The Mario "duck+jump" is much harder in real life

And now we have completed the final Christmas as a missionary. It was a good one. A lot different than last year. Last years we forgot to sign up to work at the homeless shelter in Alamosa until it was too late, and so we didn't really get to serve during the day. And they'd banned sports the day before so we couldn't play raquetball at the members house who signed up for dinner. This year we were "go go go" all day to different appointments and different people who had invited us over. We also were permitted 2 movies, but we only had time for one, and we ended up watching Kung Fu Panda 2. Meh. It was pretty good. Then again, the only other movie i've seen on my mission was Star Wars and there was no comparison. So maybe I'm just entertainment deprived. "The Testaments" is pretty good though, especially if you can spot the cameraman in that one scene wearing the baseball hat. Right after the soldier mocks Ammaron "You are a fool" in the bottom left hand corner. Check it out. And a big thank you for all the packages and cards! It really made it a good Christmas for me.

Well it was a "white" Christmas for us, not only because it snowed at least 18 inches this week but we had 2 out of the 3 investigators at church that we had committed! That was a wonderful Christmas gift to have, to see people progress closer to baptism. Again, that triforce you need. Church, Prayer, Book of Mormon. All three of those ingredients for both investigators and members! If you are doing those 3 things faithfully and with a sincere heart, you can't fall away. And you'll have great joy. We have an investigator committed for baptism this Saturday still, and we are having faith that we can make it all work out so that it can happen. It would go a long way to helping to ward trust us even more, and realize that we are doing all we can to find people to baptize!

The one investigator that didn't come to church is a funny story. We had just got home from Christmas conference on Wednesday, and were looking at our plans and it really didn't feel right what we had down. Just not effective and we were trying to figure out what we were exactly supposed to do. Well we got 2 referalls in like 10 minutes right around that time and decided "That's what we needed!" and went out to find them. One was an older couple that was being evicted, and their friend in Springs got a hold of us and told us to go by there and help them move because they couldn't. The other was for an 89 year old man who has severe hearing problems and, the referral text described him as a hermit. Well we went by him first, and he was trying to shovel his long driveway with a big heavy dirt shovel. Elder Robledo worked on the driveway, and I started talking to him about the gospel and eternal families. Well he invited us in his home and the spirit prompted me to invite him to be baptized. I was like "lolwut?" but went and did it, and he was like "well, I've already been baptized" so we sat down and talked about it and invited him again and he was like "well...As long as Jesus Christ does not return before January 8th, I will join the Mormon Church that day" so I think that's a pretty good chance that the second coming will not happen in the next 2 weeks. He didn't come to church though, we went by before and he was like "I'm not feeling good...I'm going to bed". So we'll see what happens with him. We have to shout so he can hear us, so praying was weird, we felt a bit like we were Pentecostal or something. haha not really, but you get the idea. Ok that was a joke.

Other than that, the service was a mess. Nothing was packed and we had to load a ton of stuff into a truck. We went back the next day and had 7 of the youth there and managed to get the big screen TV up the stairs and some heavy drawers. I felt bad for some of the youth too, because some of the stuff they had to move around was pretty awkward. And I'll leave it at that. But other than that, they are like in love with us because we've helped them and so we're definitely going to invite them to church and to hear the lessons.

And here's a funny Elder Gibb moment for you. We always forget to close the garage door of the members home we live in, so this week I was doing the thing where you hit the button in the garage, and then run out the door, jumping over the sensor and ducking your head so you don't hit yourself on the quickly closing garage door. Well I decided that I could make it by walking, and did my jump=duck and hit my head on the closing door. Woops. I laughed about it afterwards.

Well, that's all for now! happy new year and love you all!

Elder Gibb