Week 43: Thanksgiving? November 28, 2016

Well for the first time in a few weeks i have here a couple pictures for ya. Most of them are weak attemps to satisfy the North American stomach in a far away land during this time of the year. Lets just say it almost worked, more or less. We got some classic Alfajores, oreos, soda, egg nog (which came first, the egg nog or the egg?), some brownies the sisters made. Found this hilarious potato. These guys are everywhere now adays, the little WallE friends. Also heres my companion i dont know if you had already seen a picture of him or not. Hes Paraguayo. Also we did exhanges and took a picture. Oh yeah and i found the closest thing i could to sparkling cider. It wasnt. And on the other Sunday, we left the pension and this little bird was all scared in the corner, then we came back and he was chillin like the picture shows. Hes still there though, he slept through a ton of fly fights and rain and stuff too. Hes gettin kinda thin though.

Well this week i finished the Book of Mormon! I started reading it in english a little, then spanish a little, reading out loud in spanish, every day. So technically i just finished it twice. Even more enjoyable the third and fourth times. But now imma read it in chronological order and not in english and not out loud. Alot easier and faster. So i started in Éter.

Also this week on Saturday we had a Tormenta Blanca, the thing weve been doing in other areas recently, where all the missionaries in the stake come and work in one area for a morning. It was a little unorganized and only two members came and there was a bunch of road construction, so the buses where doin whatever, and it didnt go so well, but we all got to work and we found a lot of people still and we enjoyed ourselves. At the end it started raining and me and a bunch of other missionaires got soaked, so that was super nice compared to the heat.

My secret Grandpa Isidoro came to church this Sunday! We havent had a lesson with him in a while but we went to his house yesterday morning and he was just about to get in the shower, so he came! Also another investigator of ours named Marcelo who weve been working with for awhile came to church too! More to come on him for sure next week.

Im glad to hear you all enjoyed thanksgiving, i hope you keep enjoying the holiday season up there! Unfortunately, they dont have anything like that down here, and even more unfortunately, they have Black Friday, so I was not able to avoid that! Thanks America! 

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Love you!

Elder Gibson

Week 42: Thanksgiving, November 21, 2016

Spoiler alert, no pictures again. Im workin on it though kindof. Well this week were able to go to a lot of lessons with a member acompanying us (i hope that makes sense in English. they seem to get the gist when i say it in spanish!) so that was super awesome. we found a couple new people to teach, and we were super excited because a bunch of people had commited to come to church, but no one came, so this week were gunna work a little harder with em and get em there.

In Saturday we went to a branch called El Faro and worked in a super poor neighborhood mostly inhibited by paraguayos and bolivianos for a Tormenta Blanca, and were gunna host most of the zone here in Banfield this weekend!

Well the members have been super jacked recently cuz they think were pretty cool, so weve been working to keep them excited and maybe get some activities going. I will be here for Christmas so Im gunna need my temporary ward family here extra happy.

We had another baptismal interview yesterday with a young man who decided to get baptized today, so thats what there up to in Lanus today, the guy is super awesome! So were all pretty jacked too.

The Hermana Garner from Colorado just got here and is being trained by Hermana Shepard here in the ward. She already speaks impressively good spanish and were excited to have her in the squad. I dont have much time left and im sorry my emails have been super short (compared to before atleast) but we keep working and i hope you do too and were all gunna see some miracles this christmas!

Oh yeah this week is Thanksgiving, so I´ll naturally be a little hungrier than normal, but itll be in vain. Have a good week!

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Love you!

Elder Gibson

Week 41: Same, November 14, 2016

Transfers came! Im just gunna chill here in the middle of the suburbs with my buddy Elder Colmán from Paraguay for about 6 more weeks. Ill probably leave after that thought cuz the President doesnt want missionaries being in an area for too long and someone else needs to come in before my comp dies. he dies in february.

So this week we had a baptism on Sunday! It was this woman whose daughter is on a mission. The sisters have been teaching her for a long time and she suddenly decided to get baptized, so we did it! It was super spiritual, and a lot of people came cuz we did it on Sunday so that the mormons would stay instead of not coming on Saturday. So also the Elders in Lanus had a baptism so we had to do both the interviews. We´ve been traveling for a bit this week. Nothing like Las Flores though, we still had some time to find some new people to teach. Also we had exchanges on Tuesday and i have a couple pictues but I probably will have to wait until next week.

Well, not a lot this week but the Hermana Shepard is still gunna be here with a greenie shell train, and our Zone Leaders are changing! I love you all and I love the mission and I love the Lord and he loves us too! ¡Godspeed!

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Love you!

Elder Gibson

Week 40: Transfers Almost, November 7, 2016

Yeah we got a call on Saturday night, Elder Funk will go as the Zone Leader in AldoBonzi with my old District Leader from the beginning of my mission Elder Escandon. Transfers are actually next week but the Assistant needs to be replaced and so they moved a few people around. I will recieve Elder Colmán, who was the Fincanciero before, in the offices, so hopefully he just has a ton of energy to work.

Cuz we found like 15 new people to teach this week. What happened was, some of our investigators had just given us a pre-pizza to cook in the pension, and we sat down in a park with it and with an ex drug addict investigator, and then a couple kids who were playing soccer in the park came and just sat down. We think they were expecting pizza but sadly it was uncooked. Anyway, we started teaching them, and then more came, and then we taught them all again the night afterwards. Some of them have actually read parts of the Book of Mormon and folletos we leave em. Folleto is like pamphlet i think.

And then on Saturday we went to Parquebaron to do a Tormenta Blanca, where all the Zone has breakfast then works there doing contacts and inviting people to the Capilla Abierta, then has lunch and then afterwards we wait and see how many people come! and they can just go to different rooms and hear about our message and learn about the church. thats what a capilla abierta is. we left though and went back out to find people to come, got pretty sunburnt, but it was pretty cool.

Oh also Elder Funk finished his year mark this week! So we made some rice with vegetables and sauce and stuff. And a banna choclate peanut butter milkshake. Its what he wanted, dont ask me.

And today I was crazing some corn dogs, so we just double deep fried some hot dogs. Wasnt the same but I was kindof satisfied. WE also deep fried an alfajor and then just the rest of the batter. we call the last little bit funnel cake. its pretty gross but we eat it anyway. heres a little snapshot.

I dont know what im gunna do without this guy taking so many pictures.

Also we found this picture on the ground in a super poor part of the area. This horse was just staring at it when we found it. The more you look at it the creepier and more mysterious it gets.

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Love you!

Elder Gibson