Resolving Concerns 101

Hello Family and Friends, had a great week down in Colorado Springs. The weather is fantastic, the people are nice, and we're having many opportunities to teach and invite all we meet to be baptized! It's been great.

So something we're trying to do here, is invite people to be baptized daily. It's something they tried a few months ago in the Parker/Rock zone and the work up there exploded. So we're trying the same thing and it's been tough. The first few times felt really awkward, but when you think about it, our purpose is to "Invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ, Repentance, Baptism..." Anywho, it's great for us to testify to people about the message we have and then to help them understand why we're there. The only problem we are running into is that people realize where we are going with our discussion and they say things like "well, I'm not going to join your church"...or if they are a bit sassy they'll say "I'm not going to join your club" but we still strive to help them understand our purpose. The reason I mention this is because Elder Frazier and I had 6 invitations last week, but the Falcon elders in the district had 45 invitations. So they are tearing it up! It's really great.

Had a pretty cool experience while on exchanges in Calhan this week. Someone the Calhan elders had talked to mentioned that they had seen a DVD that was recently placed on people's cars about our church. And this DVD holds nothing back. Well, the lady told them that when they watched it, they could come back and talk to her. I've seen parts of it, and know the general scoop of it so we went by there and it was pretty scary at first, because the husband was outside, and we started talking to him and he just laid into us with "adding to the bible" and "becoming gods" and "salvation through works alone" and he was very angry at first. But we calmly responded to his questions and it was cool to see as we calmly testified and resolved concerns how his demeanor completely changed and he became quite calm and we had a great 20 minute discussion about different things, including my favorite, DNA and the Book of Mormon. Near the end of it, they were like, "ok. we'll pray for you to find the truth, and you pray for us to find the truth, and whoever is right, God will lead them to it". We told them about Moroni's promise and then quietly left. It was pretty good.

And speaking of good discussions, we met with a family that attends Woodmen Valley, the megachurch in Colorado Springs that supposedly prints the most anti-mormon literature in North America. It was like a dream come true, we sat and chatted with them and helped them understand what we believe on certain points and hopefully should be going back tonight to continue. The dad committed to read the Book of Mormon if I committed to read the New Testament cover to cover, since I had never done it. It's on my bucket list anyways, so I felt it was a fair agreement. So far I'm up to Luke 6, just reading in spare study time, and it's been great. If he intended to destroy my faith in my church, it's only strengthened it, so I guess the joke's on him.

This very aged woman also drove past us this week, listening to crazy techno music blasting from her car. It was one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

And Elder Frazier stepped in dog poo. I laughed.

Oh! And I almost forgot, we had fast and testimony meeting this week, and I remember sitting there thinking about how much I wished I could see an investigator or recent convert or someone we were working on go and bear their testimony. Well, just as I was thinking that, this returning to activity elderly lady stood up and bore a very powerful testimony. It was amazing and truly brought tears to my eyes, and it was really cool how she talked about "backsliding" but how the members and missionaries were bringing them back, and how much happier they've been since they've been reading and coming to church. That was a highlight of the week for sure.

And the lady across from me is playing farmville right now haha. Man I didn't know that thing still existed. OH and the quest to obtain a new license has begun, hopefully this week I should be walking around with a Colorado Drivers license...Ooooooooooo.....That'll be sweet to have my license picture in missionary clothes.

Love you all!

Elder Gibb