Lizzie with her new mission president and his wife, The Larkins

an apology

I just want to apologize for not keeping up Liz's blog these last few months!! Now that Abby's wedding and our pioneer trek are over, I promise to do better! Here are Liz's emails for the month of July . . . keep checking back, and I will fill in the gap between July and March! Thank you for your patience!!

Liz's mom

hello! hello!

It was an incredible miracle week for us!! we taught way more lessons than usual, had 2 church tours, and had 5 people at church!! (we hadn't had one the whole time we've been here). the Lord has blessed us with many miracles! i can't remember if i told you what's going on with O. i think i mentioned him to you one of my first week...kind of an eternal investigator. our mission has been struggling a lot in the past couple months. a couple weeks ago, president larkin wrote an article in our weekly newsletter with a bold promise in it. he promised that if we had the faith, each companionship could still find someone to be baptized in july. this was a big promise since there were only a few weeks left. i read this article right before our lesson with O...i was very impressed by it and felt it was true, but no one specific came to mind. as we were watching "special witnesses" with O, i had the idea that O could be baptized on july 31! he's been to church enough times and is keeping all the commandments, he just can't come to sacrament meeting. we want him to be able to come to church and be active before he is baptized, but the thought kept coming to me to ask him to prepare to be baptized on july 31! i kept praying silently and felt that it wasn't just my idea, but coming from the spirit. we invited him to be baptized on july 31 and he said yes! we then began fasting and praying that his boss will change his schedule. this past week, we went over the baptismal interview questions with him and he is ready! BUT still no change in his work schedule. but at that lesson this week, again i felt strongly that if we have the faith and do all we can, that he could still be baptized that day! we are fasting today and i'm trying to think of anything else we could do. so anyway, we MIGHT have a baptism on saturday :) we will see what happens.

other miracles: we met this man named R tracting on Thursday, then took him on a church tour on saturday. it was a sweet experience, he was very emotional as he prayed. then he came to church yesterday! i think he had a good experience, and we're teaching him again on tuesday.

We had another church tour set up on tuesday with a guy in his twenties, and we had a girl with us from the singles ward who is thinking about serving a mission. then it was sad cuz he wasn't even home (oh yeah i told you about C huh? he was so solid but he bailed). so then i was just hoping we could still find something for H to do with us so she could have a good experience. then we saw this teenager wandering around the apartments we we asked if we could teach him and he said yes! we sat down in the grass, prayed, and taught R the whole restoration! he said he would read the Bof M and come on a church tour. he's 17 and a really sharp kid. THEN on thursday, we went to his door to get him for the church tour, and he was asleep! (teenagers) but his dad said we could come in and wait and he'd get ready. so then we started talking with his dad and he decided to come along!! his name is R too. it was a wonderful church tour and the spirit was strong! they committed to come to church too. they didn’t end up coming because of some crazy family situations right now. i hope we can get in touch with them this week!

anyway, THEN some members brought their neighbor and her 3 kids to church yesterday! she's super cute and sat by me in relief society. we're hoping to start teaching their family!

so yeah SO many miracles happening here!

i love you all!!!

sister gibbons

hey ps! not that this is that exciting for you, but this is the kind of news that gets us excited here. we just found out we're getting another sister next transfer!! we are very surprised because our cap is 8 and we are at 9 this transfer. we assumed with sister G leaving next transfer, they'd keep us at 8. anyway, her name is sister M and she's from Lehi! Anyway, it was just a surprise so it will have a big effect on what happens with transfers in two weeks. i'm pretty sure i'll stay here the rest of my mission, but you just never know! especially since pres larkin seems like one who would mix things up a lot! anyway, random tidbit of news!

pps - you should check out Pres Uchtdorf's article from a past conference: "we are doing a great work and cannot come down!" it's awesome.

hello family!

it sounds like a busy time getting the bosters off to texas! I still can’t believe you’re moving. the stories about james are so cute. what a cute little guy. he has changed SO much since I left. I hope grandma gibbons gets better! . . .

Well, we’re doing well here in dash point! it seems the work is picking up every week! we found 3 new investigators while tracting today. one girl, D, is our age and has been looking for a job for a long time. we just started talking to her in a parking lot, then ended up praying with her and teaching her a little about the plan of salvation. we prayed that she would be guided to a job. 2 days later we called her and she said, “I got a job! thanks for the prayer!” sadly, the job conflicted with the church tour we’d set up, and we haven’t been able to reschedule, but it was still a cool experience and hopefully she’ll remember it!

We also found a guy in his 20’s while tracting…his name is C. He agreed to hear more! we couldn’t go in since there weren’t any women there, but we prayed on his doorstep. usually I teach the restoration on the door and sister L bears her testimony, but I knew she was ready to teach, so I just turned to her after the opening prayer. the spirit was strong as she told the joseph smith story and recited the first vision. we have a church tour with him on Tuesday and he is really excited!

We had a lesson with a part member family on Friday. Bro N has recently become active again and he’s excited to have his wife learn more. She is a hard-core Catholic from Germany and she is HILARIOUS. she has a thick accent and the funniest laugh. we just love her. she didn’t take to the elders so our first lesson we were trying to build as many bridges as we could. I told her about Dad’s mission and she told us all about her uncle in Dusseldorf. I’m sure you would love her dad. her name is U and she’s having us back next Friday to learn more about our church and to “make us somesing special”….some german dessert or something. good times.

well that just about wraps up another edition! I love you all so much!!

Sister Gibbons

the news!

nothing too out of the ordinary this week except we're feeling more and more comfortable in our area! i don’t even need the GPS most of the time :) we even got 22 lessons this week!! elder perry promised us if we teach 20 lessons a week our baptisms would double. our first 2 weeks here we were only at like 13 or 14 since we didn't have a teaching pool. but the Lord is blessing us! we don't have any progressing investigators, but we had some amazing tracting experiences! we had 6 lessons on the doorstep (where they let us have an opening and closing prayer and we teach them and invite them to learn more.) only 1 of those agreed to a return appointment, but they were spiritual experiences and i know the people will remember them. we have a church tour this week with a family with 3 little kids! i hope it goes well. we are loving the ward more and more...wonderful members. we spoke in sacrament meeting yesterday! it as a farewell for a kid in the ward. so he spoke, then sister L bore her testimony (she did a great job with english), then we had a rest hymn, then i was the concluding speaker....there were 35 minutes left in the meeting!! haha. but i filled them! i wondered if i could but it seemed like the perfect amount of time. i spoke on the connections between missionary work, conversion, and sacrifice, and how they all relate to the Atonement. i hadn't had a chance to prepare until 10:10 pm on saturday night, but i really felt like the Lord just plopped ideas into my head. what a miracle. i hope the congregation didn't get bored since i had to talk so long. i thought of both andrew and the moffats giving their homecoming talks just a few minutes after i finished. i'm glad andrew did so well. i can't believe he's home. crazy. well i'm going to send this off...if i think of any amazing stories i'll add it in a minute :) love you all!!

sister gibbos (haha typo...but i thought i'd leave it...awesome)

one story

one story

one story that isn't too exciting but one of my favorite moments of the week. we had our first lesson with a man named K (he'd met with the elders occasionally) and soon after we began, it was evident that he wanted to bible bash (not in like a mean way...he's the nicest man, but wanted to throw bible verses back and forth debating the godhead, faith vs works, continuing revelation etc...). I was praying to know what to say..i mean i know we COULD show him in the bible the TRUE doctrine of those topics...i've studied them since EVERYONE brings up the same stuff,.....but i also knew that true conversion doesn't come that way...it comes through experiences feeling the spirit as you read the book of mormon. so we had a really good lesson helping him understand that the ONLY way to settle his questions once and for all was to experiment with god's word, the book of mormon and REALLY ask god if it's true. for if it's true then we have living prophets on earth that help us understand the doctrine correctly and simply. anyway, i really felt that i had the words given to me by the spirit, and it felt so good! speaking with the spirit is so much better than "proving things." he wouldn't take our challenge to seriously study the book of mormon, but i know we did our part.

ok yeah, random story of the week :)

the work is picking up!

oh my goodness, maple valley seems like another life! it's only been two weeks but it seems so much longer because of all the crazy busy-ness! it was a wonderful week though. let's see the highlights...

Tuesday:

*the new missionary meeting at the mission home! those are always so fun because we have a lot of training (including getting to watch our favorite movie about table manners, made in the early 90's. annie did you ever see that? "if a dish is served that you don't care for, take a little bit anyway. you can move it around on your plate to appear interested" haha oh man you need to see it) and we get to eat lunch with the moffats at the mission home. it was my last time seeing the moffats :( man it was so hard to say goodbye! (i'll send a picture in a minute). I love them so much...they're like my mission parents! President Moffat bore such a powerful testimony at the conclusion of the meeting. we took some pictures at the end and then said goodbye! it was so hard because President could hug the elders but not us hehe. He took my hand with both of his and told me how grateful that he and sister moffat are that I came. We both cried and all the new Elders looked at me like i was kind of weird when i walked to the car weeping hehe. oh well, they'll get used to the sisters :)

Wednesday:

*District Meeting: my new district leader is from Fiji! pretty sweet! hmmm thats about all i have to say about that!

Thursday:

*Finally a full proselyting day! i'm getting to know the area better...i only got lost twice this week :) our area borders the sound, so there are some really pretty roads that drive along the coast. it's GORGEOUS! if you look it up online, the ward includes browns point and dash point. my area also includes part of tacoma. pretty sweet

Friday:

*we met the Larkins! President and Sister Larkin have 3 kids...their oldest just went into the MTC at age 17! crazy huh? they also have a 13 year old boy and a 10 year old girl. They both spoke to us and were really funny. President Larkin is definitely different that President Moffat (Pres Moffat was so quiet and soft spoken and everyone looked shocked when President Larkin yelled a couple times from the pulpit haha...not like yelled angrily but just spoke really loudly) but he will be great. His wife was really nice too. We all shook their hands after and got to chat a minute with them.

Saturday:

*our miracle of the week! two new investigators: T and T. they're a samoan family. they also live with T's sister's family. T let us right in and told us they had just found out T's sister's cancer is back and she only has 2 months to live. T also has brain cancer! we shared some scriptures from the BofM and they agreed to let us come back and teach them the plan of salvation :)

Sunday:

*the 4th of July! still a normal proselying , but then at night, sister L and i watched fireworks from the H's big window while listening to the MOTAB "spirit of america" CD hehe. it was sister L's first american independence day and it took a few tries to explain to her what we were celebrating.

we're loving the ward here, everyone is so nice! it's kind of fun because they haven't had sisters for 5 years so we're kind of a novelty. sister L is doing really well. she is so humble and is teaching me a lot. in fact, this morning i learned to spell my name in korean and i'm starting to understand how to sound out korean words. good times

well i love you all!! happy fourth of july! and mom and dad, happy birthdays this week!!! i'll take you out to lunch when i get home as a birthday present ok? :)

LOVE YOU!!

sister gibbons