Let's start with last Monday!! So I got permission from my mission president to send a message to Abimael (from my first area) and see how he is doing! My trainer recently told me he moved to Arizona and might be meeting with missionaries, so I just sent him a message and you won't believe it!! He has been meeting with the missionaries in Arizona and... ABI IS ON DATE FOR OCTOBER 25TH!! It is amazing for TWO reasons!! He has gone through so much, and he deserves this happiness and hope at this time in his life, and second is that is my birthday!! So it will for sure be a special day for sure! I am just so happy that Abi's story will end with a happy ending! I have for sure thought about Abi a ton since everything happened, and it just made me so happy for him!
Tuesday was another fantastic day because we had interviews with President Tveten, and we also had some great lessons that day! To start, I think it was my favorite interview yet! We talked a lot about how the work was going and how we are seriously SO. BUSY. and he was super happy to hear how good everything is going in our three wards! We talked about how amazing my new companion is doing and how she is just a natural, and President Tveten is just always so encouraging that I leave the interviews so ready to go work more! The best thing about those interviews though was that after my trainee was done with her interview, she told me that the first thing he said to her when she walked in the room was, "wow, you have an amazing trainer" and when she told me that I about cried hahah just because it meant SO. MUCH. to know that all I am doing is good work, and especially to know that President thinks I am a good missionary and trainer is even more special to me!
That afternoon we had a visit with Lori and something even more miraculous... we moved her baptism date up a week!! So YES. She is getting baptized THIS SATURDAY and wow we are so excited for her! We also had a visit with her on Friday and she still hadn't quit smoking, but we saw her at church yesterday and she finally quit!!! We also had another surprise on Friday (there are always surprises with Lori) and she still hadn't quit drinking coffee.. but right then and there, she got up and threw it all away! It was so funny and awesome at the samet time haha. It has been such a ride for her!!! So this weekend we will be celebrating her fathers life at his funeral, and two hours later will be celebrating Lori's new spiritual life with her baptism!!
That evening we had a lesson with Gomathi, and it went super well! We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she understood it pretty well (we think) but we don't ever know because of the language barrier... :/ but we taught the first half of the lesson and then had another lesson with her last night and taught the second half, and it is so awesome! She wants to be baptized! One of the hard things with her is that her husband had to go back to India to figure out visa stuff, so he might not be back for 4 months and it's stressing her out... But she said she was going to call her husband this week and talk about her getting baptized so we are excited!!! She is the only one in her family that isn't a member, and she wants to be with her family for forever, so we know she is excited as well!
Wednesday afternoon we had another amazing lesson!!! We were talking with our bishop last weekend at the open house, and he mentioned to us that we should go visit a family, they have a 10 year old granddaughter that comes to church with them all the time and she wants to be baptized.. So we went out as fast as we could!! haha so we went and visited with their family, and got to visit with her as well! Her name is Shelburne, and she is just as sassy as my cute little sister Lindsey, if not more sassy haha. Shelburne asked us all kinds of questions, not super doctrinal questions, but questions like, "Does Heavenly Father want us to have pets?" and "can you baptize me in the river back there?" haha she is just so sweet and innocent! Our only hold back with her is her parents.. So she wants to be baptized, but her father (he is a member, just not active) wants her to wait until "she makes bad choices then she will need a reason to be baptized" haha but that is the beauty of the sacrament!! But we have been communicating with the father and he seems to be okay with us teaching her! We haven't been able to schedule a "set in stone" return visit yet because he says they are "super busy" (which I can understand, but they can spare an hour ;) ) but we have a tentative visit with them this Friday, so we hope and pray it works out!!
That evening we had a wonderful relief society activity with the ladies in Parkside ward, and it was so fun! It was at the patriarchs house in Cedar Park stake (he is actually in the same ward as my aunt and uncle) and we got to hear an awesome message from the patriarch! He talked a lot about the importance of going to the temple and the difference it will make in your life as you make that a focus point! So I vowed that when I get home, I will make it a priority to go at least once a month, hopefully more!!
Thursday was super successful as well!! In the morning we got a phone call from another set of elders, and they were giving us a referral! It was someone that had been requested by one of their friends from high school, and we stopped by like 30 min after we got the referral but he was working :( We gave someone that was at the house our card and we plan to stop by him again this week!
We also had a visit with two inactive members that day, and since my companion is new, we thought it would be a good excuse to ask them lots of questions, but one of them really didn't like it and wasn't too kind to her.. so let's just say my comp had a rough rest of her day :( She is seriously doing awesome though, it is just tricky adjusting to missionary life and figuring out how to not let what people say to us hurt us.. But she is definitely adjusting quicker than I did, that's for sure haha.
In the evening we had our first english class, and to our surprise, we had TWO people show up!! Technically one student, but still two new people we are teaching! They are both Venezuelan (I love them already because they remind me of Xiomara and Hoffmara from my first area) but the mother is like 70 and the daughter is about 40, and the daughter heard about the class and brought her mother because her mother doesn't speak english, and wants to learn! So we taught the english class, and then we asked them questions about the church, and how they liked the open house (because the daughters son sang in the interfaith chior we had) and they loved it! We asked how much they know about the church and they didn't know a ton, so it was awesome because we had a little lesson and they agreed to staying every week for about 30 min to learn more about our church! They are so sweet and I am just so excited! Especially because it gives me a chance to practice my spanish :)))
Friday we had a visit with Ryan, someone who is married to one of our favorite members, and he has always been super nice to us and he comes to church with her a lot! We have been trying to start teaching him the lessons, he is just literally always out of town.. But we had a great lesson Friday and talked about before this life and after death, and they are two concepts he had never really thought about before, so it is quite interesting to hear his beliefs as well.. But we have a return appointment for tomorrow evening and are super excited for what's to come with him!
Saturday was a full day of running around and contacting people in Liberty Hill! We stopped by a less active family and then a super active family, and the super active family was so appreciative of us stopping by (we actually took her ice cream because she just had a baby) and they told us they hadn't had missionaries in their home for over a year because they never came by, so they were very thankful for our visit!
We did our weekly reports that evening, and it was awesome because we had a "movie night" as well, and so we did our reports while watching Meet the Mormons and it was such a great night!
Sunday is always a crazy day too! We started nice and early with ward council, then had our three wards, and then we did our personal study and then went right back to church for a ward activity! Our San Gabriel ward had brinner (breakfast for dinner) and so we went and talked to quite a few people, and then we went to our dinner we had scheduled! It was a great dinner as well and the members gave us 5 things of hamburger (they just recently killed a 400lb cow) so we got some nice meat and we are pumped! Then last night we had our visit with Gomathi that I mentioned and then visited another awesome member! It was actually super funny visiting with the member, because she had told me that she had noticed the two times my last companion and I had come over, that I never even got the chance to talk unless the member asked me a question with my name in the sentence.. haha so our member told us she had prayed for me many times, and I just died laughing because I thought I was the only one that thought I never got to talk.. Thankful I am not crazy! But also, very thankful for that companion, even if it was challenging at times :)
We have a super busy week this week! I was looking at our schedule yesterday and we seriously have our week booked, which is awesome and we are excited! We have the new missionary follow up on Wednesday, and then Saturday we have a funeral and a baptism!! I am so excited for this week :) I also might not email a lot of people back next week because we might be taking a trip to downtown Austin to go see some awesome sights, so I won't have a ton of time to email next week, but just know I love and appreciate all of the emails!!
I was studying a general conference talk this past week from the priesthood session, the priesthood playbook and it can apply to everyone! I especially loved the bullet points of some pages that we could have in our own playbooks, and I encourage everyone to go and read and study them!!
I just lastly want to tell some very awesome people happy birthday this week! First to my wonderful cousin Bridger (who has grown like 2 feet since I've last seen him...) as well as Taylor and Roseann Kunz! You are all amazing and I hope you have the best birthdays ever!
I hope you all have such a wonderful week! I really do love and appreciate all of the prayers you are sending me, we are seeing the miracles and blessings from them! I love you all!
Hermana Griffin :)
One of my favorite pictures!
Our zone conference with Elder Ochoa!
I Love Texas!
Best place ever!
Such a great comp!
We Love Texas!
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