Monday, August 25, 2014

Mi primero semana in Costa Rica!

Hola Y´all! 

So I am in Costa Rica! My area is a place called Guácimo. I am only the third hermana in this area because it is a little bit on the dangerous side, but I love it here so much! The people here are so great! I feel like I have so much to say and only an hour to say it! So this will be pretty scatter brained as usual! I also have a ton of photos to send. 
So I guess I should start with Monday since that is the day we got here. We went to the Temple right after we got off of the plane and it was beautiful! On the way there I realized that in the city Costa Rica is a lot like America. 
Then on Tuesday we did paperwork for imigration and what not and went on splits with the missionaries in the city. That was fun, I talked to people on the bus and what not. Not very well but my spanish is getting so much better. I didnt realize how fast it was going to come. 
On Wednesday we went to the presidents house and had breakfast and it was supper tasty and we got our companions and our areas! My companion is Hermana Corrales. She is from Costa Rica in San José. I love her so so much. She speaks almost perfect english so when I dont know a word she can help me out but at the same time she tries to speak mostly spanish because it helps me learn. 
We ate so much food that day! I had a hard time keeping it all down. I am going to be so fat when I leave here because you literally have to eat it all because it is rude to not. 
On Thursday we went right to work. I just want to say that I love my mission and my area and the people her so so so much! It was a little bit frustrating at first that I didn´t understand very much but now I understand mostly everything and when I dont I just ask. We went to a baptism the other day, that was an amazing experience.
Yesterday we had 6 investigators at church and that was super great! 
The rain here is unreal. I am in the rainforest... so it rains a lot. A LOT! The dirt is also unreal. I know that y'all probably do not want to see a picture of my feet but I am going to send one anyway. Hna Corrales thought that it was a tan line... but nope. Dirt. From a few hours. 
Our shower is cold. Always. There is no such thing as hot water in my area. Hermano Thorsen... you said that the Hermanas always have hot water... we dont.
There is a rooster that wakes us up every morning at around 4:45 when the sun starts to come up. The sun comes up around 5 and goes down around 5:30. There are parts of our area... in fact most of our area that if we are there after dark we have to call a taxi to take us home. 
We have to do this thing called LPE which is when we talk to people and share something with them and ask if we can teach them more and oh my gosh at first that was so hard but today I have done 3 by myself. One I am a little less proud of because it was an english speaking family that lives here so I spoke in english to them but I did get their number and we are going to call them. 
Everyone here has chickens... and dogs are everywhere
I only have 10 more minutes and I need to upload photos so I just want to say that today we went to a water fall and it was super super awesome. The man is my branch president in the picture. Other than that y'all should know that I love it here! You can use dear elder but it takes a month to get to me so Email is better!
I love all of y'all!

Love,
 Hermana Gibson




Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Semana 5

Were out of here in like 4 days!!! Can you believe it? We got our travel plans last Friday and we are leaving here at 4:35 on Monday  to go up to Salt Lake City where we will fly to Atlanta and then to San Jose! I can't wait!!! 
Okay so embarrassing moment of the week: While at main campus for Devotional on Sunday night I was looking at this random Elder's name tag and I just couldn't understand it. So since he is staring at me like I am crazy because I am staring at him I say "Elder, What language is that?" and he says really confused "um...English?" I felt my face turn red and all I could do was say "oh."  and walk away really quickly while my whole entire district was behind me dying laughing.
This email is a little bit scatter brained but that is because I am a little bit scatter brained right now. Haha 
Oh yeah! I have been getting this Elder from main campus' Dear Elders for the past few weeks and he has been getting mine too, so we have to keep sending them to each other. I wrote his Grandma Cookie a letter and she wrote me back and she sent me stamps to say thank you. But anyhow, last night at devotional I saw an Elder Gibson sitting right behind me and he had a Chinese name tag so I was like "Oh my gosh! Are you the one that has been getting my mail?" and his whole district freaked out and was like "No WAY! You're Hermana Gibson? We feel like we know you so well!" It was crazy because it was almost like this little reunion of our districts meeting each of us even though to our knowledge we have no relation what so ever and have never met before. It was great!
THE PILLOW ROOM! I feel like I just have to tell you about it, because it was the best thing ever and because there was a picture. On our last day of service on Friday we got to go to the pillow room. Let me tell you about this room. It is a room about the size of a bedroom filled floor to ceiling with pillows. There are 289 pillows in this room and we got to go in there and jump around for like 5 minutes. It was so so so so so great. I have decided I want one of those in my house when I am married. 
So an item of business- Please don't send anymore dear elders after Friday afternoon at noon because I will not get them. You can still use dear elder and it will still be free but we don't get them on Saturdays or Sundays and we will be in the air somewhere over the gulf of Mexico on Monday when it comes time to get them. Next P-day I will ask my companera what the info for Dear Elder is while we are in Costa Rica and I will send it so that y'all can continue using that.
We did have a really cool devotional last night form Elder Evans of the 70. He spoke for what seemed like forever! He went like half an hour over on time! One quote he said stuck out to me and I wanted to share it and a quick testimony about it. He said that we first start to understand the atonement when we start to believe that it is true. About a year ago I started down a long road to repentance. The repentance process is exactly that, it is a process and it is not an easy one, but who are we to expect that it should be easy when the savior went through all he did for us? Anyhow, I didn't really understand the gravity of the atonement for a while. I understood the enabling power pretty well, but the redeeming power was still a little bit foggy for me. I don't know exactly the words that I want to use here so it is taking me a little bit longer than I would like it too and I don't have very much time left.I guess I will just say that what Elder Evans said is very true. I first started to understand the atonement once I started to believe that it was possible. I do not understand how the atonement works. I don't know how it is possible. I have no earthly idea how it works, and one day I will know, but today is not that day and tomorrow is probably not that day either. However with that being said, even though I don't know the logistics of how it is possible for one man to atone for the sins of every single person to ever grace the face of the earth I know that it is possible and for that I am forever grateful. 

I love you all so so so much!

The next time I write I will be in Costa Rica!

Hermana Gibson




Thursday, August 7, 2014

Semana 4!!!! 1 week and 5 days till I blow this Popsicle stand!

Oh my gosh ! Every single week I feel like I say the same things at the beginning of my email. I got a new assignment. Hna Yardley and I are now the music coordinators for the branch. We handle the music for Sundays.. well for the next 2 Sundays because that is all we have left! We are out of here in 1 week and 5 days!! I seriously can not wait for Costa Rica. I am noticing that you can only be so ready when you leave. There is only so much you can do here in the MTC and the rest will come in the field. The 2 other districts in our branch/zone left on Monday for Spain and Mexico. It is kind of weird with them gone but we are getting 22 new babies today. Only 15 left so we are going to have a really large branch. We will be at 37 missionaries. Well actually 39 because we have 1 Visa waiter from this last group and one who actually I literally just this second found out is leaving for Mexico tomorrow. 
Alright, I guess for the fun stuff now, I fell down the stairs. If you know me you know how good I am at that. We went to the Temple today as a district all together and that was great. Then we went to Brigham's Landing and had lunch. We stopped at a place called sub zero ice cream, it was kind of like cold stone but I honestly thought it was rather un-impressive. We still have 3 investigators. 2 named Javier and one named Daniel. Although we will finish teaching Daniel pretty soon because Hno. Turner plays him and he is leaving for his hometown sometime next week. A little bit of a bummer because I learn so much better from him than I do form our other teacher. I am more of a hands on kind of person and that is how he teaches. Also, we had the most amazing lesson with Daniel on Saturday. I cried. Like a baby. He cried. My companera cried. It was just a party of spiritual tears up in that room. I honestly don't think I have ever felt the spirit leading me in a direction so strong before in my life. It was so powerful. I could tell that Hermana Yardley was confused because that was not at all the direction we had planned on going and she was just staring at me but I just knew that I had to share one experience in particular. If you asked me to relay that experience to you right now on the spot I probably would not be able to do it as well as I did it in the lesson. Actually I know that I wouldn't be able to. That was all the spirit talking. It was by far the best moment I have had yet in the MTC. It is an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. 
I was having a hard time because the people that we teach are not real investigators, and we are supposed to love them as we would a real one. I have been struggling with that and so the night before and that morning I had prayed that Heavenly Father could help me feel love for Daniel and both of the Javier's and then that happened. I have such a strong testimony that God does listen to our prayers and that he does answer us. Not always in the way that we want or in the amount of time that we would like, but he does answer them in the way that is best for us. Prayer is the most amazing thing. When I was getting ready to come out people would tell me that I better get ready to pray a lot and I now realize what they meant by that. I pray probably 15 to 20 times a day. Easily. 
I know that I bear my testimony every single week but that is because I just want everyone to understand how much this gospel means to me and how munch I know that it is true. There is nothing that I know more. There is nothing that I have a better, firmer knowledge of than this gospel. I KNOW that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that he translated the Book of Mormon by and through the power of God. I know that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet on the earth today. I know that God lives. And I know that Jesus Christ lived and died and lives again for me and for every single person that has ever lived, lives now, and ever will live. That by and through him and the power of his atonement we can be saved from our sins and the evils of the world and we will be able to live with our Heavenly Father again. 
I love you all more than anything! 
Weekly plea for emails and letters and Dear Elders! If you haven't sent me one yet and you promised me one just know that you are on a list... the list is as follows

Shawn Reynolds
Darrin Harvard
Ben Wassink
Austyn Vickers
Brooke Robinson
Stockton Raso
John Stone
Carrie Chappel
Josh Fabrizio

and some others but I am running out of time. Y'all have an awesome week! The next time I email it will be 5 days till I leave! Oh Yeah! Were supposed to get our visas and our travel info this week! 

Love,
Hermana Gibson