Monday, April 28, 2014

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 21st 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

Monday, April 21, 2014

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

Sunday, April 20, 2014

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

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

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