Exile

Well, the verdict is in. I'm getting transferred/exiled to a glorious place known as "La Junta" Colorado. A small town on the Eastern plains. Here was where my trainer was trained, and I will be training a new missionary there as well, in the land of my forefathers. And there (most likely) I will die, having completed my mission. So that is good. I love small towns, and this one is bigger than Sanford was so it should be interesting, also training a new missionary should be good as well. I guess I'm getting a trial missionary, someone who is trying out to see if they can handle a full time mission, so that should make it even cooler! He won't kill me off though because with the whole trial missionary thing, you only get them for 6 weeks, so I'll have someone else at the end. I'm excited though, it's going to be good. Elder Frazier is also going senior companion in Alamosa 3rd, my second area so i've told him all the tricks and secrets. Ya we're getting flushed but it's a really good thing for this area. We had a ton of stuff go crazy this week, and it all pretty much fizzled and died but we do have some solid potentials for the missionaries coming in. We can confidently say we left the area better than we found it. The members were all pretty sad to see us go. So I really have to move quick because we still have a ton of stuff we have to do today due to transfers. So I'll tell a few cool things that happened this week. One happened today. We went to talk to our friend that works for Focus on the Family and say goodbye, and as we were waiting in the parking lot, this guy started coming towards us that looked exactly like our friend, so we started walking up to him to talk and then he got in his car and drove away...Then we realized it wasn't our friend and he probably wondered what the mormons were doing accosting him at his place of employment. Oh well. We're both getting transferred. Then we went to teach that guy we did service for. The lesson actually went really well, except for the fact he had a friend working on the yard with him who was a retired baptist minister...Ya...I would label him as a cross between Obi wan, Gandalf the Grey, and a drunk guy. Mainly because he said some really wise things, some really dumb things, and some really witty things. He only got it off track a few times and kind of ended with a "well, you guys are great. Just make sure to focus more on Jesus Christ than on Joseph Smith, but still, you guys are great and I wish you luck and wish more of the other Christians could do what you are doing". Then he laid his hands upon our head and prayed over us. The lesson had some really great moments where we were able to ask inspired questions that helped our investigator open up, and he's willing to try to find out if it's true. And another awesome spiritual experience. Well actually 2. We were on exchanges and I was with one of the zone leaders, Elder Florence who is awesome and me and him actually came out together, and both were in bands before the mission so exchanges are always a good time. So we went tracting, and the first door this college student guy answers in his underwear and is all like "no. I'm athiest." etc. So we really try hard to teach him but he was pretty closed. Anywho, finish tracting the street and get back to our truck and there is a note on it. This guy said "hey, sorry I blew you off. I do like to talk about religion. Please email me at ____" and we were all like "NO way!! that never happens!" So we have left it for the other missionaries to contact him. The Holy Ghost helped him know that he needed to talk to us more, even if he doesn't realize why. And we taught a buddhist lady, and as we shared the first vision, and afterwards asked how she felt, she was like "It's like when I'm in deep meditation, just an amazing feeling of peace". That was awesome. Not ready for baptism yet though. We left it for the new missionaries. Well, I gotta run! Love you all so much! Next week I'll be coming at you from "La Junta" (pronounced la hunta for all the gringos) Elder Gibb