In chapter ten Jonas rides to the House of the Old with Fiona, who is nervous about going in even though she has been there many times before. She tells Jonas she will ride home with him later if they get out at the same time. Jonas walks behind the building the Annex. When he enters, a woman at the desk stands to acknowledge his presence and welcomes him as the receiver of memory. She then unlocks the door for him to see the current Receiver. Jonas is surprised as no doors in their community have any locks. The old man also welcomes Jonas as the Receiver of Memory, but Jonas is confused because he feels that the old man still holds that position. The old man, who isn't actually as old as his appearance makes people believe, explains that Jonas will be the one receiving memories of the past from the old man. Jonas still doesn't understand exactly what that means. The old man tries to explain that he holds memories of the entire world from generations ago. His job is to preserve these memories for the good of society then pass them along to the next receiver. He decides to just show Jonas what he means. He then turns off the speaker in the wall, another thing Jonas has never witnessed, and instructs him to lie down. He chooses to share a memory of snow.

Chapter eleven starts with the old man putting his hands on Jonas's back. Jonas begins to feel cold. Then words come to him, such as sled, hill, and runners, as he has a vision of himself sledding down a snow hill. When he opens his eyes, he asks what happened to the snow? The old man explains that they decided to introduce climate control to alleviate the hassles caused by snow, and they got rid of hills to stop transportation problems. He then transmits another memory to Jonas of sunshine. Somehow, climate control has eliminated that too. Jonas enjoys receiving these memories, but the old man assures him that not all the memories will be pleasant. He gives him a memory of sunburn, so that Jonas can feel a bit of pain. Jonas does not like the pain, but he thinks he is strong enough to endure it. Each memory that Jonas receives means one less that the old man has to carry. He feels his burden being lifted. Since he is the one passing on the memories to Jonas, the new Receiver, he tells Jonas to call him the Giver.

In chapter twelve Jonas lies to his parents the next morning and doesn't tell them about the dream he had. In his dream he was trying to get to something beyond the snow hill, but he couldn't see what it was. He went to school, which was a bit awkward since he wasn't allowed to talk about his training. Then he rode with Fiona to the House of the Old again. She admitted that she waited for him the previous day but left when he didn't show up, which he apologized for. She said she was enjoying all that she was learning and was surprised that they chastised the elderly with a smack the same way that they did with the young children. Jonas couldn't tell her anything in return, but he did notice something odd about Fiona's hair. He went in and asked the Giver about it. The Giver told him to recall the memory of the snow hill and then look down at the sled. Jonas sat back and thought about it and noticed that the sled resembled Fiona's hair in the same way he had noticed the apple looked. The Giver explained that Jonas was seeing the color red. He explained that before they went to sameness, there had been many colors, but they decided to take them all away. They had genetically modified people to all have the same skin tone, but they weren't as successful with eye or hair color. He decided to give Jonas the memory of a rainbow to show him what colors were.