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

"I love seeing cowboy boots in ward counsel."

Hey Fam!

Happy Birthday Whitney on the 17th!:)

Things are going well here in Gadsden. This week has been awesome. Weird that P-day was on Wednesday! I just realized that my letter may not have sent on Wednesday. I'm sorry! I bore my testimony so that's too bad! Anywho, I'll send ya another one. We had a temple trip this week and it was amazing. The temple is healing.

We also had a Blitz with Sister Latu and Sister West! It was awesome. I came out with Sister Latu so it was fun to work together. We met this sweet old lady who gave us a gold coin from Asia that has Christ on one Side and the last supper on the other. It's sweet! We also met a cute married couple who listened to us and started to read the Book of Mormon:) It's all fun.

I have come to know more fully on my mission the true nature of our Savior Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father. It's funny that this was one of the most plain and precious parts that was lost during the Apostasy, but these truths were lost to me even when I was a part of the fullness of the Gospel. The more time I've spent with the Savior trying to do His works. The more I have come to know Him as well as I've come to know my weaknesses. The more I search for Him in the scriptures the more I learn of Him. Although these ways of knowing Him have taught me so much, something that's taught me even more about the Savior is the Spirit of God.

Elder Golden came to a stake conference here and said that he was "no longer dependent upon the scriptures for his witness of Jesus Christ." Whoa! This could mean many things as we ponder about it, but one thought I had was of the power in the spirit that brings Him near. I know Jesus Christ loves us. I know he is rooting for us. He's got a banner that says go Gibbs Family Go! He has the Gibbs Family T-shirt, the ball cap, the foam finger that says y'all are #1! I guess that proves it, the whole world is a winner. Anywho, He's got fan buses filled with angels rooting us on. He never wants us to feel guilt that's why he made such a great sacrifice for us. What a blessing it is to know Him so fully with the truths that have been restored. What a blessing it is to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost not only to bless us personally, but everyone we meet.

I am forever grateful for His Sacrifice and for the happiness that has been provided for us as we keep His commandments.

I love him and He loves us.  We can do anything with him. Grace.

Steadfast in Christ

Love, Sister Gibbs

P.S. Yesterday we caught a couple of fire flies:)

Temple Trip!!!

Sister Anderl and Sister Gibbs

 Sister Bailey and Sister Gibbs

 Sister Layton and Sister Gibbs 

 Elder Udy, 4th Cousin on the Gibbs side!!

 We painted our dresser for P-day last week I'll show you the 

finished project next week. It's sweet!

 Bible at Chick Fil a

Hey Fam!

This week was awesome.:) We got to go to the temple! It is always so special because it is always a volunteer session just for the missionaries. These people travel from all over to help us.

I know our Savior lives. I know we cannot fail when we are yoked to him. I know He and our Father in Heaven love us. I know they are involved in our lives and care for us immensely. He's not a lightning bolt God who checks us off his list of who makes it into Heaven and who doesn't. He is our Father. I know they love us enough not to keep us in the dark, but to call a prophet to help us know truth. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know the Gospel is healing.

I love you! Have a great week!

Love, Sister Gibbs

Cemetery behind our house in Gasden

 Ethel and Nessia

TOMMY IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!HALLELUJAH:)

My Wonderful Family and friends, 

I LOVE YOU!!!! I LOVE GOD! I LOVE JESUS CHRIST! I LOVE MY COMPANION! I LOVE MY NEIGHBOR! I LOVE MY WHOLE LIFE!!!!!

Do you love your neighbor? 

Yesterday in the 3rd hour of church the missionaries taught. The Mission Presidency was supposed to come but one of them got released so they had to reschedule. We volunteered to teach:) It was fabulous. We taught about the 4 keys to successful member missionary work from Ezra Taft Benson. The best part was when Brother Jed Thorderson said, "The missionaries are having tremendous success with 20 or so baptisms last year and it's not because of us! 1 out of every 1000 doors gets baptized. 1 out of every 3 member referrals is baptized. This means that our missionaries are knocking on 20,000 doors!!! That hurts your knuckles. Give them your friends." We were like JUST WOW! He also quoted Remember the Titans " We gonna change! Change the way we tackle..." It was awesome! We are expecting an explosion:)

Back to the love your neighbor part. Sister Bailey and I trained on Love and Humility. Love is the best motivator for everything. It leads to sincere concern for everybody, including those who you don't know. It leads you to walk up to strangers and invite them to be baptized. Of course we have love for them and their well-being but we also do it because we love God:) After all, 

"We love him because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 

We have to spread that love to everyone we meet. They will recognize us as God's hands and come join the fold. That's all it's really about. So...Do you love God? Do you love Jesus Christ? Do you love your family? Do you love your neighbor? Share it:)

This week we went to the temple! What a blessing to be healed from the temple:)

Sister Gondwe came on an exchange with us. She's from Africa. Wow she is amazing! Have I mentioned her? She basically sacrificed everything to be here. She is a fighter. :) She has the purest testimony I've ever heard.

For the big finish.....Tommy is getting baptized on the 12th! After the fabulous church experience last week he was ready. 

Sister Gibbs and Bailey: (Switching the topic from huge bugs back to the Gospel) "So Tommy about church, Do you want to be baptized?" 

Tommy: "Yes."

Cool as a cucumber. The Gospel has changed his life!

I love you and am extremely grateful for you:) Have a fabulous week:)

Steadfast in Christ

Love, Sister Gibbs

 TEMPLE TRIP!!! 

Pres.  Hanks, Sister Gibbs and Sister Hanks 

The Starkville sisters

Sister Sorenson, Sister Gondwe, Sister Weekes, Sister Gibbs, Sister Bailey 

Sister Layton and Sister Gibbs

Sister Gibbs and Sister Bailey 

President Nolan and Sister Gibbs 

Distsrict!!

Sister Styles,  Elder Roseman, Sister Castagno, Sister Bailey and Sister Gibbs, 

Elder Tate, Elder Yergensen, and Elder Turley

A huge beetle thing that Tommy has in his front yard... it's dead. 

But he keeps It anyways... It's nasty. 

"Miracles Happen Once in a While When You Believe"

Hey Family!

How are ya? Sounds like everyone is busy and doing well.

Joshua was confirmed!!!!!!!!! It was a miracle yet again! It turns out that his coworker got fired and they had to drive him to Tupelo :) The Lord works in mysterious ways. His confirmation was amazing!

This week was good. We saw a lot of miracles. Yesterday was especially good. We prayed for a miracle and it happened! We were tracting in the rain and we needed 7 lessons to meet our goal. We were determined to get them and the Lord made it possible. We even tracted into a referral that was given to us. During transfers the information about this woman got lost and we were super embarrassed about the whole thing. We asked for the information again, but he gave us the wrong info. No need to fear, we just tracted into her!!!!! Heavenly Father is so aware of our needs. This strengthened my testimony that there's nothing we can do to hinder the work. There's no mistake that we can make that God can't fix. It was a miracle!!! We are going to teach her on Thursday.

We also saw another miracle this week. On Tuesday we went to Russellville, Alabama's district meeting. They are 2 hours away from us and we ended up arriving early. Sister Crandall and I have been trying to drink more water lately so by the time we got there we had to go to the bathroom super bad. The church wasn't open so of course we prayed and asked God to lead us to someone who would let us use their bathroom. We started tracting and the first person to open their door let us in! Miracles are everywhere!

Thank you for all of your prayers and emails. I love you. Have the best week in the world :)

Steadfast in Christ

Sister Gibbs

P.S. Tell Sheila I'm praying for her. I will write her a letter soon. It's really sunny here in Tupelo today!

Temple Trip!!!

Sis. Gibbs, Sis. Crandall, Sis. Mason, Sis. Castagno...

"President Hanks, and us three steps up so we can pretend like we are tall!"

Sis. Crandall and Sis. Gibbs

Happy St. Patty's day!

Rainy day tracting!

Tom and sweet little Sister Smith

Sis. Merriam and Sis. Crandall and a chocolate Jesus fish. Only in the South.

Coolest tie ever!!

Sis. Crandall and Becky

Our phone screen. Our mission picture is a plow horse signifying 

being on our toes all the time.

Man with Crystal teeth.

Guess What Friends!

I'm training!!!! I have no idea what's ahead of me.  I'm basically in denial.  Wahooo!!!! This Sista is going to be the most loved missionary in the world.  I'm happy to be staying in Decatur for Christmas!

We went to the Temple this week!! Guess what, I went twice! Sister Parsons helped Bobby get baptized a year ago and she just received her endowments! What a blessing to be able to go to that! The temple was awesome!!! Oh man I love that place. It is so neat to stand in the Celestial room and think, yup, it's true. :) Heavenly Father really does have more and more opportunities for us to be more peaceful, happy, and joyful people if we have faith and do what he has told us to do so many times, live the Doctrine of Christ! Heavenly Father answered some lifelong prayers that day. God is so good!

This week, in Decatur, there was a ward Christmas party. It was awesome! I told you in a letter way back that we have been doing a chain reaction missionary tool in the ward. Chain reaction is where the members do missionary experiences and then make a paper chain with all the experiences they've done! The Christmas party is where we connected the chain. It's so long! I'm really proud of the ward, they are amazing missionaries. It's fun to see the progress we are making. 

Sister Parsons is doing great. She will be in Provo this January so you will have to contact her. Home life isn't going to know what hit em! She is going to be the best member missionary in the world!

I got your Thanksgiving letter today and Decia got my package! That's really neat about Emilie and all the fam in the temple! I missed you on Thanksgiving too. I'm so happy you got to talk to Sister Wilson! Tell the Bovee's and the Lincoln's that I love them! Tell the Starks I love them too.

This week I had the most amazing experience with the sacrament. I love studying about the atonement and applying it more fully in my life. I'm able to have peace daily because of my Savior. Keep remembering to #sharethegift! 

Love y'all,

Sista Gibbs!

Temple Trip!!!

President Hanks with all the beautiful Sistas

 

Sis. Gibbs, Pres. Hanks and Sis. Parsons

  

   

Elder ???, Elder McKay, Sis. Gibbs, Sis. Haslam

This is Sandra. She's awesome. Also this is our chain reaction chain! It is so long! 

Thanks to our Decatur ward!!!! Yay for missionary work!