Cockroaches & A Spiritual Experience w/Captain America 🇺🇸
From: Seth Gifford
Date: Mon, Oct 4, 2021, 1:24 PM
Subject: Cockroaches & A Spiritual Experience w/Captain America
Buenas tardes my people!
I hope y’all er’all having an excellent week! How goes life?
I just wanted to welcome you to another update from yours truly 
This one will be a long one.
As you can see from my subject line, cockroaches have played quite a significant role in my week. Since my last email, Elder Ojeda and I moved to our new apartment in our new area of “Madero,” which is just a fraction of Mérida. We live 10 minutes from the mission office, which is kinda nice.
Well, we packed up all of our suitcases one day and headed directly to our new area (before transfers). We arrived without any problems, put our suitcases in the house and walked 40 minutes to the chapel to get to work.
Well, the day passed by pretty quickly and upon returning to our house that night, we discovered that our house was infested with roaches. These cockroaches aren’t the small ones either. They’re the massive, speedy, won’t die, hard to kill ones. We opened the door and we literally saw so many cockroaches scurry away into the cracks and holes in the walls.
Upon entering our bathroom, there were more than I could count, and they scurried down the drain, and the holes where the toilet is attached to the floor.
I thought our last living situation was rough with a ton of mosquitoes, but this was worse. I even found cockroaches IN MY SUITCASE. We tried to kill as many as we could with a broom and our shoes but they literally started flying at us. We walked across the street to a member’s house to ask if we could borrow some insecticide and bombed the house with it. I can’t tell you how many cockroach corpses we flushed down the toilet. Nas-TY!
Anyway, apart from that, this area has had its ups and downs. We do a lot more walking here than in any other area I’ve been in, because our house is super far from everything so we lose a lot of time. The members here have been great though! Little by little we’ve been seeing some progress here.
By Friday, when transfer news came, we figured out that Elder Ojeda and I will stay here and that I am going to be the district leader for District Madero. We’re grinding as hard as we can to find people to teach. If you wanna pray that we can find them, that would be much appreciated! 
In these past fews weeks, I have felt as though I’ve past from one refiner’s fire to another. I won’t give many details, but on one of the days in the morning, I was feeling the pure weight of all of the opposition. During our 40 minute walk to the chapel, I had lots of time to think, ponder upon, and process all that was happening, and that’s when my experience with Captain America started.
If you know me well, you may know that I like analogies and to make comparisons between spiritual things and things of every day life. Well, my mind was reflecting upon the opposition and I remembered one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies; Avengers Endgame. The scene is at the climax of the movie, near the end, when the Avengers are facing Thanos, the most powerful villain of all time. In the scene, Thor is fighting against Thanos, but Thanos is winning. That’s when you see Thor’s hammer start to move, and at first you think it’s Thor, but the hammer flies into the hands of none other than the original and best Avenger of all time, the one and only, Captain America!
Captain America uses lightning against Thanos and is desperately doing all he can to stop him, but even with his super strength, agility, and Thor’s hammer, Thanos not only defends himself against Captain America, but gets so angry that he goes on a rampage, destroys most of Captain America’s before indestructible shield, and knocks him down. Captain America, bruised and bloodied after losing another round against Thanos, sees the complete opposition against him. What happens next is probably one of the most powerful moments in the entire movie and quite possibly one of the most powerful moments in all of cinema.
In this moment, you can see that Captain America is tired, exhausted and in pain. You can tell that he knows there is no way he can win this battle, and yet despite all of that, he still stands up once more, tightens the strap on the remaining half of his shield, and goes to stand against Thanos, and his entire army. In this moment, all you can see is Captain America limping to stand against everyone else, and yet he was ready to fight until death to try to stop the forces of evil. It is not until after he stands up, and decides to face the opposition alone, and give his all, before help arrives from behind him. The look of relief on Captain America’s face is another very powerful moment. I absolutely love this part of the movie! It is probably one of my top favorite moments in cinema, and I relate to it on a personal level 
Well, as I was walking, this scene came into my head and I remembered that even though Captain America knew he couldn’t win and even though he was facing an unfathomable amount of opposition, he got back up and did not give up fighting. I felt like that’s what I needed to do as well. I heard a voice in my head tell me to “Get up, and keep fighting!” and I immediately remembered that that’s when the help would arrive. It was an excelent reminder for me, as I’ve felt quite alone in the battle against oppostion. But my experience doesn’t end there!
As I continued walking, a small mototaxi passed us, and on the back of the taxi was the shield of Captain America. I immediately knew it was not a coincidence. It was in the exact moment that I was having these thoughts and remembering these things when it passed and it was a reminder from God that He was aware of me in that very instant and knew my thoughts and what I’ve been going through. My heart swelled with gratitude and I continued trying to remember that voice that told me to get up and fight.
As the day went along, it didn’t get any easier and I was still fighting against the opposition, but as we were walking to go pick up our food from a member’s house, on the side of the road was parked a car with a large version of Captain America’s shield painted on the side! I could not miss it. I was once again reminded of what I experienced in the morning and was in awe as to how God orchestrated that. The lesson I learned sank a little deeper into my heart.
We continued walking and 15 minutes later, there was a man working on his house. Can you guess what was on his shirt? The instant I saw it, I started crying. I was totally floored. The first and second times I saw the symbol of Captain America’s shield, I saw it more as a small reminder, but by the third time, it was completely obvious to me that God was telling me that He was aware of me and loved me and that it would be okay. I have no idea how on earth God orchestrated all of that just to tell me He loves me.
I bet that the mototaxi driver, and the owner of that car, and that guy wearing that shirt never thought once that where they were and what they were doing that day was influenced by Heavenly Father, just to tell a white guy all the way out in the middle of Mexico that He loves him. I was left asking “How on earth did you do that? You did that just for me?” I was deeply touched. Who knew Heavenly Father would use a superhero movie to reach into the heart of one of His children? Since that experience, I have yet to see another shield (and I’ve been looking!).
General Conference this last weekend was incredible, and even though I couldn’t understand everything that was said, I felt the Spirit of each message; especially of President Nelson. Whenever he speaks, I hear the Savior. His plea was to make the temple a larger part of our life, as we try to build a stronger foundation on the rock of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Strong winds are coming and we need that foundation now more than ever before. I hope and pray that all of you can follow that counsel of President Nelson. I know he is a prophet of God, and I know following him will bring safety; spiritually, metally, emotionally, and even physically! Go to the temple! Do whatever it takes to prepare yourself to enter. The temple is a refuge from the storms of life, and I can personally testify that not going is a lot harder than going! It will be worth the trouble. I can promise you that!
Well, it looks like we’ve reached the end of this update. I hope you enjoyed what I felt like writing. If not, ni modo.
I hope you all have a blessed week!
Love,
-Elder Gifford
Pictures:
