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:)  

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

Someone called the cops... :P

Jan 12, 2015

This week has defiantly been a better week:) We started off the week with an amazing zone council. We have the most incredible zone full of amazing people. One sister gave a training on letting go of all of the false expectations that people give you about your area. A lot of times when a new missionary comes into the new area they tell them/ focus on all of the negative in the area such as it is slow, or the members don't like missionary work. The new missionary now goes into his new area feeling sad and hopeless. Instead we should allow the new missionary to come in with a clean and new view of the area. We should focus on the positive in our area and break down all of the false barriers. It was really good and are zone really needed it. Another sister gave an amazing council on making sure that we don't focus so much on being a perfect missionary that we lose sight of what is really important. She then told us an incredible personal story. She said that she was an an area and she was having lots of success. Then she started feeling sick and didn't know what was wrong. She didn't want to reach out to anyone, because she thought she would be weak if she sought help. Finally the pain got so bad that she went in to see a doctor. The doctors took her in and they discovered that she had a tumor that had cancer. She would have to go home and get surgery. President Ames decided that he would have the whole mission fast for her. The day she was supposed to have surgery, the doctors did another scan to see the details of the tumor. A miracle then took place. The doctors found now trace of the tumor!! This tumor had been 8 centimeters long, and was now completely gone! It was the most amazing story and showed the power of fasting:) We also had a cool experience when we were coming up for the baptismal goal for February. We decided that we could get 8 baptisms, which is a huge increase from last month! We all knelled down and prayed to know if 8 was the right number. Our prayer was answered and the spirit witnessed to each one of us that 8 was the right goal for the month of February. It was so powerful, and I could feel how unified our zone was.

     This week we continued in our efforts of finding new investigators. We did get to finally teach some lessons while contacting! We also had some people that were very sincere say that we could come back and teach them. I pray that one of this individuals will have there hearts softened and will be open to receiving the restored gospel. We did have something interesting happen while trackting one night.... we got the cops called on us!! I guess two guys in all black, knocking on doors at night can look pretty suspicious, even though we wouldn't hurt a fly:) So i guess this means that we won't be able to tract at night any more, but it will push us to be more creative with are night time hours. This week we were also able to go and visit this really nice 85 year old named Diane. She has been taught in the past by missionaries, but because of her age she has a hard time remembering things.:) We first started out by reading from the Book of Mormon, but it was going over her head and she was really confused. We then decided to teach her the Restoration, because she had some questions about Joseph Smith. As we started teaching she stared talking about how crazy the world is turning, and how worried she was about her grandchildren growing up in this world and how they were going to stay strong. We went on to teach her about prophets and how the Lord has again reached out to his children and given us a prophet today. We talked about the role of the prophet and how if we heed his council that we will never go astray from the path God wants us to be on. It was really cool and I think it helped her be more at peace. She then went on to tell us that she had actually watched some of conference and how she really liked it. Even though she didn't remember or understand a lot of what we were saying, I was glad that we could answer her questions and bring the spirit into her life.

     This week we also got to attend the baptism of a lady in our ward named Peggy. Peggy has been coming to church now for 4 years, and decided last week that she finally needed to be baptized!! The room we had the baptism was packed full of people coming to show their love and support for Peggy.  It was awesome! Another cool thing about the baptism was that there were 5 non-members attending. We are hoping that their hearts were pricked and they will develop that desire to be baptized as well:) Also this Sunday we had this husband and wife of a recent convert come to church for the first time! It was really cool, and I think they might even be interested in taking the missionary lessons!

     Well I am excited to see what this next week will bring, and I can't wait to start teaching more people. I love you all and hope you are all happy and sharing your light and love with all you can!

Love,

Elder Griffin

P.S. Last week I sent a picture that I said was my zone, that was actually my district, this is a picture of my zone:) Also here is a picture of elder Brown and his fractured wrist!   

Elder Brown totally wiped out!

 Jan 5, 2015

First off, when we were riding our bikes to email elder Brown totally wiped out on his bike! It was the craziest thing. He was just riding on the sidewalk and all of the sudden he just slammed into the ground. When I asked him what happened he had no clue! It tore up one of his gloves and he hurt his wrist pretty bad. Hopefully he will be alright, luckily we are going over to a members house tonight who is a doctor:)

     This week has been a hard week, but I have learned a lot of patience and how to better rely on the Lord. Are only investigator we are working with at the moment has been out of town and we haven't been able to teach him. We have been praying ever night that he will stay strong on his trip! He went to Colorado with some of his not very good friends, so we are hopping he won't make any bad choices. Please keep him in your prayers. He is such a good guy and I know if he will keep the commitments we are giving him that he will be baptized! This week we have also done a lot of trackting! Trackting is quite the interesting experience:) It is always nerve racking and fun to see who is going to be behind the door, and you end up meeting some interesting people. The best part about trackting is probably the opportunity to bare testimony about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even thought most people don't let us in, we are giving them a chance to feel the peace and power of the Spirit. Hopefully a heart or two were softened as we shared with all of these people this wonderful message. I just really wish all of these people would realize what we have to share with them! This isn't just another church to join, it is Jesus Christ's restored church that is here again on the earth. If only they knew how much this gospel could change their lives they would be knocking on our door asking us to teach them:) I know that Heavenly Father is preparing people to receive this message we just have to follow the spirit and keep looking:) This week we also had some really good work of salvation/ missionary work lessons with members. This one family has a 16 year old boy who has a friend that has came to church a few times, we were able to share a powerful video on the Book of Mormon and then invited them to share a copy of the book with the friend. We also had a good lesson with the Purcell family. They are such a solid family, and they said they wanted to set a goal for the amount of non-member families that they would invited to dinner this year. I really think that member referrals is what is going to lead to baptisms in this area. We are also going to start teaching the families in our ward the missionary lessons, I think it will help members reach out more to their friends and share the gospel.

      We also found out some amazing information this Sunday. This lady named Peggy Springer is getting baptized this Saturday! I have never taught her, but elder Brown said that she has been taught by so many missionaries. She has also been going to church for 3 years, bears her testimony and sings in the choir:) Everyone in the ward is so excited for her! Hopefully this will fire everyone up for missionary work this upcoming year.

   Well I hope everyone has a good first week going back to school, as hard as it may be, and that y'all are keeping an eye out for missionary opportunities! 

Love, 

Elder Griffin

P.S. This is a picture of my new zone.

First of all I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! This week elder Brown and I have been working a lot on our area book. This area used to have both sisters and elders, so we had to combine a lot of information. We have also been working on putting together a binder called "The Ultimate Source". This binder contains all of the potential investigators and former investigators in our area. It is a lot of work, but when it is done it will be so worth it! This area has been kind of dead for a while, so elder Brown and I area going to bring this area back to life! We plan on trackting the whole area and asking referrals from everyone:)

     Christmas was wonderful in Southlake. We started off by going over to this really cool family named the Sheehans. They have a family of all boys, so I felt right at home. They gave both of us a gift (a tie) and then we played a really fun board game and had this amazing caramel and banana french toast! Following that we had our district meeting. Both elder Brown and I gave training. It was a wonderful meeting and both training went great. After that we came back to our apartment and got to call home! It was so fun to hear how everyone was doing and the hour they gave us to talk went by so fast:) It sounded like everyone had lots of fun and got some super fun presents. After the phone calls we went over to the Pelazo's house and had a traditional Jewish meal. It was pretty cool and very delicious. After dinner they gave us both a stocking full of presents:) After dinner are whole zone went caroling. We got to use the big mission vans, so it was pretty fun. It was a great first Christmas on the mission and I am glad that even though I can't be with all of you I was able to spend it with wonderful missionaries and ward members.

     This Friday I was able to go on exchange with our district leader elder Grig. He is an awesome missionary and is not afraid to work hard. This is actually his last transfer before he is done with his mission! For our exchange we started out in the morning trackting. We were able to teach most of the restoration to this one guy. The message was going very well and the spirit was present, but then we mentioned the Book of Mormon and I guess he didn't realize we were Mormons:) He was done after that, but at least he felt the spirit and knows what we believe now. After lunch we went and tried to visit all of the potential in this certain area. Not very many of them were home, but we did get some to answer and say we could come back. After that we decided to tract again. During the tracting we meet this really nice guy named Jeff. He is a pretty religious guy, and he said that he and his girlfriend have made a goal to go to church each week next year. We talked to him briefly about the restoration and what we believe. He also accepted a Book of Mormon and lesson 1 pamphlet! He also said we could come back and teach him more in January:) It will be fun to start teaching him. Also that night we had dinner at this really nice family named the Paces. They are a really nice younger couple and they have the cutest kids:) For the lesson with them we watched this cute video about this old shoe maker, and then we talked about service. It was a wonderful visit, and made me super grateful for solid members!

    We also had a wonderful Sunday. Elder Brown and I were able to teach our gospel principal class. Since we had just had Christmas we decided to talk about the life of Christ. The lesson was really good and the spirit was strong. We attend the priest quorum, and one of the priest gave a great lesson on hasting the work, it was fun to be able to make comments and answer some of the questions that were brought up. After church this nice couple took us to one of there family parties to have Sunday dinner. The party was being held for a missionary that just barley got home. It was really fun to talk to him and discuss all about his mission. He was a really cool guy.  

      Have a good last week off of school and do lots of skiing and sledding:)!!

Love,

Elder Griffin