Service for a Schizophrenic

Ya so this week was pretty awesome. Miles are getting tight as it is the end of the month and they sprang a last minute Zone Conference on us. So the bikes have been broken out. That's been fun, I was on exchanges in Pueblo West and they are on bikes so we got to bike a lot. In fact, we biked 12 miles to part of their area so I got to really work out that day. That was a new record for me, I've never biked 24 miles round trip before. It was a lot of biking. And that was just the morning. But I don't mind it to much anymore, Pueblo isn't too high elevation so I get to get in good shape before I get home.

So the picture I attached is a picture of a place called "Boggsville" I think I mentioned that it's supposedly set up by descendants of the infamous Governor Boggs. Well we couldn't find anything there about that, but we did make angry faces in front of the monument so I guess we showed him. We did it on Pioneer day too, which I thought was slightly ironic. Yep, a good old trip out to Las Animas. I think I'll only make it out there one more time before I go home, which I sad because I kind of like the little town. Met a guy who told us how Marijuana had wrecked his life, and told us all the lies out there about it that it's healthy, or it's not addicting, and he told us how it led to so many things that were so much worse ie Crystal Meth and when you talked to him, he's been clean and sober for a while but he's still pretty fried. So many people try to say things like "oh it's not bad for you" blah blah blah there is always some truth in things like that, (that's how Satan works. a couple truth's with some lies thrown in) but it's also a bad bad thing. I had a missionary ask me if they ever legalized marijuana if it would be ok to smoke, his deal being that it's only against the word of wisdom because it's illegal. I said "he who must be compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant" (D&C 58).

So we got a referall this past week at like 11:00 at night. It was weird but we called the referall and the conversation went a little like this:

J: Hello?

Us: Hey! This is the LDS Missionaries!

*click*

So I guess 6 months ago, this guys friend put a referall in the temple square system and we just got it now...ya...not exactly sure how that happened. It reminds me of the time, back in the day on my mission when we got that referall from temple square and the guy just filled out the card because he thought the sisters were cute. Haha good times.

The little girl we're teaching got interviewed yesterday for baptism and she is ready to go. Excited and prepared for it. The teenage daughter in the family made them really late to Church on Sunday so she got grounded. I chuckled a little bit at that. But yep, things are good. As well, we had our other investigator with a date come to Church on Sunday and so she's also ready to go for the 11th of August. Exciting stuff. Taught her the Word of Wisdom and no concerns, at first she was concerned because she drinks a lot of herbal teas for medicinal purposes but when we explained the whole green tea, black tea thing it was no problem. So that's all ready to go as well.

We also did service for a guy who has Schizophrenia. It was interesting. He kept on talking about different things that were wrong about the world and then said something about how it was spreading to the Churches. I asked him what he meant and then he got super defensive like "don't try to push your religion on me" and started going off on all his problems with the "Mormon" Church and I was all like "woa! woa! easy there! I was just asking a question" But the friend he has who is a member calmed him down and explained later on to us how that all worked.

Good things are happening. Seeing the joy in people's lives. Being in the right place at the right time. Sorry that I can't share too much in this email and it's kind of lame, but things are well and you can hear all about it in a few short weeks. Only 2 emails left...

Love ya!

Elder Gibb