Elder Jordan Gibby - March 2, 2010

From Jordan Mission

Elders with the festival princesses

From Jordan Mission

The Grape Festival

From Jordan Mission

Jordan commented that they seem to really like dinosaurs in Brazil

From Jordan Mission

Happy 20th Birthday Elder Jordan Gibby!

Elder Gibby celebrated his 20th birthday this past Saturday. Wow, I can't believe that I have two children in their 20's now. I can remember celebrating my 20th birthday in Tiquisate, Guatemala when I was serving a mission just like it was yesterday. On the other hand, I have a hard time remember what happened yesterday. Well, Elder Gibby didn't get much of a birthday celebration. He writes, "I didn't have a birthday party cause my birthday was on transfers. However, a lady in one of our wards made me a cake regradless if I stayed in this area or left. I stayed because my companion's escape plan worked for him." Hopefully, this will be the last transfer that Elder Gibby spends in his current area - after a few months he is feeling the need for change. This will be his third companion in this area. He has a new companion that he really likes.

It sounds as if they experience some of the same problems there that we have here from time to time. "I am focusing on getting to our lunches everyday. I had to make our lunch calendar because the lady that has the calling for making our lunch calendar decided she didn't want to do it anymore."

"We went to festa da uva a week ago for pday and got a lot of cool pics and I got some pictures with what they call the pricesses of the grapes. Kinda interesting. They are pretty but were using way too much makeup haha."

"I'm not sure what's up with these people and dinasours, they always include dinasour statues in various events haha, I thought it was pretty funny."

Elder Jared Gibby February 17, 2010

Jared was excited that they got some snow in Alabama. "YEA!!! we got snow!!!! I was so pumped. It snowed most of Friday and stayed till Saturday afternoon. We got about an inch and a half. That's a lot for Alabama. We had a huge snowball fight with the Ellis family. Elder Scheitinger and I totally dominated, it was hilarious. Then we made a snow man with them. It was a ghetto snow man, with the flat brimmed hat and all. haha. We also had a snowball fight with the Sanford's and made a snowman with them. It was a great day."

Jared didn't get transferred which was nice - maybe he will get to finish out in Bessemer. "YAY!!! I didn't want to go. I want to see the rest of the Ellis family join the church. Leon's baptism is this Saturday his mom decided he should go ahead and get baptized. He was waiting for her to quit smoking but she keeps relapsing. She is extremely addicted to cigarettes. I haven't had an investigator so addicted before. She is down to about 1 every 2-3 days. So she is improving. She just gets stressed out and gets one. It's super tough. She is going to quit though, I know it. Her baptismal date is for March 6th."

"At church on Sunday we had Barbara, Miss Wayne, and Santana come. It was awesome. Three new investigators YAY!! We have a huge teaching pool right now all we gotta do now is just seal the deal with our investigators, commit them to be baptized. We are going to have a lot of success this transfer. The bible study class is a great idea and I think it will attract a lot of people. The work just keeps getting more and more exciting and intense!!! I love it."

"This weekend is going to be sweet. All the young men from the stake are coming to Bessemer and for a couple of hours are going to do the survey in our area. I'm glad we are in the stake center's area. They are expecting around 50 young men. That adds up to about a weeks amount of tracting. whoo hooo!!! We should get a lot of referrals. So we are super excited."

I can't believe that it is almost time for us to fly out there and pick him up. It is so nice having a missionary out that I wish he could stay another year (well, maybe not).

Sterling Scholar

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Tonight Sarah had her Regional interview for the Sterling Scholar Award. She was awarded the Tooele High School award a couple of months ago. Advancing to regionals she had to prepare and submit a formal portfolio and participate in an interview. She spent quite a bit of time preparing her portfolio and preparing for the interview. She said that she didn't get nervous. We talked about the questions and her responses. My opinion, although I am likely biased, is that she did well in the interview. They will announce the regional winners and runners up tonight at midnight. I guess I am up for the long haul tonight to see how she did. Anyway it turns out it was a great experience for her and I am certainly the proud father.

Elder Jordan Gibby - February 16, 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

Thank you Mom. What a great Mother, she never misses a holiday!

From Jordan Jan 2010

The rainy season in Brazil - or is this the only season in Brazil?

From Jordan Jan 2010

Brazil has excellent food!

I Can't Believe It

I can't believe that I am sitting here watching the Bachelor. I have been so tired for several weeks that I have given in to watching too much TV. This has resulted in my watching the Bachelor. Oh well, I hope that he ends up with Tenley. I hope he votes off the blonde bimbo this week, although I don't think that he will. Well, here is Jake to make his selection. I guess I will wait to post until I see what he is going to do since he has fallen in love with all three of them. I keep saying that he should be on the show "The Polygamist". So far he has admitted that he could marry any three of them. Tenley gets the first rose as I thought she would. Internet rumors have it that they are already engaged. The second rose goes to Vienna as I thought it would. I can't believe that he would choose the cheap stripper over the much sweeter Gia. I think that is part of the TV production. They need to keep the tension in the show so that stupid viewers like me will keep watching it.

Well, I need to get away from watching dumb shows like this and start working on my house again. I bought the cabinet for the downstairs bathroom. Now I can start tearing the floor out and put the travertine down. It will be nice to have it done. I also bought the paint for the downstairs bedroom. I can work on painting that room this week. Anything to keep me away from this TV trash. Hopefully Gia can find a nice guy now. Now there is no surprise that Tenley will be the pick in the end because there is now way he will pick the trailer trash candidate.

Time for Winter to End

We had a nice day today with warm sunshine. If the lawn hadn't been so wet from melted snow I would have laid out on the lawn on a blanket. I am ready for winter to end and spring to arrive. I've actually been ready for winter to end from the day it started. We didn't play any winter sports this year so winter has essentially consisted of being stuck in the house or Walmart (the only place to go in Tooele when you want to get out of the house). I see a number of my perennials starting to shoot up. I think that the Pasque flowers will start blooming in just a few weeks. I just hope we don't get a bitter cold freeze at this time an damage all the new plants and buds.

Elder Jordan Gibby - February 9, 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

Elder Jordan Gibby - February 2, 2010

From Jordan Mission

From Jordan Mission

From Jordan Mission

Miracles Do Happen

This past week I found myself in a very difficult situation. It was not something that I had put myself into, but it came upon me. I didn't know how I would ever surmount the problem and I fell into the pit of despair. I was so upset by the situation I found myself in, I couldn't think, I couldn't act. I pretty much just walked in circles and cried. At about 11:30 that night my mind was cleared and I had strong impressions on what I should do. I followed those impressions to the letter and within a day the problem had resolved itself. I was telling my mother about it and she said that at about 11:30 that same night she had called and put my name in the LDS Temple for the prayer roll (they were closed by she left it on the answering machine). I know God listened to the answering machine before the temple worker's did the next day. I knew that this was a direct answer to prayer. I told my children that they had witnessed a modern day miracle. I told them that I had prayed fervently for a resolution. Both my children told me that they had also been praying for the same outcome. It turned into an incredibly spiritual experience.

I read the following passages of scripture from 1 Nephi Chapter 7 that I feel described my experience:

16 And it came to pass that when I, Nephi, had spoken these words unto my brethren, they were angry with me. And it came to pass that they did lay their hands upon me, for behold, they were exceedingly wroth, and they did bind me with cords, for they sought to take away my life, that they might leave me in the wilderness to be devoured by wild beasts.
17 But it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren; yea, even give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound.
18 And it came to pass that when I had said these words, behold, the bands were loosed from off my hands and feet, and I stood before my brethren, and I spake unto them again.

As in the case of Nephi, the Lord did not grant me with strength to strike back, rather he loosed the bands that were around my wrists and feet and freed me from the difficult circumstance I found myself in.

Elder Jared Gibby - February 3, 2010

From Jared Dec 2009

This last picture is of my awesome pizza that I made. We made these when we went to the Kilgore's home for the Alabama football game. It was a lot of fun.

From Jared Dec 2009

One is of the view across the street. That is our ghettofabulous store over there. It gets pretty crazy, trust me.

From Jared Dec 2009

Here is a picture of the blue cup that is outside my study window. There is a little deck on the back of our house. I decided to get a pic by him.

Elder Jordan Gibby - January 18, 2010

From Jordan Mission

Elder Gibby's GPS

From Jordan Mission

Feels like home

From Jordan Mission

A Brazilian children's magazine - Gibi - pronounced Gibby

From Jordan Mission

Attacked by a dog - another I was blessed as a missionary moment

From Jordan Mission

Elder Jordan Gibby's first baptism - a whole family!

Elder Gibby write that things here are going well in Caxias, Brasil. He just went through his third transfer and is staying in his same area. He write, "[w]e have 2 wards and our area is over 15 miles. I am pretty much accustomed to it by now, its no problem. I bought some arch supports and they are helping out a ton. I guess because we walk so much here are all the streets are cobble stone, I have lost my arches on my feet."

He was able to experience his first baptisms this past week. "One thing that was pretty cool this past week was we baptized an entire family and confirmed them the following Sunday (yesterday). It was pretty legit."

"Another thing that happened this past week was I got attacked by a dog! I was walking on the sidewalk in a semi ghetto area and this giant dog head reached out, when i was talking to my companion, through the fence and got a hold of my shirt and completely destroyed the sleeve on it. I was lucky he didn't get my arm! I have had a few other times when dogs had been chasing us and I had to swing my backpack at them to get them to stop trying to attack us. For some reason dogs really don't like my companion (haha) so I blame him for my shirt getting destroyed (haha). They also have this magazine called Bibi, it is pronounced the same as our last name and it is for kids, so when people see or say my name they always laugh, I guess its a good thing."

Elder Jordan Gibby - January 12, 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

Elder Jordan Gibby - January 5, 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

From Jordan Jan 2010

Back from Christmas Break

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We picked Britney and her brother, Jonathan, up at the airport on Saturday evening. They came back to the house to get their car and enjoy a few minutes of socializing.

Sunday Drive - January 3, 2010

Feeling a bit cabin feverish, we decided to take a Sunday afternoon drive. The sun was out, the air was warmer than it has been and there was a blanket of snow on the ground. We left Tooele and drove up through Park City and then over to Heber Valley. From there we drove down Provo Canyon, back through Salt Lake City and home. It was a beautiful drive and it felt good to get out of the construction zone for a while.