Week 6- About to break out of the CCM

It's my FINAL WEEK HERE!!! Time has gone by so fast and I can't believe
that I've alredy been gone for a month. It's literally insane. Its
hard to believe that next week at this time I will have a new
companion, new president, and will be taking on Quetzaltenango all by
myself (and my comp) Needless to say, it's quite terrifying!
This week has been pretty great! Last P-Day we loaded up on a bus and
went to see this relief map of the country of guatemala which was
pretty cool and we went to the HUGE mercado which sells the food and
items like a swap meet. It was so cool and made me really excited to
see more of the country... which is absolutely BEAUTIFUL by the way!
Also two days ago we escaped again and got out visa paperwork all
taken care of, so now I have permission to stay (look out guatemala!)
    One day during deportes (sports time) we had the most MASSIVE
rainstorm!!!!!!!! In a matter of 5 minutes I was completely soaked
through! And did I run for cover? absolutely not! We just kept playing
in the rain and yelling and jumping and basically kept having the best
time ever! But I'm a little nervous since we are in the dry season here
and it only took 5 minutes to be soaked through, the wet season will
be a whole new adventure! The hardest part about this week was
when both of our CCM teachers got switched! It was so sad because we
absolutely LOVED them and were really close, but I also love our new
teachers! The thing that I learned is that the Lord knows what we need
and he knows who will teach us the best. Even when we don't understand
why things happen, we are instruments in the Lords hands and we need
to have faith in Him and trust in his judgments. I love being a
missionary, but it's hard.

Talk to you next week, 

Hermana Gibson

Week 4- #breakingheartsinguatemala

Well we don't really have much time to write this week, so please excuse ahead of time for  my random jumble of thoughts! 

First off, the first happy meal was created in Guatemala City, so that's pretty cool!

2) My morning teacher (hermana alvarado) served in the Las Vegas East mission. She's the sweetest girl ever! And shes moving to Utah to go to college, so basically we are going to be BFFs forever!

3) The fourth of July here was pretty fun! We didn't have any fireworks,but we did sing the Start Spanglish Banner, and an American flag sheet cake and had HAMBURGERS!! It was so much fun!

4) I experienced my first earthquake here!! Apparently it was a 6.1 and it was shaking everything.I felt like i was on a boat! But apparently all those years of earthquake drills in school didn't do anything because i didn't run for cover. I just decided to go back to sleep :)

5) Last week marked my 3rd year being a member of this wonderful gospel! I got up  to bear my testimony in sacrament, and before hand i prayed that the lord would help me with what i wanted to say and even when the Latinos didn't understand me, they would be able to feel the strength of my testimony. Well  when i finished, i couldn't believe all that i just said everything that i wanted to in Spanish!!!! And the spirit was so strong!! I was awesome!!

6)The moment you have all been waiting for, I´m already breaking hearts here. Last night after dinner, one of the Latino elders tapped me on the shoulder and asked for my email. Then in my broken Spanish i tried to tell him that it is against the rules and we can't. Then he asked for my info for AFTER  the mission...... Not sure how that relationship would work out. Then after I kept trying to say sorry so, one of the teachers came over and yelled at him for asking and then for not being with his companions, even though his comp (along with 10 other Latino elders) were all watching him through the window. hahaha Lock your heart elder!

7) I would just like to share with you guys my testimony about our prophet of the restoration Joseph Smith.We watched the movie about his life and the restoration, and this time when I watched it, I kept thinking, why would God allow so many bad things to happen to him? I mean his children died, he was tarred and feathered, held in jail, and murdered.These things are truly terrible to happen to a prophet of God. But then I realized why it was necessary. If this church weren't true and Joseph Smith made up the first vision, he would have given up long ago. He wouldn't have wanted to suffer through all that he did. Therefore, his perseverance  through all of the trials shows how true this church is and that he really did see God the Father and Jesus Christ and the the fullness of the gospel is on the earth today.I know these things with all of my heart.

Until next week,

Hermana Gibson

P.S.Here's a joke from my night teacher Hermano Bonilla

What do you call a sea with alot of spaghetti?

a-pasta-sy

Week 3- HalfWay Through the CCM

Wuddup Everyone!

Due to my lack of information shared with you last week, I carried around a little notebook to write everything down this week. So this week went by SO fast!! And overall is was a pretty awesome week again! I love how small the Guatemala CCM is! We get to know everyone really well and we get to talk to the CCM president and his wife on the daily! They are so sweet and always check up on us to make sure everything is going well in our lives.

So my mission is getting a new mission president and I GOT TO MEET THEM!!!! They came to the CCM before going to Quetzaltenango and I got to introduce myself. They seem super super nice and awesome!! (Sorry for my overuse of awesome,but that pretty much sums up life.) They also have served as presidents in Guatemala before so thats really cool. I was nervous that they wouldn't know much about the culture and since I know nothing, it would have been a rough start, but they are well experienced so thats super...awesome!

I love Sundays here because your spiritual battery almost gets overcharged here and you just feel so inspired all day long! Sunday night we had a district testimony meeting and it was one of my favoirte things. I came to realize that everyone here has a trial in their life and has given up SO much to be a missionary, but all of us are choosing to put our faith in Chirst and serve him. Hearing everyones testimonies really helped me strengthen mine.

The saddest thing that happened is that our investigator broke up with us..... (background story,our teachers act as investigators they had while they were on their missions and we get the opportunity to teach them.) Well our investigator was progressing really fast and told us that she had a testimony of the BOM and Joseph Smith and knew our church was true,but decided she didn't want to take the lessons anymore and didnt want to switch churches.When she told me that, my heart broke!! I almost cried because I felt so much love for the investigator. But it was a good experience to know that even when people recieve a testimony, they still have their agency and we have to respect it.

On a happier note, I learned how to sing Let It Go in spanish and now we secretly try to translate all disney songs into spanish. Its really they best!

Talk to ya next week!

Hermana Gibson