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!!

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

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!!

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

25 July 2016 - Weeks 38 and 39

Hello Everyone! Apologies for not posting last week - we were waiting to hear about transfers and thought we would hear each day - the results are finally in! Elder Hix and Elder Gilbert will be staying in Hamilton for another 6 weeks! They are both very excited to be staying together and extremely grateful to the Member there who allows them access to his gym :) Here is Elder Gilbert's message this week - I expressed concern how focused they seem to be on working out and he promised they are still tracting everyday, dodging bashers, and looking for people to teach - our prayers are that they can find someone this next 6 weeks :)

This is about how district meeting goes when you have a senior couple to show us how to flex.

Went on a blitz with our Zone Leaders in Tupelo, MS 

and saw the opportunity to throw some cardio at Elder Sears!

It's way too humid here, It's like breathing hot water!  We just received our transfer instructions. Elder Hix and I are staying together for another 6 weeks! And Elder Hix is district leader. I'm super exited I get to grind here for another 6 weeks. Last 6 weeks we did pretty good, we stuck with our workouts and for the most part we stuck with our diet and meal plan. So we kinda got an idea of how everything works, how the workouts are, what weight to use, how the lack of carbs will affect me in my workouts, I need to eat less amounts but more frequent, need to prep the meals before so when I'm dead tired after the gym my food is ready or at least basically ready so I don't just give in and go to taco bell because it's fast. Now I know all that. And I am going to hit it and go all the way this next 6 weeks and just see what the results can be. I'm sick and tired of it just being "potential". So I'm super stoked about this up coming 6 weeks!! Love to y'all and thanks for everything! - Elder Gilbert

11 July 2016 - Week 37

So not much has happened this past week. We lost our phone on the 4th and we found it a couple days later. Someone found it and turned it in so that was good. Being in a small town branch is very different than what I'm used to. I'm used to huge wards where everyone is solid lol. There were maybe 15 people there at church Sunday and 15 is probably stretching it. Elder Hix gave the opening prayer, Elder Hix blessed the sacrament and I passed it. Elder Hix and I both gave a 15 min talk in sacrament. Elder Hix and I taught priesthood and Elder Hix and I took the sacrament to 2 different people after church. Busy Sunday! We got our haircut this morning, I just took a video and put it on the drive lol but yeah that was pretty much our week. Lots of lifting and fishing. Thanks for all the support! Couldn't be doing this without you guys! Love y'all! -Elder Gilbert

5 July 2016 - Week 36

Crazy couple of weeks! New area, new comp, and new mission President! We are just grinding and working hard. We went to Tupelo, Mississippi last week and I got to see all the Elvis stuff. I was in the little shop where his mom bought his first guitar so that was cool! But yeah, we are just grinding... and fishing!! We fish a lot lol But yeah thanks for all the support and I love you guys! 

-Elder Gilbert