This Week was.....Something

So this week I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting, and the thoughts that have been most prevalent on my mind came out through the talk, so this is really what I wanted to share this week, plus some pictures of the week. Enjoy.

I would like to start with a quote,

“Those who have read [the Book of Mormon] prayerfully, be they rich or poor, learned or unlearned, have grown under its power. … Without reservation I promise you that if you will prayerfully read the Book of Mormon, regardless of how many times you previously have read it, there will come into your hearts … the Spirit of the Lord. There will come a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to his commandments, and there will come a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God”

That was by President Gordon B. Hinckley. Today I have been asked to talk about the role of the Book of Mormon in conversion, and I would like to focus my remarks on a few key points.

First, the promises in the Book of Mormon are extended to members of the Church, as well as those not of our Church. Secondly, I would like to discuss some of the key purposes of the Book of Mormon, and how they are connected with true conversion. And finally, I would like to pull it all together with why any of this means anything to us.

Now the promises of the Book of Mormon are many. I'm sure if I asked everyone here, the majority would mention Moroni's promise, which tells us that with sincere desire and honest prayer, we can know of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. That is a wonderful promise, and one that I hope we are using everyday, but let's talk about some others.

Let's start in Alma. Alma chapter 32 is a famous chapter for the prophet's discourse on faith, given to the humble people who had been sent away from the synagogues of the Zoramites. At this point they are about as low as they think they can get. But in the middle of Alma's speech on faith, he reminds them that sometimes being low is a good thing. Starting in verse 13 it reads,

13 And now, because ye are compelled to be humble blessed are ye; for a man sometimes, if he is compelled to be humble, seeketh repentance; and now surely, whosoever repenteth shall find mercy; and  he that findeth mercy and endureth to the end the same shall be saved.
14 And now, as I said unto you, that because ye were compelled to be humble ye were blessed, do ye not suppose that they are more blessed who truly humble themselves because of the word?
15 Yea, he that truly humbleth himself, and repenteth of his sins, and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed--

In these few short verses, Alma has given us a very large promise here. "Whosoever repenteth shall find mercy, and he that findeth mercy and endureth to the end the same shall be saved." This promise, though extended to people not of our faith, certainly applies to us as well.  If we humble ourselves and repent, mercy will be ours, and through mercy and endurance, eternal life.

My other example comes from Nephi, the first author in the Book of Mormon. In first Nephi chapter seven, Nephi's brothers are having a hard time being diligent, again. Verses 12 and 13 contain the promise he gives to them in this instance.

12 Yea, and how is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to him.
13 And if it so be that we are faithful to him, we shall obtain the land of promise;

Nephi's promise was simple. We shall obtain the land of promise. And guess what? They do! But the problems don't end there. In chapter 16, Nephi breaks a bow, and his family is without food. At this point even the prophet is murmuring because of affliction, but Nephi remembers the first promise I talked about, and the promise he gave his own brothers a little bit earlier. The Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him. So he does, builds a new bow, and asks his dad where to go for food. Lehi sees the faith of his son, and applies the promise from Alma 32 and humbles and repents of his murmuring, and for a time, all is well in the promised land.

My second point is simple. The key purposes of the Book of Mormon, and how they help in conversion. To start though, we need to define conversion. Most people talk about the term conversion as a one step process. You believe the church is true? Great, we will fill up the font, you change into white, and boom. Conversion. As wonderful as those things are, conversion is more than that. It's also not just something for people outside the church. Conversion is an ongoing process. I have found several definitions of conversion, but for today's purposes, the Oxford American dictionary had my favorite.  Speaking of conversion from a Christian perspective, it defined it as, "repentance and change to a godly life, or a turning of sinners to god." Pretty powerful stuff no? Keep that in mind as I go over some key purposes of the Book of Mormon.

One key purpose of the book is that it answers questions of the soul in ways that no other book can. I have yet to find an encyclopedia with answers to things like, "How can I avoid sin?" Or "What is the purpose of life?", but I testify to you that the Book of Mormon has those answers. It answers these questions and so many more. As we answer these questions, we feel a longing for something more.  Something beyond this mortal existence. This is the feeling that brings us closer to God. This is the process by which true conversion happens.

The Book of Mormon is also a support for our church and the associated doctrines. It has been said before that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion, and if we were to take it away, there would be nothing left of our religion. For those who aren't masons, myself included, lets talk about keystones for a second. Quoting from Preach my Gospel, here is a basic explanation about keystones.

"An arch is a strong architectural structure made from wedge-shaped pieces that lean against each other.  The middle piece, or keystone, is usually larger than the other wedges and locks the other stones in place. When Joseph Smith called the Book of Mormon “the keystone of our religion,” he taught that the Book of Mormon holds our religion together."

As the keystone, it serves a very important purpose. With one hundred percent accuracy it proves the truth or fraud of the prophets and church as a whole. The words of Elder F. Burton Howard when talking about the first vision of Joseph Smith can be directly applied to the Book of Mormon as well. He said simply,

"Either it is true, or it isn’t. If it is, it is the greatest message in all the world. Even someone who didn’t believe it could not pass by it without being profoundly affected.”

Now brothers and sisters, we are all here because at one point or another, we decided we believe in the Book of Mormon. My question today is the same as Alma to the saints in Zarahemla. "if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?" Have we been profoundly affected? The Book of Mormon helps us determine for ourselves one way or the other if this church is true. This is God's way to letting us gain proof of his teachings. The rest of the church depends on the truth contained in the book.

The simplest promise of the Book of Mormon comes from the prophet Joseph Smith himself. He said,

"I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man could get nearer to God by abiding by it's precepts than by any other book."

Going back to the definition that I mentioned earlier. Repentance and change to a godly life, and turning of sinners to God. These things are all promised by the Book of Mormon, and there is no better way.  There are things in the world that can make us better, but that is not conversion. There are things that can teach us about Christ's life, but that is not conversion. It would even be possible for someone to join our own church without a testimony of the Book of Mormon, but that is not conversion. Changing to a godly life, and turning ourselves to god is done through the principles and doctrines taught in the Book of Mormon.

I would like to conclude with a story from the Ensign.

As members of the Church, we talk about missionary work often. But it is exciting when we actually get to go beyond the talking and have a chance to be a missionary.

Such an opportunity came to me on a flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles.  My friend and I were returning home to the United States from China, and we were seated next to a man named Paul. He was returning home to Los Angeles, California, USA.

With an 11-hour flight ahead of us, we introduced ourselves and started a casual conversation: who we were, where we had been traveling, where we lived, and so on. It was the “where we lived” part that seemed to pique Paul’s curiosity. When he discovered that both my friend and I lived in Utah, within minutes of Brigham Young University, he immediately asked if we were Mormon. Our response was an enthusiastic “Yes!”

He then asked, “Are you Christians?” We quickly said that we were. We told Paul that the name of the Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, should be solid proof that we are, indeed, Christians. After a lengthy discussion about how many of our beliefs were similar to other Christian denominations, my friend and I leaned back in our seats, satisfied that we had enjoyed a successful missionary moment.

Knowing that lunch would be served soon, I got up to stretch my legs.  It was then that I thought that what we had shared with Paul, though nice, was not all that we needed to share. We were so worried about making sure he knew the similarities between our Church and others that we spent the time convincing him that Latter-day Saints were not so different. I had completely neglected to tell him what makes our Church so extraordinarily different. As I returned to my seat, I resolved to finish our discussion as it should have been finished.

I sat down, leaned over my friend (who was in the middle seat), and said, “Paul, there are a couple of other things you should know. Jesus Christ is most certainly my Lord and Savior, and He is the very center of the church we belong to. However, I neglected to tell you some other important details.”

We talked about Joseph Smith and the First Vision. We discussed the Book of Mormon, the restoration of the priesthood, and other important teachings of the gospel. As we talked, I silently uttered a prayer that we could say the right things. It was a great experience to discuss the fundamental aspects of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--the parts that make our beliefs so unique. It felt good to share not only my love for the Savior but also my testimony of the Restoration of His gospel. As frightening as it seemed at moments, sharing the gospel with Paul was tremendously rewarding.

This, to me, is the main role of the Book of Mormon in conversion.  Conversion is an action, and a process. There has to be a reason to change. The Book of Mormon is our reason to change. It is what makes us different from the world, and what brings us closer to Christ. As we prayerfully study the Book of Mormon, we will feel that start to work within us. We will change to be better and different people, to a godly life. The Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion, and without it, everything else falls. As we consider our own arch of conversion, the important question is whether or not the Book of Mormon is a large enough rock in our lives to support the rest of it?

I know the Book of Mormon has changed my life, and it can change all of yours, and it can be the driving force in your own personal conversion. I love you all, and The Lord loves you all. Have a great week.

-Elder Logan Gifford

First picture is our well coordinated district last week for Chi-ball.  For anyone interested, Chi-ball is basically softball with no gloves, very few rules, and a basic attitude of ruthlessness. It's a beautiful thing.

Picture two is a group shot of both zones who came to play. It was quite the turn out.

And number three is my good friend Santa here. Turns out, even though it's June, (woah. It's June already, and almost over. Crazy.) that Santa Claus is still hanging out around Chicago. Guess I found his summer home.

Crazy Couple of Weeks

Hey y'all,

So as you may or may not know, depending on how often you actually read these emails, I didn't send anything last week. Sorry about that.   We had a super full day and I had barely enough time in the day to get everything else done, and unfortunately this sort of fell by the way side.

This week my email is more going to be informational than spiritual.

So last week was a free admission day to the Field Museum in downtown Chicago, (if you are like me and have no idea what that is, I think Google can help.) So we figured why not? It's free, it's a great
museum, and it's only a half hour train ride away? Sounds like a deal to me. So we went down and spent the entire day in downtown Chicago.  We went to the museum, took some pictures, walked around and just basically had a good time.

Tuesday we spent the entire day looking up referrals and less-active members. Side note for everyone out there, if you live in the Logan Square boundaries, but choose to go to the Westchester ward simply
because you don't like the people in Logan Square, YOU ARE STILL LESS-ACTIVE! You are supposed to be going somewhere else. The organization of the church is set up this way for a purpose. The Bishop of another ward can't receive revelation for you. You can't receive callings in another ward, which means you aren't fully living the gospel. There are all sorts of reasons why you are supposed to be attending the ward whose boundaries you live in. Not going to your ward makes you less active. Just saying.

Wednesday was a zone conference, which was about three hours longer than we had planned. Not sure how that worked, but it did. Pretty much took the entire day, except the small hour we had to teach one of our investigators, Eric. We taught him about repentance and the atonement, and really established with him that if he wants his life to be different, he needs to change his lifestyle. IE- if you don't want to
get jumped by the current members of your former gang, stop dressing like a gang-banger. Eric is amazing, and will be so solid in the gospel when he turns things around, but I'm really starting to see how hard it is for people to change their entire lives to fit what they know to be right.

Thursday was spent planning, organizing and answering questions. Our area book is so cluttered and doesn't make any sense, and none of the addresses are complete, so they won't actually register to anything when we look it up. But don't worry, I changed that. Since coming out on my mission I have learned about a whole different style of life.  Organization. Things are so much easier when everything makes sense and is where it is supposed to be. It just makes sense. Also, I started reading the Doctrine and Covenants from cover to cover this week, along with my reading of the Book of Mormon, (Cat, are you having a hard time getting spiritual things from the war chapters? Because I definitely am. We will have to go over it together and make sense of it all.) and guess what? We meet with a recent convert every week, and might be able to go to the temple with him soon, but he had a bunch of questions written down for us this Thursday, and guess what they were all about? That's right, The Doctrine and Covenants. So guess who was able to answer all his questions? This guy. That's right folks, scripture study truly is an inspired commandment.

Friday was a full day or riding around trying to contact people before Puerto Rican Weekend started up, (this is a festival celebrating Puerto Rican culture and last about four days, and this weekend was just the pre-party. The real festival is in a couple weeks and runs for about 8 days straight) with little success. We ended up biking about 22 miles that day, making it the second most we have ridden in one day since I've been here. The record for me is 26 in case anyone is wondering. And yes, that's a marathon.

Saturday I went on an exchange with our district leader, and that was a ton of fun. Unfortunately we were slowed down a little bit because he had been hit by a taxi a few days earlier, and he was fine, but his bike was toast. So we were on the bus all day, and the bus is super slow. We ended up getting close enough to our area and then walking the rest of the day. We spent a lot of time contacting the The
Projects, and answered a lot of questions about God and Jesus. The majority of the questions were serious and spiritual, but we did get quite a few people ask us why people always assume Jesus was white. We spent plenty of time explaining that Jesus very well could be black, and we would love and worship him just the same if he was, but it's not his skin color that matters, it's what he did for us. So if they want to accept black Jesus as their Savior, then feel free, because he is the same Savior no matter what color his skin is.

Sunday was a regular day of church, and it was wonderful as always, but then after studies we tried to go out for the night and found that my comp had a flat, so we came in and repaired it, went out again, and a little while later the same tire was flat, so we went back home and fixed it again, but in a different place, new hole. Third time out the door we made it a bit farther before the tire was flat again.  Returned to the apartment to find that the first patch wasn't holding, and had ripped a bigger hole in the tube. It was at this point that we gave up on the bikes and spent the last 45 minutes of the night walking around
a park near our house trying to talk with people. Apparently we just really weren't supposed to be riding bikes last night. Oh well.

That about sums up the week, and I've got to go anyway so I can get ready for a zone activity. We will be playing Chicago ball.......whatever that is..... I guess I'll let you know what it is next week.

The Church is true, your body is a temple, and don't do drugs.
God loves you.
I love you.

-Elder Logan Gifford

P.S.

This week I found a couple of really cool picture spots, but this first one is the best I got out of those. The second one was my dinner last night, proving that even though we are poor missionaries, with the right ingredients and generous leftovers from members, I can still eat like a king. And the third is just something I found walking around Logan Square. That place always feels like home. ;)

Love y'all! Have a great week!

"I'll take definitions for 1,000 Alex!"

So the definition is- "Moving from Buffalo Grove, where the houses are mansions and the people have more money than they know what to do with, to Logan Square, right in the middle of the city in a bike area where two locks are required to keep all of your bike safe and you can go for three to four hours at a time without seeing anyone else who looks anything like me, that would be fair skinned, ginger, pale, Caucasian, or plain and simple white."   (Not to be racist or anything)

........ What is, Culture Shock?

Close, but we were looking for the best experience in the world. That was the correct answer.

Hey all!

This week was transfers y'all! I got shipped out straight to the city!  And let me tell you, culture shock is also a correct definition of what just happened to me. But even more importantly I love it here!  The area is great, the people are wonderful, the ward is humble, it's all just great.

There is so much I could tell, but I do better with questions, so I have one story for today, and then the assignment falls to you to send me questions about my new area, the work, or really anything you want
to know, and I will try and include it in my next email.

This Saturday we were on the way home from a baptism and decided to stop by an old PNI (Potential New Investigator) to see if we could teach them. You know, no time wasted, right? So we come up to the building and realize we don't know what buzzer is his, so we decided to just start trying and asking for Josh, seeing what we could find out. After a few buzzers that weren't him and didn't know who he was, someone walks up behind us and says, "Hey are you looking for Josh?  Because that's me." We had walked past him on the way to the building and he had been standing there listening to us for the past five minutes! Well we asked if he would be interested in hearing a message from us about Christ, and he said what every missionary loves to hear.  "Sure, you can share it right now. Go right ahead." So, we did. We taught him he first lesson, (The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ) and he listened and loved everything we were teaching him. We got to the end of the lesson and challenged him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, he accepted, and we set up a return appointment for the next week. As we were finishing up we asked if we could end with a word of prayer and he said yes, so we asked if he would say it and he did! Not only was this amazing because it was our first time meeting him and we were standing on the sidewalk in front of his apartment building, but the prayer itself was amazing. This is the point of all of this email. When he was praying, he poured out his heart to God, and he said something that struck my soul. I can honestly say that.

"....and dear Lord, thank you for letting us live through another day."

Are we as grateful for the blessings that we have as this young man was for the simple fact of being alive through another day? I challenge you to try and find more things to be that grateful for.

I love you all, and so does our Father in Heaven.

And some pictures just for fun!

-Elder Logan Gifford

1) is the best place I have found that says Logan Square, so here we have Logan Sqaure, Squared. Boo-yah.

2) here's my new ride,

3) and here is a shot of my new companion and I helmet shopping, I think we found the right ones, don't you?

And the Waiting Begins

Hey all!

So maybe this is just me, and any of you who are or have been missionaries, feel free to weigh in, but isn't the week before transfers just nerve-wracking?  We get our transfer calls this coming Saturday, and then transfers are the Tuesday after.  I am not packing or placing any bets on it, but I might be transferred this time around. Guess we will wait and see.

This week I have been thinking a lot about.....well..... a lot.   Mostly consecration.  But what does it mean to be consecrated?  There are all sorts of definitions, but the most widely accepted and known is probably this.

"It is a willingness to give every ounce of energy, every conscious thought, and every drop of passion to this work- to submit our will to God's will whatever it may be." (Elder Tad R. Callister)

Man, that's hard.  How do you completely give yourself to a cause like that?  This is the question that every missionary asks themselves every morning. 'How do I do what He wants me to?' 'How do I lose myself?'  'How can what I give ever be enough?'  These are questions I have yet, to find the answers, I have to work at it every day.  If you have any insight, feel free to share!

As for my week, things were pretty regular.  Our Mission President has asked Elder T. and myself to be serving as much as possible, so we do what we can.  Tracting is not effective here, so we help the ward
members out instead, and then serve others with them.  Last week alone we spent 15 hours in service of one form or another, and this week we have 18 planned out so far, and keep praying for more to come up!  I'll let you know what we accomplish next week.

I guess the important thing to remember is that it's The Lord's work in whatever form it is.  I keep telling myself that, and so far it seems to be true.  Remember that, wherever you are.  The Lord has work for you to do, and once you find out what it is, do it continually, reminding yourself that it is His work, and that's all you need to know.

I love you all. The Church is true, your body is a temple, don't do drugs. It's that simple y'all!

-Elder Logan Gifford

The Week has Come and Gone

Hey loved ones!

This week has been fairly uneventful, but I did have one fairly cool story to tell, so here is my miracle for the week!

So there is a main road here named Sheridan.  We drive on Sheridan almost every single day, so we are well familiar with it. (or at least I am. Elder T is getting used to things) There are signs all over the east side of Sheridan Rd. that say "NO PARKING EAST OF SHERIDAN ROAD ON ALL STREETS" so naturally, we never do. But then one day we were tracting east of Sheridan, and a resident there asked us where we
park, and we told her we park and walk, and her exact words were, "Oh, don't listen to those signs. That only matters in July and August when the beach is open. They try to keep the teenage kids off the roads
when they are at the beach."   So, later that week we parked there, for like less than an hour and for the first time, ever.   At the last house we were going to tract in that area, we found a wonderful little old lady who is going to have us help her move later in the month, (May) and she was just precious, right? So of course, we talk to her for like 15 minutes, get back to the car, and the ticket was written 5 minutes ago.   So the devil was really trying to get us to not find this lady.   If we hadn't talked to her, no ticket, right? Boom!   So that just tells me how important it is that we found this lady, and we need to make sure we take good care of her.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning, we head into the police station to pay the ticket and the nice lady working at the counter there starts talking to us. (understand the personality of this woman, think the mother from my big fat greek wedding.  She is Serbian and doesn’t have the accent, but she just reminds me of her.)  She knows we are missionaries, because we told her. You never lose out on an
opportunity to try and contact someone, no matter the situation.   She looks at the ticket and goes, "Wooh! Why would two young men as nice and professional as you do something that stupid? Didn't you read the signs?"   We tell her the situation and what happened, and she says something along the lines of, give me a minute to run this up.  Elder T asks her if she takes card because that is the only way we can pay, and she stops what she is doing, looks right at us and says, "Boy, give me a minute.  I am trying to work, but I can't do anything with all your question asking.  Of course we take cards. This is the 21^st century."   Then she goes back to typing.   A minute or two later she walks up and says, (here comes the miracle) "Well men, I can't void your ticket.  But with my pen and signature here, I can change the fine to whatever I want. How does $15 sound to you?"   Naturally we agreed with many thanks and ecstatic praise, and paid the nice woman.  We asked her if there was anything we could to do make it up to her, and she told us that as long as we kept preaching the good word of God, then we had done all we needed to. It was a fantastic way to start the morning.

That's really all I have to say for this week, but that says a lot right there I think.

I love you all. God loves you all.

Have a great week.

-Elder Logan Gifford

Dear Loved Ones

This week has been fairly uneventful, but I wanted to take a chance to send this email for the sole purpose of letting you know I have a testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ.

As we celebrated Easter yesterday, it gave me a chance to reflect on what it really means. I know that the true reason we celebrate is for what the resurrection of Christ means. It means that we will be free
of death. Through him we can be free from the bonds of physical death, and more importantly spiritual death. This is a blessing that I have learned to appreciate every day of my life. This is short, but it's
all that I really have to say.

I know that Christ is our Savior. I know that through him we can all be free of sin and death, and that we can return to live with our Heavenly Father. I know that it is through this gospel that we can make all of this possible, and what a gift it is to us. I am here for a reason, and that is to share it with other people.

I love you all. God loves you all. Have a great week.

-Elder Logan Gifford

What Wonderful Week

Hello everyone! Dearest family and friends, I love you all! This week has been a crazy one, and a beautiful one.

I have found I do things best by telling stories through pictures, so here goes.

1) This one is the most important thing that happened this week! M got baptized! It was so exciting, and was just a wonderful experience.  B baptized him, he is a member here in the ward, and they have formed a great friendship. It's wonderful to see the members get involved in the work here. I confirmed him on Sunday, but I don't have any pictures of that, so yeah. :)

2) The lake is beautiful this time of year. We found out that our area actually extends about a half mile into the lake, so we are hoping to get permission to go out and see if there are any mer-people who want to be taught.... Until then, we just tract next to the lake to get pretty views while we work. :)

3) This picture may seem trivial, but it got me thinking. This police officer was waiting here to catch any one who decided to speed through or run a light. He was literally sitting on the island of a light post, just waiting. You would think this was way too obvious, and everybody would see him. But would he be parked there if it wasn't worth his time? Sometimes the adversary is like this with us. He will just park himself in an obvious place, and wait for us to do something wrong, and trap us there. Sometimes we see him, and still make the mistake. Other times we gets caught and wonder how we never saw him
hiding in plain sight. The best advice I think anyone could ever get, is to 'obey the law' whether you see the trap or not. If you are always doing what is right, you never have to worry about being caught
doing something wrong.

4) The last one also has a thought behind it. We were tracting and a woman was cleaning her garage. We stopped to talk and offered to help. She had just finished, so she declined the offer, but she wanted to talk, so we stood around in her driveway and chatted for a while. We saw this car in the garage, and (obviously) started drooling over it.  She got us some water, and we asked if we could take pictures. She
said of course, and told us that this was her husbands car and he LOVED it. We continued talking, and a few minutes later her husband pulled up. We started talking with him too, and mentioned the car.
(Come on, someone has a Ferrari California and you don't ask them about it? As if.) he told us he did, in fact love his car, but finished the statement with something extremely profound. "Sure it's nice, but it's just a car, isn't it? It's not like it matters in the end." How often do we, as humans, as members of the church, as Americans, forget this? They are just objects. It's not like they matter in the end. One of my favorite plays is simply titled 'You Can't Take It With You.' Sure, things are nice, and money is good. But
you can't take it with you, so does it matter at the end of the day?

The week was great, but oh! Transfer calls! I guess I should tell you about that. I'm........staying! So is Elder T, so we will be together at our six month mark, so that will be exciting. I'm taking a lot more pictures, so I think that is what most of my emails will consist of from here on out. I do miss my beautiful camera at home, but I guess what I have will have to do.

Well, other than that, the week was business as usual. I love you all!
Have a great week!

-Elder Logan Gifford

A Bit of Conference Love

Hey y'all!

General Conference was sure amazing wasn't it? For anyone out there who hasn't watched yet, don't worry, there is time to repent! And as Elder Utchdorf told us last conference, the second best time is right now. Go!

Now that you're back, we can continue. That sure was amazing wasn't it?

I don't have a ton to say, but I'll highlight a few of my favorites.

Elder Holland-
"If you haven't already, you will one day find an opportunity when you will have to defend your faith." How powerful is that? I have gotten used to defending my faith sometimes on a daily basis, so this came as a surprise to me, thinking back and realizing that not everyone out there is going through this like I am. It also gave me some confidence when he said that sometimes standing up for your faith and being a missionary just means that you are "called to worry, to warn, and sometimes just to weep." That was comforting.

Elder Rasband-
That story was amazing wasn't it? There wasn't much else I wanted to say about that one other than it was inspiring! Awesome!

Sister Reeves-
"The best filter for pornography or unclean thoughts is a sure testimony in the savior Jesus Christ." That says it all. Do we all have our filtering system turned on?

A couple more noteworthy quotes from the conference:

"If blessings came immediately, then choosing the right would not build faith."
-Henry B. Eyring

"What are we missing if we are ever learning but failing to ever come to the knowledge of the truth?"
- Russell M. Nelson

"There is no up or down. Simply backwards or forwards, and that depends on the person who is called."
"Gaining exaltation is not a matter of asserting rights, but fulfilling responsibilities."
- Dallin H. Oaks

"Hearing a worthy message is of little value unless we are willing to accept and act on the message."
- Donald L. Hallstrom

"With the click of a button, you can gain access to whatever your heart desires. That's the key. What does your heart desire?"
-Randall L. Ridd

"Being a disciple of Christ is not an effort of once a week or once a day. It is an effort of once and for all."
- Dieter F. Utchdorf

"Do not that which is easy, but that which is right."
- Thomas S. Monson

"How often are we waiting to find the rainbow before thanking God that there is rain?"
-Dieter F. Utchdorf

"No matter how good your message is you may not get a chance to deliver it without consistent and persistent follow up."
- M. Russell Ballard

Of course there were a bunch of other amazing talks, but those were the ones that stood out to me as I was reviewing my notes.

I love you.
God loves you.
This Gospel is true.

And a random lake view picture, just because!

-Elder Logan Gifford

A Sigh

This week has been so crazy, and so amazing.  I have a ton of things to get done today, so this will be shorter, but I wanted to email out anyway and let you all know how amazing The Lord's work is. Last week I was having a very hard time with not having much work in the area.  We didn't have any investigators, and no one wanting us to teach them, and it was overall just a discouraging time. I contacted my mission president to ask for some advice, and he told me that he would be in my area on Thursday, and could meet with me then, but until then, to just fully consecrate myself and trust in The Lord.

I thought this sounded a little redundant, because I felt like I was doing that already. Of course, trying to be obedient, I knelt in prayer and re-dedicated myself and said something along the lines of, 'I can't  figure this out on my own, so it's in your hands now!'  And I'm pretty sure I could feel the sigh of relief when The Lord said, 'Finally! I've been waiting far too long Elder Gifford!'

Miracle #1
Less than three hours later we were doing our laundry, (laundry room is occupied all day, doing it before bed is faster) and we started talking to someone we had seen before, and been friendly with, but never tried to contact as missionaries. So instead of waiting for us to contact her, she contacted us. She asked about what we do, what we believe in, and invited us over to teach her and her fiancee the next evening. (Their little girl had a fever and has been sick for the last few days, so we haven't taught them yet, but they are reading the Book of Mormon, which says it better than we ever could.) Miracle

Miracle #2
Wednesday morning, we got a call from our Bishop's wife. She informed us that she had just gotten off the phone with a young man from Vietnam, and he goes to school in Lake Forest, (super rich community
in my area) and has been in Vietnam on Spring Break. While he was there, he has been taking the lessons with his Mother, and upon his return to America, wants to continue learning from us, and be baptized. Wait just a darn second, did you just say that we have skipped past new investigator status and went straight to committed to baptism? Why yes, yes we did. So he has been going to Church there,
and has been taught all of the lessons but one, and wants to be baptized as soon as he can, which will be next weekend or the one after. He just got back in town yesterday, so we haven't met him face to face yet, but just emailing him, you can feel his testimony and his dedication to changing his life for this Gospel. It's beautiful.  More to come on Minh later. (That's his name.) Miracle

Those two miracles were just what we needed to have a renewed energy and attack this area. Things are coming along here in Buffalo Grove, slowly but surely.

I know this is truly God's work, and he is just waiting to make it happen. As we cons create ourselves more fully, he will open up doors we didn't know we had. Keep smiling, keep working, keep consecrated. I love you, and so does your Father in Heaven.

-Elder Logan Gifford

PS some Photos

Oh goodness, where to start. I have been taking a lot more pictures lately, because I feel bad that I don't have anything to show you all, so there are a few here.

Let's start with FMSC! That stands for Feed My Starving Children. This is an organization that we have been serving at for several months now, and we love it there. The work they do is simply tremendous, and they give all of the success to God, recognizing that without His help, none of this would happen. This is my district, (minus two Sisters) standing in front of the numbers for our two hour session. We
have gotten really good, and really fast. They say that on average, every volunteer packs one box of food, or 216 meals, in a two hour session, but last time each of the members of our group averaged out
at 2.85 boxes packed in two hours. We have a really good system set up. :)

The next one is taken at Bernie's Book Bank, which is awesome. They collect and distribute books to kids in the Chicagoland area who wouldn't normally get books as a child. They provide every kid in the Chicagoland area with 12 new books every school year. It's also an amazing organization, and we are proud to serve there.

The third, fourth and fifth ones are just exciting things we have received over the last week. We were talking about how the weather is starting to turn nice, and we would love to start riding bikes around,
and then I remembered that there were two extra bikes in another apartment, so we went and got them. Yay for bikes!! The fourth one is my personal favorite. You all know how much I like to dress up, but I also love variety. That is not something you get a lot as a missionary. So when a ward member asked if I wanted some of his old suits, (they fit me, but not my companion) I jumped on it. He gave us six suits, (jacket and pants) eight pairs of slacks, five ties, and a pair of shoes!  My companion didn't like the ties, and these are all of the clothes that fit me, so the rest will be added to the abyss that is a missionary apartment. Some other Elder can find some new suits. So I am excited to add a little color to my wardrobe. :) Blue with pinstripes, dark brown, and light gray with pinstripes? Don't mind if I do. :)

The last one if for you Mama. This is to show you how grateful I am for my pillow case and the body pillow. My bed may look pampered, (and it is) but it means I sleep well, so I don't mind at all. :)

I love you all! Enjoy, and have a great week!

This week has been a crazy one

So today, I am going to tell about my week through pictures.

The first one is the highest temperature that I have ever seen since coming to Chicago, 52F.  Mind you I arrived almost 4 months ago.  I wish I had taken a picture of someone on a motorcycle, because those were pulled out this week too. The air is ringing with the beautiful music of 4 stroke engines and people driving convertibles with the tops down. :)

 The next one is a celebration of sorts!  When you are a missionary in BG2, and have a birthday, you always spend it with the A. family, and this is how we celebrate at the A. home. We sing in two

languages, and then we smash their face into the cake.   Good times for everyone.   So Happy Birthday to my companion! (He turned 19)

The next two are also connected. This is what happens when your dishwasher decided that emptying the used water is not necessary, but would actually better serve a purpose ALL OVER THE KITCHEN FLOOR!! But hey, at least we have a dishwasher....... Kind of......

The next one just makes me laugh. A member of our ward was traveling and made it back into town for sacrament yesterday. They come up to me all excited and told me that while they were visiting family in
Cincinnati, Ohio, they met the missionaries there. Lo and behold, one of these Sisters knows me! From there the story just got bigger and bigger.
'She knows you!' Says he.
'You went to high school together!' Adds his wife.
'She says you are friends!'
'She says you've gone on several dates!'

'Well, what's her name?'
'Oh I don't know. I forgot. But, I did take a picture of her so I could show you later. But I forgot it at home. I'll send it to you later.'

So hours later I get a message from him with our last picture in it.  Sister C. B.! The mystery is solved! And sure enough, they are right on all counts. She is from Magna, we did go to school together,
we are friends, and we have been on several dates together. Small world, no?

So I got a haircut today, and I think it looks pretty good. This guy in the area cuts missionaries hair for free if they clean up the shop, so we frequent his place. I told him that I wanted it trimmed back to
what he did last time, but I wanted the hair off my ears, so he does this, gives me a straight razor shave an inch off the ears. And honestly, I'm loving it! Might not be a forever thing, but for now, I'm really liking this.

And my personal favorite of the day, the sword he has hanging in his shop. Look at that thing. It's beautiful!

Well I'm sorry that things haven't really been spiritual in this email, but I'm short on time today, and doing this is faster. But I love you all and pray for you! Have a great week!

-Elder Logan Gifford

Transfers already? That can't be right...

So the email today is more informational than anything else, but hey, it's something.

Transfers are tomorrow, and I'm not going anywhere. My companion is however. So I will be getting a new companion, Elder T. We came out on the same plane, so because I know the area, that makes me senior companion for at least the first transfer we are together.  Crazy right? I don't know enough to be a senior companion yet!

The other big thing I wanted to talk about is a mission wide fast we just had, and I will probably be repeating several times this month.  Our mission president has decided that we aren't baptizing nearly enough people, so what does he do? Takes it to The Lord of course!

Yesterday we all fasted for the same thing. That every single companionship in the entire mission will be able to bring at least one person into the waters of baptism by April 13th. That's roughly 125 baptisms in the next month. Can we do it? Heck yeah! And we are going to! The first place for us however is finding someone to teach. Then we can start thinking about the whole baptism thing. :) it's definitely a testimony to me of the power of fasting and prayer though. To know that with faith we can accomplish this enormous goal, that's amazing. Elder T and I are going to tear up the area and we are going to baptize at least two people by that day. Goals are only worth it if you aim high, right?

The last thought I wanted to mention is something that a departing Elder in my district said at district meeting last week. 'Every new area or new companion is a brand new mission.' I love that. How cool is that? We all make mistakes. We all have hard days, weeks, or transfers. But as soon as you get that new companion or area, nothing from the last one has to cross over. It's all a new slate. That's my goal for when I pick up my new companion tomorrow. Brand new mission.  So wish me luck, I'm getting ready to serve my third brand new mission.

Like I said, mostly informational, and not very long. But I want you all to know that I have such a strong testimony of the power of prayer and fasting, and I know that if we work hard at this goal and give it our all, that we will accomplish it.

I love you.
The Lord loves you.
Your Mom loves you. (Well it's true!)
The Church is true, your body is a Temple, DON'T DO DRUGS!

-Elder Logan Gifford

'Do as I say, not as I do'... Uh, no.

So guess what I found out last Monday? The Internet at my church building is completely unreliable.  Completely.   I wrote and sent this last week, and I guess it never actually got out. So look at this, you get two emails from Elder Gifford this week! Yay! Or whatever exclamation you would put on this. Love y'all!

This week has been wild. We attended a baptism for one of the Sister's investigators, now new-convert.  We had exchanges.   We had an investigator schedule an appointment with us instead of the other way around. We were consistently late to every meeting due to traffic. We learned the importance of leading by example. We tracted (housed) a ton, not out of the ordinary. We actually got a hold of one of our elusive less-active members. We got a new version of our planning application that looks exactly like the old one. We had pizza about a million times this week and didn't pay for a single slice. We got rebuked for not imposing on members to be fed more often. (Seems a little backwards, don't you think?)

The Baptism-
Jenn Haynes is the coolest convert ever. Elder W. had to interview her this week because he is the District Leader, so we had a chance to go over to her house and get to know her and her husband a little better.  While we were there the Sister missionaries who taught her stopped by and were asking her if she would mind fellow-shipping an investigator they are teaching. Mind you, this woman isn't even a member yet, and she jumped on it. "I would love to! Just let me know when you are teaching her next and I would love to come!" It's harder to get members to come to lessons than it was to ask Jenn to come. She rocks, and she got baptized on Saturday, and confirmed on Sunday. I was asked to stand in the circle to confirm her, which is the first time I have ever done that, so it was a pretty great experience.

Dinner with Dottie-
We had an investigator text us on Thursday night and ask us if we would like to go to dinner with her Friday night. Like we are going to say no to that? The cool part is that she has been falling out of our investigator category because she always has a hard time keeping appointments, but here she is trying to get a hold of us to meet. Whoa right? We went and had dinner with her on Friday and we had a wonderful time, and we managed to teach her a short lesson about the importance of the Book of Mormon, even in the midst of a bustling restaurant. It was pretty great.

Leading by example-
Our ward is amazing. Really, they are. They have made it a ward goal to never let the missionaries feed themselves, and have been pushing it really well. However, there has been a slight disconnect.   All of the leaders who were pushing so hard to have us fed every night, hadn't actually ever fed us..... So naturally the rest of the ward was super confused about why it was so important if they didn't feel it
was. So this week there was a large difference in the meal calendar, and it was all due to one tiny change. Each of those leaders signed up for a dinner appointment. After that, the ward realized they really thought it was important. Crazy how that works.

Out of that, the biggest thing I was you all to get is this. "Do as I say, not as I do" is bogus. That's all there is to it. In everything we do in life, people watch us. They watch us make good decisions and bad decisions. If we want good things for people around us, we need to be doing them ourselves. It's not enough to know how to receive blessings and tell someone to do it, we need to actually do it. So this next week I want you all to start leading by example. Make your decisions conscious of the fact that someone is watching you, because I guarantee they are.

I know that The Lord loves each of you personally.
I know that when we lead by example we are doing things the way that Christ would have us do them.
I know that this gospel is the only true way to find happiness in this life and eternal joy in the world to come.
I love you all.
The Church is true, your body is a Temple, DON'T DO DRUGS!

-Elder Logan Gifford

Today is a weird one!

I have plenty of time, and not much to say. You know this is strange for me, because normally it is the exact opposite.  I say so much all of the time that I don't really ever have enough time, but today I feel like I've run out of things to talk about. The biggest thing that has been coming to my mind lately is Family Home Evening.   It is so vital in our lives. When we neglect to have time together discussing the gospel as a family, we suffer.  Time and time again our leaders tell us how much it will bless us, and you never really notice the difference until you are without it.

So again, I know this is tiny, but that's really all I have to say today. Have Family Home Evening, it doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be perfect. But if you have it consistently, I can promise you that your families and your testimonies will grow stronger because of it.

I love you all and hope to hear from you.  (Seriously, someone shoot me a letter every once in a while!)

Elder Logan Gifford
800 Waukegan Rd. #203
Glenview, IL 60025

Have a wonderful week, and have a great Family Home Evening!

I love you!

- Elder Logan Gifford

Love From a Humble Slacker

So it's come to my attention that I haven't been very good about keeping people updated on how things are out here in good 'ole Buffalo Grove.   My sincerest apologies. Two weeks ago I was just super busy and spaced it entirely. Last week I did have something written up I wanted to send, but apparently I lost my Internet connection before the message has a chance to send. Well this week I'm trying to do better
on all aspects of my work, and part of that is doing a better job keeping in touch with family and friends back home.

This week has been an interesting one for sure. We have had a lot of opportunities for service lately, so I have gained a much better appreciation for a lot of simple things in life. Things like knowing I can pay for my next meal, or that even though my apartment isn't the nicest place I've lived, it's warm and has a bed. Things like retaining my health to a point that I can still shovel a driveway, drive, or make it to Church on Sunday.   Knowing that while bad things happen  everyday in the world, I can be comforted by my Savior. Not everybody has those things. In fact, most of the world is not fortunate enough to have ALL of those things. They may have food and shelter, but not health.  Or health and food, but no relationship with
God. How many things are there in your life that are blessings you look over?

Sometimes the blessings we have aren't the obvious ones. I found this week that I have been blessed with an increase in stamina. When my body says that I just can't take another step, somehow I do. When a study topic is just too long and hard, I always make it through.  Things like this are blessings, but do we really think about them that way? I know I haven't always.

This week I have become especially grateful for one of my newer, more practiced blessings of a more even temper. Those of you who have known me for any considerable amount of time know that I didn't have that a few years ago. I had a temper, and it wasn't very pretty. When I lost it, I lost friends. And who could blame them? I wouldn't want to be friends with me when I got angry. But I worked hard to change that. It was hard, and it took time. I'm still not perfect, but I like to think I'm doing better. This week we have had several occasions in different environments where 'old me' would have lost it, and hard. But to my own surprise, I was fine. It wasn't that the situations didn't upset me, they still did. But the difference was my reaction. I didn't feel the need to respond sharply, or to continue an argument if it was being started with me. And it surprised me how other people reacted.  One gentleman told us that our religion was 'just ridiculous' and wondered 'what would possess a person to believe that?!?' And I was tempted to respond with just how I felt about his words, but instead chose to calmly and simply bear testimony of the work I was doing, and it took the fire right out of him. He just looked at me and said,   'Well that's fine, I guess you're sticking up for what you believe.  I'm still not interested. Have a good day.' What had happened to the angry man we just talked to? I'm not sure, but I like to think that he learned what I did a long time ago. Having beliefs and opinions is great, and defending them is noble, but when you use a sworded  tongue, you mostly just cut up your mouth.

On another occasion, I was grateful for a combination of my developed temperament, and my ability to phrase things diplomatically. (Thanks Dad!) In a meeting we had this week, Bro. Johnson (names have been changed for privacy) asked another participant named Alex what his opinion was on the topic at hand. His response was that it sucked, and we were doing it all wrong, and it wasn't going to help anything if we did it that way. Everyone was surprised, and a few people were even a little offended. I could see that the situation was tense, so I tried to explain Alex's answer in a softer way, even adding that I agreed with him, but I thought it could be handled differently. Things were still tense for a minute or two, but everyone saw that Alex didn't mean offense, he just felt strongly about the topic.

Now, I just took up quite a chunk of space talking about personality or behavioral blessings, but I think it's just as important to address temporal welfare as well. Now most, if not all, of you reading this are pretty well off. You have things figured out, you can take care of yourself. But being in a good place isn't enough folks. There is someone out there who isn't. Today I want to challenge you to find them. Whatever situation they may be in, or wherever they are, you can find someone, I'm sure. Do something nice for someone else. Shovel a driveway, bake some cookies, donate some time at a charity, take someone dinner. The list of possibilities is endless, but each one is simply something you can do to bring someone else a little bit of light. You all have that light inside of you. It's a shame to waste it all on yourself. Give someone else of your light this week, and I can testify to you that you will feel blessed for it. You won't feel like you were giving up light, in fact, you will feel like they probably gave you some light. Do something good.

The Church is True.
Your Body is a Temple.
Don't Do Drugs.
All that good stuff.

Love you all!

-Elder Logan Gifford

PS - a few picture

This first one is a shout out to my little brother Landon, who got called to the best mission in the world for Missionary week back home.  Pretty soon I'll be expecting a real call letter with that same real call coming in a little while here. :)

The second and third ones are what happens when you give missionaries shovels and hard packed snow.   It was really tough to get out, so we figured if it was going to be hard work, we might as well enjoy
ourselves, right? Snow tunnel for the win folks.

After that we have Brother Lex and I. That man is awesome, and totally missionary driven. He is also Austrian, born and raised, so this outfit is to celebrate how well Austria is doing in the Olympics. I have no idea how USA is doing, but I guess Austria won the event they were hoping for, so it's worthy of celebration!

Have a wonderful week everyone! I love you all!

"...And ye shall come off conqueror."

My time is short this week, but that's okay because unfortunately I don't really have a lot to say. This week my companion and I were thinking about transfers, (we are both staying) and realizing that if either of us left, we would be leaving absolutely zero work to do in the area, so we prayed, and prayed, and the answer kind of scared us, so we prayed some more to be sure. The answer was the same. "You don't have work? FIND some."......... Uh, how much finding are we talking here? "You have six days until transfers, so right around six days worth." Yeah, that's right. Every moment away from home this week was spent on the streets of Buffalo Grove tracting. Our goal was to hit 40 solid hours for the week, and we actually ended up with like 41&1/2,so look at us go, right?

Okay, so that was a little bit of bragging there, just to say I did it, but here's the spiritual part. This Friday we were tracting in the 20 hour range, and we were exhausted. We had thought about stopping, or just driving around for a few minutes, but we knew we needed to keep going. We decided that we were going to hit four more houses and then move on to a different area to keep things fresh. We hit three houses, to no avail. No one even answered the door folks. We were having a rough night. Earlier that day we had been talking with a nice Christian couple about our work here, and they joked about finding lost sheep, and if they ever found one they would send them our way.  That night a few hours later as we started this street we prayed for a lost sheep. We just asked Heavenly Father to lead us to someone that
needed Him. And guess what, he did. Our last house for the hour, a nice English gentleman opened the door and when we asked if he would be interested in learning more about our Church, his response was,
"Sure, are you busy now? Come on in."  We taught him about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration, and set up a return appointment for later this week. As we were finishing up his exact words were, "It's amazing that you two showed up when you did. A week ago I never would have let you in, but right now I'm really searching for some direction in my life, and this might be it."  Guys, people are ready, they are out there. There are lost sheep looking for a shepherd. Don't give up on finding them. There really isn't much else I can say this week than what I have said. Keep looking, and you will find them.

I love you.
God loves you.

-Elder Logan Gifford

P.S.

A few pictures this week just because I am a dork and we had a long week. 

The first two is Elder W and I being dorks showing that we defeated that 40-hour tracting week, and did it with style. (Yes, that is an AR-15 I have modified to fire Mormon.org cards. It's exactly what it looks like.)

The third one is how we celebrated our victory.  That's right, we celebrate with class and calories. (I'm thinking of you here, you know who you are :D) 

The last one is just a subtle hint. Subtle though. 

Also, if your middle name happens to be Cat, look up Proverbs 25:25, I thought of you.

Faith, Planning and Other Extreme Sports

You all know how much I love stories, so I'm going to start off with a story about faith, and then the bulk of my message.  First off, go ahead and look at the first photo.  Take a look just to the right of the big lake in the middle. See that street called Calmwater Cv.? Okay, remember that. It's important. And don't look at
the other pictures yet. It kills the suspense.

So, our story begins with a daily planning session at the end of companion study time.  We were about to head out the door, and decided to prayerfully consider where to go tracting later in the day.   So we pull up this map, and narrow things down a little bit, and both my companion and I felt impressed that we should be in Libertyville, above one main road, and west of the river here. Sweet, good plan. We each took a copy of the map and started praying over each of the streets individually to see if we felt a particular impression with any of them. As we came back together in a few minutes, we had a couple of streets different from each other, but the one we both agreed on was Calmwater Cv. (please refer to the street I had you find earlier) and it was decided that we would start there, and work our way west of that street.

Fast forward to a few hours later, our appointed tracting hour for the day, and we make our way to that neighborhood, turn down the connecting street, and promptly see a dead end. Not just a dead end, but a dead end with a wall, and woods behind it.

At this point we are sore confused, and go back to our paper map instead of the digital layout we had.

Lo and behold, there is no street in existence called Calmwater Cv. nor is there even a street with a different name there.          

At this point we have no idea what to do, so naturally, we pray. With our car pointed at this dead end wall, we bowed our heads and prayed.  When we finished the prayer, we both had a distinct impression of, 'I told you to go there, didn't I? So go!' So, with the sun far gone, no idea what was ahead of us, we got out of the car, donned scarves and gloves, and went. We spent about twenty minutes stumbling through those woods looking for who knows what, and found pretty much nothing.  Cold, wet, and more confused than before, we got back in the car and left. We weren't sure what it meant, or why we needed to do it, but we did.

The next day, we got up and headed out for the day. We had some time before our scheduled service project for the day, so we decided to tract. We joked a little bit about tracting to houses instead of trees, but underneath the laughter we both knew there must have been some reason for the experience. As we spent less than 20 minutes knocking on doors, we placed 2 copies of the Book of Mormon, left our
number with 3 people, and had one religious discussion in the front room of a home. Mind you, this may not seem like much, but in our area, that's about a week put together. As we got back in the car to go to our next activity, we were walking on air.

Sometimes, to know if you REALLY trust Him, The Lord will ask you to tract in Calmwater Cv., just to see if you do it. Can I give you some advice? Walk through the woods for a few minutes. It's worth the cold
toes.

On to the other portion of my post. This week there has been a lot of discussion in the ward about the idea of creating Ward and Family Plans for the year, and I love the idea, so here goes!

Family (or personal) Plan for 2014

Do you have one?

"I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don't set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principle of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life." Elder M. Russell Ballard

This is step 1. 

Really simple, just as essential. When we need improvement in our lives, and we all do, there has to be some work on our part to get there. When the Brother of Jared had a problem, The Lord told him to make a plan, work on it, and THEN come back for some divine help. He wants to help us with all of our problems, but more importantly He wants us to grow from them, and growing pains are part of the plan. In Doctrine and Covenants section 9 it says "...you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong..."  When we make plans ourselves and then consult with The Lord about whether it is right, it is in accordance with the order we have been taught.

Just make some goals. If you don't read anything else in this entire email, I hope you read this. My invitation to you is going to be the same that we are extending to the ward that we are currently serving in.

My invitation to you is to make a Gospel Plan for your family, (or yourself) and the theme is this. "In 2014, I (we) will come closer unto Christ by..." And then I would suggest making specific goals in these four categories:

Temple and Family History Work- 

make reasonable goals based on your current standing. If you don't have a temple recommend, work towards that.  If you go once a year, up it to once a month.  If you don't know anything about Family History, learn about your grandparents first. If you index 5 names a month, make it 10. Wherever you are on the path, make your goal reasonable for your position. Don't make a goal based on what "Jonny Down-the-road" is doing lately. Make it personal.

Temporal Well-being- 

same concept as before, reasonable goals based on where you are, and what your needs are. If you exercise all the time but eat terribly, work on better menu choices. If you're spending too much time on work and not enough with your family, take a walk with the kids once a week, or go on a date with your husband/ wife every Friday.

Gospel Learning- 

can you guess what the outline is? You got it!  Reasonable and specific goals for where you are at now. If you want to learn more about the life of Christ, read chapters of the New Testament. If you are struggling to know how the Gospel is part of your everyday life, study the words of modern-day prophets in The Ensign or General Conference addresses.

And finally, Missionary Work- 

missionary work is going to be different for everyone. If you are outgoing and bold, make a goal to give away a Book of Mormon once a month. If that thought scares you, make a plan to slip the Church into a regular conversation this week, i.e.: "I learned something really interesting about my Church the other day, did you know...(insert intriguing fact about the Church)" Everyone is at a different place, but everyone has some way they can participate in missionary work. You just have to look for it.

Is it written down?

President Monson said it best when talking about goals and planning. He said,
"When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates."  President Thomas S. Monson

Imagine with me for a minute. Let's say you are training for a marathon, so you have a goal to run everyday.  So everyday you go running, and you come home one day to write down how the run was. Are you going to write down that today's run was better than yesterday's because you saw 4 more butterflies today? No. That is not an accurate way to track your improvement while training. You would write down how far you ran, how long it took you, and most importantly, how you are going to do better the next day. Are you going to run 10 miles instead of 8, or simply try and run 8 miles in 5 less minutes than before?

Mind you, that was one example, but it can be directly applied to all of these principles. Start with a goal, and make it specific. Write down the plan for how you are going to accomplish it, and check it regularly. When you are following the plan, or taking action, write that down too. How was it better than before? WAS it better than before? Update the goal to do more next time, and repeat the process.  Goals and planning aren't a 'One-Hit Wonder' kind of activity. They require time, accountability, and changes along the way.

Are you following it?

So you have a plan for yourself this year, great! Is it like your resolutions for last year? 'I worked out for the first SIX days of January!' Come on folks, let's get real.

The biggest problem with making plans or goals, is the follow through!  If you shoot a 3--pointer and stop halfway, it falls short. Without a back swing, you'll never make it to the green. A home-run is impossible without the follow through. Preach My Gospel is almost certainly my favorite book in the world, and guess what, it says something about this. (The wording has been adjusted slightly for my own purposes.)

"...Making a plan...without...DOING it...is like beginning a journey without finishing it or buying a ticket to a concert without going into the theater. Without the completed action, the...plan...is hollow.

Genuine...commitment...is best demonstrated by righteous actions over a period of time..."

How powerful is that? A council of The Lord's prophets wrote this.  Don't you think we should probably pay attention to it? Setting goals, making plans, saying 'I will...' is great, but it's not the end result. It's the first step in the journey. Just as baptism is not the destination. Enduring to the end is important. When you make a plan, plan to follow up with it regularly. Check on yourself once a month, more if needs be. If you know you aren't going to keep yourself in check, (guilty here) have someone else remind you.

This may seem trivial, and even boring, but let me tell you, it matters. When you plan and prepare yourself, opportunities arise that you couldn't imagine. The first step of any good structure is the plan. The same is true of our lives. If we want structure and stability, the best way to get it, is to plan to have it in the first place. Stability means something different for every person. What seems stable to you may look like a dangerous balancing act to another, while you feel their structure holds them down too much. Make your structure yours. I can promise you that as we plan the way The Lord would have us do it, and put all of our efforts into accomplishing those goals, we will be granted all righteous desires. I know that to be true, and I know you can too.

I love you.
Your Heavenly Father loves you.
Plan for success!


-Elder Logan Gifford

P.S. Here are some pictures of what cold can do: