This week has been so much cooler! It has been so fun to bike
around and not be incredibly sweaty:) This week has been full of wonderful
spiritual instruction. We started out with a zone council on Tuesday. We were
taught about becoming converted and we talked about how to balance the Why the
How of missionary work. It was a really good reminder. We talked about how
sometimes we as missionaries focus to much on the How of missionary work when
we should first remember that we are here to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This includes having faith in him, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of
the holy ghost and enduring to the end. When we keep our focus on the why, then
we are more effective missionaries. Then on Thursday we I had the chance to go
to my first zone conference with President Ames. It was awesome!! We started
out by watching the movie "Meet the Mormons". It is an amazing movie,
and I am so glad that you guys got to go and see it. I would invite all those
who have not seen it to go and watch it and be spiritual fed!:) After the movie
it motivated me to become in even better missionary and truly show others that
being apart of Christ's church will bless their lives more then they could ever
imagine. This movie is going to be a powerful tool in showing the world what it
really means to be part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!
Following the movie we talked about Ipads:) Our mission president said that we
would hopefully be getting them by the end of this year! He said that they will
cost 400 dollars, and that every missionary is expected to get one. I think
having an ipad will be very helpful. For one they will have the area book on
them, which will keep everything much more organized, they will also have maps
and you will be able to set reminders for yourself. In addition to that you can
show investigators Mormon messages, conference talks, how to use family search,
and where they can learn more about what we believe. It is an exciting time,
the lord truly is progressing the work!
This week I had the chance to go on
exchange with elder Peterson and then on Friday our new zone leader elder
Hansen. They were both wonderful exchanges and I loved learning how to become a
more consecrated missionary. One exciting thing that happened while on exchange
was that we finally got to teach a boy named Junior Binkley. We have been
trying to get in-touch with him and his family for quite some time now, so it
truly was a blessing when Brother Binkley called and said that he wanted to meet
at the church and teach his son. We went over that night and taught him lesson
1. He is a really smart boy, and we left him with a Book of Mormon and set a
baptismal date for November 9th! Brother Binkley also said he wanted to come on
exchange with us, so we are pretty excited:) Also during both of these
exchanges we worked on street contacting. It was great practice and I am
getting a lot more comfortable talking to everyone I see:)
This week we weren't able to see very many
of our investigators due to schedule conflicts. Rachael had an appointment for
last Tuesday, but was unable to make it. She did text us and told us she wants
to reschedule so we still have high hope for her. Last time we meet with her
she said she wanted to read the whole Book of Mormon by next visit! She has
incredible faith. We have also been trying to get in contact with this lady
named Erica. She has been taught lesson 1 and loved it. I called her this week
to see how she was doing and she told me that her daughter was in the hospital.
She sounded pretty stressed and worried. Hopefully everything will work out ok,
but we need everyone's prayers. Jerome was also out of town this week, but we
are still looking forward to continue teaching him:) We were able to go see
Claudia this week. We tried to teach her that in order to have the spirit more
abundantly in our lives we need to be keeping all of God's commandments.
Claudia feels very lonely and isn't sure why she is still on the earth, and so
I really believe that if she could have the comfort and guidance of the spirit
she would be so much more happy! She did tell us that she has been smoking less
cigarettes lately so there is defiantly progression.:) We also went and say the
Vandergriffs this week. There are doing much better. Brother Vandergriff said
that he is going to get his job back! Also they have come to church for 2 weeks
in a row now which is fantastic! Their baby is due in about 2 month:) We will
probably be going over sometime this week to help him fix his fence. We also
went and visited Matt. He is the one that is less-active and is a single
father. We meet with him and invited him to church, he also feed us this
amazing chicken! Matt did end up coming to church this Sunday and stayed all
three hours! We were very excited to see him there. We also were able to meet
and talk with a guy named Adam. He is less-active and is living with his girl
friend who is not a member. He is a really funny guy, and knows a lot about
guns. (It reminded me about all the fun times we went shooting as a family) It
was a miracle we were able to talk with him, because he just got a new job and
is very busy. He talked about how he needs to go back to church which was great
to hear. We also offered his girl friend Gabby, a blessing, because she has
cancer and they don't have a cure for the kind she has. It is a really
sad situation, but they have a pretty positive attitude about the whole thing.
We were also able to come in contact with another less-active man named Dan
Calvin. He has been very busy with work and it was finally good to talk with
him. He is in the process of going back to school to go into another job field,
because he has been wielding for 25 years and its hurting his back. He said
that on the 23rd of this month that he will be done with his drafting class and
that on that day a company will be coming in to do interviews. We are praying
that he will be able to get the job, then he might be able to come to church
and the job will be so much better for his health! This upcoming week I really
want to find some more investigators to teach! I know that there are tones of
people just waiting to hear the gospel, and all we have to do is get to work
and find them. I'm excited to see who we will find!
Well my time is up, but I love each one of
you so much!!! Keep being the amazing people you are and remember that one of
the easiest ways to do missionary work is to lead by example:)
Love,
Elder
Griffin
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