Best Day of My Mission!

Jan 26, 2015
This week has been full of wonderful blessings and miracles. God truly know us, and is always watching and sending us help and guidance.

     We started out this week with a wonderful visit with Ann and Russ. They are just the nicest people I have ever meet. The first thing they did when we came inside was give us water and some super delicious soup:) Following that we decided to watch some bible videos with them, sense they don't really want the missionary lessons at the moment. They loved the bible videos and the spirit was defiantly present. It also allowed for a gospel conversation to start up. Russ brought up the subject of the second coming and asked us if we believed he was coming again. We told him of course he is coming again! We were also able to bare strong testimony to them about our Savior, and how he will come again and how glorious it will be! I am excited to teach them more about the second coming, I think they will really like it. Hopefully this week or the next we will have them over to a members house ( the Siebachs) to have dinner and a lesson.

   This Wednesday morning we got a text from the ward young women leader saying that a 17 year old girl named Denise is ready to get baptized! This is truly a miracle, because the father of Denise was very stubborn and would not let her get baptized until she was 18. Now his heart has been softened and she will hopefully get baptized this Saturday or the next:) She has been taught all but one lesson, which we will be teaching to her on Tuesday. Also the Father of Denise has been coming to church and even called the Spanish missionaries and told them he wanted the missionary lessons! The ward is very excited:) Bri is also doing very well. She had another lesson with the sister missionaries this Saturday, and they said it went great. Also one of the Laurels from the ward was in the lesson, which I think really helped Bri feel comfortable. The only thing that is holding her back at the moment, is that she really wants to make sure that she knows all of the things they are teaching her are true, so please keep her in your prayers.

  This Friday I had one of the best days I have had on my mission! I was on exchange with one of our zone leaders elder Cherry. He is an amazing missionary and I learned so much from him. We started out the exchange by going trackting. While trackting we got 3 return appointments, which never happens! Also while we were trackting we knocked on this one door and this nice old man answered. His name was Charles. The first thing he said was if we were here to rack his leaves, we said we would love to rack his leaves:) He went and got us bags, gloves and racks and we got to work:) We worked until dinner and then told him we would come back and finish his yard the next day, before we left he handed us a 100 dollar bill! We tried to decline it but he would not take no for an answer. He was the nicest man, and told us that his wife was not feeling very well and he was having to do everything in this house such as dishes and laundry for a month! He was very excited and I think he really appreciated the service. Following a delicious dinner with the Johnston family we had a lesson with a part member family, the Martinez family. The wife is a member and served a mission. Her husband is not, but has been taught by lots of missionaries in the past. His name is Pablo.  For a while he wasn't meeting with the missionaries, because they were being to pushy with him. Just last week he decided that we could finally come over! Going into this lesson I was very nervous, because his wife had told us that there were certain subjects that he doesn't like talking about, such as eternal families and the Book of Mormon. She also told us that she would like us to prepare a lesson on the Holy Ghost and how we can recognize the spirit. Also attending this lesson was the Bishop and his wife, they are good friends with the Martinez.  We started off the lesson by watching the Mormon message called "Hope of God's Light" It was a good starting point, and it brought the spirit right away. We then went on to share a couple scriptures and then we went around the room and had everyone share how they feel the spirit. It was amazing and everyone bore powerful and pure testimonies about the spirit. The bishops wife also shared some amazing personal experiences. We even got Pablo to share some ways he has felt the spirit guiding him, it was awesome. We left him with the commitment to pray this week with his wife. When the lesson was done he said we could come back this Friday! I was so grateful that Heavenly Father answered my prayers, and that he filled my mind with the words that Pablo needed to hear. Following the lesson with Pablo, elder Cherry and I decided to go to Southlake town square and do some contacting. While there were able to teach two groups of youth lessons, as well as hand out a couple Book of Mormons and lesson pamphlets:) It was the most amazing day and I will never forget it! The following morning we went back to one of the people who told us to come back while we were trackting. When we entered their house we found out that they were Hindu, they even had this temple/shrine place where some of the family was praying in. It was very beautiful. We were able to teach one of the brother-in-laws in the house. He also taught us some of his beliefs. It was crazy how similar our two religions are! It was a wonderful visit and I have a great respect for the Hindu religion now, they are very humble and kind people. After the lesson we went and finished racking Charles's leaves. It was a lot of hard work, but we finally got it done. Elder Brown and Cathgaurt came and helped us finish. It was fun to see his yard clean from leaves, and the huge pile of bags full of leaves by the side of the road:)

       It truly has been an amazing week, and I can't wait to see all of the other miracles that will happen this week. I know God lives, I know Jesus Christ Atoned for our sins and i know that if we pray sincerely that our prayers will be answered!

Love,

Elder Griffin 

P.S. Here is a picture of all the leaves we raked:)