Hermana Rebecca Gifford Serves in Oregon: A Trip to the Temple

Hello hello from a beautiful day in Oregon!

We got to take this beautiful day to go to the Portland temple. As missionaries we get to go every April and October. The Portland temple is beautiful! I am so grateful that I got to go inside. The temple really is the House of the Lord. I know that through the temple we really can have our families forever! I'm happy to know that one day I will be able to be sealed with someone for all time an eternity.

A member was planning on taking us but she cancelled so we asked Socorro if she would take us, and she did! She spent 3 hours in the visitor’s center watching meet the Mormons and other videos. One of these days she is going to crack and get baptized :)

This week the Lord helped us with finding new investigators. We have 4 new investigators! We met these investigators by knocking doors, walking on the street, and referrals! I have a bit of a fear of knocking doors. We were talking to our zone leaders Friday about this and they were telling me how important it is to get over this fear. They told us if we had the faith in finding an investigator this we that we would that day. So we knocked some doors and we met Sanaida! She is awesome! We will be going back the next couple of days to teach her again.

We had a lesson with Maria Ortega on Monday. We talked about the Sabbath day because our focus with her is getting her to church. We also invited her to be baptized on May 17th. We told her that she can receive her answer if she should get baptized at church. Please keep her in your prayers that she will take the step to come to church and feel that baptism is the next step she needs to take.

Saturday was awesome! We had an activity for all the Relief Society in the Stake. A rescue conference. So many women showed up, it was amazing! We got to hear from President and Sister Samuelian on the importance of women and sisters. Then we all split up with someone from the ward and visited many less active women. It was soo cool!

These members were so excited to go visit these less actives. I got to

go with Hermana Aguirre and her mother in-law. Hermana Aguirre reminds me a little bit of Sarah. The people we were assigned to weren't home but we got to hear how so many other people had amazing experiences. So neat! And I am also very grateful for my sisters :)

Friday we helped serve for a luau at Center 50+ where we help every week with genealogy. After the dinner the host said, "thank you very much for the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." There were 200 seniors there that heard the church's name! A bunch of people came up to us after asking us what we do, talking about the church, it was super cool!

That basically sums up this great week! This gospel is amazing! The temple is wonderful. I invite you all to go to the temple this week. We are SO lucky to have so many temples close by. Have a fantastic week! I love you all!

Hermana Gifford