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