So I am now serving in Burlington Iowa right on the Mississippi river about 20 minutes from Nauvoo. I am now in the same area I was when I went home last time ( about 20 minutes west of it). There is a really high chance that this will be the last area I serve in. weather that is true to not I will continue to work as hard as I can and get all the work don’t that I can. I have already fallen in love with this town. There are a lot of really good people here. Many people come here in the hopes of escaping the craziness in Chicago unfortunately many of them bring that craziness with them. I don’t even know how to describe my first few days here. I am in a ward (they would call it a branch out west) of just over 100 active people. Much of the work we are going to be doing here is helping reactivate members of the ward. They have a lot of people that do not come any more. I am serving with elder Frost he is from Utah via Texas. We will both be going home on the same day. (which isaugust 30^th if anyone wanted to know). That means I only have a very short 6 months left and I plan to get as much work done as possible in that time.

The town here is about 23,000 strong. Wish is a little bit bigger then my last area. The biggest thing we run into here is our proximity to Nauvoo makes many people think they know everything they need or want to about the church. But there has been a lot of really good success here before we just have to work at rekindling that fire.

I am excited to be working here. We will have a baptism in 2 weeks. And I am looking forward to many more to come while I am here. I love you all. I hope this week is a great one for you and that you feel of my love.

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Elder Jacob Gibson of the Iowa Des Moines mission