Friday, April 8, 2016

Bible Deliveries, Yard Work & Miracles


3.28.16
This week was full of blessings. We stayed very busy and had some
beautiful lessons. The first great news was that we were able to
finally contact most of the referrals we received. The church put out
an add for a free bible a while ago and for the past two transfers we
received 30 plus referrals. We have been using tones of miles and time
to try and contact them and it has been quite an adventure! Finally
this week we were able to get in contact with a bunch of them and
finally get them their bibles. We are down to only 6 referrals! We
have meet lots of amazing people, that we hope to continue to meet
with again.The church has also developed a new way of filtering
referrals that are received from Mormon.org, so the referrals we will
now be receiving will be more solid. Thank goodness:)
        This week I was able to have a really good exchange with a missionary
from one of my old zones. We started the exchange out by going to do
service for a lady who has multiple scoliosis. She is confined to a
wheel chair and her husband has a bad back and can't do much. A member
in our ward has been helping them for years and invited us to come do
some yard work. They had a bunch of tree branches and limbs in their
back yard that we were able to help clean up. We would put them in
piles and then tie rope around them to keep them together. We were
also able to get to know the husband and learn a little bit about him.
He was a really nice guy. When we were done, the member told us that
the husband had really come along way and this was the first time he
had really gotten along with missionaries. He isn't too big into
religion, but we are hoping to meet with them more frequently and
start teaching them/building a better relationship with them. I always
appreciated members who reach out to those in need in their community.
It is one of the easiest ways to share the gospel and to build
friendships with other faiths. The next morning we had a cool
experience while trying to contact more referrals. We had an
appointment with this one referral, but when we got their his girl
friend was the only one home. I decided to show her the new Easter
video. As she was watching the video she started to cry. After it was
over she told us that the night before she had a pretty rough
experience, where she could have gone to jail, but God had intervened
and stopped her from doing something she would have regretted. She was
very grateful for the video and told us she really needed it. We
testified to her about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and also shared a
Book of Mormon with her. She also agreed to meet with us again. It was
a pretty neat experience. It is pretty amazing how God puts people in
our path that need help and we get to be instruments in his hand to
help those people.
  This Sunday we had the chance to teach Joseph again. He is the
boyfriend of a member's daughter in our ward. The lesson before we had
committed him to pray about what we had taught him and read the Book
of Mormon as well. At the first of our lesson he told us that he had
prayed more then he had in a very long time and felt like this was the
path that he needed to take:) He had also read the first 4 chapters in
the Book of Mormon. We were super excited to hear that! We were also
able to talk more about the importance of the Book of Mormon and
answer a question he had about something he had read. We also started
teaching him the Plan of Salvation. We shared the pre earth life with
him. He told us that it was new to him and that most churches didn't
teach about anything happening before birth, but that it made since
and that he agreed with what we were teaching. He also made a pretty
cool statement that I really liked. He said that having a knowledge of
the pre earth life gave Jesus Christ's sacrifice more purpose. It was
such a simple statement, but it was so powerful. At the end of the
lesson we extend a baptismal invitation. He again told us that he
really feel like this is the path that God wants him to take. We
didn't set a date yet, but we are hoping to do it next time:) Joseph
is a miracle that God has given this area. He has also expressed to us
that he has a lot of things he has done wrong in his path that he is
not to proud of, so I am excited to teach him the doctrine of the
Atonement.
  There is one last experience that I want to share with you guys. It
was this last Saturday while we were at a really cool members house
for dinner. We had a great meal and a wonderful dinner discussion. At
the end of dinner the member turned to us and said "I don't want to
put you on the spot, but since we it's the Easter season would you
both share your testimonies of the Savior?" We both bore our
testimonies of him followed by the members testimony of the Savior.
The spirit came very quickly and we left their home with a feeling of
peace and love.I always love how quickly the spirit comes when we
speak of the Savior. It was a beautiful experience, and I am so
grateful for members who understand what this gospel is all about.
        I love you all and hope you had a wonderful Easter Week, full of
personal spiritual experiences  with the Savior!

Love


Elder Griffin

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