Birthday Boy

 Hello wonderful family! I just want to start off by telling evryone thank you for all of the fun birthday packages and notes! It made my birthday very enjoyable and exciting:) Mom, thank you for all of the BYU stuff, now I can finally have some cougar pride to match my companions Utah pride!:) It ended up being a wonderful day, full of happy birthdays and yummy treats.

This week has been a good one, we have got a good amount of referrals and have been trying to get into contact with them. We did get to go visit  lady named Rachel, who referred herself, because she wanted help bringing her husband (who is struggling) closer to Christ. We decided that we needed to teach her the plan of salvation. It was a very powerful lesson, and she had lots of questions that we were able to answer for her. In the end we gave her a Book of Mormon and asked if she would read 3 Nephi 11. She said she would, and that she would probably end up reading at least half of it by next time! She is awesome, and was defiantly prepared by the Lord. We have also tried to contact a guy named Kenny, but have not yet been able to meet with him. Earlier this week we went and saw this sweet old lady named Claudia. She is 77 years old and lives in a care center. She is really struggling and doesn't understand why she is still on the earth. She also has a lot of family problems and has been addicted to smoking for along time and wants to stop so she can have the sacrament. We have been visiting her for 4 or 5 weeks now, and each time we go we try to leave her with a gospel message of peace and hope. Last weeks lesson went really, really well! When we left she was beaming with happiness. We also had the chance to visit the Vandergriff family. They are really struggling, with the baby on the way and him out of work with his injury. They did get approved for disability which has been a great blessing. They also came to church this week! It was so good to see them. There is this other guy named Jerome that we got to go visit this week with a member exchange. He is older and loves to talk politics! It's really hard to teach him, but we love him to death! He is a strong christian man, that is striving to live his life in accordance with God's will for him. He told us that every morning he thanks God for allowing him to be on the earth this day. He is a great example to me and has helped me to have more gratitude in my heart. We also had the chance to go and do some service for an older couple in our ward. We helped them pull up all of these plant roots that had been over grown with grass. When we were done my jeans were caked in a thick layer of mud!:) It was fun to work hard and help out such a wonderful family. They actually ended up giving us all of these supplies for our apartment! It was great. Elder Partridge also got a lot of sweet slacks from them.

I want to tell you about one of my favorite members:

Brother Davis: He is 88 years old and lives alone in a tiny little house. Has two little black chickens that he takes care of. He is super into scouting and has a hundred plus cups from scout camps! He always helps us with rides and when we go to get groceries. He has two cars he picks us up in. One is this really nice luxurious car, and the other is this big Chevy fan. It has two seats in front and in the back he has this big recliner that we get to ride in:) It's quite the bumpy ride! He also already has his 100 birthday planned. He told us that he has already rented out the church, and that he is going to spend the rest of his funds for food for his party. Once the party is over, he is going to call the mortuary and tell them to come pick him up because he is ready to die:) He is a great member and always brings a smile to my face.

This week I also got to go on exchange with the zone leaders. They speak Spanish, so most of the people they teach spoke Spanish. it was pretty interesting. We started off by making doing these referral updates through the phone. The whole time we were doing them, the phone was making this high pitched static noise that gave elder Cook a head ache:) After that we went knocking doors. We didn't have much success, but it was good practice. We also went and taught this really awesome guy named Eduardo. We taught him tithing and keeping the Sabbath day holy. The lesson went great and he committed to both commandments. We also got to teach this thing called a 21 tips lesson. It's a free service the missionary get to where you go into a families house and teach there kids how to do better in school. We taught this wonderful christian family, and at the end I got  to testify about how God is the greatest teacher and counselor and how we can turn to him for help with school related things. It was a great visit and they said we could come back next week. It was a wonderful exchange. We have awesome Zone leaders! 

Well my email time is up, but I want everyone to know that this is the true church and the Book of Mormon truly contains the fullness of the gospel! It brings me such joy to read from its pages! I love you all so much!!!

Love, 

Elder Griffin