War Zone 🧨🪖

From: Seth Gifford
Date: Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 14:09 PM
Subject: War Zone 🧨🪖

Hey!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!!! 🥳

I straight up can’t believe it’s 2022. A year ago I was a chayote in North Carolina. The only difference is that now I’m a chayote in Mexico.

This past week, we’ve just been grinding. We’ve been so busy trying to help all of our areas, and the zone, but it’s been good. The members gave us a TON of stuff for Christmas and New Year’s. Apart from all of that, things are pretty good. 😎

On New Year’s Eve, we had to be in our house early because the people start drinking super early here, and there are drunk people everywhere at night. Probably a good call. Every drunk person I’ve ever passed here has always, without fail, shouted at us and said something about Joseph Smith or has asked us for money haha. Anyway, I slept pretty good until about 12 at night… Then it literally sounded like a war zone. I’m pretty sure Mexican fireworks are just bombs. Every one of our neighbors and their dogs were shooting off all kinds of explosives and the difference is that the ariel fireworks here go about as high as our 2nd story house. Nice and loud. No sleep for me, but my comps somehow slept through it.

Anyway, looking back on the past year, I’ve realized how much I’ve learned and grown, but also where I’ve struggled. I made the comparison of the fireworks as a war zone, but I believe that this mortal life is a much more intense and much more real war zone in which we are fighting against the very real forces of the adversary.

Satan is waging an all out war against this world and every single one of God’s children. His goal? Our ultimate misery. He wants to stop our spiritual progress and influence us to choose to separate ourselves from God. He’s really good at what he does because he’s had lots of time to perfect his tactics. He is also very patient. The hard part is that his tactics are those of stealth and deception. Satan never attacks head on. Rather, he disguises himself using truth and familiar things to poison us with his lies. It’s like when your parents tried to make you eat vegetables by disguising it as cake. Satan uses off-white instead of pure white. If we aren’t ever watchful, it’s nearly impossible to detect him. My point? We are fighting against a very powerful enemy. This is the war to end all wars. Our literal eternal salvation is at stake! Pretty crazy.

But even though we face impossible odds, if we follow the Savior we are on the winning side. All you gotta ask yourself is: do you wanna be a winner or a loser? It reminds me of this scripture that describes the opposition we face:

“Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

One thing to remember is that even though this life is a war and every day is a battle, the Lord has given us some pretty powerful tools (weapons) against the adversary. Namely: Prayer, Scriptures, and the Holy Ghost.

Prayer gives us the ability to communicate with our Father in Heaven directly and gives us a shield of protection.

The Scriptures are a manual or a guidebook to help us know exactly what we need to do each day to defend ourselves. Another protection.

When we use the first 2 tools, the 3rd one is even more powerful. The Holy Ghost is how Heavenly Father communicates back to us and how He can direct us through tough situations.

But, the best aid that we have comes from our Savior Himself. If we get wounded in this battle, if we fall down, or if we get bombarded by the enemy, we can always rely on Jesus Christ. He can heal any wounds we receive as we fight for Him. If we rely on Him and put our trust in Him, He can carry us through and we will be able to overcome the enemy, just as He did in Gethsemane and on the cross, and when He rose triumphant from the grave.

I’m so grateful for Jesus Christ. I fall down way too many times on the battlefield and at this point, I’ve come to realize that my only hope is to trust in Christ and His amazing grace.

It’s not easy, but it’s so worth it. I just gotta say I’m so thankful for His Atonement which allows me to become a better man and to change! What a great gift it is to be able to change! I love change and I love Christ! I know He’s real and I know that through Him, we can become who we were meant to become and be received into His rest. That’s what I fight for. I fight for my family. I want to be with them forever. I fight for my friends. I fight for all of my loved ones and I fight for Him who first fought for me. I fight for Christ! I fight for my Heavenly Father!

That’s all for now. Fight on! I end with one of my favorite scriptures.

“Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free.”

Love,

-Elder Gifford

P.S. “Chayote” means “squash” in Spanish if you didn’t know. We use it a lot here 👍

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3. Cleaning the church