Last P-Day During My Missionary Training!

From: Seth Gifford
Date: Wed, May 6, 2020 2:06 PM
Subject: Last P-Day During My Missionary Training!

¡Qué pasa todos!

Welcome to my last email for a little while! You’d better enjoy it! 😉 Today is my very last P-day during my missionary training (my last day is Sunday the 10th). After that, literally anything could happen. But, I anticipate being released for a short time until a reassignment comes. Then, I will stay in my reassignment until Mexico opens back up. I have no idea what will happen. The only thing I do know, is that God knows. He’s in control and I trust that whatever happens is a part of His plan for me.

Before I begin, I want everyone to know that I know that God lives! It is so evident in literally everything, but I also know He lives through so many personal spiritual experiences throughout my life. Without Him, I would not be where I am today. I am a witness of His love, His patience, and His kindness. I am a walking, breathing testimony of God’s grace. Yes I still mess up. Yes I still make so many mistakes. But, in God’s infinite love and through His grace, and through His Son Jesus Christ, He has helped me get back up time and time again. I am here to testify that we have a loving Heavenly Father who loves each and every one of us so deeply; more than we can ever comprehend. He loves us so deeply and completely that His very work and glory is to help us to become like Him and receive all that He has. He will never give up on us. He is the only true constant in our lives that are full of change. He is always there. He weeps for us when we go against Him. He weeps for us when we struggle. But He is always, unfailingly there. Waiting. Loving. Encouraging us along. I promise you with all of my heart and soul that He is there! He loves us so fully that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to atone for us so that we can return back to Him. So that we can repent. So that we can improve. So that we can progress and become better. I testify of a loving Heavenly Father who is completely aware of you and I. I testify and know that these things are true!

Entonces, vamos empezar! This is gonna be a long one 😉

🗓 My week:

This past week has been a lot of highs and lows. It was filled with SO MUCH CLASS it’s not even funny. I sit in a chair for the majority of the day, and it is not good for my health, so I have started standing during class. I even put an exercise ball on the chair behind me, so if I need to lean on it I can. Man, if I had a treadmill, I’d for sure use it during class! But such is not the case. I just look forward to when I will not be stuck inside at a computer. I love to be outside and active so it will be a good day when everything opens up again. In class, my teachers have started to speak only in Spanish, and the great thing is, I can understand it! I don’t get every word, but I can usually tell what they are saying. What a miracle! We play a game in our class called “¿Quién es el Latino?” or “Who is the Latino?”. Basically, us missionaries will choose one person during the class to be the “Latino” or “Latina” and by the end of class, our teacher has to guess who it is. The catch is we can’t speak any English (unless we ask permission). So, if someone speaks English the teacher will know that they are not the Latino. It is pretty fun and has definitely helped improve my Spanish. I will admit, I have not studied any grammar this whole time while in the MTC (except once or twice)… and I know it sounds bad, but before you judge me, I will have you know that I seem to have a curse. Literally every time I go to study my grammar, something comes up to prevent it from happening (like our teacher randomly springing a 30 minute lesson on us that we have to prepare in 10 minutes). It has been a bumpy ride, but I am sure grateful for it because I have learned so much. I strongly believe that there is a reason for everything. I know that there is a reason for my experiences so far. I have not had a typical “MTC experience” but boy am I grateful for the experience I have had! It has blessed me so much. Sure I’m still a gringo. Sure I still mess up a lot, but I feel like this whole experience has set me on the right path to eventually become the man I want to become. The thought that comforts me is that it’s not about speed. It’s about direction!

📖 El Libro de Mormón (The Book of Mormon):

The other day I was feeling a bit sad because I was just thinking about how many people are against the church, who hate Joseph Smith and think he’s a false prophet, and how there are so many people who don’t believe in the Book of Mormon and how they think it was all made up or copied. There are so many people who think the church is a cult or some kind of horrible, despicable organization that brainwashes people and tricks people into believing lies or that the church is discriminatory. I know quite a few people that are against this church, and to be honest it makes my heart ache for them. And this is why: I have my own personal testimony of this gospel and of Jesus Christ. I have my own personal testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I have personally experienced the growth and change from living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have experienced so much joy, peace, hope, and love. I have been so incredibly blessed by God. I know that this church is true! I know it is the church of Jesus Christ! I realized that even though I could sit there and explain to those who are against the church why Joseph Smith had a lot of wives, or why there was a point in history that African Americans were not given the Priesthood, or explain any other question/argument against the church, it would not produce good fruit. I realized that the only thing I can do is invite and share my testimony because that is the one thing no one can ever take away from me. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true. I know that Jesus Christ leads this church. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. How wonderful is it to have morescriptures to help us draw closer to Jesus Christ! I know that those who follow the invitation in the Book of Mormon, namely: “to read the Book of Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ if the book is true…” will gain a witness of its truth. The promise for those that do so is sure: “Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony of its truth and divinity by the power of the Holy Ghost.” The Book of Mormon truly is another testament of Jesus Christ. Because of my testimony of the Book of Mormon, I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Maybe he wasn’t perfect, but God doesn’t have perfect people to work with. Despite his imperfections, I know that Joseph Smith was the prophet of the Restoration and that he translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God. I know that these things are true. I add my testimony onto those of Tad R Callister in these incredible talks:

I invite you to read the Book of Mormon if you haven’t already done it, and pray to know if it is true. I invite those who have read the Book of Mormon, to read it again, and pray to know if it is true. I promise that if you do, and as you live the principles taught in the Book of Mormon, you will become closer to God, more than ever before. The Book of Mormon will become an anchor in your testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ and of Joseph Smith, as it has mine.

🙏 Teaching and Converting in the MTC:

I know this email is super long already, but I want to share with you an incredible experience I had while teaching a lesson this past week. While doing my missionary training, I have had the opportunity to teach a ton of lessons. We have taught the friends of our evening teacher, and have also practiced role playing with our teachers. Me and Elder Pendleton used to write down everything we were going to say in our lesson and then translate it into Spanish the best we could. But those lessons were never very good. This last week, I felt inspired to instead, use only Spanish that we already knew and follow the Spirit with the rest and something wonderful happened. The Lord took over our lesson and when we were teaching we were guided to know what to say when we answered questions and we knew exactly what scriptures to share without even thinking about it beforehand. There was a point where the person we were teaching asked us a pretty difficult question, but without even thinking about English I just opened my mouth and Spanish just came out and I answered their question. It was a miracle! But that wasn’t the end of our miracles. Before our lesson we had no idea what we were going to invite this person to do, but during the lesson we decided to be bold and we felt inspired to invite him to be baptized and he said yes! It was so incredible and the Spirit was so strong. After our lesson, me and Elder Pendleton were so amazed at how much farther we had come when we relied on the Lord rather than our own knowledge. We used simple words and explanations, but the Spirit takes care of the rest. During the MTC experience, me and my district have been able to help 2 people to come closer to Jesus Christ, and both of them are looking forward to going to church and being baptized after quarantine is over. So wonderful! This is the Lord’s work and I know it. I am truly humbled to be a part of it.

😂 District Memes:

Throughout my time here at the MTC, I have accidentally shared some embarrassing details and stories from my life and now all the Hermanas will not stop teasing me. But, I decided I would make some memes about my district, particularly about the Hermanas to get back at them (I am not condoning revenge haha…). But little did I know that it would start a fire between the Elders and Hermanas. Now us Elders are planning on presenting all of our memes in our last district meeting together, and the Hermanas are planning something too. Who knows what it will be! Our district is straight up crazy. At one point we made our teacher laugh so hard that he couldn’t teach the Spanish grammar and then class ended before he could. I will say, it’s mostly the Hermanas that are the troublemakers… But don’t worry, we aren’t always crazy. We have some incredible experiences together as a district, but it is always good to break up some of the monotonous things with a little bit of fun 🙂

😥 I Could Have Been Famous:

The Church History Department sent out an email to all missionaries who have been affected by COVID-19 to share their experiences in a survey. These experiences could be used in anything the church puts out and would be forever in the church archives for my posterity to read or for anything else the church wanted to use it for. So, I could have been in the Ensign or something, but then I done goofed and messed up my one chance. I accidentally submitted my form before I filled anything out… 😭 I’m not gonna lie I’m pretty sad about it, but hopefully they’ll reply to my email and send me another form 😬

Anyway! That’s it for now. I hope you are all safe and sound. I love you all!

-Elder Gifford