¡¡Baptisms!! ¡¡all around!! ... or just one. ;)

¡Hi there mi familia!

Apparently there´s been some really bad weather in Veracruz too. But not where my companion lives. So that´s good. And why is everyone getting married? Amanda´s [Wignall]getting married too! Goodness gracias! I´m going to be the only single person when I get home! Ha ha!

Ah, yes, the days of the Swiss. I remember those well. Oh, there are these things called "tianguis" here that are pretty much like the Swiss Days... vendors...? if that´s what they´re called... except these are everyday in different places. They just close down streets, set up tents, and sell! Awesome.

Ha ha! I remember the youth missionary dinner thing! The ward is great for doing stuff like that. It helps the youth get used to missionarish stuff.

General Conference is this week!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡! ok... But seriously, I was in the MTC for the last one, but it doesn´t seem that long ago... but it does... but it doesn´t... ;) We´re hopefully going to have some investigators to ´come listen to the prophet´s voice´. I´m so excited!!! ¡¡¡Estoy tan animado!!!

Oh, and just by way of anouncement, we baptized Josué Moisés Tedeo Hernandez yesterday. ;) The ward was very good about welcoming him. A bunch of them stayed for the service after church. He had a little trouble offering the closing prayer, but one of the hermanos went up and helped him. That was nice of him. We also had a ward activity that we were in charge of on Friday. We had a few investigators there and they loved it! (¡YES!) We read parts from Lehi´s dream and then blind-folded people and had a few little activities. Then we blind-folded everyone, and did the iron rod activity. We used a rope going through the churchyard, eventually leading to the 'tree of life' (my tree drawing skills came into use ;) ). Everyone thought it was great, and was asking about the next one!

I wish I could send pictures, but I plugged my camera into the computer and it got a virus... oh blah. So I can only look at my pictures on the camera itself. But I´m going into the offices this week for a 'junior companion conference', so I can get it fixed while I´m there. So pictures next week!!

Well, that seem's to be all for this week.

con amor,

Élder Gibson

¡El Día de Independencia!

Here are some fotos.

There´s me being patriotic, and the patriotic food that I ate on the day of patriotism.

 Some delicious Méxicano food, 

and my compañero and I eating the food.

 And finally a horse and "buggy."

--
con amor,
Élder Gibson

¡El Día de Independencia!

Querido Familia,

Well, el Día de Independencia wasn´t quite as crazy as I  thought it was going to be, but we weren´t outside for the crazy part of the day... so I guess it could have been. ;)  One of the sisters in our ward let me choose what we wanted to eat for that day, so I chose chicken enchiladas. They were soooo good! We had our District meeting and weekly planning on Wednesday instead of Monday, so that we wouldn´t be outside from 5 - 9 o´clock. President came too! He went around to every compañerismo, and gave them advice and candy bars. He told us about the stripling warriors and all the great missionaries in El Libro De Mormón, and why they were successful. (they were strictly obedient) It´s always awesome when President comes.

They have this thing here called the "Grita" (shout) and it was last Sat. It´s part of the celebrations that they have for Independance Day. They all gather somewhere, and someone shouts: "¡Viva México!" "¡Viva nuestro libertad!" "¡Viva la Virgin!"(they say the last one in Guadalajara, but I don´t know about other places), and stuff like that, and everyone shouts it after every one. There´s some story about someone who woke everyone up in the middle of the night and shouted those things and got everyone excited about for the revolucion. So that´s why they do that, and it was really loud! ... well, they had fireworks too, but there was a lot of yelling. And then our neighbors were up all night being loud, but I slept through most of that.

There´s been a ton of rain lately, but it´s always in the night. Our street was a river though. There was about 1 1/2 ft. of water in our street a couple of nights ago, and that´s why all the house entrances are up higher.

We had two investigators at church on Sunday. I think that´s the most we´ve ever had. One of them has a baptismal date for next Sunday and it looks like this one´s going to happen for sure. His name is Josué Moisés... something... and he´s someone that we´ve seen since I´ve been here. He would always say hi to us, but we never really thought anything of it. So we finally decided to teach him and he´s getting baptised next Sunday!

Well, apart from that, I ate a meat sandwich with a spoon for lunch today. (Tortas Ahogadas, look ´em up, they´re amazing!)

con amor,

Élder Gibson

Guavas... ¡yum!

¡Hey there, Familia!
¿¡Aren´t Mexican keyboards just so awesome!? ¡Ha ha!
I´m glad to hear that Stake Conference was good. I wonder when ours is... We just had our Ward Conference, but I don´t really know what the schedule is. And it´s great that Kevin likes the "college" ward. I never got to go there.
¡Peaches! ¡I am so jealous!  We have them here but not as many... There´s a ton of guava treeseverywhere though. So the members give them to us all the time when they feed us. ¡They´re sooooo good!
We have a Wal-Mart here and we go about every week (excluding these past two weeks), but I´ve never looked for peanut butter there. I guess I should... They do have American brands there, but they´re kind of expensive because they´re all imported. I did buy Heinz Ketchup though. The ketchup or "catsup" that they have here is like a watered down nasty version... so I bought the real stuff... ;)
Oh, and though of some other things too:
      Christmas music would be wonderful.
      Church DVD´s that we can watch with investigators (The Restoration, The Testaments, Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration (if it´s dubbed in Spanish), movies like that. We can buy them when we go to the temple, but I don´t have any idea when that will be...)
      And that´s all that I can think of, anything else would be wonderful. :)
¡Brett´s going to Brian´s mission! ¡That´s awesome! It´s so unexpected when you hear that someone you know, is going to a mission that you know of. ¡Ha ha!
¡Michele, you are so lucky to have piano lessons! ¡Good luck, you lucky duck!
I was wondering if the bathroom was going to be finished before I got back... ¡I guess so! ¡Ha ha!  ¿Are you putting a cabinet in for the sink? or just one of those standing ones? or like the one I have here, that just hangs out of the wall... ;)
I wish we had high speed internet... I just get to sit in an internet shop on the side of the road with ancient computers... Ha ha, just kidding... kind of... ;)
So, this week I decided to get creative and make... ¡papusas! Everyone thought I was crazy until they tried them. Now they know that they´re really amazingly awesome! For breakfast, I´m eating cereal or oatmeal. Except one day, I made corn pancakish things... basically just sweet papusas without anything in them, and syrup... they were good too. I´m so glad I learned how to kind of cook so I don´t have to open a package to eat... that got old really fast... ;)
Well, we had kind of an effective week. We had some really good lessons with a member present, and we have a few good investigators. We´re just having a little bit of trouble finding really solid people who want the gospel. We´re not looking for "golden" people necessarily. Just chosen people. People who want to progress, and not people who just like learning about other religions. But if we´re diligent and do our part, then the Lord will do his part. Thank you for all your prayers!
Con amor, 
Élder Gibson

Searching, ever searching . . .

Querido Familia,

Are Grandpa and Grandma almost finished already!? That was fast! Did it really take them four months to get there? It seemed shorter than that... probably because I wasn´t the one waiting until this year. I waited for four months too, but it seemed a lot longer... 

Scott, I was going to get your birthday card to you on time. Then you just had to go change you´re address! Ha ha! But yeah, if I could get the new address that would be great! :)

Don´t worry kids, I don´t like store bought bread either. I just buy tortillas instead. ;) And do you know how cheap produce is!? That pineapple I bought was less than $1.30 USD ($15 MXN) It´s wonderful. :)

Si, Élder Cruz is a native. He tries to speak English with me... I think he´s learned a lot. But we live with the Elderes of the ward next to us, and they´re both Americans. So it´s kind of like, English in the house, Español in the street. My fluency has improved a lot since he´s been my companion. And he talks really, really fast! So I don´t always understand him... it´s fun. :) I think I´ve learned more Spanish than he has English. He has one change in the mission more than I do.

You really didn´t notice any baldness? Hmmm... it must not be as bad as I thought (I hope). The lighting was a little weird in that picture, but my hair has lightened to a dark copper. 

I did have a birthday request besides peanut butter (that stuff is sooo expensive here!), but I forgot it... so I´ll have to let you know next week.

We´re finding and dropping investigators fast. But we´re finding slightly more than we´re dropping, so that´s good. We found these teenagers (18 & 19 I think...) Who say they´re "atheist". They have a lot of great questions (some were really deep/philosophy questions) that we have the answers to. They seem like they really want to believe, but they just have a lot of doubts that we need to help them resolve. We´ve decided to have lessons in the chapel as much as we can, because we hardly ever have investigators in Sacrament Meeting. So we´re trying to get them comfortable with the church while there´s not a lot of people there. We´ve had a lot of investigators agree to that. So we´re going to pick them up and go have awesome lessons!!

Well, That´s about all for this week. Keep the prayers coming. We always need new investigators!! 

Con muchisisisimo amor, 

Élder Gibson