Semana 3

Hola World! 

I'm not quite sure how long today's email will be because I don't know how much I have to say and I am running low on time. 

This past week was amazing. On Sunday for Relief Society Sheri Dew came and spoke to us. That was awesome! She is so great! We started TRC on Monday, which is where we have an investigator to Teach every day.So now we have 3 investigators. 2 named Javier and one names Daniel. Daniel and one of the Javier's are our teachers but I still learn so much from teaching them . 

The Devotional on Sunday night was so great! The man who spoke ( I forget his name) was hilarious. Then last night the man who inspired the movie "The Other Side of Heaven" spoke to us. It was such a powerful message. At the end of it the closing hymn was "I know that my redeemer lives" and let me tell you something. The spirit during that last hymn was soo strong. I don't know why, but I do know that I was crying, the Elder sitting next to me was crying and then I turned around and the Elders that were sitting behind me were crying. 

Oh oh oh! Last night at devotional I felt someone like attack me in an embrace and then guess who it was? It was Heidi! Sister Best. She is seriously so awesome! I just love her! I didn't even realize that we would be here at the same time. 

We leave to CR is 2 weeks and 5 days! How crazy is that?!? I honestly don't know if I am ready but I do know that if they gave me the option to leave today I would go! I love the people there so much and I can't wait to get there and to serve them and to bring them the happiness that only this gospel offers. 

We went to the Temple today as we do every single P-Day and let me tell you it was awesome! Then we went to Brigham's Landing and had DP for lunch and then got a Jama Juice. Jamba Juice is 50% off for missionaries so that was awesome! You can probably tell by the pictures how excited I was to be in the real world for a half hour or so. 

I am starting to have an easier time with my companion. While it is still hard I am growing to love her. 

I love my district so so so much! The elders that we have are such solid guys. The Hermanas are also awesome!

Everyone asks about the Spanish so I guess I should update on that.... Its coming along. Slowly, but its coming. I know that the gift of tongues is real but it doesn't happen over night. 

I wish that I had more to say but I honestly just don't. I don't live a very exciting life here in the MTC. 

So the Elder that I am standing next to in these pictures... we know each other but we don't know how. It has been driving us crazy since day one. He is going to Costa Rica too but yeah. No idea. He is from Washington. So we took a picture together to see if anyone we know can help us out. Our comps are only in the picture because you cant have a photo with just one elder and one sister. Some strange rule.. We have got to figure it out. His name is Elder Henry. Someone HELP US!!

Here is my weekly plea for letters and Dear Elders! Mail time is the best time!! 

I love you all

Hermana Gibson

Hola World!

Hola World! 

Big news! Hermana Gibson and Hermana Yardley got assigned as sacrament meeting greeters. I know, I know, big deal! We even got to stand up in sacrament meeting and everything. Haha okay but it is a branch of about 25 people and about 10 of us are greeters and then you take away the branch presidency and their wives and that leaves us with 9 people to great. Yeah its gonna be a tough job!

I can't believe that it is already Wednesday again! The weeks here go by so fast! The language is coming along. I actually have a lesson here in a few hours with a new investigator, Daniel. He is actually our teacher Hermano Turner. Oh yeah! So Carlos did turn out to be our new teacher Hermano Thorson, who is now our teacher and another investigator Javier. It is super helpful having them as our investigators and our teachers so that they can tell us what we need to improve on. For a while I thought that if I was English speaking I could go out into the field right now and be just fine but it turns out that there is still so much that I don't know! Every day I learn something. Well every day I learn lots of somethings. 

One of the elders caught me staring at the teachers but yesterday... that was awkward. I didn't even notice that I was looking until the elder pointed it out. So embarrassing.

I got to see Brea again a few more times. Today we had lunch together at the main campus. I love her so much! She is hopefully leaving for Mongolia on Sunday! How exciting! I can't wait for August 18th to go to Costa Rica. I know that I will be so overwhelmed but it is going to be so awesome. I just know it. 

I am still having some problems with my companion. I do like her I am just having a really hard time loving her. She just kind of works my nerves. She is always wining and I just have a hard time handling it. I am working on biting my tongue and keeping my mouth shut and I have come a long way. I haven't yelled at her in over 24 hours so I think we are on the right track. I know that I will love her before we leave the MTC. Please pray for me for that! Thanks!

Anywho, we went to the Temple today and that was super awesome! I love the fact that I get to go every week. I love the Temple so so so so so much! It is super nice to be able to go there and just forget about everything that is going wrong. I have a few bad days in a row just because I was starting to feel down on myself about the language. I know that I will get it sometime, I just have really high expectations of myself and it is hard when I don't live up to them. So when I went to the Temple it was super awesome because I just felt so much better. The devotional on Sunday last night and Tuesday night were both amazing! One of my favorite quotes from Sunday night's was 

"Great moments happen when preparation meets opportunity" Think about that. I think that it is so profound. 

Oh on Monday morning our fire alarms in our apartment started going off at 5:30 a.m. That is an hour before we are supposed to wake up. So when they first went off all 4 of us just layed in bed, but then they started going off again. Not chirping, but full on screeching over and over again. So we all got up and wrapped ourselfs in our blankets and waddled over to the front desk, which where by the way there were about 90ish elders boarding the bus for the airport so yay for looking dead, but anyhow the guy at the front desk calls security and they come in and tell us that it is because THE BATTERIES ARE OUT! So by the time they put new batteries in all 4 of our smoke detectors it was 6:15 and we had 15 minutes left to sleep. Lets just say that the Elders in our district had a pretty good laugh at our expense until they realized that we actually need all 8 hours of sleep to be normally functioning nice pleasant members of our little west campus missionary society.

My companion is a musical person so she sings in the Chior. Last week she made me do it with her but this week I put my foot down and my zone leaders authorized a split so that she can go with the other Hermanas in our zone and I can stay with the other Hermanas in our district. So that is great! 

This part is for Rachael! Rach! I got your dear elder and I have so much that I want to tell you but I don't know your email so please pretty please send it to me before next Wednesday so I can send you everything. 

Okay. I just want to finish by saying that this has been the most amazing/tough/scary experience and I am so grateful for it. I know that I am only 2 weeks into 78 weeks but seriously it is amazing. Every day I become more converted to this gospel and I gain a stronger testimony. Every day I see the hand of God in my life and in the lives of the hundreds of missionaries serving around me. Each and every day I become closer to my savior. I have learned so much and I am just getting started. 

Yo se que la iglesia es verdadera. Yo se que el don de lenguas es real. Yo se que El Libro de Mormon is verdadero. Estoy muy agradecida por este opportunidad. Yo se que Jose Smith fue una profeta de Dios. Yo se que Thomas Monson es el Profeta hoy. Esta creencia ayuda me vivir feliz. 

I love you all so very much! You are great and if you are struggling just remember that you are a child of God. He loves you and only wants what is best for you. Sometimes we struggle but in those times we learn to rely on Christ and the atonement. I have such a strong testimony of the atonement and the power that it is in every single person's life. I have never ever felt closer to my savior than I do at this very moment. 

Please pretty please send me dear elders and letters. Its super sad when everyone else gets one and I don't. 

This is the Lord's church and this is the Lord's work. 

Les quiero mucho! 

Hermana Gibson

Semana Uno!

Hello World!

It is finally p-day! Which for me means that is has been a whole week! I love the MTC so much! It is crazy it feels like I got here just yesterday, the time is flying by so fast. Today we got a fresh batch so we are no longer the newest missionaries here which feels great! My companion is Hermana Yardley. She is from Willard, UT. She is pretty great. We have gotten along pretty well. We do have very differing personalities so it is sometimes hard but we have to live with each other for 6 weeks so we are making it work.
The espanol is coming along great! Estoy la reina de spanglish! I can now pray and testify and plenty of other things. I am not fluent yet but give me 5 months and I think I will be good. If I had to go there right now I am not sure how I would fair but in 5 weeks I think that I should be okay.
We are teaching an "investigator" named Carlos. He doesn't speak English so we obviously have to teach him in Spanish. It usually goes pretty well. Yesterday when he said the prayer at the beginning of the lesson he asked to be able to know if baptism is right for him which made me and mi companera so happy! Carlos is actually our next teacher. He is Hermano Turner's cousin. Hermano Turner is our teacher right now and he is going to be our next investigator. They will be switching on Thursday.
We are on the west campus which is so nice. The food is better at the main campus but we live in apartments and our classrooms are apartments as well so it is nice an homey. On the main campus there are 6 girls in one dorm style room and there are community showers but we have a 2 bedroom apartment and we have our own bathroom and kitchens and what not. We aren't aloud to cook but that's okay. We went to the main campus for the first time today after we went to the temple and I now understand why people get so fat at the MTC. There is SO MUCH FOOD there. Here at the west campus we have 2 options and a salad bar. Which is nice so we don't gain a ton of weight. I did however make one mistake. I don't know exactly how many people told me not to drink the orange juice but including people at home and people here it was probably around 20 and what did I do? Yep. I drank the orange juice. If you are coming to the MTC any time soon please please please just take my advice and do not do it. I promise that you are not immune to it and I promise that you will be in the bathroom ALL day after you drink it. Seriously.
My district is so amazing! There is one more companionship of hermanas and we live with them and then there are 6 elders. I love all of them so much! Its crazy how close we have gotten over the past week. If you saw us together you would think that we all have been friends for years. All of the Elders are 18 and they just graduated from high school so they are a tad off the wall but they are still so great.
A ton of people have asked about how Sundays work. We have branches and let me just say that I am in the greatest branch on earth. No but really. We are the 149th branch and no other greater number exists in all of the church. We have a district meeting in the morning and then we go to Relief Society with the whole west campus. It is broadcast from the main campus so that is way cool . Then after that we go to sacrament meeting which is in a tiny classroom with about 30 people including our branch presidency. Every week we have to write a 3 minute talk in Spanish and be prepared to give it. They don't tell you that you are speaking until the announce it during the meeting.
The Provo temple opened on Monday so we got to go for our first p-day today and that was super awesome! Also, I have run into 3 girls who I know so that makes me so happy! I got to see Brea (Sister Peterson) yesterday night at the devotional and today at lunch. I have been looking for her since I got here so it made me so happy!
One short plea: please please please send me mail! Mail time is the best time of the day and I never ever get any. Dear Elder is the best thing. If you send it before noon then it gets delivered on the same day! And on that note! You can send food through Dear Elder too! If you send it before noon it doesn't go bad. Mi companera's aunt sent the whole district sticky buns from a bakery around here and it was so great! So if any of y'all find it in you heart to send a cheesecake to my district through dear elder that would be the best thing in the whole entire world. One of the Elders has never had one and plus it just sounds super good!
I love my mission so much already! I have such an immense love for the people of Costa Rica. I can't wait to go there. 5 weeks seems like so long but I know that it will go by so fast. The gift of tounges is so real. I promise. I pray for it every single prayer and I know for a fact that it is real. Without it I wouldn't be able to do half the things I am doing here. I KNOW that this is the true church. There is no doubt in my mind. You wouldn't think that it is possible but my testimony has grown so much this past week and I can't wait to see what these next 18 months have in store for me!
Keep me updated on your lives so I don't feel completely lost when I get home in January of 2016.

I love you all so so so much!
Hermana Gibson

Look Who is a Missionary

It's official! I've been set apart as a full time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints. I couldn't feel more at peace with my decision. I love this gospel more than anything and I am so very blessed to have the opportunity to serve the Lord and the people of Costa Rica. I can't wait to go and give people the one thing that makes me happier than anything else! By the way, my mom is typing this :) Since I am now a missionary everything that is posted on here or anywhere will be done by her.