The Dog Whisperer

Hey we had a pretty fantastic week down here. A lot of good things happened and it seems like missionary work is going to start getting off the ground. We gave 2 people baptismal dates this week, but then had circumstances that changed that. But it's a good start especially having only been here really a week and a half. And Elder Wadsworth is picking up the training program and really taking the field and taking initiative. He still does some interesting things that make me laugh/shake my head but it's still going good. So one part of the week we went and taught an 82 year old lady who was meeting with the last missionaries here. We taught her and extended a date, and at first she really didn't want to commit to a date. She said she knew it was true, but still wanted to learn more. So we set a goal for June 30, and then told her member sister that she was working towards a goal. Well like that old game telephone, things got lost in transit, and then I guess the sister called this lady and all excited congratulated her for her decision to be baptized. Well, everything kind of got messed up because our investigator was all like "uhh...no?" and so we had to go over and do some damage control. Learned some valuable lessons. Also, as we were leaving after she said it was all good, her dog randomly followed us like half a mile and we didn't realize it at first, but then we were able to coax it into coming closer to us and we brought it back to her house. So that made her happy, and i'd never rescued a dog before so that was cool to put on the list. Another cool thing, we went and visited a family that was not active and had some kids that needed to be baptized. Well, we were just talking to them and asking about Church and how often they go, and the little girl started saying something. We asked her what she said and the mom was like "oh, she's just saying how she wants to be baptized" And we were all like "woa! Hey! We can help with that!" So we're trying to work on helping them get more active and also helping the daughter get baptized. We set a tentative date for June 30, but they couldn't make it to church because they had to drive their grandma back to Moab UT, but they are working towards it now so that is pretty good. Ok so something interesting happened this week. The bishop has assigned people to give the Sacrament to people in the nursing home in Las Animas, a town about 25 minutes away. But it isn't getting done. So he told us if we were out there this week, and it hadn't happened to just do it right there. Well on Wednesday morning, for whatever reason Elder Wadsworth grabbed a bag of Cheerios to use as a snack. Well we get to the nursing home, and turns out they hadn't had the sacrament, and we had just figured we could grab some bread there, but turns out we couldn't. Soo....we used a cheerio instead. I hope that was ok. I'm pretty sure Section 27 clarifies that "it matters not what you eat or drink" but it still felt weird using a cheerio. I used the word "bread" in the prayer. It's technically bread right? Ya that was an interesting experience for sure. Felt the spirit though, really strong. And the last cool experience was when we decided to visit a member randomly in the morning and update them on a family they home teach. Well we went by and they were like, "hey, could you actually help out with some service?" Her husband had a crazy schedule that day, and only had like 5 minutes to bring a bunch of food storage in their storm cellar (did I mention they have Tornadoes here? Woohoo!) and so we were able to show up at the perfect time to help them get it done. They were like "are you in tune with the spirit or what?" and that was sweet, especially being new in the area and trying to gain the trust of the members. Sunday we both gave talks on the Book of Mormon. I spoke first, for about 18 minutes, and then Elder Wadsworth got up and spoke for about 3. It was awesome though, he has such a powerful testimony. Sacrament meeting did end pretty early though, although it seemed like the members didn't mind. The people here are awesome, and I love serving here. The only problem is it's hot. Like outside what I'm used to. I'll probably mention that in every email from now on, so brace yourselves. Love ya! Elder Gibb