Experience in Guatemala

Hi Family,

Jessie's mission presidents wife, Sister Brough has a blog. When I checked it there was a very inspiring story that I will put in my next letter to Jessie that I thought you would all like also. Perhaps Eric, you will have had similar experiences in Tijuana and can comment on this. I would like to read your thoughts. I was very touched by it and it gave me a lot of comfort that Jessie will be protected and will an angel (especially as a sister missionary) in the midst of the Guatemalan people. Here is her blog post:

Every day we see miracles in the mission field. Every missionary experiences these miracles during their service. What is really a great blessing for President is that when he reads the weekly letters of the missionaries he hears about these miracles. Some are very sacred that we could never fully explain adequately and some are just everyday occurances in the lives of obedient missionaries. One of the focuses we have had is "Abrir su boca", open your mouth. We have set some very high goals in our mission for contacting every single day. Some missionaries are great and attack the goal with complete obedience, faith and diligence. While others are not so believing....'it is to hard, what purpose does it serve, etc.... Of course as the missionaries obey other areas that they have goals in begin to happen and the faith begins to grow. Many miracles that happen are in the lives of members and especially in the lives of the investigators. I want to share one such story about the miracles of missionaries opening their mouths and doing what the Lord has asked. Being robbed here is a very common thing. The way of travel for all the missionaries is by 'chicken buses'. These buses are very very crowded and many times robbers come onto the bus and rob everyone including the driver. There is nothing they can do but give the men what they want because they are always armed and they travel in groups. Sometimes the miracles from being obedient are never seen by the missionary but they are always noticed by someone.

This experience was told to us by Elder Euteneier: "We have an investigator that was going on a bus to Escuintla one day. Four gang armed members entered the bus and everyone on the bus knew them and knew that they were going to assault the bus. Two of them stayed up front and sat down, two others went to the back of the bus. Everyone on the bus, including the investigators were all nervous and anxious when eight of our missionaries entered the bus. They began to contact the bus. Four Elders took the front of the bus and four Elders took the back of the bus. Unbeknowest to the missionaries they contacted all four of the gang members at the same time and gave them pamphlets. At the next stop, all four of the gang members got off the bus without a single threat. Our investigator told me that we are definitely sent by God to guide and protect the people here. So not only does contacting buses rid us of fear, help us find chosen people and spread the good word but it protects agains Satan's agents as well."

Jessie's will hopefully like this experience too. I hope it won't scare her but give her faith in the power of her call and that the Lord is with his missionaries. Love you all

Mom

Jessie's First Day as a Missionary

Dear Family,

I wanted to share with you all a little bit about yesterday as we took Jessie to get set apart by President Hamblin. I truly know the Lord knows his servants and He certainly knows Jessie. President Hamblin doesn't really know Jessie at all. Other than interviewing her for her Temple Recommend he hasn't had much contact with her, but he gave her the most beautiful blessing as he set her apart to be a missionary yesterday. The first words after he set her apart to be a missionary were the things that she has been most worried about the past few months. He told her that her that her worrys and anxiety would go away and she would be calm. I don't remember the exact wording but that was the feeling.

Then he told her that she would have a strong testimony and ability to communicate and have confidence in herself and in the Lord. I'm not giving the right wording, but this is what Jessie has been so worried about - that her testimony is not strong enough, that she can't explain things clearly, and that she knows she doesn't have the confidence necessary. All these things were addressed. He then told her very forcefully that she would have a "strong and immediate grasp of the language". I do believe those were pretty close to his exact words because it struck me pretty forcfully how he said it. Jessie's Patriarchal blessing says she has the gift of tongues and it reminded me of this. He also told her that she would be easily understood, both in word and in spirit. He also said something I thought was interesting right at the end - that she should speak loudly and clearly as she taught and testified.

He promised her that she would be a calming, peaceful influence in her district and zone and that she would be an example both to those she taught and to the other missionaries in her district and zone. He said something that I can't quite put into words about her relationship and testimony of the Savior and how it would be strengthened. She would have the ability to work without tiring, to be strong in mind and body and she will touch many people. She should be grateful for this opportunity. He also promised her that the Lord would grant her other blessings known only to her. He said the Lord was very pleased with her.

I wish you could have all been there. I'm not doing this justice by any means. It was a powerful blessing and I believe it was a comfort to her and did allievate her nervousness and fear and gave her confidence that she will have the words she needs. It was a testimony to me of how much the Lord knows each of us individually and is aware of us. President Hamblin couldn't have known all the fears of Jessie's heart, but the Lord sure did. As soon as he began to speak I felt the spirit in the room and the first words out of Pres. Hamblins mouth were all the things Jessie has been worried about. It was a great experience.

Love you all lots.

Mom

Dad's Trip to Minot Flood Zone

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We Made it Through Week One! Yay

Well, we have made it through Week 1 of P90X. I think I will rename it P90Die. That's more descriptive and true to how we feel by the end of the day - like we are going to die because we are so darned tired. We have been going to bed by 9:30-10:00pm - very unlike us.

Thursday was YogaX. Yoga was "Not Dad's Thing." Dad has never done yoga. Ever. There's a reason why. He can't bend over. He can't bend down. He can't bend sideways. He just doesn't bend. There was more groaning and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth today then Day 1. Mr. Horton tells you to quickly move from Downward Dog to Plank back up to Downward Dog to Runners Pose to Warrior One, etc., etc. Dad obviously doesn't know what any of these poses are and even if did he can't really bend that way yet. He spent most of the time trying to copy the moves on the screen and mimic them before Tony and his gang went to the next yoga pose. When we started Dad was in front of the TV and I was in back "helping & giving pointers." This was not helpful according to Dad. We switched placed. I was in front of the TV and he stood behind me. I was told to NOT turn around and watch him (or smile or laugh) and NOT make any more comments or suggestions. I shut up. That was YogaX day! Fun!

Friday we did (or were supposed to do) Legs & Shoulders & Back. This proved to be mostly just legs. As we got started we found we are supposed to have some sort of equipment to do chin-ups, which we do not own. Either a bar that hooks over the door frame or some stretchy pulley things that hook on the ceiling or over a door frame, or some such thing and you kneel on the ground and grab and pull them to simulate pull-ups. So basically, we did a leg workout. Dad is checking our door frames to see 1. If any are high enough for him to do pull-ups 2. If we have some way to hook that stretchy deal up for me, because it will be a long time before I have the upper body strength to do one pull-up. We are going to look when we go to Utah.

Saturday was Cardio - an hour of Old Fat Guy Basketball for Dad and an hour KempoX with Tony. I'm glad no one is watching. I did this a couple of times with Jessie. It isn't pretty.

Week One is in the History Books!

Day Three - Technical Difficulties

Once again, we managed to get Dad out of bed. "How can you be so happy and chipper in the morning?" he asks me. Beats me. I came this way. I love early mornings. Who else in our family is like this. . . . anyone? Hummmmmm . . . . I can't think of anyone. Apparently, this gene has not been passed on to my children. Too bad. It's a good one.

We head to the family room to find out what's in store for us this morning. Arms and Chest. Oh, yeah, AND that Super Ab Killer Thing. We turn on the TV, pop in the DVD and . . . nothing. Dad tries it again, and more of nothing. He tries another remote (we only have about a dozen - well, perhaps that a SLIGHT exaggeration) and more of nothing. After about 10 minutes of investigation, Dad gets his glasses because he can't really see in back of the TV. He decides to unplug everything and reset the TV. Viola (or however you spell that word, you know what I mean) power to the TV and a pictures. But, we have lost close to 15 minutes of exercise time.

So we head into the DVD, get our weights, which our not near heavy enough for Dad, but we "Get Busy" as Mr. Horton tells us and Day 3 of P90X is HIS-TOR-Y!!! We slammed it (I like Reesy's use of that word, and may be overusing a lot now.) Unfortunately (I feel REALLY, REALLY bad) no time for the Super Bad Ab Killer thing due to our tech problem. Maybe tomorrow!

Day Two of Old People Exercising

Day Two of an excercise program has long been known to be a LOT harder than Day One. I'm pretty sure there is verifiable evidence for this theory. Dad and I drug (is this a real word? And perhaps it's a good word, because I think it's how we felt) ourselves out of bed and realized we were in a lot of pain. I think the only muscles that don't hurt is my fingers and toes - maybe. But and the operative word, is BUT, we DID get out of bed!!! Yay! We are on our way to Day 2 of CardioX with Tony Horton (Britta has informed me of this), who, I think, is really, really, wierd, by the way. Actually, only I had to spend the next 45 minutes with Tony, as Dad is playing "Old, Fat Guy Basketball" (as I term it) and will be doing a lot more cardio than me.

I made it through most of the DVD (I forgot how hard yoga can be. . . ) but I survived. I skipped the Jumping Jacks and Banana Rolls ( I know my limit)-also those "Wacky Jacks". Jessie tried to get me to do them last year, but I am too uncoordinated. I can't wait to watch Dad "Get Wacky!" Then I skipped to the cool down. I cut myself some slack, because I am 54, out of shape and want to see you all next month.

Dad played an hour of basketball and was sweating like a pig! He is better at cardio. I am impressed with him.

Two days down and we are still alive!! And moving! Only 5 days to go to prove Eric wrong! We can slam this! (I liked Reesy's use of that word and thought I would steal it.

Keep tuned for the next installment!

Day One of P90X for Old Flabby People!

OK, so Dad and I started P90X this morning at 6:00AM and I decided to chronicle our adventures. And what an adventure it was! Perhaps it will motivate you younger people to GET OFF YOUR BUTTS!

The hardest part was getting Dad out of bed at 6:00am. He is not the happiest person in the morning. I, on the other hand, am. Very chipper, smiley and excited! Yay for exercise early on a beautiful Monday.

Little did we know what the P90X Guy, (what is his name anyway?) had in store for us. (We watched the introduction DVD yesterday and decided we would follow the "Lean" program - that will be us when you see us soon - Lean and Mean Parents - Can you hardly wait?) Core Synergistics was the first DVD we had to do. It started out OK with the warm ups, but then we had to do something called the Banana Roll. Wow, you should have heard Dad moan and groan. Then we did some other thing (I forget what it's called) but you lay on your stomach and grab your feet with your hands and rock on your stomach. Dad cannot grab his feet in this position. I found it extremely funny. Dad did not. I don't believe that Dad engages his stomach muscles all that much playing Old Fat Guy basketball. He did engage them this morning. It was somewhat painful to watch and listen to.

After about half an hour of moaning and groaning, huffing and puffing and a lot of sweat we decided that perhaps for old, flabby out of shape 50 somethings, perhaps we had given it a pretty good shot and we started cutting short each exercise. We hit the fast forward button after we did part of each exercise and then finally skipped about 10 minutes and went right to the cool down. Whew! We did it! We made it through Day 1 of P90x! Stay tuned for Day 2 tomorrow.

Dad's Day Post

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Mothers Day Dinner

To all of you who like to COOK & EAT: This means everyone in our family I suspect.

A month or so ago in our book club we read "A Little Princess" and I brought Indian Butter Chicken and homemade Naan, which you can find the recipes for here:

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2011/03/indian-butter-chicken.html

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2011/04/naan-indian-flatbread.html

They turned out FANTASTIC! I meant to take a picture of them, but suffice it to say that if you look at these pictures from Mel's Kitchen Cafe Blog, where I got them, you will be looking at my Chicken and my Naan. Homemade Naan is so good you will not be able to stop eating it and it is way better than store bought. It is also easy to make although a little time consuming to bake as you have to bake the Naan one or two at a time.

I am making this for Nana and Bumpa for dinner tomorrow along with this Strawberry CreamPuff Cake I found on Mel's Kitchen Cafe Blog also. I love this blog. Everything on it is wonderful!!!

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2009/10/strawberry-cream-puff-cake.html

Strawberries are in season and on sale in the stores right now and all you need is creamcheese and cream and strawberries. You should have everything else for this easy and delicious dessert.

Love you all and have a wonderful Saturday.

PS Check out Eric's blog post and let's see some family participation on our blog!!!

Conversation Starters

My good friend Kendel has a blog where he posts weekly thoughts and inspiration and this week he posted about something he found on a blog called raptitude, which I just added to my google reader.

The post, How to always have something better to talk about than the weather, talks about overcoming conversation awkwardness and shyness, something I think some of us have had to deal with. On my mission a few companions jokingly called it "applicando la Giffordiana" or basically standing back and saying nothing when there is a need to speak up. Raptitude says this about it:

• "I suspect that most shy people are not hardwired to be that way. They don’t lack any innate social talent, they just had one or two bad social incidents early on, and in an effort to avoid further social pain they began to err on the side of silence. Where last time they said something and regretted it, the next time they said nothing, and did not regret it.

• "Unbeknownst to them, this seemingly innocent little lesson is actually the seed of a devastating habit. Every shy person knows that the safest thing to say is nothing. Once a person chooses this safe approach a few times in a row, an insidious snowball begins to pick up speed."

Now I recognize that some people are just introverts and that is fine, but this really rang true with me. The blog talked about some of the myths that the silent tell themselves to feel better about not speaking up. The author gives a couple of solutions

1. "There are two primary pieces of advice I received, and now give. The first is watch how more skillful people do it. There are always opportunities to watch people interact. How do they begin conversations? How do they end them? How do they change topics? Even watching bad conversations can give you a great idea of what to do instead. Just watching people can give you a short go-to list of ways to open and close conversations. Make conversation-watching a habit.

2. "The other piece of advice is, of course, to practice speaking up. And practice always means allowing yourself do something badly until you can do it not so badly. It means making habit of doing things that are uncomfortable at first. So when it comes to overcoming shyness, that means speaking more than you feel like speaking. If you’ve established a habit of leaving most of the speech to others, it will feel unnatural to open up. That’s good, do it anyway. Discomfort indicates growth. Always say a little bit more than you’re used to."

It goes on to talk about some of the topics we always default to like the weather. I really enjoyed it. I was very shy as a teenager and starting college and my mission but have grown a lot. I think that I really only deal with this in a few situations now, but I decided I am going to make a conscious effort to both watch others and practice speaking up. Go check out the post and share what you think.

Also, for those of you in the family that never have any problem speaking up --- ahem---- Mom, Britta, Spencer --- feel free to share any tips!

Eric

Gramma G's visit to meet Charlotte!

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Front Door Robins

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Birdie

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2009 Year in Review in Pictures

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Frosty Morning in Sidney

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Dad's Snow Tour

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Blog Stats/Awards

Well its been almost two years (approx. 22 months) since we have started this blog so I thought, being as how activity has picked up recently, I would do a little survey of who has participated so far and share some basic statistics on the Gifford blog:

• There have been 27 posts so far on the blog
• There have been 48 comments on those posts
• 9 of those posts have included multi-media material (pics, links, smileboxes, etc.)
• The longest period without a post is 374 days from Oct. 10, 2008 to Oct. 19, 2009 from the post "Preserving Marriage - Proposition 8" (Eric) to "Autumn is My Favorite Season" (Britta)
• Shortest period between posts: 24 minutes on Jan. 2, 2008, between "Hey family! Welcome to our very own blog!" by Reesy at 4:04pm and "Happy New Year From Mom!" by Mom at 4:28pm
• Day with most posts: Tuesday April 8, 2008 with 3 posts
  

And now to the stats on the bloggers themselves

• Biggest blogger: tie between Eric and Britta at 7 posts each (although technically this makes 8 for me)
• Most multi-media friendly: Mom and Eric (honourable mention: Reesy). I have four posts with multi-media, 3 pictures and 1 link, mom has those two smile box things. Reesy also has posted her homemade stuff which is great, and actually I just realized she created the blog and created the logo so I think she actually wins and Mom and I get honourable mentions. Nice one Reesy!
• Biggest commenter: Britta wins by far with 19 comments, Mom is second with 14.
• I won't create a "prize" for least participating because then that creates an incentive for behavior we don't want, but if it did exist Jessie wins, where are you girl? Also Karen and Spencer are just as responsible and I don't think can hide behind me and Britta. Reesy, are they added to the blog? If not please add them to receive email notifications so they can post!
  

I think we should also discuss who has made the most advancement technologically with the blog. Is it dad because even though he knows the most about technology he is the least likely to blog? Is it mom because she has learned a lot about technology and is even on facebook now? Is there someone else you think should get it? Please reply and lets have a discussion! Also keep in mind we can use this venue to discuss Christmas ideas, schedules and other stuff.

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