Serving in San Antonio Texas: Week 7 in Texas...

Hello everybody!! Thanks again for coming to my blog and reading all about my adventures here in Texas!! I sure hope it's worth it for everybody!!!

So last week I mentioned a little bit about how I would be staying in the same area with my same companion for this transfer, which is technically true, but it just feels like absolutely everything has changed now haha. My first transfer, we were covering 9th ward (we still are) and then covering the south part of our Balcones branch, while some Elders covered the whole area of the branch north of the city of San Antonio, so they covered a lot haha. Well, the Elders both got transferred out of the Balcones branch, and we were thinking we would be receiving another pair of missionaries, but nope! So everything has literally changed for us haha. The elders left, and they were teaching a ton of people, so that literally just got dumped on us! We are now covering all of the Balcones branch, and then also have 9th ward as well! It's actually quite difficult but we are trying to handle it the best way that we can! Just working a lot more with members that live closer to people the Elders were teaching! The difficult part about this is that as missionaries, yes we do have a car, but we are also limited on miles. Balcones branch is so big, that to get to the town where the Elders used to live and where a lot of the people they are teaching are, takes us about 50 minutes on a good day. That's almost 1/3 of our prime proselyting time haha but it's all good, we always have really good conversations on our car rides! Anyways, we thought transfers would be nice but now it's just a whole lot more stressful haha.

We had the amazing opportunity to eat with a general authority this past week for dinner! His name is Elder Villarreal, and he is in our Spanish branch so that is why we got to eat with them! They are so amazing, seriously just have the most beautiful house and the best pictures of Jesus Christ all over! We were able to have really good conversations, and Elder Villarreal did a quiz on my companion to see how well she knows me, and she got every question right so that was pretty cool! Sister Schellenberg and I are really close in my opinion, so I wasn't too surprised, but he was very thrilled that we are good enough companions to actually be friends as well! Elder Villarreal absolutely demolished one of the Elders though.. It was our last night eating with the Elders because the next day was transfers, but at the end of dinner, the elder said "Well we would love to stay and talk all night, but" and that's right where Elder Villarreal stopped him mid-sentence and pretty much just started questioning him if he really wanted to stay, and then coached him to what he should say instead of that hahah. So to all my mission friends, if you're at a members house, don't try and leave dinner by saying, "Well we would love to stay and talk but we need to head out." Instead say something like, "We appreciate you having us over and feeding us, but we would really love to go do some missionary work!" That is what I learned from this dinner, and Sister Schellenberg and I were just laughing the whole way home because of how SCARY and intimidating it was! But also such a good lesson to learn!

Friday night we were in a lesson with Abimael, and UPDATE on Abi!! He is still doing amazing and progressing rapidly towards his baptism in less than two weeks! He has been making some significant changes in his life regarding people he surrounds himself with, but he truly is happier and is finding the light of Christ in his life, and he is super excited! I am so thankful to have such a miraculous first baptism such as this one will be! After we had the lesson with Abi, we were walking to our car when literally out of nowhere, it starts to pour! So we also happened to be out of gas, so we had to stop and get gas and just to our luck the gas tank didn't print receipts, so we had to run inside and literally from the gas tank to the building, RUNNING, we got soaked! Then we had to run back out to the car after we got the receipt haha it was just craziness! That's not the best part though haha. On our way home, Sister Schellenberg asked me to play "How Great Thou Art" and wow, that was seriously amazing! It brought us both to tears because of how beautiful the earth is, and how lucky we are! The one we listened to was also a mix into another song, but it was just perfect for the way the weather was haha. We got back to the apartment and the other sisters had just got home as well, so we were all soaked, and we made a group decision to listen to that song again, all sit on the couch and watch the rain pour! It was so fun and I seriously love living with other sisters! It's especially more fun because instead of buying all the food we need and splitting the price between 2, we get to split it between 4 and it's just so nice and cheap to go grocery shopping haha!

I hit my three month mark yesterday, which is literally quite crazy to me!! To think that I am already 1/6th of the way done is just mindblowing! I am seriously so so so thankful for all of my amazing friends and family who helped me get out here on my mission, because there is truly nothing more special than being a representative of Jesus Christ. I am shown every single day how amazing this gospel is, and I am just so excited to continue helping people grow their faith in Jesus Christ and help bring people closer to their Heavenly Father.

I just want to lastly say Happy Mothers Day to my amazing mom! I truly love you mom and couldn't be doing what I am doing without you!! Happy Mothers Day this Sunday as well to all of the wonderful examples I have in my life! I could not ask for better friends, cousins, aunts and grandmas to show me how I want to mother my children one day! I sure to love you all and am extremely grateful for all that you have done for me! There is a special chapter in the scriptures that I want all my moms out there to look up and read! Really, everybody should read this chapter! It's Proverbs 31, versus 10 to 31! Another one of my favorite Mothers Day versus is Alma 56:48, because now looking back, my mother knew it all haha!

Thanks again to everyone for their emails and love and support! I appreciate everyones prayers, I am definitely witnessing the miracles coming from them! I love you all, have a great week and Happy Mothers Day!

Hermana Griffin