Change :0

From: Seth Gifford
Date: Mon, Sep 6, 2021, 4:09 PM
Subject: Change :0

Well, these past few weeks have breezed by. Over the past few weeks, a few interesting events happened. I don’t have a lot of time or motivation to write, so I will summarize the best that I can.

Elder Barrientos and I have been grinding as hard as we can here in Calkiní. We’ve seen a lot of opposition, but we’ve also seen lots of miracles.

At the beginning of the transfer, we had an amazing Zone Conference, in which we talked about the exact needs of our area. We also had divisions with the elders in our district, and put someone we are teaching on date for baptism!!

Apart from the opposition, one of the incredible miracles we saw this week happened yesterday. We traveled to Halachó, a small pueblo/city we cover. Every time I’ve gone there, we’ve seen some pretty incredible miracles. I like to call it our miracle city. Before leaving, it looked like a storm was coming in fast and like it had already hit Halachó. But, we decided to exercise our faith and go anyway. We said a prayer a left towards our destination. One of the first small miracles we saw was that it didn’t rain hard until we were inside the combi we took. Once we got out, it stopped raining, and it didn’t rain hard again until we got inside the taxi for the way home. But, as we were walking to go visit some members, we were stopped by a man that looked super familiar to me. It turns out he was a member I met the first week that I came to Halachó, in June!! It was a miralce to be able to talk to him and explain that because COVID got worse down here, we haven’t been able to visit him or his family very much, but now we can visit him!

Well, after our small visit with him in the street, we had an appointment with one of the people we’re teaching. The only problem was she hadn’t given us an address and wasn’t responding to our calls. She only gave us the general area of where she lived. So, we decided to go to that general area anyway and see if we could find her and her family. We walked down a few streets, and paused at a park, and I got the prompting that we should walk down the next street. We did, and as we were walking, we looked over in one of the yards and saw some people having dinner with their family and it looked like the people we were teaching! We passed by unsure at first, so we asked their neighbor if they knew where they lived and she pointed us next door. Elder Barrientos were completely in awe at how somehow, the Spirit guided us to this family. We had absolutely no idea where she lived, and yet, we were able to find them. We talked to them for a few minutes so we didn’t interrupt their dinner and gave them a Book of Mormon. It was incredible, and afterward, Elder Barrientos and I were so pumped! It was a huge testimony builder. That has happened time and time again here on the mission. I’m not sure how God always does it, but he always looks out for us.

Well, tomorrow I’m leaving my son to watch over the nest and I’m going northward. In other words, last week, I received the news that our mission is changing how they work with social media, and tomorrow I am being transferred to Mérida to run the Facebook Page. I won’t even have an area! I was low key sad when I heard that, but luckily they said I will still get the chance to teach lessons and whatnot. I will miss the good ole’ Throat of the Sun (Calkiní). It was the refiner’s fire for me, and I made some good memories and met some incredible people. But I look forward to helping the Lord move the work forward in a different way! We’ll see what happens. Elder Barrientos, mi hijo amado, will finish his training with another Elder that is coming from the states. Pretty crazy!

Well, I didn’t have time to look over this email and check it for mistakes or whatever, so hopefully it makes sense! I love you all and hope you have an epic week! God lives, Jesus lives, and they love you!! Remember that!

Peace out!!

-Elder Gifford

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