Bridging the Gap

Hey gang! We had a good week down here in the old CCSM. Transfers have come and gone, and the verdict is.....I'm staying. So is Elder Robledo. Which is totally sweet. Man me and him are like so unified it's awesome. Sure he bugs me with things (this one song he loves, he just plays over and over again because he knows It annoys me) But he's taught me a ton, as well as how to play basketball. And we just work so well so we're hugely looking forward to this transfer. And the 40 Day fast for missionary work starts today. So we are bracing ourselves for the windows of heaven to be opened and blessings to be showered upon us. It's going to be great, and we have a lot of faith. Good timing too.

We had some tough moments for sure. The family we found, isn't really wanting to meet with us. They felt a bit pressured, BUT all is not lost. Their neighbors who they are friends with are trying to get us in the door to help with their family bible study, since they don't know a lot about the bible. The condition being that we don't invite them to do anything which is tough, and goes against everything we are supposed to do as missionaries (our purpose is "to INVITE"), but at the same time this is potentially 9 members of the church here! 9 souls! It is a priority for sure. So it was nice to have some closure (they were screening our calls a bit and we didn't know what the deal was) and also hope for the future.

Ya, with them dropping us, and some other investigators fizzing out, we pretty much cleared our board this week in terms of investigators. We have two left in our teaching pool. I'll tell you about one, a Vietnamese guy named Stanley Chen. About 50 or so years old, a refugee from the Vietnam war when he was a kid. Moved to the USA, became a Christian, and then we come in many years later. We brought some RM's who served in Taiwan and spoke Mandarin, and they gave us some good tips on how to teach him. Every time we taught him he'd always have tons of questions and analysis. He's an engineer, so very analytical. They explained that trying to answer all his Q's is like cutting grass. It's just going to keep coming. The best way to do it is focus on testimony of the Book of Mormon. So last time we taught him we did just that and it went so well! We finally managed to connect the dots for him, and he really started to get it. Even though he doesn't like that it says "and it came to pass" a lot, he is open and continues to read. Our prayer is he looks for that answer in his life that the Book of Mormon is true. It always comes. It's different for everyone, but it's always there. Anyone who truly reads and prays about the Book of Mormon with an open heart WILL come to know it is true. It might take time, but it's worth the journey.

We also ate lunch with the guy we met that worked for Focus on The Family. It was a really positive experience, because we met him where he was at, and then showed him how much more we had to offer. We clarified our beliefs concerning grace and the Atonement, which is often mangled in the media. There was a great talk given by a BYU prof about grace that does an amazing job at clarifying it. The problem is we often don't realize what we believe concerning grace, and when talking to an Evangelical Christian, we get on our "WORKS" side of the line and they get on the "FAITH" side of the line, and we pointlessly argue about something that when boiled down, we actually agree with each other. Faith and works are really on the same side of the coin, not 2 different things. You can't have genuine faith, without genuine works. You could have works without faith. Which is why Paul sets the record straight in Romans. Anywho sorry to be preachy here, but it's important to recognize that we agree with like 99% of what they say about it. And when you can boil a discussion down to what you agree on, you "Bridge the gap" so to speak. And it makes it so much more positive and easier to offer more.

Ok I need to put something funny in here. See, I don't get it, funny things haven't happened in a while. We've had fun together, and laughed a lot, but I haven't had a lot of funny stories to report recently. Ok here's one. And it's got a good message. We are helping this guy named Richard move, and he's being evicted. Well that isn't very funny, but while we were helping him, he randomly took off and we couldn't figure out what he wanted us to do next. So we were waiting at the place he told us to wait, and Elder Robledo found a golf club, some balls, and some tees. So he set up to hit the ball, as he likes to golf. He was aiming towards a large open field, so there was no problem there, but as he was about to hit the ball (and he related this to me afterwards) he felt something say "watch out, the ball is going to hit the pole and ricochet back and hit Elder Gibb" and he figured "meh. What are the odds". So he hit the ball and sure enough TWANGGNGG and the ball came flying back at me and missed my head by probably half a foot. See, I heard a similar warning to take a step back and to the side which I did. So moral of the story. Listen to the spirit. And don't be dumb. That was probably a dumb thing to do anyways.

Oh yeah, and the other in our teaching pool is a huge hockey fan, and loves the Colorado Avalanche. Well, our next appointment is next Tuesday, which apparently is the day that Colorado plays Edmonton. Our appointment is during the game...

Well, that's all I've got for ya today! Love you!

Elder Gibb