"That's my son, and I love him" story

10.26.15

We started out this week by having interviews with President Ames. It

was kind of stressful at first because we had to fill about 3 hours of

time with trainings, but it ended up going really well. Most of the

trainings were focused around building relationships with the bishop

and ward council. We also had a really good council about how we can

better place copies of the Book of Mormon. Our mission is again having

a Book of Mormon challenge. We are reading 20 minutes everyday and

placing one copy of the Book of Mormon everyday. We are hoping to hand

out 8,500 by Christmas.  Our mission President has three things that

are important when placing Book of Mormon: I know,(bear testimony)

will you, (commit them to read and pray) and when can we follow up on

your reading. It's so simple, but a powerful approach to placing Book

of Mormons.   We had some really good discussions. I love this zone

already, we have a lot of amazing missionaries.

   This week we also had the chance to go on exchange with the

assistants. I got to go with elder Tanner in his area. We had an

amazing exchange! We were able to teach a recent convert as well as

two of their investigators. My favorite lesson we taught was with this

guy named Mike. He has struggled with drug addictions for a long time,

but is doing his best to clean up his life. During our lesson with him

the spirit was really strong and elder Tanner bore his testimony to

him and told him that God needs him to be in the church so that he can

be a missionary to those people who have similar struggles. During our

lesson I could feel that this man was going to get baptized, and I am

almost positive that he felt the same witness. I love the hope the

gospel brings into people's lives that are lost and in a bad place. It

was a wonderful lesson to be part of. Also during the exchange this

member meet us at a fast food restaurant to have dinner with us. When

the member got there we noticed he had another man with him, and I

just assumed it was his friend. Well as we got our food and started

eating we asked how they knew each other. They told us that they had

meet only 20 minutes ago. The man, whose name is Cory, told us that he

had been coming home from work on the bus and had missed his regular

stop for some reason. He started walking home in the rain. The member

saw Cory walking home and asked him if he could give him a ride. What

an awesome member!! Elder Tanner started teaching him about the gospel

using a temple pass-a-long card and then transitioned it into the Book

of Mormon. Cory said he would love a copy to read. He then went on to

tell us that he believes that this meeting happened for a reason. He

said that he had gotten out of jail a little while ago and was now on

parol for the next 5 years. He decided that he needed to change his

life. We got his contact information down and will be giving it to the

elders where he lives. It is so cool to see God's hand working in this

man's life. If he wouldn't have missed his stop, and if that member

would not have offered a ride this man would have missed the

opportunity to hear the gospel. It was a pure miracle!

  This week we were also able to attend our stake conference. We had a

member of the 70 attend. The Saturday night session was amazing and

the spirit was so strong. President Ames spoke and shared 3 very

inspiring stories about following the spirit. I want to just share one

that was very touching. He said that he was out visiting investigators

with some missionaries and had gotten soaked from the rain. He had an

hour before he was going to go out with another set of missionaries

and he decided to go to the gas station to get something to eat and

dry off a little bit. While he was there he say a man who looked

homeless. He got a prompting to buy this man lunch. At first he

ignored it and went in to dry off. After drying off he came back out

side and he didn't see the man anymore. Then off to the right he saw

the man making his way towards the dumpster. President Ames finally

decided to follow the prompting and went and bought him something to

eat. When he offered it to the man he at first kindly refused saying

that he didn't want to take his lunch from President, but President

told him that he had bought it for him. The man was very grateful.

After excepting the food the man looked at President's name tag and

asked if he could pray with him. President Ames put his arms on the

man and prayed with him. As he was getting back into his car he heard

a voice in his head say "That is my son, and I love him" It was such a

powerful story about the reality of God and how much he loves each one

of his children. There was also a man who got in a car wreck and it

ended up paralyzing him. He told us off his experience

and how he was able to get through it and still stay positive. It was

so inspiring! It was an incredible conference:)

  This has been such a great week and I have truly been spiritually

charged! I love you all and hope you have a happy Halloween!

Love,

Elder Griffin