Jake and John staying strong!

7.25.16

Jake and John are still doing wonderful. They have both came to

church now three times. We still haven't set a date with John, but we

did have a good lesson this week on Christ's earthly ministry and we

went over the Restoration again. He definitely believes it, and is

praying to know if the Book of Mormon is true and if Joseph Smith is a

prophet. Jake is still progressing and doing really well! He is

literally counting down the days until his baptism. Yesterday we told

him about the Word of Wisdom and law of chastity and he agreed to live

them both, which is always a huge blessing! He is getting baptized the

Saturday before I go home, and I get to baptize him:) It will be a

great way to end my mission.

        This Saturday we also had a pretty cool experience. We didn't have

any lesson in the afternoon, so we went out to try and visit a couple

different folks. As we were knocking on this one ladies door, we

noticed her next door neighbor was out on her porch, so we went up to

talk to her. She told us that she had talked with missionaries in

Alabama and had really liked what we taught about repentance. She said

that just yesterday she had been thinking about the steps of

repentance the missionaries had taught her, but she couldn't really

remember them. We gave her a pamphlet that had all the steep in it and

testified to her about the importance of all of the steps in the

gospel of Jesus Christ. She loved and asked where we went to church.

God really does love his children and knows what each one of them

need. She ended up actually being in the sister missionaries area, but

it was still cool that we got to share that simple message with her.

After her we were able to contact a former investigator we have been

trying to get ahold of. Her husband/boyfriend has been in jail, and so

he hadn't been able to cut their grass. We ran to a members house and

did a little service for her. We have a lesson with her this Saturday,

we are hoping to have it in a members home. She is pretty close to a

family in our ward. It was awesome. '

        We also were able to attend the baptism of two 8 year old children

this last Saturday. We had been teaching the lessons to both families.

Elder Mohrmann got to baptize the little boy and I got to confirm him.

It was a wonderful experience. They are both awesome kids!

        I love you guys, have a great week!

Elder Griffin

Jake committed to baptism!

7.18.16

Last week I mentioned that one of our members had brought one of his

friends to church named Jake and he ended up having a really positive

experience. This week we found out that he is even more prepared then

we ever could have imagined! He came to FHE with us this Monday and he

got along with all of the members. Then we had our first lesson with

him on Tuesday and it went great. The whole time he said that

everything we were teaching him just made sense. He told us that he

even started referring himself to people as a Mormon! At the end of

the lesson we invited him to be baptized on August 6th and he

accepted, telling us that he would do all he could to be ready for

that date:) I have literally never meet someone on my mission who is

more prepared then Jake, it is a huge blessing that I am grateful I

get to be part of! John, Aaron's friend also came to Sacrament

meeting. It was  really spiritual sacrament meeting. One of the

members played this beautiful song, that brought the spirit super

strong. It was perfect for Jake and John.

  I hope you all have a great week!

Love

Elder Griffin

Go, go, go

7.11.16

This week has been a go, go , go week! Every day was very busy and

has been full of finding, teaching and testifying:) I will share a

couple highlights from the week.

        On Tuesday night we went on a double exchange. This is where elder

Mohrmann and I go with a different member, in order to visit more

people. I went with a brother from the Cove 1st ward named brother

Hirsch. Our first visit was to go give a blessing to a lady who was

about to have surgery. Well I anointed and the brother administered

the blessings. It was a beautiful blessing, and it was exactly what

she needed to hear. After the blessings she broke down and started

weeping telling us all that she is going through right now. We did our

best to listen and brother Hirsch gave her words of counseling. He is

a social working, so that helped a little bit. It was so sad to see

how much pain she was in emotionally, spiritually and physically. That

poor family has been through so much! It was amazing to me how she has

been able to stay strong through all of the horrible things she is

going through. We did our best to testify about the power of the

atonement, but it didn't seem to help too much:( As we left I was

feeling pretty down, but we prayed and asked Heavenly Father to bless

that family and watch over them. Due to our visit with this family

going over, we didn't have time to drive over to our other

appointment, so elder Mohrmann and his member went to the appointment.

We decided to go and try by a former investigator named Abby. They

ended up being home and they invited us in. Gabby is a sweet little

girl who is 11 years old. She also has a younger sister. We read the

account of the Savior visiting the Americas and talked a lot about the

importance of baptism. They were super smart kids and soaked it all

in. At the end of the lesson Gabby gave a beautiful closing prayer. We

will be teaching her again this next week. This lesson was exactly

what I needed to left my broken spirits. I am so thankful that God

lead us to this family.

        Also this week we were able to teach part of institute for the YSA

branch. Our part of the lesson was on becoming instruments in the

hands of God. It went really well and there were lots of cool comments

given and experiences shared. At the end of our lesson we invited

everyone to think of one person they could share the peace of the

gospel with. Well one of the members, James, did just that and invited

his buddy from the army to come to church this Sunday! His name is

Jake. He loved church and even accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon.

Jake told us that he always admired who Christ like James was, and was

interested in learning about the Mormon faith. We our going to start

teaching him the missionary lessons this Tuesday. He is really open

and ready to learn! That same Sunday another one of our investigators

named John came to church too! Aaron went and picked him up and

brought him. He loved it and commented on how reverent our services

were. He also sang all the sacrament songs, even though he had never

heard them before. It was cool to see him jump right in! I know he

felt the spirit. Aaron told us when they were driving back that John

said this might be a church he wants to join. Yay baby! Jake and John

are wonderful people and I am excited to continue to work with them.

That's one of the things I love about this gospel. All you have to do

is extend a simple invitation and then let the truthfulness of the

message we share work within their hearts!

        This is a wonderful gospel and I love the happiness it brings into my

own life and the lives a get to touch while here on my mission. Have

an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Griffin

Color run, Cameron, & New Mission Pres

7.4.16 

So far the 4th of July has been pretty awesome. A member invited us

to go do a color run with them this morning on Fort Hood. It was so

fun! We were literally covered in different colored chalk:) When we

got done we helped hand water out to all of the runners finishing. We

also ran into a less-active YSA member who was playing in the army

band, he plays the trumpet like a boss! He was super cool and told us

he has been thinking about coming back to church. We got down his

number and will be inviting him to all of YSA activities:) We also

meet this cool lady who handed out water bottles with us, she said she

could help us get involved with more service actives. It was a very

productive Color Run! We also got to go to a BBQ, that was put on by a

member in one o f the wards in our stake. They feed missionaries every

4th of July. They had really good food, my favorite was the homemade

brisket.

        This week we had some awesome lessons. We got to go and teach Cameron

again with the priest in our ward. We taught the Pre-mortal life and

showed this sweet video that brings the spirit every time. It's

actually from the children's New Testament. I love it, because it's so

simple and testifies that we really did live with our Heavenly Father.

We also had a really good exchange with our YSA elders quorum

president. We first went to went to try and visit a less-active member

and ended up running into another YSA aged dude that just moved here.

We started talking to him and found out that he was really in to

basketball. He used to be really good and was even going to play for

Duke! He was a little shorter then me and he told us that he could

dunk! His vertical was over 35 inches!! He said he was looking for a

church, we love when people say that, so we gave him a Book of Mormon

and invited him to the YSA pool party. We also have an appointment

this week to go and teach him! Then that evening we went to Central

Texas College, to and teach Aaron's class mate. His name is John. We

decided to teach him the Plan of Salvation, because his grandma had

past away. There was also this blind guy that decided to join in the

lessons. He was a really cool guys, but was made a lot of comments and

was pretty distracting. He was also super touchy and feely and kept

grabbing and rubbing elder Mohrmann's arm. It was super awkward, Elder

Mohrmann is a very patient person:) We taught about the spirit world

and told him where his grandmas was. We also talked about the judgment

and the 3 kingdoms. He agreed with almost everything we taught. He

will also be coming to church this Sunday.

        This week President Ames left:( He is a wonderful man and has been a

big part of my life. I will miss him dearly! We got to meet the new

mission President this Saturday. He is an older man from Washington

down in Southern Utah. He is a very compassionate and tender man. He

is also super funny! He is going to be a great mission President. He

has been a stake President and a ward mission leader (for 7 years) so

he knows all about missionary work:) Sadly I will only get to be with

him for a few more weeks.

        I love you all and hope you have a super fun 4th of July!! What a

blessings it is to be  in this country.

Love, Elder Griffin