Football is the DEVIL!

Alright, so in case anyone missed it, Christmas was this week, which is always an interesting time for a missionary. But I'll get to that later.

So this week was actually pretty good for teaching lessons and stuff. Better than we thought it would be. It was nice because when we stopped in to see a lot of our potentials, they were home and so we got to talk to them for a bit. Our part member guy has been reading and praying which is always a thumbs up. He would be baptized, but his biggest concern is that he feels like he doesn't know enough. But both me and my companion think he already has a testimony of it, which is good.

We also managed to contact Arnold again (papa smurf). We taught him last transfer I think, and he has been in "The Nutcracker" and hasn't had time to meet with us. Remember, Arnold is the short, old, mexican dude with the big beard, who likes to sing to himself. Well he has been reading and praying also, and we asked him about it, and he said he hasn't gotten an answer yet, but knows that he needs to put in more work. Which is fantastic! We also tracted into this lady named Anna last week, and we taught her this week and gave her a baptismal date for the 9th of January. However. She is kind of weird. And we are not really sure if she is accountable enough to baptize. Like, we were teaching her, and she was just doing really weird things during the lesson, like mouthing the words we were saying, and just being kind of not normal. But then she would ask a really smart question such as "So Joseph Smith was a prophet, so he had the priesthood authority?" What the? Most people take a couple lessons before they figure that out. And she didn't come to church on Sunday because she forgot what day it was. So she lost her date, but we are going over today to figure out how accountable she is. She mentioned last night that she was trying to get on disability so...ya.

And saw something pretty cool this week. We were tracting and we hear police sirens down the road, and we look and see this white Cobalt screaming down at about 65 mph with this cop car flying after it. It was cutting people off, and blowing through stop signs, and when it drove past us I looked at the driver and she looked like a youngish mexican woman. But instead of having an intense face, staring at the road, gritting her teeth, she was looking out the window at us with this calm, passive expression on her face. Well she disappeared out of view, and then another 3 cop cars come flying down the road. So ya, exciting things happen while tracting.

Managed to embarrass myself twice this week. We were eating dinner at a members, and having "Tritip" (?) which is like this beef stuff that you put a sauce on. Well, I was carrying the sauce and accidentally dropped it and spilled it all over the table and floor. Woops. That's the first thing I spilled on my mission so far. And it was worse because they were all like "It's ok, we clean up after our 3 year old all the time". I felt like a 3 year old.

THEN we walked in the church on Sunday, and I took off my coat, and noticed I wasn't wearing a suit jacket. Which was kind of embarrassing. And in priests quorum, my companion mentioned that if I take off my name tag I would look like a priest. Which I thought was rather nice of him, because usually I get compared to a deacon, or on a good day, a teacher. So I'm moving up!

Alright and then now to Christmas Eve/Christmas. We had district meeting in the morning, and then tried to go out and work until 5 when we had to come inside. It was tough, because I got the great idea to offer to read Luke 2 with people while we were tracting, but everyone just said they were going to Catholic Mass that night. Or they didn't answer the door. Then we ate dinner at a members, and went in for the night, after playing a few games. Unfortunately, every single one of our investigators is out of town this weekend. all 7 of them. So we really didn't have anything to do unfortunately.

Also, before I continue to Christmas, we got a shocking phone call from the zone leaders this week. From now on, until a) the rest of our missions or b) the president goes home in June, there will be no more sports in the Colorado Colorado Springs Mission. No more Basketball, Football, Soccer, Raquetball, Elephant Polo etc. From what we've gathered, 2 missionaries in our mission got injured playing football, and their surgery cost the church $500,000. Which is pretty insane. But ya, it's sad, but you just gotta obey with a willing heart.

And CHRISTMAS! So I was really overwhelmed with all the packages and gifts that I got, it was really awesome. I have to say, the Bacon Bar is pretty interesting, the screaming monkey is hilarious, and the nose flute is really starting to bug my companion. But thank you so much for all the gifts! So we opened gifts and then went to a members house to make phone calls. Which was less weird than I thought it would be. Probably because I called home in September at the airport. But it was cool, and it will be cool to call again in 6 months. So after we called, we really had a relaxing day. We went to a members for dinner, and then played Rook and phase 10 for a couple hours. Then me and my companion were going to meet some other missionaries to play some games, but that kind of fell through. So we really just hung around all day. We forgot to set up service for Christmas, and so that probably would have been much more effective, and in hindsight we wish we had. We just felt so...useless...all day. I felt like I wasn't doing anything. And if I feel like that after only 4 months in the field, when I come home I'm probably going to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder or something.

But on Sunday, we were walking down the road, and this lady called out to us. She was smoking a cigarette, and a couple months pregnant (grr) and she was outside the homeless shelter and needed help filling up some water bottles. So we helped her out and got it all done for her. She is an active non-member, who would like to join the church but can't stop smoking, and she's from another town which is why we haven't seen her. So that was pretty cool, we gave her name and number to the Zone Leaders because they cover that area of the valley. And while we were filling up the water bottles, there was a lady hanging out there who is a super less active member, and a child of one of the super active members in the ward. So we got to talk to her a bit, which was also good. So it did salvage the weekend, being able to help out.

I also ate this really hot mexican food this week. It hurt my mouth.

And that is that,

Elder Gibb