Wonderful Meetings

3.7.16

This week was full of wonderful meetings! The first one we were able

to attend was zone conference. The focus of our zone conference was

becoming more persuasive teachers and how we can help our

investigators keep their commitments. One of the coolest parts of the

conference was when President Ames taught us all five of the

missionary lessons in 10 minutes and connected all of them together.

It was neat to be able to take a step back and see the whole picture.

It really strengthened my testimony of truthfulness of this gospel.

What an amazing message we have to share!

 The next meeting was the missionary leadership council on Friday. Our

focus in that meeting was the Atonement and the new Easter initiative

the church is going to be starting on March 13th. During the meeting

President showed a series of bible videos that included the triumphal

entry into Jerusalem, the suffering in Gethsemane, the different

trials, the crucifixion and the resurrection. He also bore his

testimony and shared his personal thoughts about the Atonement. The

spirt was so strong the whole time, and my love for the Savior grew a

lot. We then talked about how we can use the new Easter initiative to

share the Restoration and find new investigators. We talked about how

a lot of times we focus on the first vision when we talk about the

Restoration, but we have to also remember to always connect everything

we teach back to the Atonement. The Restoration fully activated the

Atonement of Jesus Christ, because of the Restoration we now know that

we need to have faith in Jesus Chrsit, repent, get baptized by someone

holding the very same authority that Jesus Christ, and then receive

the gift of the Holy Ghost that allows us to be cleansed and purified.

We then endure to the end, by continuing to keep the commandments and

the covenants we make. It was a great meeting!

  The Binklies are still doing great, and we are making good progress

with them. The ward has been great, and we have been able to bring

tones of different members over to fellowship. Ralph has had a pretty

rough week. His health is not doing so great, so please keep him in

your prayers! We were also able to see Charles. Last week he sent us

an email that had a lot of questions concerning some of our doctrine.

We looked over it and elder Thomas had the idea to share Alma 32 and

talk about having the faith to trust what we are teaching him and open

up a place in his heart where the spirit will be able to testify to

him concern the truths we are teaching him. We also shared the

articles of faith with him. It was good to help him simply state what

are major beliefs are. We also invited him to church, he wasn't able

to come this week, but he said he would love to come another week! He

is such a great man, and we always enjoy the visits with him.

        I wish you all a happy week!

Love, Elder Griffin

Charles

2.29.16

This morning we decided to start our P-day by going on a trail run. We

went to the same place we hiked around at a couple of weeks ago. It

was so much fun!! It is such a blessing to have a companion who enjoys

physical fitness and the beauty of nature.

        All three of our baptismal dates are still good to go for the 19th of

March! We were able to have two good lessons with the Binklies this

week, as well as two good lessons with Ralph. The ward has been super

supportive and we have been able to bring a lot of awesome members to

the lessons with the BInklies, who have really been able to add to our

lessons and provide great fellowship. The ward also continues to be a

huge help to Ralph. They are creating a list of all of the things that

need to be done in his house, and will be helping get his house up and

running. They are hoping to make it into a service project.

  We were also able to have a great lesson with Charles! He had

emailed us a couple days before our lesson and told us a couple of

concerns he had with the Book of Mormon and other doctrinal things he

didn't agree with. We text him and told him that we would be able to

try are best to answer his questions. We went over to his house this

Saturday and he told us what his concerns were. After he was done

telling us about his concerns, I felt like we should teach him the

Apostasy. The lesson went really well, and he totally agreed that the

world had fallen into an apostasy. We also watched Joseph Smith's

first vision with him. He told us that he is going to have to do a lot

of studying and praying. He is also really big on going to God and

seeking truth from him. We told him that was exactly what we wanted

him to do! Charles also told us about his conversion to Christ and how

much his life has changed because of it, it was a very inspiring

story. Charles is a very sincere man, and I can see the light of

Christ in his eyes. We are continuing to prayer that he will receive a

witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. He is already close

to finishing 2 Nephi:)

  We were also able to meet with one of our investigators named Ray.

We had a lesson with him about the baptismal covenant as well as the

importance of taking the sacrament. We also extended a baptismal

invitation for the 23rd of April. He told us that his desire is to be

baptized, but that he would have to pray about the 23rd. He bore a

beautiful testimony of the reality of God and told us how grateful he

was for God's hand in his life.

  We have been so blessed in this area! God is providing many people

for us to teach, and I am so grateful for the opportunities he is

giving. He truly is aware of our needs and wants each one of his

children to have joy. I love you all and hope you have a safe week!

Elder Griffin

3 baptismal dates!

2.22.16

This week we set 3 baptismal dates!! One is with Ralph for the 17 of

March, and the other two are Junior and Emily Binkley for the 19 of

March:) We are praying that they will all make it to their dates. We

have been teaching both of them twice a week, so they should be ready

by that time:)

The ward has been super helpful with Ralph. We went over to Ralph's

house and made a list of all of things he needs to get fixed in his

house. We then got it to the bishop and he assembled a dream team of

ward members who will be able to help Ralph fix up his house. They are

going to be staring work on his house next couple of weeks.

Teaching Junior and Emily again has been lots of fun. They are really

smart kids, and retain a lot of the doctrine we teach them.

We also had an awesome double exchange this week. I went with an

awesome member named brother Ayala. We went and saw this returning

member, sister Ramos. She has been through a lot, but really has a

goal to go and do temple work for her family members that have passed

away. She hasn't came to church in a while, so we decided to teach her

about the importance of the sacrament. The lesson went really well,

and we also ended up talking about the importance of keeping the

Sabbath day holy. She gets really bad migraines, and it makes it hard

for her to come to church. We gave her a priesthood blessing and

promised her that if she came to church that God would help her with

her headaches. The next day she went to the temple to do a tour with a

bunch of other investigators/recent converts from our ward. Then she

came to church the next day!! We're are hoping to help her get family

names and go do their work next month:)

Also this week received an really solid member referral from a member

in Arizona, who has a friend that wanted to know more about the

church. We went over and taught him Saturday morning. He is the

coolest guy and has the nicest family. He is super in tune with the

spirit and is a sincere seeker of truth. We briefly went over the

Restoration with him and extended the invitation to read and pray

about the Book of Mormon. He told us he would read it thoroughly and

pray about it. We will be going back to teach him this Saturday.

Please keep him in you prayers, his name is Charles.

This week we are hoping to work with all of the part-member families

in our ward. We have 80+ in our ward! It should be a good week. Our

bishop also gave us another list of 10+ families for us to visit. We

are staying pretty busy, but I am loving it.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love, Elder Griffin

Helping Ralph & cracked i-pads & dropped tvs

2.15.16

Today is the start of another transfer, and we learned that I will be

staying with elder Thomas for one more transfer! I haven't stayed with

a companion for more then 2 transfer for a while, so it will be a nice

change.

  This week we learned quite a bit of sad news. Two of our

investigators, Larry and Lisa, are moving in a couple of weeks. Which

means that we they will probably get baptized in the new ward they are

moving to. We were pretty bummed, but they both fell like it is the

right thing to do. We are going to help make sure that the bishop and

missionaries in their new ward gets contacted, so that they are

prepared to receive Larry and Lisa. Hopefully they adjust well to

their new ward:)

  This week I also had another crazy things happen. We had just got

done teaching a recent convert, and we headed to the church to do some

last minute planning. As we got out of the car, I realized that I

didn't have my I Pad. I remembered putting it on the side of the truck

bed, but couldn't remember if I ever put it in the car. We drove back

to the neighborhood where we had taught the recent convert and found

it in the road. I picked it up. The case had a couple tears, but

nothing to bad. Then I opened the case and the screen was all cracked.

Elder Thomas looked at the back of it in the light and could see a

light tire mark. It had either fallen under our tire, or another car

had run it over:( It was pretty crazy, but luckily I was able to get a

loaner for the time being!

  This week we we had our zone council. I was pretty anxious going

into is, because I really wanted to make it a spiritual, unifying

expire nice for our zone. We got to the church and started setting up.

As we were setting up, we had grabbed a TV from the library to show a

video. We got the tv into the room and plugged it in. We realized that

we needed a different tv. I went to move the old tv, but for some

reason didn't remember to unplug it:) It starting fall off the stand

it was on. Luckily I was able to grab it with one hand, barley

stopping it from hitting the ground! Everyone was dying laughing, I

was just glad that I was able to stop it from hitting the ground! It

was a small tender mercy for sure. The rest of the zone council went

really well. Elder Thomas started out by giving a training on how to

simply teach our investigators the doctrine of the Godhead. It was a

great training and it generated a beautiful discussion. The nature of

God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost is one of the most important

things we teach and testify of as missionaries. Without a knowledge of

the nature and purpose of the Godhead, their would be no purpose of

use to come to earth, no need for a restoration and no way for us to

have happiness now, and happiness after death. What a blessing it is

to know that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are real and very

involved in our life's. Following his training, I was able to give a

training on how to resolve concerns of our investigators. We then took

what we learned and practiced teaching the Godhead to our companions.

it was awesome! We have an amazing zone:) The whole purpose of our

zone council was to help us becoming more persuasive teachers, so that

we can bring more people unto Christ. President Ames really wants us

to sharpen our teaching skills, because we were given a very powerful

blessing from elder Christoffernson when he came to our mission (He

came 2 months ago, I don't know if I told you about his visit. I can

never remember what I write in my journal and what I email you guys:))

This was part of the blessings he left us "That in our teaching we can

be more persuasive, more powerful and that your testimony will be

accompanied by the Holy Ghost, as well as your teaching, that our

teaching will reach people more than ever before. They have the right

to choose how they will respond [to our teaching and testimony] but

your witness can be strong enough that they cannot disbelieve it,

whatever they chose to do about it" What a powerful blessing! It was

super neat. I am so grateful that zone council went so well.

 We were also finally able to have a sit down lesson with Ralph! It

can be super hard to keep him focused, he loves to go on random

tangents. Saturday morning we went to the church and picked up a food

order for Ralph. We boxed up all the food and brought it to him. He

was super grateful. We then were able to teach him the power of

prayer. He made a lot of good comments and we were able to share unite

a few scriptures with him. We extended an invitation to have him pray

every morning and night. He accepted. It has been really hard to set a

baptismal date with him, because his house needs a lot of work and his

priorities are fixing his house. In PEC Sunday morning our bishop

decided that we are going to make Ralph's house a ward service

project. Bishop want's a list made of all of the things that need to

be done and then he is going to reach out to the ward and find someone

to fix each thing. It was awesome to see the ward get so involved with

someone who isn't even baptized! He even made the comment that they

aren't doing it because he might be baptized. It was so awesome! I

love this ward.

        Well I hope you all had a great Valentines Day, and showed someone a

little extra love:)

Elder Griffin

Here is my cracked i Pad