Hermana Rebecca Gifford Serves in Oregon: February 9, 2015

Mommm :) Hola mama

Crazy to hear that every week someone else in the family is sick. You people need to start taking your vitamins :)

It was a pretty crazy week! Don't really know where to start. haha. Well we had our first lesson with Luz! Luz is a mom of four children. She was a referral from a member. The member came with us to the lesson and we talked about the restoration. She seems like a great potential and it was awesome to get a member to come with us. Members don't come out with us to lessons very often unfortunately. But we are excited for Luz and feel that she has potential.

I spent two days this past week in McMinville with Hermana Johnson who was in the MTC with me because Hermana Meise was doing leadership stuff. It was pretty intense that they put two trainees together, but it actually went super well. One of the days we decided that a family they are teaching is ready to be baptized so we needed to put them on date. I was pretty nervous, I had never put an investigator on date before. We gave them a date of February 15th and they were so excited. It was awesome they were saying how ready they are to be baptized. I know without a doubt that the Spirit was helping us talk because our Spanish is definitely not up to par to just get someone on date for baptism haha. I am super grateful for that experience. Exciting for their area that a whole family will be getting baptized!

When we were driving to McMinville we had to use the GPS. We were just going a long with it. Then, all of a sudden it said, “In point three miles board ferry.” The GPS seriously wanted us to board a ferry haha. What a joke! Also, we were looking up history on the GPS and we saw that you were cruising 95 mph on I-15....real smooth mom hahah :)

There was a man in the ward that passed away a couple of weeks ago. He has a grand daughter that is a senior in high school that was living with him. She took the lessons back in the summer but the missionaries dropped her because she wasn't reading or praying. When her grandpa passed away we went and visited her for awhile but she said she wasn't interested in taking the lessons again. Last night she texted us and asked if we could come over this week and teach her something about God. We are super excited. We know the plan of salvation will help her life tremendously.

This week Hermana Meise and I read a talk by Tad R. Callister about becoming a consecrated missionary and what that means. Before coming out I thought if you were exactly obedient that means you're a great missionary so I have always made sure that I am being exactly obedient. I was thinking how I would feel if it was my time to go home tomorrow. I definitely would not feel like I did all I could do. Being exactly obedient is great but that isn't enough. A consecrated missionary puts everything on the "alter of sacrifice" and is focused on their purpose 24/7 in all they do. I know it is going to be a process but I want to become a consecrated missionary so that when my time comes to go home I feel like I did all I could to serve the Lord.

Three again....Well I am back in a trio! We are now joined with Hermana Aubrey. Her companion went home so we will be in a trio for at least three weeks until the transfer is over. Being in a regular companionship is definitely a lot different than a trio! We will be covering two areas for three weeks so we should be busy busy!

Well I feel like a lot happened but I guess it is not that much! We are hoping that we have more time in Salem this week to get some work done to bring people unto Christ :)

I hope you all have a great week! Love you all!

Hermana Gifford