Out of the Mouths of Babes

Hello Everybody!

What is new on this side of the Mississippi?  well some crazy stuff and some not so crazy stuff. so to break the suspense the not so crazy stuff was that we had the primary program and it was just so cool and the spirit was just so strong, My guess is that they can deliver such a strong message because they are still under Christ and so when they talk about truth it's the spirit without dirt coming to all those who want it. and those who don't want it just think that it's cute. What else is not so crazy? Well I guess the fact that we have been fed enchiladas for the last week straight, so  it's not bad, but variety is definitely good.

So on to the nuts stuff. So!... Cori has gotten the devil after him. how so? well this week his house got broken into and all of his stuff was stolen therefore he is not happy and his goal of being a photographer is shattered because they stole all his equipment. and of course that's because we have committed him to baptism and to live according to the gospel principals. So not so good. we are working with him to get back into the groove of things. so that's life.

Other crazy thing is that we had zone conference and we learned a little bit about the refiner's fire/the sculptor's hand/the potter's clay. All the same principal of living in a way where God can mold us more into his Son so we will be more like him when we live with him. The really cool thing was that we had to find a rock that could be found in the area that we are working in. Well i don't know if you know but there are no rocks naturally found in Alabama or Florida.  If there are then i just don't know where to find them, well anyways we found some rocks along a river bank and took them to Zone conference, and then we got a chisel and a picture of the Christus in SLC Vistor center. so my goal is to chisel a place for my picture and then have the rock hold the chisel, by the way it's a 3/8 of an inch cold chisel for stone/cement. thanks dad for teaching me that.

After ZC we had the zone leaders do a trade-off with us I stayed in Ozark while Lake went up to Troy so that day Thursday we had a full day we were visiting families and all sorts of stuff and everything else.  We even made an appointment for 5 pm in Newton about 20 min drive down, and then had to meet up halfway between Troy and Ozark about a 35 min drive at 6, well with all of this commotion i forgot about the appointment at 5 and then headed up to Troy at 530 from Ozark. we get a call later wondering where we are, which made me feel about this tall ---> [    ] Sadly to say that was my bad.  That night we also visited one of our investigators who has yet to pick up the Book of Mormon and start to read. and we been seeing her since about June or July. and we had splits with one of the bishopric members who then gave her a better explanation. because she thought that it was just another bible, which we told her a couple of times before hand that it wasn't, which then made me feel ---> [  ] that big. so it was definitely a crazy day.

which is about all that i have.  Life is getting better as i just continue to move forward and to keep my head up while at the same time keeping it down...?  or i guess move forward in humility.

Progress is what is important. and sometimes can't be measured by a number. so another food for thought 

Love you guys keep up the good work.
Elder Gillespie

Ben Gaines, sometimes the best way to help a friend is to just listen, PMG chapter 10 listening that's a good section that i like.

Toni Keep up the good work.

Jan Your awesome and such a good mom

Ben F. welcome back! that's weird seeing as how I'm not there but none the less.

Jethro Lincoln is going to do great and i like your idea and you'll have to tell me more about your projects.

Robyn Lincoln is so cute. and i feel so sorry for little Sophia i hope that the medicine is working. keep me posted, next week.

Thad good idea to call those guys so you don't die but i wouldn't like to take cold showers,

Beetle you'll love being in a 4 pad, you can have so much fun and not only that you get to talk to other people not just your companion, it's going to be so cool. just don't get lazy, it's way too easy.

Elder Christensen after a gold bond foot powder Fight with Elder Cox

Elder Wardle

Ashley and Me

Courtney Family

Elder Lake

Food is Good

This week has been amazing on a scale of one to banana it was probably pineapple or gorilla. so lets start with the beginning.  a very good place to start. Me and elder Lake have been getting along like two peas in a pod which makes everything else a whole lot easier, not saying we have had any problems but this week has just been great. so monday  it was columbus day which was last weeks email. and then we'll skip to tuesday it was a very relaxing day which i was very grateful for and nothing really exciting going on at that point, which leads us to Wednesday, at thispoint we are putting together a baptism for a child of record baptism for a less active member, so we are pulling things together for that and we also needed to make sure that she had a interview with the bishop that night so we could then get her ready for baptism on Saturday, so a bit of stress, any-hoo that goes through without a hitch. so we have a total go on the baptism. full speed ahead! so the next day, Thursday, we finish the program and start getting things ready for the baptism, Friday we have some fun and get our minds off the whole baptism and go tracting and then we get a call from one of our investigators Cori and we visit for a bit and the time felt right and so we asked if he wanted to be baptized and he's like sure, which i was totally taken back from, so during our visit we talked more about the whole comitment of baptism and such and he's got a few things we need to help him with, and i think that he's going to go far. at the end of the visit we are walking back to the car and both of us Me and elder Lake were just taken back by what we just did, but it felt right so we went and did. this leads us to Friday night where we talked to the Jones family where they talked about different types of activites and one that sounds really cool is flight 459 and then everyone gets to see the different kingdoms and stuff, and it sounds really cool. so after all of that it was time for bed and the next day. Saturday the big day so we go tracting again to get my mind off of what's going on later that day. so the day flys by like a dream and then we are at the church getting it ready for the baptism and filling the font and all the other fun stuff that goes along with baptizing someone, so before this Ashley asked me to baptise her and then elder lake to confirm her. so i get really excited that i get to wear all white for the first time in about a year, it just felt so nice and calm to be in all white, and then every thing went off without any big problems and i was so happy and so was everyone else i think the spirit was very strong during that whole thing. so basically awesome. ok ok next day. sunday an amazing sacrament meeting and the rest of the blocks where i learned a lot. and then we had a great meeting with BrieAnna who is friends with one of the ward members and we had a great lesson on the plan of salvation and then we ask her to get baptized and she was totally into the idea as well just like Cori and the great thing was that she was at the saturday baptism. and she was very moved by the whole thing.  so in the course of a week we had a baptism where we were very involved and then also having two people commit to get ready for baptism. so this week equals success.

As for the title i learned the hard way that food is a very important part of life especially Breakfast, usually i wouldn't eat breakfast because i really wasn't hungry or so i thought, then afterwards i started eating breakfast and low and behold i was happier and less tired and also i eat a lot more food when i eat breakfast then if i don't or i eat 3x the food when i have breakfast then when i just say that i'm not hungry. i guess my body really was hungry. As for sleeping, I'm happier and it's much easier to sleep when you aren't hungry and also when the window is open and it gets down into the 50's at night. so i feel much better now than when i was a in the middle of july and august.

that's what's happening in my neck of the woods, back over to you.

Love Elder Gillespie

Jethro it sounds like Paris was an amazing little trip, your so brave to do all of that.

Robyn keep up the good work and i bet this camera is going to pay for itself.

Mom your amazing and i love you so much.

Ben Gains you just know what to say don't you, keep up the good work and keep listening to those talks.

Toni your doing great keep up the good work.

Jan your still a Gillespie in my eyes with that last adventure to the lot. your amazing

Dad keep up the good work.

Thad you need to work on your details much like i do but tell me more when i get back.

Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue

Hello Everybody!

This week has been a weird week probably for us all but last week marked the half way point for me and this mission which is sad to say that I only have a year left to help people and to clear up some misconceptions that people in the south may have about us. Well anyway, on to the good news! This week we are going to have a baptism of a 8 year old less active member which is SO cool, we as missionaries have really been trying to help the family and her out, they are a really nice family which is so cool to see. but of course everyone on their mission thinks most of the members are cool.

other than that we have the members helping us find people to teach while we continue to work with those that we found for ourselves, the top three are

BreiAnna,
Cori,
Crimmins.

We are really trying to get things worked out in their minds to help them understand the truth that we share very poorly unless we have the spirit with us. Then it makes all the difference and they will get the "ah-ha" moments which we all get in our lives when we "figure" something out or something just clicks to make it so much easier. 

Probably one of the coolest moments this week was when we were talking with our member who is friends with BreiAnna and she told him that she got an answer to her questions about the church and that it was all truth, so that was amazing and a real testimony builder for me, that God wants to and does answer our prayers.

A not so good moment was when we were tracting and a guy came to the door and just said to us "can you guys just go somewhere else, you knocked on my door like every two months, just go somewhere else, I'm tired of seeing you guys." Well sorry guy but we just can't not knock on your door, because there are only so many doors that we can knock on.

One more thing is that sleep is very a important part of life. and this letter will probably go through a lot of revisions before it comes out, why? because when you don't sleep well and drink enough water you brain doesn't think very well by itself and it also makes a lot of stupid and often mistakes which are funny. 

Well that's about all the neat things that i can think of right now so until next week, keep up the good work and keep on truckin'

Jethro what is going on? you should take lots of photos.

Jan your amazing and i bet mom and the kids are just loving it there

Beetle your amazing and you really are doing great things in Chile, hey they were right, you are changing the world for the better.

Thad Really a Career that is neat and are you working on the same thing as you were before? or something completely different.

Hey Clint keep up the good work and remember to keep praying and reading.

Robyn your two little munchkins are so cute. and it's so cool to see sophia just doing her thing it must be driving you up the wall though

Ben Gaines two weeks is awesome and one more left your going to do great

Ben Francisco keep up the good work because i know that you'll do great.

Toni your awesome and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.

Dad holy cow you sound busy and working like a mad man.

Mom your awesome and i love you

Love you all

Elder Matt Gillespie

Love is the Answer to Most of the Questions in my Heart

Family Friends Countrymen Saints!

Hasn't this week been so good, it's starting to cool down everywhere in the northern hemisphere, sorry Beetle. i can wake up and feel the cool crisp air as i run. yes it's actually getting nice in Alabama, speaking of football way to go USU just wanted to throw that out there. but what everybody is still in awe over is General Conference. Wasn't that AMAZING, the theme that i got out of it was a return to the basics and what our basic knowledge is that sets us apart from other religions.

Well enough about that no need to rehash over what happened especially seeing how we'll all get it the next month with the ensign. So this week for me has been kind of crazy this week we said farewell to Elder Cox. thus leaving me the oldest in the apartment, which is kind of weird. but anyways the new kid is Elder Wardle. He's from Las Vegas and is with Elder Christensen who cover the Ozark branch or everything above 231 or most of the populated area of Ozark, but we have Fort Rucker, home to Army Aviation the helicopter side of aircraft.  Elder Wardle reminds me a lot of Richard Wilkins just a happy go lucky guy, happy to be alive and in the process makes everyone else happy. so the dynamic of the apartment has changed, but for the better, or it's just a nice change to have.

So this week has been amazing if i haven't already said it, so yesterday we got called by the bishop to fill the font for a baptism in the morning and to also play the piano for said baptism,  and it was just an amazing spirit that was felt in that service, then we had conference which again was amazing and very enlightening and then we felt prompted to go and give some bread to a ward member who needed that bread.  When we arrived she told us that she just ran out of bread. and we came with some without even knowing that she needed it.  Truly a miracle and then was able to give her a blessing which she told us was what she actually really needed and felt like a feather. so yesterday=awesome.

So now some insights off of conference a trend that i saw and felt was the need for everyone to receive a testimony of the cornerstones of our religion, what was inspired to me was that we now live in an age where we can't really hear the spirit, which is why many young people rely on their parents testimony, what we need to do to receive that gift is to quiet our surrounding, unplug the earphones and radio other distractions, Read study and ponder the scriptures. and to live what we believe. Pray to our father in heaven for a testimony. if we do the simple things that we were taught then we would receive the blessing of a testimony that would begin to grow and continue as we nourish it until we know without a doubt that it is real.  remember to start off small and then the greatness will be able to grow out of us by the power of the Holy Ghost.

So all in all a really great week full of insights mostly from conference but all from the Holy Ghost.

To finish it all off congrats on the new child Eliza and hopefully she won't start beating Anna in weight gaining to quickly and it dose sound like quite a little party going on in the valley of Utah. and it should be getting more crazy in just a couple of weeks.

Ben Francisco that little town doesn't sound very slowly going but i bet your going to learn a lot from being there keep up the good work.

Jan your such an amazing mom and i bet clarky and eva are going to be best of pals their entire life.

Ben Gains how does it feel to be a dad two times over? i bet it feels awesome!

Jethrobyn you guys are just so cool Robyn i want a lot of photos when beetle gets back just to let you know and Jethro i really couldn't remember even if you did use the same lines over again, and yes we need to watch that when we get back but after i get readjusted, if that happens.

Toni = great mom who was taught by a great mom who was taught by a great mom... and there we see council in action.

Thad Where did you go? by what i gathered you were a miracle for the drive back to Utah, why am i not surprised at that? what were some of the games that you played with the kids?

Beetle how awesome is it that you and i just had Conference together. i say totally awesome.

I love you guys all so much keep up the good work and remember we can choose to love or to hate.

Love

Elder Matthew Gillespie