Adiós Winston-Shalom
From: Seth Gifford
Date: Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 14:54 PM
Subject: Adiós Winston-Shalom
Hello everyone!-
Sorry it’s been a hot second since I wrote an email, I definitely need to get better at writing them! Heh heh…😁
Well, without further ado, let’s jump right in!
🎄🎆🎉
To catch you up to speed, Christmas and New Years passed with treats and food coming out of our ears! We spent a lot of time as a district playing games. I’m not gonna lie and say that Christmas was this amazingly perfect day serving the Lord, like most misisonaries say it is, because, quite frankly, it wasn’t. In fact, Christmas was actually pretty boring and a pretty low point. I won’t go into details because it’s not that important and I’d much rather highlight the positive. Suffice it to say, Christmas felt like a waste because we were just kind of sitting around while no one seemed to be progressing. Not to mention, there was a lot of opposition, both personally and as an area. Okay I know that sounds depressing BUT! I did get to call my family and open a package from them, which was the highlight. I sure do love them! 🥰 Christmas Eve was a lot of fun too. We hung out with the ZL’s, Elder Raymond and Elder Funes (who just went home 😥). Overall, the holidays weren’t too bad though. But Happy New Year by the way! 🥳
🌊🌊🌊
Well, luckly things started to improve after the holidays. We were able to finally get in contact with a woman we are teaching and had a lesson in which we invited her to baptism. She is going to start chemotherapy soon and wasn’t sure about setting a specific date yet. She actually told us before we even invited her that she wants to be baptized and that she’s preparing for it. It was awesome to see her faith and hear her testimony. She believes in everything we’ve taught her so far. We are hoping to put her on date soon! SO AWESOME!
💧=🍷
We experienced some miracles recently with a HUGE one last night.
This past week, we were calling someone we had started to teach over the phone, but she didn’t answer. We tried again and someone answered, but we heard a man’s voice. We asked him if we could leave a message, and he was super nice about it. After hanging up, we felt the impression to call him again and talk to him about the gospel which we did. Turns out he’s the husband of the woman we were trying to contact. He told us some incredibly hard trials his family is going through and we were able to testify about God and Jesus Christ and how God knows, loves, and has a plan for him and His family. It was a miracle! That was at the beginning of the week. We had set some goals to find 2 new people to teach, and get 2 people to sacrament meeting. We found 1 new person to teach with that last story, but by the end of the week, we were hitting a brick wall of opposition. We were getting ghosted by everyone. BUT then we experienced another miracle!!
We have been trying to find more people from Facebook, and yesterday, we had a lesson with a man from the Facebook page. Not only did that lesson help us hit all of our goals this week, but it went super well, and we even had a member there helping us, which was instrumental. Everything we talked about blew his mind. He loved every word we said. At the end, when the member was praying, the man started crying. Afterwards he told us he has never cried like that during a prayer before. It was a success and it was the perfect way to end off the transfers! Definitely a miracle! 🙏
🔄🧳😭
As you all saw from my subject line, I will be leaving Winston-Salem…or should I say, Winston-Shalom? I am being transferred to Charlotte to be companions with Elder Jensen, who will be my first companion whose first name doesn’t start with an E! I’m pretty sad that I won’t be here to help 2 of the people we’re teaching get baptized. But! I gotta say, I’ve definitely been needing a change, and so I’m excited to finally to go somewhere new. I’ve been in Winston-Salem for 4 transfers, (since August) and Charlotte sounds nice! I heard that me and Elder Jensen will be opening a new area. I’m definitely going to miss my district though! I’ve grown really close to them these past few transfers. I’ll also miss the members here! Goodbye Chivitos, and goodbye Winston-Salem! You’ll always hold a special place in my heart! ❤
To end, I just want to testify that I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true. Jesus Christ lives, and He guides this church. We are living in the last days, prior to His Second Coming, in which He will return to this earth, in power and great glory and take His place as our King. That will be a most joyous day, and I look forward to it with my whole heart and soul. I look forward to that day when I can greet my Savior face to face, feel the prints of the nails in His hands and feet, and through the many tears that will be in my eyes, try to thank Him for what He did for me. Whenever I think of that day, the question comes to mind: “Am I ready for that day?” I now extend that question to each of you who may be reading this. Are you ready to meet the Savior when he comes again? Think about it. If your answer to that question is no, I encourage you to do whatever it takes to make whatever changes necessary in your life so you will be ready, so that when you meet your Savior face to face, He will say “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord”.
I love you all and I hope you can continue forward in the cause of Christ.
Love
-Elder Gifford
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