FINALLY!! 🥳
From: Seth Gifford
Date: Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 14:24 PM
Subject: FINALLY!! 🥳
Hello my people! I hope you’re all doing well and having a great time 😁
These past 2 weeks have been super busy but pretty epic, I’m not going to lie. Me and Elder Jensen have been working as hard as we can and have seen some miracles!
Not a lot has happened besides me and Elder Jensen contacting a lot of people, and teaching some lessons, so I’m going to jump right in to a huge miracle we saw last night!
To give some background, back in January we had a virtual Zone Conference in which President Adler extended an invitation for all of us to do. To sum it up, he invited us to identify 1 member or family in our branch or ward to help, and then set up an appointment with them to teach/help them. So we did it and saw a miracle with a family we wanted to reactivate. Recently they told us that their son Milton who is a member and his fiancee, Carmen want to get married in the temple and so two weeks ago we went to go teach them and had one of the most spirit filled lessons I have ever had on my mission. We were able to testify about Jesus Christ and the temple and boy oh boy, it was awesome! At the end of our lesson, once we got to our car, me and Elder Jensen were just filled with joy. We were so excited! It was a huge refresher because I don’t think I’ve ever met someone as prepared and with as much faith as Carmen. Since that day we taught them again, all about the Restoration of the gospel and invited them both to read the Book of Mormon. Carmen is literally golden! She has already read what we invited her to read and knows the Book of Mormon is true!
Okay, so, last night me and Elder Jensen planned their lesson for a bit and had a few potential concerns that might’ve made it so we couldn’t keep teaching them, but they were resolved quickly at the beginning of our lesson. Things were already going so smoothly. We centered our lesson around baptism and as we taught them the Spirit was there, but then their family started making a lot of noise in the back. I wqs praying that Milton and Carmen would go to another room or that their family would stop being loud and right as I said “amen” in my head, they got up and went into another room! Huge miracle! The lesson we taught them went really well and at the end we invited Carmen to be baptized and she said yes without any hesitation. It was amazing!! She is going to he baptized next month!
After the call, me and Elder Jensen were literally so happy because the Lord has been a huge part of each lesson and has instrumented everything so perfectly where we can still teach them. We were filled with joy and were so grateful to Heavenly Father for helping us.
That lesson was so significant to me. Why? Because my entire mission so far (almost half of it) has been spent trying so hard to help anyone we were teaching to progress towards baptism. We have gotten so close with a few of them, but up until this point, I have not seen a single person truly progress. That’s why I am so excited! Because I have been waiting for this moment for so long!! I already love Carmen and Milton so much and am so excited for them to continue to progress towards their goal of being married in the temple. Please pray that they will continue strong in this path!
What all of this has taught me is that the worth of souls truly is great in the sight of God. If I was to labor with my whole heart and soul and only brought one person unto Jesus Christ, it would all be completely worth it!
I just want to end with my testimony. I know that this truly is the church of Jesus Christ. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that through Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ restored His church back on the earth. There is nothing greater than this gospel. Nothing else has the power to change lives like the gospel does. Nowhere else can we find so much joy. Jesus Christ is the light. He is the way and if we follow Him, if we follow our Savior, we can find peace in this life, and eternal joy in the life to come. Only Jesus Christ makes it all possible.
One thing that Elder Walker, another Elder in our apartment said last week really touched me. He said that if we aren’t feeling joy, it’s because the Atonement of Jesus Christ isn’t working in our lives and that there is something we need to change. His comment kept me up pondering on my life and I realized just how true it is! The Atonement of Jesus Christ is the greatest gift we have, and it is designed to bring us joy! So if we’re feeling weighed down by guilt, regret, or pain, let us use the Atonement of Jesus Christ!
In the words of my favorite scripture:
“Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.”
Hosea 6:1
Love,
-Elder Gifford
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