Stuck in the (San Luis) Valley of the Shadow of Death

Haha, if you are curious about the title of this letter, I believe it's in Psalms. It's also the beginning of the song Gangsta Paradise by Coolio.

ALLLRIGHTY THEN!

So I was bouncing off the walls all morning basically freaking out about transfers, and Lo and Behold, I am still with Elder Terry in Alamosa. The other 2 Elders in the apartment are gone which is awesome because it was way too small for 4 elders. It is also awesome because now we won't be tracting the same streets, and we get all their investigators haha, which is 4 people with a baptismal date! so now we have so many less actives and part members and investigators that we are working with that this transfer is going to just BLOW by. Especially because it's a holiday transfer. Is it weird to think that in less than a month I will be calling home? I think it's weird.

Ok so this week we did exchanges at the beginning of the week, and I was with Elder Beers on Monday and Elder Vanyperen on Tuesday. Good guys, Elder Beers is my brother (trained by the same guy that trained me) and he is an interesting feller. Then with Elder V and he is really smart so we got along pretty good. This week we e-mailed and stuff on wednesday because our P-day got switched to Thursday for the great and terrible Thanksgiving. I know, I know, you are all wondering why we celebrated Thanksgiving in November instead of October, but the Americans do things differently. We went to the Morgan's house (the ones who sent you guys home that picture) and they have a raquetball and basketball court inside their house, so we ate lots and played lots and man it was just awesome. We even played Oh Heck! And it was funny, a lot of the people there were doing P90X so we started talking about it and somehow it got turned into a challenge for me to do 60 pushups. Well I successfully accomplished the task, although it was kind of shaky. And it was also the first time I've played basketball on my mission. The thing was though, it felt EXACTLY like a family reunion back home. Like it was kind of weird. And made me think of home a bit for the first time on my mission, but I was able to shake it off and get back to work the next day.

So this week we FINALLY managed to contact this former investigator we've been trying to visit. We got a return appointment and everything so that will be sweet if we can keep teaching her. Her kids are all super interested and so the work here is really starting to pick up. In addition to her, we contacted another former who is willing to meet with us and picked up 2 new investigators! I even made them both cry!

Here's the story: We started teaching this guy named John who's been taught a lot before, and has even come to church, but is kind of non-committal. So we were meeting with him and teaching him a first, and it didn't seem to be going anywhere because he had already been taught and knew it all. So we started asking about baptism and started asking some really inspired questions about the apostasy. Me and my companion were teaching in total unity it was so awesome! But the questions got up to the point where we would normally say "so therefore, your baptism wasn't valid" but we stopped and listened. We let him think for a while, and we sat there for a good 25 seconds as he started to blink really fast, and he looked down at his feet, and started to tear up a bit. He pulled out a cigarette and asked for a light, but I didn't have a lighter on me (I wouldn't have done it anyways). We basically watched him as he figured out in his mind that his previous baptism was not valid. After about 20 seconds he stopped, looked up, and said "Can we say a prayer?" and basically kicked us out of his house. But we have a return appointment for Thursday, so that will be good!

Then we were trying to visit this potential investigator but she wasn't answering the door, so I was really dejected and depressed and while we were walking away, this woman across the road opened her door and told us she wanted us to come in. She said she had seen us from her window, and wanted us to teach her the word of God. She had a BOM but didn't understand it, so we explained what it was and it led up to us giving her a blessing. After the blessing she sat down and started bawling. Like she was having trouble breathing. She is one of those people who are really sensitive to the spirit, which is really awesome, and she said she was going to read the Book of Mormon all day! It was so cool.


We also met this kindly old man who wished us a resounding "Merry Christmas". He reminded me of after Ebenezer Scrooge turns good. This guy actually lived wayyy out in the country, and it was pretty cool because as we were biking out there, this lady in a van on the side of the road asked if she could use our phone, as her car had stalled. Service opportunities are awesome because they give us a chance to really build relationships with people.

I taught a Buddhist this week. One of my mission goals is to baptize a buddhist, but he would be YSA so we have to give him to the sisters :(

And ya, so the transfer is oveerr. 2 down, 14 to go how crazy is that?

Keep it real, and Choose the Right.

Elder Gibb