Monday, November 28, 2016

28 November 2016 - Week 57 - Moving to Mississippi!!

November 28th. Today is my 13th month mark. Crazy! It feels like time is crawling and flying at the same time. So my 21st Birthday is on Wed!! Don't really have anything planned except dinner after transfers. David is taking me and some of my missionary friends to my fave restaurant in Alabama! It's called the fish market in downtown b-ham! I'll attach a pic of it so you guys can see it. So I'm getting transferred. I'm kinda bummed. Madison is awesome! I love the guys I'm around right now, I'm sad to have to say goodbye to them and the awesome families in the ward! I only got to stay here for 3 weeks :/  Thanksgiving was awesome. I've never eaten so much in my life! We had 5 different meals with different people and families. It was awesome! I'm so grateful for how well they take care of us!! And thanks to y'all for the letters and stuff I have already gotten for my b-day! Thanks for all the support y'all give me! Couldn't do it without y'all. Love, Elder John M. Gilbert







New address is on the side of the blog, but in case you can't see it on your phones:
Elder John Gilbert
208 N. Cummings St. Apt #1
Fulton, Mississippi  38843

And yes, I asked - this town in Mississippi is still in the Alabama Mission :)
Love and thanks to you all!!!!

Sunday, November 27, 2016

21 November 2016 - Week 56 - Happy Thanksgiving!

Cool week. The life of a Zone Leader is crazy! We have Zone Training tomorrow where we just train and try and improve the work in our zone. I'm giving a 20 min training by myself tomorrow so I have been preparing for that. It's been a crazy week! Constantly teaching, constantly finding, traveling, just been crazy! We had a few people come to church, including a part-member family we are working with, so that's good! It's finally getting cold!! I love it! It was 50 somethin' yesterday. I need to send stuff home, I have so much stuff I just don't even use. I'm excited for Thanksgiving!! We have like 4 meal appts that day! But yeah we have just been grinding, My comps are awesome. Elder Coleman is from Mesa AZ. He's a swimmer and just a goofball. It's a blast! Elder Fanos is from Wyoming. They are both awesome guys! We are just grinding! Happy Thanksgiving!! Love Y'all!!
    -Elder John M.Gilbert

Note from Mom - we can't believe Elder Gilbert's Birthday is next week - he will be 21 years old!! Yikes!! When did THAT happen?? We are so excited for him :) Anyway, I asked Johnny if there is anything he needs - he says he is now in Madison which has LOTS of places to shop and any cash would be greatly appreciated :) He is talking about some new socks (he already got new shoes) and maybe a new coat - I think the 50 degrees has gone to his head! Anyway, anything sent to the Mission Home address (the one in Birmingham) will always find him. Transfers are on his birthday, next Wednesday, and he doesn't know what will be happening, so he suggested sending cards or anything (he says large packages are good too :P) to the Mission Home or wait until after we know where he will be after the 30th. Our love and thanks to you all for helping us get this far - 48 weeks to go!!!   xxoo Debby



Thursday, November 17, 2016

14 November 2016 - Week 55

Ok Crazy week!!! Soooo We were at a members house, in the most dangerous project in Ensley which is the most dangerous area in the mission in Alabama, so I'm basically in the most dangerous neighborhood in all of Alabama and we are hanging out eating dinner. When President Sainsburry calls me. He tells me that he needs to Emergency transfer Elder Morley and I. There was a change in the mission, a missionary had a seizure and went home (I didn't know him). So, Elder Morley got sent up to Fort Payne and I got sent up to Madison in a trio with Zone Leaders! lol Sooo I'm a Zone Leader lol (not really). Sooo Madison is the complete opposite of Ensley. NASA is like 6 min away from our apt. So all the people who live here are crazy rich - they are all NASA aerospace engineers!!! So we moved Friday night and Saturday morning and now I'm in Madison. We go to this awesome mall to contact, and we met these 3 girls. We invited them to church. Sunday was Stake Conference and Elder Thompson of the 70 came and the 3 girls came too! So I got to meet another General Authority - that was awesome! Then last night we went to a dinner with some members and the father and husband is a colonel in the army lol so that was super cool. We also have a gym!! I killed it this morning!! I'm exited for these next few weeks! 

My new address is 244 Kyser Bvld. Madison AL, 35758 and yes I can receive mail here now lol. Thanks for everything, Love to everyone!! Your missionary, Elder John M. Gilbert 

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

7 November 2016 - Week 54

Another crazy week!! So last Monday night we went fishing at a member's house pond. I caught a decent size catfish. Then Tuesday David took us to my fave place to eat in Birmingham. It's called the fish market, it's downtown and its super nice and super cool!! We have been biking and walking around so much!! On Wed this week my fit bit said I took 23,930 steps, and burned 4,824 calories. Crazy! Everything has just been super crazy and super busy! Today we went fishing this morning. I caught 5 big catfish that we are going to take to a member so she can cook 'em up for us! Now we are emailing, and then we are going to the stake center to play sports. Then we are going out to eat with David again and then I'm going to Alabaster to get my hair cut by Ashley, who is a member I know really well from when I served there. So it's always just one thing after another. Found a lot more bullet shells... think I'm up to like 12 now lol. So Habron (a youth here) is going on his mission and he just gave his farewell talk last Sunday and so many people came!! I have and probably never will see again see the church that packed! We had a potluck afterward. The oven didn't work at the church so the missionaries took it over to our house and we cooked everything there at our little apartment and then took it back over to the church. You know just the average life of a missionary in the hood,  always be on your toes. lol Thank you for all the Halloween/1 year boxes! I love them! lol Except for all the candy, I'm trying to be good. Love y'all, -Elder John M. Gilbert






Saturday, November 5, 2016

31 October 2016 - Week 53 - Happy Halloween :)

Crazy week!! So much happened this week I can't even remember everything! So Friday was my 1 year mark! That morning we went to the mission home for district meeting. While we were there we helped the vehicle coordinator move all the new cars. The mission now has around 20 new cars! 2017 Chevrolet Malibu's! So we got to drive those all morning and let me tell you, they don't have tiwi and they are pretty fast! Not that we were treating that or anything... :) We have our little Ensley Squad, there are 4 of us here and we pretty much do everything together and we all cruised these new Malibu's over across Birmingham, it was so fun! Then this super nice member named David took all of us to panda express for my year! Then that night was the beginning of the "Magic City Classic" which is a huge football game at Legions Field! It lasts 3 days! And there were over 80,000 people there! And me and my comp Elder Morley were literally the only white people there!! It was crazy!! Like words cant even describe this event! The bullet bike gangs everywhere, muscle cars, tailgates and everyone just doing whatever the heck they wanted! Then we met some super cool homies that took us over to a parking lot and their crew of Cameros were everywhere! Some of the coolest cars I've ever seen! I took so many videos, I'll add them to the google drive later today. It was just so crazy!! Oh yeah we went to the temple on Saturday with Habron as he gets ready to leave on his mission. Just a crazy week! Thank you for all the packages and letters for my year mark!!
     Your missionary,
         Elder John M. Gilbert