Winding down Wanderings . . . me and the village of Gifford

You remember when I found "Gifford Town" well this is just Gifford! The name is fairly common in the UK. It is a lovely little village started up in the early 1700's by Hugh Gifford. He built the castle that still remains there. We had lunch at a quaint Inn and I showed my Gifford badge--nobody offered me a free anything!!

Gifford Castle

We spent all of Saturday wandering, we saw an old mill
that ground oats (built in the 1700's). We also toured a beautiful
private garden. The garden was advertised on the internet, but
when we arrived there was a stone wall around it with a big
wooden door with an even bigger lock. Not being timid at all,
I knocked on the door and this very old gentleman opened the
door. We introduced ourselves and asked if we could see the
garden. He seemed flabbergasted that we had heard about it on
the internet and led us on what ended up being the adventure of
the day. The garden was huge and had many different sections,
fountains, garden sheds, and just beautiful plants and flowers. The house he lived in was built in1602 and he bought it for his wife as a wedding present. It turned out he was a classical bagpipe player and
his lovely wife an artist. Enjoy the pictures below.

Wall designed from shells in one of his potting sheds.

                                                            And a final picture of the Old Mill

Last Wednesday my replacement arrived. Sister Smith from England. She is in her mid-sixties and also a widow. Her husband also passed away from cancer and several years before he was diagnosed with cancer he had an aortic aneurysm-quite a coincidence. I will train her for the month of September. I can already tell she will do just fine and I wonder what I will do for most of the month. The sad part is my companion Sister Call has moved out and is living at the mission home until she leaves next Monday. I really miss her! I'm going to have to move out at the end of October and stay at the mission home my last week. The sister taking Sister Call's place will be arriving and I will give up my room for her. I'm going to try to learn some of Sister Call's job so I can help Sister Astle when she arrives. Lots of changes! I'm excited to soon see my family and friends--very excited!

Sunday I gave my farewell talk--the topic was "How Fasting brings us closer to Jesus Christ" I did an ok job, think I kinda rambled on a bit. I'm still teaching Youth Sunday School and probably will be until I leave. Maybe they will turn the class over to my new companion. They are a good bunch of youth, but it is tough teaching 12 -18 yr. olds the same lesson. The missionaries continue to have baptisms every Wednesday (at least one). I will truly miss that mid-week spiritual refresher. The office stays very busy although we are trying to leave a little earlier (around 5pm) because Sister Smith is a diabetic and has asthma so she gets pretty tired. I've been so blessed, my energy level is better than ever and I can keep up the pace with no problems at all. I turned 77 last week and honestly don't feel a day over 60!

I'm going to sign off for now. My thoughts and prayers are with all my friends in North Carolina that are living with the hurricane damage. I'm so proud of my church ward and all they have been doing to help everyone in need. Bless all of you.

Love to all,

Sister Gifford