Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Bible bashing and lots of people to teach!

Jan 19, 2015
This week has been a good week, and the work is improving each day. We started off this day with a wonderful P-day full of basketball, laundry and shopping:) That night we went and visited this really nice older couple named Ann and Russ. They had both investigated the church in the past, and had been taught be several sets of elders. We started off with a good honest conversation with them, which then led to her opening up and telling us why she never got baptized. She told us that she had some concerns about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. She said she read some stuff about him, and it changed her views. When then talked a lot about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and we also talked about the Spirit and how each of us need to learn how we can feel his influence. It was a wonderful meeting, and I look forward to meeting with them in the future. 
       We also were able to do some service this Tuesday at a pantry called Grace. Are whole district was there and we got a lot of work done. It was fun to know that all of the food we helped organized would be going to help those in need. This week we where also able to meet with a lady named Jan. She is a school teacher at Southlake's hight school. She has had contact with the missionaries before, but told us they never taught her the missionary lessons. She is very religious herself and is always open to learning more. After we left elder Brown told me he had a feeling that she was going to get baptized, it is pretty exciting. We also had a really cool experience while trackting this week. We were trackting this neighborhood and we were on the last house. We knocked on the door and a middle eastern man answered and invited us in. We were really surprised, because he was the first person that had invited is inside for quite some time. We sat down with him and found out that he was from the Muslim faith. He told us a little about his faith, and it was crazy how similar it is to ours. He told us that the Quran is very similar to the bible, and that the biggest difference between Muslims and Christians is that they believe Jesus is only a great prophet. We were also able to teach him the first part of the Restoration. It was a wonderful visit, and he told us that he would love to have further discussion with him in the near future. The same day we decided to go down to town square in Southlake and do some contacting. While we were there these teenagers came up to us and started asking about what we believe. At first I was excited, but they then proceeded to bible bash us. It was not a very fun experience and the spirit was not there. We tired to testify to them several times, but they would not listen. Following this experience we were feeling very frustrated and down when this 17 year old girl came up to us and told us she was investigating the church and was attending the Trophy Club ward. We were able to testify to her that what she was doing was right, and told her to keep pushing through all of the opposition she was facing. It was really cool to see the spiritual contrast between the bashers and this teenage girl who has come to know for herself that the Book of Mormon is true and now wants to be baptized! 
   There are also a lot of wonderful missionary opportunities that have started to happen in our ward. One is a part-member family of a recently baptized college student. They showed up last week and this week and stayed the whole 3 hours! The cool thing about this family is that the father has always been very bitter about the church, and is now loving church! It is cool to see how the Lord can soften the hearts of his people. Also there is another Part-member family named the Martinez. The wife is a member, but her husband is not. He has spoken with missionaries in the past, but felt to pushed. This last week he has now told us that he is willing to have us over! We are having a lesson with them, and our bishop and his wife this Friday. We are hoping and praying that he will hear something that will touch his heart. Another exciting piece of news, is that Bri (the people I live withs granddaughter) has started taking the lessons from the sister missionaries and now has a baptismal date:) It is so fun to see all of these wonderful people reaching out to the gospel!
   Well I hope you are all having much success in your schooling, work and families! Have a great week and always remember to love all of those you come in contact with.

Love,


Elder Griffin

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