything wrong ever, he just had medical issues, but that took a toll on our district. We had some time with him before his parents came and picked him up and we all shared contact info and we all plan on keeping in touch!Other than that, the zone is doing well. Oh and no, we didn't lose any elders, I was just saying that it would be sad to not have Elder Kevesdy and Elder Robinson coming around to hug us every night, because we took over their job as Zone Leaders. They are still here and well! Although their district got their travel plans on Friday and are all super excited.

 

OH MY GOSH. We're supposed to get travel plans this Friday. Wow. That just hit me. Well, I guess all the New Jersey Elders will, since we probably won't! Haha. But wow, that is crazy. This is so exciting, I wish you could all have this experience! I'm going to be miles away and miss all of you SO MUCH. But it's not going to tear me down or bring me down, because I am serving the Lord and following Him is what is important right now. I will love getting letters of course, that's just protocol for missionaries :) But just know I'm super excited even though it will be hard. But He never said it would be easy, He only said it would be worth it. I love you all! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves! And as always, don't worry about me. I'm doing just great :)

 

Elder Tyson Gibbons

P.S. thank you family and the Hall family and Kelly for the package! :) I have plenty of sharing stuff and yes Mtn. Dews are pretty high up on the list of black market. I have a hard enough time keeping them from Elder Johnson who apparently went two years with his work not missing a day of drinking atelast two mountain dews. But all is well! Love you all,and thank you so much!

P.P.S. Jalen had his camera and took pictures of me and Christ and him together outside the cafeteria and with us pointing to our three differnt missions all over the world! So if you think i'm not taking pictures, well no I"m not hahaha sorry but Jalen is, and both our SD cards go to the same place so hopefully you enjoy that picture!