Serving in San Antonio Texas: Chair soccer and in-grown toenails! July 1, 2019

Hello family and friends!! I hope you have all had a blessed week and are enjoying your summer! The summer is flying by here in Texas, and so is my mission! I complete 5 months on the 5th and it's so crazy to me how fast it is flying by! I just love the work we are doing and love seeing how people want to change their life to be more like our Savior Jesus Christ!

This week was crazy busy! We had our weekly service last Tuesday at the food pantry, and we had a really special thing happen! There are no other members of our church at the service we do, but they are all Christian so they are still really good people! Anyways, one of the ladies was asking us what we do as missionaries and then asked if she could take us out to eat dinner! It is always so fun to eat with nonmembers, and just talk about all of the different ways that Jesus Christ has blessed our lives! We have dinner with her scheduled for next week and are so excited!

We had a lesson with our miracle lady from last week, the one where her husband called us and told us she wants to be baptized! So we went by her house on Tuesday and she definitely has a desire to be baptized, the hard thing was just deciding whether to do it before or after her baby comes, but ultimately her and her husband decided it would be better to wait until the baby is born and then see how fast his wife recovers, and we will continue visiting with her until she feels good again and tells us when she is ready to be baptized!

There is like no spanish in the area we are in and it is really hard, especially going from an area that is highly populated with spanish speaking people! But luckily we have one lady we are teaching that speaks spanish! We had a lesson with her last week about commandments, and essentially why it is so important that we follow the commandments that our Heavenly Father has given us to become better people and be able to return to live with Him again! She is such a sweet lady, and it really is nice to have at least one person we are teaching that we can practice our spanish with!

This past weekend was absolutlely crazy! We started our weekend on Thursday with an exchange! We had to drive to a chapel in Austin, which was about 45 minutes from us, and then drive back! My companion for the exchange was Hermana Motock, and she is from Utah! We had a really good exchange, and on the exchange we had a first lesson with a girl named Hannah! She is a self-referral from North Carolina, and it was such a fun lesson with her! She had a ton of questions and our visit was primarily answering her questions! She has a lot of potential and we are so excited for what can possibly happen with her!

Friday we drove back to Austin and exchanged back with our normal companions! Then we had a zone conference and met our new mission president and his wife! They're from Washington, and are such a cute family!! They have 5 kids ranging from 18 to 6months, so it is definitely going to be a whole different world than it was with the Polleys! I loved the Polleys and they were amazing, but I am also excited for what this new change will bring! The Tvetens told us as a mission that the only baby we are allowed to hold is theirs, because we are a mission family, and I got to hold their baby! President walked up to me and asked if I wanted to hold her, so I felt pretty special! and she is so stinking cute!
Friday night after zone conference we eventually made it back to our area (Austin traffic is the worst) and we had a stake youth sports night! It is something that happens once a month, and us missionaries run it! We played chair soccer and it was so stinkin fun to be back in the game of soccer, or at least somewhat around it! It was so fun to play against other people too, and have them all team up against me! I sweat more playing that game than I ever have in one of my morning workout sessions, so I must not be working out enough haha. I also had an ingrown toenail the whole time I was playing sports, so when we got home it was annoying me so bad (I have had it for 2 weeks) that I just ripped it out. It hurt, yes, but now it doesn't hurt anymore haha so no worries!

Saturday morning we had stake breakfast, which is where all of the missionaries serving in our stake go to one of the members of the stake presidency for breakfast, and it was so fun! I just love being around other missionaries, especially going from living with another companionship to going to just you and your companion, so it was really fun being around so many other missionaries all weekend! Then we had our first interviews with our new mission president! That also meant we had to drive back to Austin, for the third day in a row! It felt like we lived in cars for the weekend haha. But wow, my interview was so amazing! Our president is so down to earth, and just makes you feel like such a good missionary! He told me that only the best missionaries are made trainers, and that he sees me as being a trainer sometime in the near future, so that was so amazing to hear and be told, even just after spending 5 minutes with me!

Sunday we showed up to church at 7:30 am thinking we had ward council, then came to find out that we didn't have it so we just chilled at the church all morning! Then we were asked to teach Sunday School, and so obviously we taught about member missionary work! We also got asked to sing in sacrament meeting with the ward choir! After church we also ot to see David (our recent convert) receive the Aaronic Priesthood, and that was such an amazing experience!

Well today was quite amazing as well! I love preparation days, and they are even more special here in Leander because I get to see my family! My amazing uncle Kevin offered to give us free teeth cleanings at his office, so this morning we went and got our teeth cleaned! and tonight we are going over to their house one last time to eat with them before they head to Utah for the next while! I have loved getting the opportunity to see them, family means the world to me and I just love it!

Lastly, happiest of birthdays to my cute family members this week! My little cousin Rosie today, my amazing aunt Aliza on Friday, and my little cousin Kooper on Sunday! I love you all and hope you have the most wonderful birthdays!

Thank you all once again for the love and support! I love you all and love seeing the miracles that come from all of your prayers! Have the best week and I look forward to hearing from you all next week!

Much love, Hermana Griffin