Serving in San Antonio Texas: Sept. 9, 2019 First week training / Lori's father passed away :(

This week has been a crazy one for sure!! We had many hard times as well as good learning experiences! and I met my new companion and she is so awesome and excited to do some missionary work!
Tuesday started our week out a little rough. Sister Vincent and I were at high fitness, and after it was over we checked our phone and had received a text from our bishop that Lori's dad passed away that morning.. It was heartbreaking for both Sister Vincent and I because that is Lori's whole purpose for being here in Texas and what has given her a purpose in life! We went by that evening to visit with Lori and her family, and bishop was able to come stop by as well and their family is handling it better than we thought, but Lori was a complete wreck. She had been doing so good with the word of wisdom, but since that day she hasn't been doing too good which is really hard for us :( She did meet with the bishop recently and she is still on track for baptism again, so we are really hoping to put her on date for baptism this week!! We just really hope she stays here in Texas and doesn't go back to what/where she came from.. It is a heartbreaking story :(
Wednesday we also visited a lot of people and let Sister Vincent say goodbye to them! We started our day with visiting David and Judy from the Leander ward! It was a good visit but a little annoying because they told us how the elders haven't been meeting with them at all, so since Sister Vincent was leaving the area we called the elders and just asked them what they have been doing, and told them how David and Judy have been frusterated and Sister Vincent pretty much told them how she would appreciate if they visited with them, and it worked!! Over the weekend they visited with David and Judy and also had a lesson with Phil, so now we just need them to contact the other 10 people we were teaching in Leander haha.
After visiting with David and Judy we went and visited with Celia, the "surprise member" that we have been teaching english to! She was sad to see Sister Vincent go, but we just explained what we do as missionaries and that the next sister will be just as good!
We kind of shot ourselves in the foot on Wednesday when we accidentally scheduled ourselves two dinners.. We ate with members, and then one of the people we have been meeting with, named Brenda, asked if we wanted to come over for dessert and so we told her yes, also so Sister Vincent could say goodbye, and we walked in and she was cooking us spaghetti.. so we ate two full meals, as well as she had cheesecake for us haha and they were two visits that were right after each other! If we had an hour break in between it wouldn't have been so bad, but wow my stomach hurt after that haha.
That evening we went to Stephanies to let Sister Vincent say goodbye, and it was so cute because Stephanies little 6 year old girl, Alicia, sang for us! I will try and send the video too so you all can see it! Alicia and I are like BFF's haha so it is always a good time going over to their house!

Thursday was quite the day!! We woke up super early, and were on the road by 6:30 am to head to San Antonio! We stopped at a chapel in Austin to switch Sister Vincent with Sister Broman, who would also be training, so Sister Broman and I headed down to San Antonio! We had members drive us which was so awesome, and so we got to get a little rest before the crazy day started! We got to San Antonio right on time, and I walked in the church and then saw my favorite person EVER, HERMANA SCHELLENBERG!! It was just so good to talk to my trainer again haha she is literally amazing, I couldn't talk her up more! Awesome thing about her is that this is her 3rd time training (so either she didn't do good enough her 1st (me) or 2nd time, or she is just THAT AMAZING) haha but her companion right now is the cousin of Elder Ahlstrom, my MTC district leader! so I know quite a bit about my "little sister" haha but it was just so good to see Hna. Schellenberg again, and I am pumped for all of our adventures we will have when I get home!
We had our train the trainer meeting and I was feeling super anxious haha, I had barely been out of training 2 transfers, and I still feel like a baby haha but I know that who the Lord calls, he qualifies so I have just been keeping that in the back of my head this whole week!
I finally got to meet my new companion! Her name is Sister Belt, and she is from Pleasant Grove Utah! She actually went to high school with my MTC companion, Hermana Carlson! Sister Belt is such an amazing missionary and is so ready to do the work! We have found out a lot of cool things that we have alike! For example, we have the same birthday! haha and also, her uncle Jeff Ginn was my soccer coach all growing up! and we have both broken the same finger, just little things like that haha but she is seriously awesome! I am super excited for everything that we have in store for us!
Training is only stressful sometimes, for example on Friday night, we had a great evening planned and then every single person decided to cancel on us.. It is moments like that though when everything cancels and your trainee is just looking at you like "what do we do" or "who do we contact" and your mind is just completely blank because you have already called 20 people and nobody answered.. haha it was awesome (STRESSFUL). She really is on fire though, like I have no idea how my trainer did what she did, because I don't think I talked 1/4 of what my trainee does and so Hermana Schellenberg, THANK YOU FOR BEING THE SAINT YOU ARE haha.
Yesterday was a good sunday, because Stephanie came to church again, and her and her family also paid tithing! It was awesome because during our visit last week we were talking about getting her to the temple soon and she asked what she needs to get a temple recommend and we mentioned that she needs to be a full tithe payer, and so she was super on top of it and paid it at church yesterday! She is so awesome and I hope and pray she continues to stay on the right track! We are going to work on getting her to the temple as soon as possible :)

I just want to tell two amazing people happy birthday this week! First to my little Macklee Jean, one of the most fun little girls that I have been able to babysit! and second to my awesome uncle Sean! I hope you both have such great birthdays this upcoming week!

Thank you all so much for what you do for me! It was so awesome and nice to receive such uplifting emails last week, especially going into training it was awesome to have good friends remind me of things, so thank you!! I love you all and I hope you have the best week ever!!

Much love,
Hermana Griffin