Christmas Has Come and Gone

Hello my fellow family,

Well it is pretty crazy that Christmas has already come and gone. It was a great day. We woke up extra early and had a breakfast with the missionaries in the zone. After that we played some volleyball.  When we were done with that we went to the West's home and I talked with the family (minus mom). Then we went home and slept...:) It was great to catch up on sleep.

After that we went over to another members house and there I Skyped mom for a few minutes.  It was great to talk to everyone!  After this we went to the Vera's home and we had a nice American dinner.  It was like half American….But it was yummy :)  It was super cool because they invited their less active/non member family members over.  So we were able to share a message about the Savior's birth to them all, it was great!  After that it was proselyting time so we finished delivering our cookies to investigators and less active members.

Last Monday we had our Christmas conference. It was super awesome.  It was like an hour away from our area and we still had a few members come.  It was great! The Spirit was so strong.  It was great to be able to sing many Christmas hymns.

This week was filled with a lot of service.  We were able to help some people out with a variety of things preparing for Christmas.

Some sad news.  Carlos, Chayo and their family are going to be moving back to California.  They feel so alone here and bored.  I am really nervous about this decision so we have invited them to pray about it.  I will miss them a whole lot. 

Ana is returning to Oregon from Florida today but she will be at home in Salem this next week because she is getting her wisdom teeth out so we still won't see her for awhile.

We are going to be teaching Yoselin tonight and are going to invite her to be baptized again. Please keep her in your prayers :)

This week I have been thinking a lot about "sitting on the fence" There are so many things that we can have one foot on one line and the other foot on the other line.  It is so easy to get as close as we can to the limit to see how far we can push it.  We can't live like this!  No matter what it is whether watching rated R movies or going to sacrament meeting late or whatever it may be we need to live as far as possible from the line on the opposite end.  Striving to be exactly obedient to the commandments of God.  I love you all so much and I know you all are striving your best.  But this New Years I invite you all to do a little better.  Set goals that are going to help you live the commandments with exact obedience.  I know that as we do this we will be able to feel the Spirit much more abundantly in our lives.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! I love you all very much.

Xoxox

Hermana Gifford

No Time :)

Hello everyone!

So this email is going to be even shorter than last week yay haha.

We had a great week! The highlight is that we got to go to the temple with Yoselin.  She really enjoyed it.  The Spirit was the strongest I have ever felt at the temple with an investigator.

We have our Mission Christmas concert today so that is why I have no time. In two minutes we have to leave for the concert haha. 

I am so excited to get to see you on Christmas through Skype!

SO here is the deal...I have a little less than five months left and this will by my last skype call.  My other skype calls have been a little distracting.  I would really love if we could keep the conversation focused on the work and how you are doing.  We can talk about the future when I get home :)

I hope that you all have a Merry Christmas! I love you so much and I am so grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ. He lives!

Hermana Gifford

Hermana Estudillo and Hermana Gifford

Hermana Wilde, Jade West, Hermana Gifford

Jade West and Hermana Gifford

Hermana Estudillo, Gifford, Yoselin, Jade & Brother West

Hermana Estudillo, Yoselin, Hermana Gifford

HELLO

Hi Fam!

So this is going to be pretty short because our dinner appointment just called and wants us to come ASAP so this will be short.

Things are great!  Christopher was baptized on Sunday.  It was a great service. The spirit was so strong.  I really hope his dad felt something. His dad is now the only non-member in the family. 

Chayo received the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Listen to how crazy this is!  She texted us right before church and said they were going to be a couple minutes late.  And then after the sacrament she calls us and was like I won't be able to make it…..Their tire blew up on the drive to the church!  So, a member hurried and rescued them off the highway.  They made it before sacrament meeting was over so she could receive the Holy Ghost :)

ANA!   We had a great stake musical Christmas concert on Sunday.  Ana loves music so we thought this was the best thing for her.  We had a member pick her up and she came!  It was a great concert filled with music of the Savior.  She really enjoyed it.  It was great to see her.  But bad news...she is leaving to Florida for two weeks with her family and then getting her wisdom teeth out so we won't see her for quite awhile.

Hermana Wilde left the area.  My new companion is Hermana Estudillo.  We will be serving as STL’s together.  She has been out just a transfer shorter than me.  And she is MEXICAN!!  Wooo!  I get a native companion.  I am super pumped about that. It was great serving with Hermana Wilde.  We were able to see a lot of success together.

Well I best be going!  I love you all.  I think that I won't have Pday next Monday because we have a mission conference.  But we shall see.  Thanks for all your support.

XOXO

HERMANA GIFFORD

This is what you look like when you do 5 exchanges, plan a wedding and
2 baptisms in 2 weeks.

It's Ana! :)

Christopher's Baptism

Elder Holmes and Hermana T. He went home. He was in my district awhile back.

Last pic with Hermana Wilde

Saying bye to Sister Rosado :( she went home this transfer, she is the
most amazing missionary I have ever met.

We did a training in the Forest Grove zone

Whoops. I cut my hair!

Wedding Bells / White Christmas

Hi everybody!

It was a rainy day here in Oregon. The streets are flooded and many houses are getting flooded as well. But that’s okay because guess what?  It was a wonderful week!  Oh man I feel like a million things happened this week.

Maria and Carlos are married! They did it.  And Maria was baptized yesterday. We were planning on having a member decorate for the wedding but she canceled the beginning of last week.  So Hermana Wilde and I were in charge of everything. Woo!  Who knew missionaries were wedding planners as well.  We scrambled begging for decorations from people all around the stake.  Thank heavens people were willing to lend some stuff.  It looked pretty nice for planning a whole wedding in one week.

The culture:  Maria and Carlos were 45 minutes LATE to their own wedding…..and an hour late to their baptism!  Haha! Ooh goodness I definitely had some nervous sweats going on there but they made it!  The members were amazing in supporting them.  President Thackeray, our Branch President, married them in the cultural hall.  President and Sister Samuelian met Maria and Carlos a couple weeks ago so they came and supported them at the baptism.  It was quite the weekend!

I am not sure if I have told you all about this yet, but our mission is doing something called a White Christmas.  We may not be getting snow this Christmas but we want every companionship to have a baptism in the month of December.  The White Christmas has come!  But this is not the end.  I know that we can get at least one more baptism this month.  The Lord is preparing so many people here in McMinville.

Bad news:  We are having a 5-week transfer due to Christmas (Next transfer will be 7 weeks).  I am terrified that I am going to get transferred.  This area is so amazing.  But we shall see...I will keep you updated on that.

We had planned just doing one exchange with Sisters this week but we had Missionary Leadership Council.  There, President Samuelian told us that we needed to do a power exchange with two different companionships.  (A normal exchange is you split and go into different areas but a power exchange is where all four missionaries are in one area).  So because of this I was only with Hermana Wilde 2 days this last week.  It was wild. Get it ;)  This week shouldn't be as crazy.

News with our other investigators:  We still haven't seen Ana since Thanksgiving :(   Baptism is still a go for Christopher and his little sister Kimberly.  We weren't able to see Yoselin either.  Because this week won't be so crazy hopefully we will be able to see all these people!

Well I better get going!  Wasn't the First Presidency Christmas Devotional amazing?  The Savior truly is the Light of the world.  His light will overcome all darkness.

Love you all!

Hermana Gifford

The  Baptism of Rose

The Filling of the Font

Mr and Mrs Jose Carlos Rodriguez

Crystal and I - she is related to the Rodriguez family and is in the branch

Exchanges with Sisters Mccarthur and Kennelly-they are amazing! The
sister next to me in Sister Rosado who is my STL companion

A Branch Member gave us a live Christmas tree!  Yay!!!