Transfer 10 Week 5 Update 8-27-12

Hello Everyone,

 

Wow time is flying by! I feel like this transfer just started but now it is near over. For those who don't understand what a transfer is, it is a 6 week period which missionaries run by. Every 6 weeks there is potential for a change, whether you or your companion leave the area or to train a new missionary. So instead of using months we use transfers. Sisters serve 12 or 13 transfers depending on the mission president, so far ours has been keeping sisters 13 transfers, so I still have a couple left. So good news is I'm not moving this transfer, I am staying in Lake Placid. However, my companion is going to Syracuse and my new coming from Syracuse to here, her name is Sister La.. We will be going to Utica on Wednesday morning to the transfer meeting and get our new companions. Sister Ho. (my trainee) is going to be training this transfer crrrazzy! It's so weird to think I am that old in the mission field. After this transfer, there will only be one sister who is older (been out longer) in this mission than I am. I'm doing my best to make the most of the time I still have to serve. 

 

This week there were some pretty wonderful times. Last Monday, we received a referral for a guy in Lake Clear. When we got the text for the referral is said mormon.org missionary visit. Well funny enough, when we went to his address he said he didn't ask to have missionaries contact him but that he had clicked on an online ad for a free bible, ha. SO we talked with him for a bit and gave him the Bible and the Book of Mormon. He had lived in the west and said he had several friends who were LDS and that we were welcome to stop by again. He seemed pretty sincere so we are going to try and follow up with him soon. 

 

Thursday, we went to Keene and the first potential we tried (the initial person we were looking for had moved) wasn't there but the current resident invited us in. He had invited us to sit down and talk with him on a bench in his front yard. His name was D. and he had a lot of questions about what Mormons believe. We told him that his questions will be answered as we keep discussing. He totally started the lesson off with a prayer himself and it was almost perfect the only difference he just needed to say Heavenly Father instead of saying Dear Lord, say Dear Heavenly Father. He even closed in the name of Jesus Christ, amazing! Most people outside of the church don't do it that way, at least the ones I have met on my mission haven't. The spirit was totally there as we were teaching and it was one of those lessons that when you got out of it you don't remember a word you said because the spirit was guiding you the whole time. We gave him a Book of Mormon and some pamphlets about the restoration. It was so wonderful, and as we were driving away from the appointment we could see him reading the Book of Mormon we gave him. Later that same day, we met A. and his sister since there grandpa wasn't feeling too good, so he was laying down inside the house. We read the story of Alma the Younger's conversion in Alma 36 and we discussed how people can change and about how the Savior is the one who helps us change. It is through His influence that we can change our lives. Those were the best parts of this week. Hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed week.

 

-Sister Gifford