The Kiln

Heyo, I hope everything is going great on the homefront, that summer is nice, scout camps etc. are going good and safe and everyone is eagerly awaiting the return of school. Haha probably not, but it's amazing how time goes by so much faster on a mission than at home, and hey, we're almost halfway done with summer vacation! So that will be fun! yay school!

So this letter might be a tad shorter, mainly because last week I wrote about all the way up to the e-mail, and this was a shorter stretch of time. Good things have been happening for sure. We've been seeing a lot of success with people that have moved in to town. Unfortunately, it seems like the people that have been here forever just aren't joining the church out of spite or something like that. But when people move in, rest assured we hightail it over to offer service. And it's been going well. There's this one guy, and he's having a rough go at things. 21, 2 kids and about to be married and just bought a house. As well his parents passed away last month. So it's been hard but that's where we come in, to share the beauty of the Plan of Salvation. He told us he was planning to build a fence, and after talking to him we walked over to the church and met our ward mission leader from 1st ward who owns the sawmill outside of town. He asked us how our day was, we told him about this new potential and how he was building a fence, and it led to us being able to secure a discount for this new move-in for lumber. So it was a great experience, just being able to be in the right place at the right time, if we hadn't met our WML that night, we probably wouldn't have mentioned it to him because it had just happened when we talked to him. That might sound confusing, but basically, another right place right time thing.

We also found a guy that had moved in while "tracting". The reason I "" tracting is because here, we don't really tract...We do but it's different. Instead of picking a street and knocking every door on that street, we walk around town and try and follow the spirit as to which doors we should knock on. We can tract a street, and find nobody home except one person who turns out to be a member. That is less effective. So this way is a lot better in that we talk to a lot more people, it's a lot more inspired, and a lot more focused. And we saw a guy from a distance on his porch, walked over to his house and found out he needed a bunch of help with his yard. He was like "I usually say no when you guys offer help, but this time I need to say yes". Awesome! How was King Lamoni converted? Service! Softened his heart. So it's good in that way.

It's been interesting (time to wax philosophical) this area has without a doubt been my hardest area. But amazingly, I'm just as happy here as I was in my last area, where the baptisms flowed like apple juice (comparatively). It's a testimony to me that, happiness on a mission, and life, isn't based on how well we're doing, it's based on how well we're moving forward in the face of adversity. Adversity sure is a great teacher. The great thing about this experience is it's forced me to do a lot of self evaluation, to rely on the spirit, to have faith in my Savior. I'm far from perfect. There are things I do that I regret and repent and try to do better. But it's those moments where you feel yourself improving, where those small tender mercies happen that just make your day, that makes every day of a mission the best day of your life. Near the beginning of my mission I remember thinking that a) I wanted to serve in Utah to experience what that was like, and I wanted to serve in b) Europe because I wanted to experience that type of missionary work. Well here I've kind of gotten a little of both (be careful what you wish for right? haha) And I've loved it. So it might not seem like a lot is happening here, but things behind the scenes and very small things are happening. And it's by small and simple things that great things are brought to pass. So that's my take.

Our new investigator we got last week wasn't in town this week to go to church, but making several phone calls, talking to the right people, and a couple interrogations we managed to secure the location of our investigators nearest meetinghouse and time in Colorado Springs, and by golly we got him to church. Even though he wasn't here. How cool is that? AND he loved it just as much as here, I guess an RM spoke, and a lady talking about women in the church and their role, so it was great!

We also took a trip to the sawmill with our 1st ward WML and got to go inside "The Kiln". It was 125 F and 95% Humidity. I guess it can get up to 165F and 125% Humidity, but not today, so maybe another time he'll whip us over there to check it out. It was very hot. Speaking of the weather here, it's monsoon season...yep...which means instead of not raining for 2 months, it rains every day for 2 minutes and then gets hot and sunny again. Gotta love the high desert. I hope I finish my mission in an area like this, so I come home with tons of red blood cells and I can beat everyone in a race.

Also, my companion was bugging me Sunday morning for help in choosing his socks, and I thought he was being dumb and then I remembered that he was color blind and had a difficult time picking them out. So I help dress my companion haha.

Yep. I think that's it though. Enjoy your summer!

Elder Gibb