Herro....

Hi Mami,

How is everything going? Sounds like it was a fun birthday party for Jack and Ethan! Happy Birthday to Jack on Thursday! It has been a great week in Oregon.

Most exciting! Oscar is on date for April 12th!  In district meeting we talked about the importance of praying with faith and having faith in your investigators.  Later that day we got to have a lesson with Oscar.  We talked about the 10 commandments and it was an awesome lesson.  After we asked him if he had still been praying about baptism.  He said yes but his concern was that if he got baptized his personality would change.  Oscar is 11 and the most shy little buddy I have ever met.  He has a speech problem where he can't say his R's.  Luckily we have found a way to crack him and loosen him up a bit! Now he is a blabbermouth.  Haha!  Sweetest little guy ever.  

Anyway so we remembered what we had talked about in district meeting about praying with faith, so we said, “Okay Oscar, let’s pray right now and ask if you should be baptized April 12th and we know that you can receive your answer right now.”  He went into his little shy zone and said, “I am too shy to say the prayer.”  So we said, “Okay Oscar, we will say a prayer, and then you get to pray after and ask if you should be baptized April 12th.”  So we said a prayer and after he said a super sincere prayer asking Heavenly Father if he should get baptized.  After the prayer we asked him how he felt.  His response was, “I keep feeling stronger and stronger that Heavenly Father wants me to baptized.”  So he is officially on date!  Please keep Oscar in your prayers that he can continue to feel the confirmation to his prayers that baptism is the first step to take to follow Heavenly Father's plan.

So remember Maria Cruz? Last week I said how she ran away from us...?  Well we had two awesome lessons with her this week!  She is doing awesome.  She told us that she knows the Book of Mormon is true because she prayed about it and she felt peace in her heart as she prayed.  She really does seem sincere; we just aren't quite sure why she hid from us.  The commitment we left her was to pray if she should be baptized April 26th.  Keep her in your prayers as well.  She has a lot of potential!

We weren't able to meet with Maria Ortega this last week but we have a lesson with her in about 45 minutes!  I am excited to see how that goes.  We are planning on teaching her the Restoration and showing her the restoration video because we feel that could really help her understand the first vision. Keep all the Maria's in your prayers please :)

So as missionaries we are supposed to do 2-10 hours of community service every week.  We found the super awesome place called 50+ Center.  It’s a center for people 50+ to go and do arts and crafts activities and such and we are going to help volunteer.  I am super excited to start that this week! I love old people :)

Well that about sums it up! The gospel can truly change lives, its change mine right before my eyes! I l love you all!

Love,

Hermana Gifford

So for the relief society anniversary the ward is doing a play of the 10 virgins. And we are acting in it! And I have to speak in it... in Spanish...Haha it's this Tuesday I will let you know how it goes!

Don't worry guys I am getting really good at cooking. Here is my gourmet omelet.