What A Merry Christmas We Had :)

Hey Friends,

Sorry for the absence of an email last week but I'm writing one now! Yes I'm in Talladega, AL where there is a Nascar race track! Wahoo! I'm also serving in a branch!!!! Wahoo! we are hoping to be a ward by the end of 2016 and we are planning on it. I've lead the music in sacrament meeting both Sundays I've been here. We are having fun and doing a lot of work. 

We had a very special Christmas this year with all the crazy weather and talking to y'all! Let me tell you, opening presents with your companion is too fun! Thanks for all the gifts! Holy cow we are the most loved missionaries in the world! So I told the fam on skype but we found the exact same jump ropes that we used in elementary school at the dollar store!! We are planning on jumping rope on p-days:) We bought four! 2 for us and 2 for the elders! Yay for Christmas! We spent it with the Cote's. They are so fun. We felt a part of the family. 

The name of the game this week has been store contacting. Our favorite approach was, "Have you ever wondered if more than the people near Bethlehem saw the star that signified Christ's birth?" Oh man it was a hit! It's so easy to jump into a lesson with it. Everyone says "Yeah! I'm sure they did!" It's all too fun. I love contacting at Christmas time. We think we will keep using the approach even if it isn't Christmas. 

Of course Christmas was especially special because our sweet grandma made it home for Christmas. Wow, what an incredible woman she was. She was always a hard worker and firmly rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She worked in her Garden till she absolutely couldn't do it any longer. Wow talk about enduring to the end. 

I gave Stephanie another memory of grandma for Jessica's talk. 

One of my favorite memories of Grandma is having breakfast at her house. I can remember Natalie and I sitting at the table and asking, "Grandma, why do you make the pancakes so big?" Grandma began to tell us how we would eat that same amount in 3 little pancakes so it is more efficient to make one giant one. What was even better is she would always use food coloring to die the pancakes the coordinating color for the upcoming holiday. She always knew how to make life fun through the eternal every day. She knew that joy dwells in the ordinary.

Ok, I thought of another one. Sometimes when we would go to grandmas grandpa would play the chicken dance song and all of us would dance to it. That was the best. 

What a Merry Christmas it was to celebrate victory over death this Christmas. I do know we will all live again through our Savior Jesus Christ's sacrifice for us. I do know that there is peace in this life and it isn't far away. There truly are truths restored to the earth specifically for these very experiences. We can truly know what lies ahead if we ask in Faith. He promised "Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For everyone that asketh receiveth and he that receiveth findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."

Do we know it's true?

When was the last time we asked?

I know our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ keep their promises. 

Steadfast in Christ

Love, Sister Gibbs

Tenacity GRRRRRRR!!! 

This was the day of transfers after you talked about the plow horse!

Sister Nielsen, Sister Griffin, Sister Gibbs, Sister Bradford.

Transfers!!

"O Little town of Bethlehem"

Merry Christmas!

This week was amazing:) I absolutely love my mission. I'm so very grateful for President and Sister Hanks. I'm grateful for the ABM family and I'm grateful for the Gadsden ward family. I'm being transferred on Wednesday. Good thing I have till April... Running to the finish line. Yeah, everyone says it's harder to go home than leave and they were right. Yippee Skippee. Good thing we have the Lord on our side. "And if we die before our journey is through happy day all is well." hahahahah.

Anyways this week was absolutely wonderful. We were in 2 parades advertising our missionary open house, pulled off the missionary open house, and had our ABM family Christmas party equipped with a devotional, movie and talent show. Big hero 6 is awesome!!!!!!!:) Thank you President Hanks!

So y'all are probably wondering what we did for the talent show... The Gadsden district did synchronized swimming! Sister Nielsen and I choreographed it and the Elders performed. The song was "Give said the Little Stream" by the Mormon Tab. Buhahahah so funny. For those of you who are not familiar with this activity, two people hold a blue tarp in front of the swimmers and it looks like they are diving into water! Fabulous. The Elders did a great job.

Sister Nielsen and I also sang with Elder Allred, Elder Honeycutt, Elder Tessa, and Elder Jessen. It was so fun. Nothing like getting missionaries together and having a good time. There were some neat talents. My favorite was a revised version of "Take me Home, country roads" by John Denver Alabama style:)

Our Christmas Devotional was so neat! We watched the video from last Christmas with the huge nativity and David Archuleta singing. AAAAAAAHhhhhhh! Love it. We all stood with the angels and sang with them. I'll never forget the sound of missionaries singing:) #powerandauthority

"One Night in Bethlehem" was the name of the missionary open house and it was fabulous! There was 119 people total that came both nights and 34 non-members. I think the greatest success was all of the part-members who came.

The open house included a tour around the church hearing the testimony of the 12 witnesses of Christ ending with the video of David Archuleta and the Piano Guys we watched at our Christmas party. After the video, Sister Nielsen and I bore our testimonies of the Savior. The spirit was so strong! So much stronger than testifying on their doorstep. It was the perfect way to introduce people to the church. What a miracle!

Our investigators are still keeping along. Everyone gets really busy at Christmas so it's hard to meet with them. The Nepali family is doing great. We were hoping they would come to One Night in Bethlehem but they didn't... We are hoping to do the Nativity with them next week. I guess Sister Nielsen will do it. :) I absolutely love Sister Nielsen!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness gracious. Did you know she makes me meals all the time! She's going to be a great wife.. haha. Most of all I have learned so much about charity from her. She always is looking for someone to serve, lift, build, and inspire. Man Oh man. I love her. I can't wait for y'all to meet her.:)

Anyways! Have a great week! The weather is absolutely beautiful here so travel will be awesome:) I love you and am so grateful for you. Thanks to everyone who sent packages! The cute Beehives sent me one:) Tell them thanks!

Steadfast in Christ

Love, Sister Gibbs

"One Night in Bethlehem"

Sister McVicar and her mustang:) She's the coolest grandma.

My fortune cookie!!

Testimony Meetings in the South are Priceless

I love when our testimony meetings here in the south get a little soul in them...:) Baptist roots run deep. :) We had people asking for an amen! Also our soulful black 2nd counselor talked about love and kindly told everyone to love each other. I hope y'all get to meet him. He is such a great leader.

Anyways! Christmas is coming! This week is going to be crazy!!!! Our ward is doing an activity called "One Night in Bethlehem." It is open to the public and a missionary effort to let everyone know we believe in Christ. We are in the Attala and Gadsden Christmas parades with a float and characters walking who are inviting people to the activity. What is happening is the church will be turned into Bethlehem and there is food, movies, and activities all centered around Christ. It's going to be awesome! The ward has worked very hard so it's going to be neat.

We had some neat lessons this week. We are still following up with everyone. We have a few progressing slowly but surely.

The spirit "...he shall teach you all things." John 14:26

We taught some people who are from out of the country. (I know we met some more non-Christians this week. Crazy!) As we were trying to teach them it turned more into a religion conversation rather than a spiritual lesson. They would share their beliefs, we would share ours. We asked him how he knew his religion is true. He said some factual things about it. It tells us about the science of how the world was created and so on. Of course, we are listening for an answer like "through the spirit of God I know," but the closest thing he came to was "I feel close to God when I pray." 

This helped me realize why someone doesn't sit us down in our church and tell us everything we need to know about the gospel, the temple, our missions. We truly cannot know spiritual truths unless it is from God. We can trust Him but we must ask.

Anyways, I hope everyone has a great week!

Thank you for all of the prayers! Steph and mom I got your packages! Thank you so much. We are sending our packages today full of Christmas goodies so look out!

Steadfast in Christ

Love you, Sister Gibbs

Temple Trip!!

Progress Board