oops…. not much to say, sorry :/

Hey Y'all!

This week was pretty good. We saw lots of miracles and I learned a lot. I am honestly so so so happy and thankful that I have the opportunity to serve here in this country and in this area. Its getting hotter and hotter by the day. 

Thursday is thanksgiving but that doesn't exist here. I love thanksgiving. But its crazy because at this time last year I was getting ready to fly home and surprise me family. haha It is crazy how fast time flies and I have realized that more in the mission than ever before in my life. 

I don't really have much to say or very much time however you should all know that I love you and that I know that the savior loves each and every one of you.

Love y'all!

Brooke

PS I promise I am okay and nothing is wrong haha so y'all don't have to ask my momma ;)  

What time is it?!?! Tamale time!!!

Hola Familia.

So this week I am actually going to write quite a bit... okay well I have a lot that I want to write but that doesn’t mean that I will have time to write it all.

For starters... I killed a chicken, and then pulled the feathers out, and then cleaned it, and then the member cooked it and I ate it! And guess what... it was way tasty and SO COOL!

This week I wanted to share something about fasting, but first I wanted to get all of the other fun stuff out of the way because fasting is something that I take seriously... and I also have some other serious things to say. Soo...

Embarrassing moment of the week... well..so we were outside and we were walking and there were a ton of mosquitos and I had been talking to someone and hna corrales was behind me talking to the husband of this lady and I turned around and saw a mosquito on this person who I honestly didn’t even realize wasn’t my companion and I just smacked the heck out of this giant mosquito and it was this grown man... it definitely took some explaining... haha

Okay... does anyone know what time it is??? Tamale time! I am so so so excited and worried at the same time. But lets be real, tamales are soooo tasty.

Today is hna corrales' birthday, so we are going to crack eggs on her head here in just a little while. I’m actually very excited. Tomorrow we have to go to San Jose for a multi zone meeting so that will be fun. Today we went to this world wide university call La Earth and the only thing you can study there is agriculture... but it is honestly one of the most beautiful things I have seen since I got here. I mean yeah I live in arguably the most beautiful country in the world but today was crazy beautiful... there is a banana factory there and a bunch of sports courts, so we went and played soccer and volleyball and just kind of walked around for a while. It was great. We went as a district.

Now... I am going to start with a word of advice for all Latter Day Saints. Be careful the way that you act and represent yourself. You not only represent yourself but the church and the gospel in every moment. I promise you that people are watching. I personally know that I have a friend, who because of the way that I acted when I was younger wants nothing to do with the church. I promise you that it does not feel good. I know that I will have to answer for that when judgement day comes and the fact that she does not want to listen to the missionaries and the gospel that I know to be the only true and living gospel on the face of the earth because I was stupid kills me. So just be careful with the way you present yourself. When I was younger I thought that nobody was watching me and that even if they were it didn’t matter because I didnt have that strong of  a testimony but I promise you that it sucks and that it does matter. I wasn’t awful but bad enough to turn her off.

Next I wanted to talk about fasting and how much my testimony of that has grown in the past few months. We fast every week and I can honestly see the miracles every single time that we fast. Every day we have miracles but when we are fasting it is crazy evident that the Lord is helping us. If you can, I encourage you to fast every fast Sunday.

Also, I found a quote that I wanted to share with yall.

There is neither man nor woman in this church who is not on a mission. That mission will last as long as they live, and it is to do good, to promote righteousness, to teach the principles of truth, and to prevail upon themselves and everybody around them to live the principles that they may obtain eternal life. - Brigham Young

Love yall

Brooke

P.S. Noticia! We now will write on Tuesdays from now on. Just so everyone can know!

Fuzzy pic sorry! 

Tamale Time =)

Yes that's blood on my hand LOL

Nuestra Districto

No time this week sorry

Hey Ya'll, Brooke says she loves you all. That she is not dead just really busy this week and that she loves Costa Rica, the mission, and the gospel so so so much. The computer won't take her camera cord so no pictures either. 

Love, 
 HNA Gibson

Monday Nov 3, 2014 exciting title huh?! ;)

Buenas familia y amigos...este semana realmente no era super buena, pero vamos a orar y mejorar.

I am going to start with my embarrassing moments so that I can get them out of the way and get to the real things. haha but I did have 2 or 182394721 this week.. as normal... but i am only going to share 2.

So primero, we were walking and we have to do this thing where was talk to 20 people every day and share something small and invite them to do something. So normally you look for something to start a conversation and there was this lady who was a super cute pregnant lady, so I asked her how many months pregnant she is and it turns out that she isn't pregnant... yeah.. she wasnt to impressed and I was mortified. We had a good laugh and thank goodness she wasn’t mad. I’ll NEVER ask anyone that again!!!! Needless to say I didn't say anything else...

Next, we have a new missionary in our ward because Elder T is training and his name is Elder B,, however that is besides the point... he is from Guatemala and is a super cool person... but I went to say something to Hna C about how he does things like I used to 3 months ago and its crazy how much he is going to learn so quickly. He was right there so I said it in english and then she agreed and we continued the conversation... about 3 minutes later this dude starts taking straight up english like he was born and raised in the states and is the whitest person there ever was... yeah well he was born in Guatemala but lived in Arizona for 11 years so he speaks english better than I do. He learned english and spanish at the same time... oops. that was definitely not my brightest moment. I am pretty sure that my face was super red.

One other funny thing that was not funny in the moment that was just super frustrating was we were in a really important lesson with a new investigator and we brought a member with us to visit the investigator and the lady asked us why we don't drink coffee so we started to explain the word of wisdom to her and then this member jumps is and is like its for the caffeine that we don't drink it so if its de-caf then go for it and we are like uhh no and she goes on and on and on about it forever and i interrupt her and she is cuts in again and starts going off about how its fine if its pure coffee and you grind the beans yourself because it doesn't have caffeine in it and hna C jumps in and is like uhhh no and starts to explain why and this lady again cuts off hna corrales and at this point we are like okay really? you have been a member longer than i have been alive so we cut her off and we are like well we are going to talk more about this the next time we come is it cool if we have a prayer before we leave. because really there was NOTHING we could do to make her be quiet. So word of advice to members.. if you are going to go out with the missionaries please only share when they ask you too and what they ask you too. These people are children of our Heavenly Father and they need to hear the truth and not be confused.

Now that that is over I have some things that I want to tell yall. More words of advice and things that I have learned. oohhh Brooke is now intelligent. haha pero no. serious time. ya.

I wanted to talk about 2 things in particular. The power of the priesthood and one more thing. So I just want to start with saying that the priesthood is real. I am more grateful now for the priesthood than I ever have been in my life. It is something that is a blessing in our lives and that we should not take for granted. God has given this power to worthy men and we as women in the church although we do not have this power have higher and more special privileges than any other women on the face of the planet.. however along with privileges come responsibilities and duties.. which means that we also have the highest responsibilities and duties in the world. It is important that we sustain those whole hold this sacred power and it is important that we give every opportunity to those who are around us to exercise their priesthood authority because in reality it is not something that they can use to bless themselves, this is impossible and any worthy priesthood holder will not want to. I don't honestly know how to describe my love for this gospel and my gratitude for the fact that I have the opportunity to make use of this amazing authority that is the priesthood, I have seen it bless more lives than I can count in only these 3 short months.

Next, this is something that I have been thinking about A TON these past few days. DO NOT PUT YOUR SALVATION IN THE HANDS OF OTHER PEOPLE!

I don't know how to stress this enough. The people here in my ward are great but a lot of them do not like to go to church because there are other people there who they dont like or they think are hypocrites or they don't think are worthy to take the sacrament or this or that or this or that. The point is that they don't go to church and the excuse they use is the people who do go to church. Im going to be real honest here. If you EVER use that as an excuse you need to rethink your logic. Leave the judgement to Christ on judgement day and go to church. The fact of the matter is that your salvation does not depend on anyone but yourself, just like the salvation of other people depends on them. I highly doubt although I can't say that I am certain because I haven't been there but I would say that when judgement day comes and Christ asks you why you didn't go to church that he isn't going to want to hear anything about the fact that you didn't think your neighbor was digno to partake of the sacrament or that your bishop was a hypocrite. Going to church is a commandment and 1, you are wasting blessings if you don't go, and 2, it is something that you are going to be asked about when you have to face Christ.

My salvation depends on me and me alone. Christ is not going to ask me about mistakes that my mother made or that the relief society president made. He will ask me about me. This is the same not just with church attendance but with everything. Your salvation depends on you and you alone. You WILL NOT have to answer for the wrongdoings of other people and just the same, these other people WILL NOT have to answer for yours.

Just something to think about.

I dont have my camera cord to upload photos but I do have them so I will send a ton next week!

I love all y'all!

Hna Brooke =)

The Church is true, the book is blue,