Wednesday, August 31, 2016

29 August 2016 - Week 44

Good crazy week. We had to take our branch mission leader to the hospital last Monday, he was having a heart attack. He is ok now but we spent pretty much all day with him. We had a good district meeting on Friday and after that we went on an exchange. I went with our Zone Leader Elder Forsgren. Who is a body builder.... We worked out on Saturday morning and I realized that I'm playing in a whole different league!! It was really depressing.... I thought I was making real progress and looking good, getting a good physique and then homeboy comes in and I realize I'm playing wiffle ball. He was really able to help me out supplement wise and just a bunch of stuff. This bodybuilding stuff is a whole different world to me. I was just a hockey player lifting for strength, this is very different. Then on Saturday we taught a lesson about the gospel to a deaf person! It was crazy! We taught the whole lesson writing it down in our planners. Hopefully he reads the Book of Mormon. oh yeah I totally for got to tell you. We uhhh kinda broke the rules a little bit and we took a road trip up to Tennessee and went to the Shiloh battle field! It was super cool. It was pretty much the deciding battle in the civil war. So that was supper cool! Ummm yeah idk what else to say, we are just still grinding. I try to send some pics soon.
-Elder John M. Gilbert








Thursday, August 25, 2016

22 August 2016 - Week 43

Not a lot of info from Elder Gilbert this week - he emailed briefly and just let us all know he and Elder Hix are doing well. They are keeping busy visiting and serving branch members, tracting, and going to the gym. He says it has been raining a lot and if anyone has a good slow cooker or grill recipe for brisket, please share! He sends his love and thanks to y'all and says to have a great week!


Uh oh - looks like some repairs are needed here!!

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

15 August 2016 - Week 42

Just a quick note from Elder Gilbert this week:

The members are really starting to trust us and we had a meal appointment everyday last week! And one member asked us to give her less active son a blessing before he leaves to go into the military, so I think they are really starting to trust us - hooray! Thanks and love to everyone   - Elder Gilbert




Monday, August 8, 2016

8 August 2016 - Week 41

Good Week! We saw lots of less actives this week and the members are starting to realize how cool we are and are having us over for dinner a lot more! :D Which is good and bad, its good to get to know the awesome members here but bad for my diet! But the food is just soooooo good! We have still been working out hard and continuing to move forward. A missionary homie that just went home gave me his football cleats! So Elder Hix and I have really been hitting the field hard! Oh funny thing happened the other day, so Elder Hix is a kicker and he is really good, he is going to go try and play college football. So we are at the high school football field and Hix is just kicking bombs! The football players started showing up for practice and within a few minutes we had a crowd of the football players watching Elder Hix kick these 60 yard bombs! We felt so cool! lol but yeah we have been working hard here in Hamilton and are doing great! Love and miss y'all!! -Elder Gilbert

PS - From the Mom :) Elder Gilbert sent a couple of fun videos of their very large brisket purchase and the amazing rain in Hamilton - unfortunately they are too large to allow for posting. I will try to post them on Facebook for everyone - have a great week!!

Friday, August 5, 2016

1 August 2016 - Week 40

Good Crazy Week. Transfers were last week, Elder Hix and I are staying together for a another 6 weeks!! We are super pumped! So we both had a lot of friends going home this transfer, so we decided to go to transfers even if we weren't really supposed to. We go to Birmingham and Elder Hix has never had Chipotle before!! So we get Chipotle for the first time and he loves it! Duh!! Then we go to one of my homies there in Alabaster - Ashley Betkey, she is an awesome cosmetologist and she always hooks me up with amazing hair cuts, she really is an artist! Thanks Ashley!! So we get there Tuesday night to the AP's apartment. Elder Wintz and Baggot are the AP's. Elder Wintz is my mission "Grandpa". He trained Bullock and Bullock trained me, and Elder Wintz just went home. So at the AP's we had the opportunity to partake of the worlds hottest pepper! The Carolina Reaper......dun dun done!!!....We survived! It was terrible but we did!!!!! There is a video on the google drive. We go to transfers and say bye to all the homies going home. Then a little group of us go to guitar center! There are some missionaries that want to be djs! So I was able to show them kinda in a nut shell how to do it, we had a lot of fun! Then we went back to Hamilton and got back to work. We have a couple progressing investigators but not a whole lot going on. Ok so I haven't told y'all about The Ramp yet. "The Ramp" is a cult here in Hamilton. They call it a church or "ministry" but its literally a cult, like Karen Weaton (who I've met) is the (grand dragon basically) she gives these kids pills to "throw up their demons". And these kids come from all over the world for this! Thousands of people. lol like when I read about the great and abominable church in the Bible and Book of Mormon, I think of The Ramp!!! Just super scary stuff. But anyway so we run into "Rampions" everywhere so missionary work is super hard here. But yeah things are going well, Our next 6 week workout started today! We did Chest and Back and we will go back for cardio tonight. But thanks for the continuous letters and emails!! 
Love y'all, -Elder Gilbert