I gUess Here’s An Email

From: Seth Gifford
Date: Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 1:00 PM
Subject: I gUess Here’s An Email

Hey people,

I realized that I haven’t written since I got here to my new area. Oops! 😬 I’ve been losing my motivation to write weeklies, so sorry if this one is kind of short.

Since leaving Progreso, I’ve actually had a great time. My new area is in the south of Mérida. It’s called “María Luisa”. We cover 2 areas, and are the Zone Leaders for the Zone called “Zona Kukulcán.” Our house is actually pretty big and pretty nice, but it gets pretty cold at night now so that’s fun.

My new comp is Elder Granados, who’s from Monterrey Mexico. He’s hilarious and we joke around a ton. I feel like I’m still a little kid. But we have a good time.

Anyway, recently Elder Granados hit his one year mark and we were able to go to the Mérida temple. It was a good experience to be able to go through in Spanish even though I didn’t fully understand everything. As soon as I walked onto the temple grounds, you could feel such a difference from the world outside. It felt like a bubble of peace. Upon entering the temple, that feeling of love and peace became stronger. When you go to the temple, you change into white temple clothing which not only represents purity, but represents the fact that we are all equal in God’s loving eyes. It is a beautiful symbolism. It had been such a long time since being in the temple, and I just felt at home. Definitely can’t wait to go back!

We had a lot of divisions over the past few weeks. Basically we exchange companions for a day to help other areas and missionaries in the zone. I was with Elder Ruff one of the days and we were wrapping up with the day when we started smelling a bit of smoke. I went outside to check it out and at first I thought it was just the neighbors burning something. Upon walking out of the office in the church to go home, we realized the fire was coming from the direction of the chapel. There were huge embers floating through the air. We thought the church was on fire! We saw a HUGE plume of black smoke even though it was night. We could even see the orange glow. We ran to see if it was the chapel and realized the fire was on the other side of a dividing wall between the church and other buildings. It was insane and as we went to go see what happened, we saw the massive flames of 3 or 4 houses that were on fire. We could feel the heat! We felt sick and hoped nobody was inside. The firefighters took forever to get there, but they were able to put the fire out and the next day we saw that the houses were totally black.

Other than that, we’ve been trying super hard to hype up our zone, and we saw some miracles. Our zone put the most baptismal dates with the people we were teaching in the mission, and we hope each of those people can reach that goal and continue progressing. As for my companion and I, we have seen quite a few miracles. We are hoping to help 3 people to get baptized soon!

Anyway, we’ve just been grinding here (maybe goofing off every now and then haha). But, there’s not really anything else that interesting to write about. I just hope y’all are doing well.

I’ve seen a lot of opposition lately as well, and even though it’s been hard sometimes, there’s always hope in Christ. He can fill our canyons of depression, he can pull us out of the trenches we dig ourselves into. He is mighty to save. He is always there! As we exercise our faith in Him, He can help us to heal.

I love these scriptures in Alma 34:

“15 And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance.

16 And thus a mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption.”

If we exercise our faith in Christ, unto repentance through Christ, He will encircle us in the arms of safety. I like to think of this as a big brotherly hug from Jesus, our eldest brother and Savior.

I know Christ lives! I want each of you to know that. We’re not perfect, I’m definitely not. But Christ is. He is perfect. His love is perfect. Remember that!

Love,

-Elder Gifford

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