Hallo

With Elder Davies after helping a lady paint

 

Wearing Elder Davies' Bayern soccer jersey--same as the one Jalen used to have

 

 

 

 

Hey Mom, I decided to just answer your questions really quickly. So, 1) yes I have my passport and my wallet and all that important stuff. 2) yes, I have my camera and my thumbdrive for backups, except I can't figure out how to back up my photos here, because the computer places only have one USB thing, and they are just weirdly formatted. 3) the Bansons gave me €100 to buy stuff, so you could just put that on my card, and I will withdraw it and give it to them. 4) I was wearing my Mr. Mac suit, the pinstripe, but the other one is gone, along with my trachten suit. So I have one suit still. 5) yes I have all of my scriptures, all the stuff from my desk I have. 

 

As for the luggage, I have already filed an online lost item claim, and I did the one at the train station too. How that works is that the info is put into a system, and EVERY train station in Germany can see it. So when anyone finds a match, then they have my contact info. So I called the Berlin lost and found from the number I got this week, and I finally got ahold of someone. But all she could do was put in my "loss number" and see if anyone had found anything. So that didn't help. I went to the lost and found here, and together we looked at the list of found items in their system, and we didn't find anything. So there is nothing else they can do. It doesn´t help when I call people, because it just goes back to this same system, and them saying that I will be notified if they find anything.

 

This last Friday, Elder Benson  got a call from someone he didn't know who talked to him about some lost luggage at a airport. He gave me the number, and whenever I call it goes straight to voicemail. So no big help. I keep trying though.

 

That is what is happening. I continue to try, but I can't do much. Just don't worry about it, you don´t have to replace everything. Most of it is irreplaceable anyway. We just move on. Heavenly Father still knows, so I leave it to him. I will still make calls, though! Don´t think I am just sitting on it. That´s the news about that.

Now for the rest. How is everyone doing? Holy Cow, Logan is home! I can only imagine how he feels, but I also know that everything he has done and everything he has become are just going to launch him into the future. He is ready for the rest of his life! Tell him hello for me :)

 

Cool that a lot of the family got to come together for all that! But my computer is being dumb and I can't look at the pictures you sent me. Except the last one of Kate, Morgan, and Kenzie. They look great though! Haha. I will try again later.

 

So, last pday was a lot of fun! We had I think 15 missionaries there, and we played fußball. I was happy :) This week was a little off for me. Towards the beginning at least. The week before had just been crazy, and we had done lots of stuff, but it felt just like nothing was accomplished. And this week again was kinda just a lot of fallen out appointments and not much time where I felt like the missionary who just talked to people on the street for hours, as in the past. We just didn't have much time for that. This week I hope it gets better. Tomorrow we are tausching with the APs, and then Thursday and Friday we and the Sisters will be headed to Munich for mission leadership council, where we will be having a 4th of July BBQ!!! Way excited. I have heard these meetings are awesome, and I will get to see Elder Orchard and Elder Janis and Elder Robins! And other friends. :) So this week is kinda crazy too, but we will make the most of it.

 

We had a lesson with A_____ again, with a lady who speaks Portuguese, and he basically just told us that he had no interest. That was a bummer. We gave him a blessing for his back, so I hope he is doing a bit better and feeling that power. We did an Austausch with the Elders in Waiblingen, and I worked with Elder Phillips, who is in his second transfer (still being trained). We walked around Waiblingen, where the Mercedes Benz museum actually is. We got some potentials on this one street, then kept walking, and then we got to the corner and guess what I found? I looked back and saw.... Burger King!! Yes, there are Burger Kings in Europe, that is not my point. This was the quaint little Burger King we ate at after visiting the Mercedes museum 3 years ago! That was cool :) I will send a picture of it. We went back and ate there that evening. So I have eaten there twice.

 

Hey, I whistled this week! For like a second. I just tried blowing something off of my desk, and then something whistled. So I looked at Elder Davies and asked if that was him. It wasn't. So it was me! I have never whistled before, and I can´t do it again, I have already tried. Sorry, random sidenote.

 

We had interviews on Wednesday, those were good. President is a very incredible man. He basically just talked about how awesome our zone was and how we need to be working with the district leaders. And we saw a couple clips from the broadcast, but didn't see the whole thing until yesterday. That was incredible!!! I loved every second of it. The whole time, the thought in my head was just "You are a missionary!!" and I thought about how awesome that is. I love being a missionary :) I want to watch the broadcast again.

 

We ate at the Finotto's on Thursday, the ward mission leader from italy, and their kids are so funny! One son and a daughter, and the daughter has blonde hair and blue eyes, so we made a club. The parents have no idea where it came from, they both are dark haired and dark eyed! Sis. Finotto said she just prayed :) Sis. Finotto also has your email address, Mom, she is going to be your best friend haha. She loves the Elders! Wants her son to be like us. But the family went back to Italy, and won't be back until August :( that is sad.

 

We had a great day yesterday, though! We just had time to go to Zuffenhausen and go by on some potentials and less actives. We tried one less active, but he wasn't home. So we went upstairs and we were let in by a nice woman. She had a son and a friend she lives with. She could speak okay German, but not a whole lot of gospel lingo, so she told us something, about her brother in Portugal. Then she translated it online, and we figured out her brother was a stake president in Portugal! Oh, okay! She is a member! But she isn't even on our list! But her son loved us! And was so sad when we had to go. We committed them to pray together and read in the BoM, and promised it would help her boyfriend develop faith too. Hopefully we can get her to church! Her son is almost 9, and really wants to come to church! So we shall see. But we were so happy, because we had just come from church, listening to the broadcast about gathering the sheep that have gone astray, and that is exactly how we saw this little family. We want them to come to church and go through the temple and have the gospel in their lives. So we will meet with them some more! We talked to some other very nice people, and we were using like all the foreign language knowledge we have, I don't know how many times I just spit out "I don't speak French" (in french, of course, can't spell it) like it was natural. And I got to use my Twi (from Ghana), that I learned from Br_____, and the guy was way impressed. I just love learning all the little small talk in different languages. I got some Polish too, from a lady we brought to church. Fun stuff. The guy I spoke Twi to, we helped him just lift his stroller out of the bahn, and he waited for us by the stairs and saluted us as we drove back by, and put his hands together and shook them as if to say thank you. We hardly did anything! But I love those little acts of service, and I love being a missionary :) He also had sweet shoes, that were like an American flag. I really hope we see him again sometime. He has our card, at least. 

 

Well, we lost contact with E_____, which is sad. We are working on it, just everytime he calls recently we are pretty sure he is just drunk. But! We finally got Kai to see the church! We went and played basketball with him because he has no one to play with. Then he saw the chapel and said it was very pretty. So we are hoping he comes this next week. He is way cool, and I am excited to see the progress he will continue to make. Otherwise, we are just finding! We organized our ward list and also decided to do lots of less-active work, so that will give us more opportunities to find and get referrals. You´ll hear next week, then, how things went.

 

We do so many things, it is just crazy! I love it here, and I love all the great missionaries. I am happy :) What more can I say?

 

This week I really want to just have the Holy Ghost with me, and this mornnig I read in the General Conference Liahona, Elder Cook´s talk about peace and also Elder Kopischke´s, about being accepted of the Lord. I am going to follow his pattern, and he said that having the Holy Ghost with you is the best sign that you have been accepted of the Lord. I hope to have that encouragement and excitement that will also ignite all the other missionaries here, and I know and feel over and over again that the words that were spoken at General Conference were true. The Lord will keep the promises made, and I look forward to becoming a better person than I was even just last week. What more can I do, especially after being kinda off for a bit last week? Just keep going, and doing better. I hope you all have gone back through and read your favorite talks, and all the talks, again! Just look at the table of contents and ask yourself what you need, and then find the talk to read. Read, and you will get answers. So simple! Pray and ponder about it, too. I know that those men are all servants of the Lord, and the Lord will fulfill His words.

 

Have a great week, don´t let anything distract you from being happy, and know the Lord has so much in store for you.

 

I love you all, keep smiling and working hard. :)

 

Elder Jalen Gibbons

 

PS the pictures, the first is when we helped a member paint, and she made us hamburgers! the second is just after soccer, and Elder Davies has the same Germany jersey that I did! (That one is his, mine is not in my possession...). Then, the Burger King! Remember it?

 

PPS the email last week from Derek was just saying that he was getting baptized on Saturday! They will be sending me more info and pictures sometime soon, I hope. So I was way excited :)