Honorable Release Letter

April 27, 2015

Dear President De Visser

Enclosed is the Honorable Release Certificate for Sister Rebecca Gifford who will soon complete her full-time missionary service in the Oregon Salem Mission. Please give her the enclosed certificate following your personal interview with her.

While here in the Oregon Salem Mission, Sister Gifford was a Senior Companion, Trainer and a Sister Training Leader.  She has fulfilled these callings with faith, diligence and obedience.

Off the coast of Oregon stands the fourth largest haystack rock in the world.  This rock represents the vision for our new mission which has come through divine inspiration. To our missionaries here in Salem the rock has come to be a very personal representation of the Savior himself.  In Doctrine & Covenants 6:34, it states, “Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.”  Sister Gifford has learned to build upon that rock, the Savior Jesus Christ, and we trust that she will continue to build upon the rock of Christ all the days of her life.

Sister Gifford is comfortable with, and prepared to share her testimony and experiences with others.  We hope that you will call upon her to do so in sacrament meetings and other youth oriented events.

Through serving the Master she has grown closer to Him and become more like Him.  So now, with some reluctance, but with great joy, we turn Sister Gifford back to your care and into the loving arms of her family and friends.

We will miss her and will forever pray for her continued growth and fulfillment of all she has been foreordained to accomplish here upon the earth and into the eternities.

With Love,

Michael R. Samuelian

Mission President

Good-bye Oregon Salem Mission

Wow!  Well emotions are all over the place right now.  I will save this weeks e-mail for in-person but I will let you in on just a couple things.  

We were able to have a lesson with the Kiner family.  They are praying about being baptized May 28th.  I learned this week about the importance of offering service.  Great things come from it! 

My heart ached yesterday, as it was my last Sunday as a full time representative of Jesus Christ.  Sunday's have been some of the greatest and also hardest days the past year and a half.  I was able to bear my testimony one last time to the ward members.  I felt like someone reached in my chest and ripped out my heart as I was up there.  I feel gipped only getting to serve in Dallas for 6 weeks. Haha.  But I am so grateful that I even got the chance to serve here.

I will forever be grateful for my mission.  I have learned so many things about myself and others.  This is the Lord's work!  Our Savior is SO real and he can heal us of anything.  I just want to bear my testimony a million times on this email but I know I will get to do that a lot in person over the next few weeks but know that I know that this is the Savior's church and He leads and guides it through our living prophet Thomas S. Monson.

Tomorrow I will be spending part of the day in Portland, going to the temple one final time with the departing missionaries and then spending the rest of the day in Newberg with President and Sister Samuelian. The Oregon Salem Mission is the best place on earth!  I will you see you all in 2 days.

Love,

Hermana Gifford

Lora Parker-she wanted to hold roses in our picture haha

Sister Darci Kugler

Sister Judy McApline-she is our mission grandma :)

The Dallas district.

The one and only Kiner Family!!

The Sayer Family

World's best cup of hot cocoa!

The Johnson family-they aren't in our Ward but a neighboring Dallas Ward. They are great member missionaries.

Cruisin' Through Dallas

Hello everyone!  It was a great week here in Dallas!

Poor Sister Tedrow got a stress fracture from running every morning.  She can't run for 6 weeks so we were trying to think of what she can do for exercise.  A member offered us to borrow a bike.  So this morning she rode her bike while I ran.  But then we thought it was a really fun idea.  So we asked a different member if they had a bike we could borrow.  We will be riding bikes for my last week in Dallas!  I am so excited I feel like a real missionary haha.

We were able to go to the temple for our semi-annual trip.  I am so grateful for the house of the Lord.  The Spirit is always so amazing there and there is no better place to receive answers to prayers.  I love to see the temple!

We were able to have a zone training meeting with President and Sister Samuelian.  We talked a lot about having faith to find.  There are many different things that play into faith.  I am grateful that we can always increase our faith.  I want to work super hard this week on having the faith to find.  It all starts with action and attitude!

We were able to have some great lessons with investigators at member’s homes.  I am so grateful for the chance I have been able to serve in the Cooper Hollow Ward.  The members are so supportive.  Next week for fast Sunday the ward will be fasting for missionary work.

I am so grateful for all the love and support that you have all given me the past year and a half.  This definitely hasn't been an easy journey so I am so grateful for all of the encouragement that you have given me.  I ask for special prayers this week that I can stay focused and work hard this last week I have as a full time missionary.  I know that there is so much Sister Tedrow and I can do this week. 

What a privilege and blessing it is to be a full time representative of our Savior Jesus Christ.  This is the best decision I have made in my life and will be one of the best decisions I probably ever make.  I know that my Redeemer lives and I know that this is the Lord's work.  I am so excited for all of the miracles that we will be able to see this week. You have 9 days to invite someone to church or give them a Book of Mormon.  You better be prepared to tell me experiences!! Trust in the Lord and He will give you the strength!

I love you all!

XOXO 

Sister Gifford

Beautiful Portland temple!

This picture is from Hermana Estudillo. This is Hermano Vera from
Mcminnvile. He made some really yummy pancakes so they sent me a
picture of it :)

You wonder why I have gained so much weight? Members gave us all of
this food from ONE DAY.

Sister Tedrow riding in the back with the bike 😎

Feels Like Summer

Hello from 85 degree Dallas! Maybe I really am in Texas...

We had a great week!  We were able to have 3 investigators at church.  Two of them were part member families. 

This week we were going through our part member family list and we stopped and contacted George Romain.  He is a less active member.  He told us that he had been praying that the missionaries would come and visit him because he wants to start his journey back coming to church.  He has a girl friend named Crystal that is not a member that we were able to teach twice this week.

We were able to receive six referrals this week!  We are in need of people to teach so that was a focus we had of asking everyone!  Members were willing to give us referrals and we were able to get a couple new investigators out of it!

The Kiner family:  Brother Kiner called us with some questions about the Priesthood.  He was raised in an apostolic church and their church is similar to ours.  He has some concerns of why he would need to be baptized again.  We talked to him today and unfortunately he was laid off from his job.  He worked for some members so he has a little bit of hard feelings.  He asked for us to take about a two-week break from teaching his family so he can focus on finding a new job.  I don't think he will be able to get baptized while I am here in Oregon but I know that he will some day.  I haven't ever met someone with such real intent to know the truth!

We were able to find four new investigators but we haven't had any follow up lessons with any of them so I will tell you more about their progress next week!

I was able to finish the Book of Mormon in Spanish.  I just started over again for the 4th time on my mission.  I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon.  I have been able to come so much closer to my Savior by reading it.  I know so strongly that it is the keystone of our religion.  If we want to stay strong in our testimony we have to hold strong to the Book of Mormon.  I am so grateful that I have been able to read it every day along with the New Testament.

Emotions are all over the place here in Dallas but I am so grateful for these last few weeks that I have to serve the Lord.  I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Xoxo

Sis Giff

April Fools

Hello everyone!

We had a great week! Lots of crazy stuff going on.

I will start off and tell you about my blonde moments...So April 1st we wake up extra early so that we can go for a nice run.  Well when you wake up extra early some times your brain isn't working...When we got back from our run….Our door was locked and we had no key.  Luckily we took our phone with us. There was no spare key outside and our land lord was out of town, and is for the next three weeks. There are no windows you can crawl through so we were like oh boy...what do we do???  We tried opening it with nails, screws, twigs….(yes just imagine two losers trying to pick a lock haha)  Well we called the Elders and of course they were determined they would be able to open it.  After about an hour they were able to open our door with a credit card.  We learned our lesson to run with our apartment key haha.

Well the next day, we were on exchanges and there was another sister with me here in Dallas.  We were going to see a potential and there was nowhere to park so I just decided to park in a biking lane.  I thought ehhhhh…. we will only be a second it will be fine.  So we go to talk to the potential investigator but on the way we meet this less active family.  We talked to them for about 40 minutes when a cop pulls around and says, "Do you ladies happen to have a Toyota corolla parked in the middle of the road?"   He asked us to follow him and low and behold there were cop cars parked all around our car with their sirens going.  Oh man!  Well, I told him I was new to Dallas and he said, "Did you just turn 16?"     uhh...hahah anyway he let me off with a warning thank heavens!  So always remember that Heavenly Father likes April Fools day too :)

Well the most exciting thing about this week is the Kiner family. They are a family that have many many members involved in their lives and finally have decided that want to hear what it’s all about.  Brother Kiner had a list of about 12 questions he has always wondered that no one has been able to answer. Thank the heavens for the Plan of Salvation because they all came from there. We will only be able to meet with them once a week but his question was, "So now that I feel I have found the truth, what am I going to do with it?"   We are super excited to work with them!

We were able to have a few lessons with investigators that the Elders were working with.  Unfortunately over half of the teaching pool are people that probably won't be held accountable for decisions they make in life.  We continue finding and we are striving to get as many referrals as possible from members.

I am so grateful for the opportunity that we had to watch General Conference. We had an investigator named Lora come with us.  She really enjoyed it. Watching conference on the mission is like Christmas morning!  I am so grateful for our prophet.  I know that if we follow the council of the prophets and apostles we will never go astray.

What are you all going to change after watching this conference?  I learned that I am going to work a lot more on humility.  

Well family I sure love you and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love always,

Sister Gifford

Diversity will not separate us....

It started hailing super hard so I thought I'd take a picture

We tried to do a cute mother/daughter picture but she's too tall haha

The sisters in the Monmouth zone ❤️