Serving in San Antonio Texas: Birthday week... & news about Lori...

Hey y'all! This week has definitely been a rollercoaster for sure. I've had some high highs and really low lows.. Regarding the highs, I had my first/only birthday I will have on my mission and it was pretty good! I'll talk about it more later haha, but the low lows.. Yesterday I received a text from Sister Belt, my last companion, and she informed me that Lori, one of my recent converts from my past area, passed away the morning of my birthday.. That has been a shock and definitely not something I thought I would have to be told on my mission, so that kind of shook my whole week a little bit. Other than that, it was a pretty good week!

We spent a lot of this past week biking (until my tire went flat) and we got chased by dogs A LOT hahaha it's so scary!!! The mother of someone we are teaching told us to get a squirt bottle and squirt them when they come chase us on our bikes haha and it has worked pretty well so far! We also had some pretty fun incidents regarding bikes and crashing hahah.. I am laughing so hard just writing this.. so my companion has a bike that is wayyyyy too tall for her, and so she has a hard time getting on it.. Well we were going to leave somebodys house and she tries to get on and start riding away, when she literally just like started tipping over and she just like tipped and then started laughing hahah it was sooo funny, but she is totally good haha. Then LESS THAN 5 minutes later we were riding to another contact, and I went to tell her to turn left into a parking lot but I told her a little late, so instead of going straight or pressing on her breaks, she like half turns into the parking lot and then like "gave up" in a sense that she just ran straight into the curb and almost tipped again... hahah good times, I laughed so hard that day!!
We were also able to meet with our branch mission leader and go through the whole branch list of members and make a list of who all the part member families are, and it was awesome! I know that has been something that I have seen a lot of success working with (since all 4 baptisms in my last area were part member families) so we have been really excited to make that list and start visiting those families! It is crazy how different every area is, and I was shocked when I got here and they didn't have a part member family list haha.

We were able to drive to Eagle Pass this last week for district council and it was so fun! My compañera and I were able to give a training (in spanish) on one of the safeguards for using technology as well as tie it into the Christ - like attribute of Charity and Love and it was a great training! We were 5 minutes from Mexico and so obviously we took some pictures and it was fun!
For one of our workouts this past morning, President Russo pulled out his wrestling mats and my comp and I wrestled!! It was so fun hahah and obviously I won ;) hahah but we both walked away with some sweet bruises so it was great!!!

The Russo's also left this past week on Thursday morning and it was sad to say goodbye to them :( They are so awesome and so much fun to spend time with, and even more awesome for letting missionaries live in their house while they are living in Utah haha they are just the best couple ever! I had still been feeling pains in my lungs and so right before he left, I asked President Russo to give me a priesthood blessing and it was so amazing! I have pretty much just forgotten to ask for them since that was my first one on my mission, but I am going to ask for them more because it surely helped!

We visited with Chito this past week and it was a pretty good visit! We talked more about his desires in meeting with us as missionaries, and I asked him where he is at in the gospel and he brought up that he wants to be baptized soon! It was so awesome, so we invited him to pray and think about when he wants to be baptized, and we are so excited for him! He promised (hasn't happened yet) that he would buy or make me a tres leches cake for my birthday but he was out of town over the weekend so we will see if he holds his word hahah but we are so excited for him!! He is such a funny guy and really loves to joke around, and he was the one that didn't come out of his room (he's 27) the first time we visited with them, so this time we went to the gas station and I bought him a snickers, and then when we got there we told him to eat it so he can be himself and stay and visit with us instead of hiding in his room, haha he enjoyed the sarcasm so he stayed and we had a great visit!!

We had a crazy weather storm hit this past week, and we were out doing regular missionary work when it literally looked like we were driving into a black hole so we turned around and went home haha but we still used our time wisely and we made this awesome member missionary work poster that we are going to put in our church as an effort to try and get members more involved in doing missionary work (it is in the hispanic culture to just be lazy, and that doesn't work with missionary work!!) so we still used our time wisely and we are happy we didn't die in the crazy storm!
The night that the storm happened, before it came in full swing, we stopped by a few potential people that we can start teaching, and we were able to meet someone named Sylvia and Gina, and they are both interested in being taught! Sylvia was a cool miracle because our Area Book told us that she was someone we were teaching when we hadn't had a first lesson with her at all in the past, but we took it as a sign to go by her and so we did and now we are going to start teaching her! Miracles are amazing :)

Friday was my birthday and it was pretty awesome! I received wayyy too much stuff from you all haha but thank you to everyone who thought of me and sent me an email or card or package, I love you all and am so grateful for how spoiled I am with all of my amazing friends and family!
Someone that we do service for every week took us out to dinner at a steak restaurant for my birthday and it was so good! We did service with her that afternoon and my companion mentioned it was my birthday, so she took us out and it was so fun!

Saturday we had a day that was just full of service! We started the day with service at one of our members ranch, and we helped him pick up a bunch of old wood and throw it out of the stalls, and it was pretty fun! He kept giving me crap about the weight I was lifting, and he really was testing me on my knowledge about hay, hahhah I really don't know much, so at one point I just asked him "can I give you my dad's number? He will answer all of your questions" hahah it was funny. I love being able to do service at a ranch, it reminds me of doing chores at my best friends house growing up... good old times haha.
That afternoon we went to the nursing home and we helped them get ready for the trick or treating they were going to do ( it is weird here in Carrizo because the mayor chooses the weekend before Halloween every year and makes it the official day for trick or treating) and we spent like 2 1/2 hours making little bags of popcorn for them to use for trick or treating.. it was a long time to stand putting popcorn in bags haha but service is always good, right? ;)

This weekend we were also able to have district conference, which is just like stake conference but instead of a bunch of wards, it's a bunch of branches, and we were able to stream it over Skype and watch it all the way down here in Carrizo Springs! We got to see our branch president give a great talk, as well as we got to see our mission president, President Tveten, and his wife, Sister Tveten, give wonderful talks! President Tveten is such a powerful speaker and such an inspired man, we love him!
Yesterday we took the day and went to Big Wells on the way to Cotulla, which is an hour away from Carrizo, and did some contacting! We don't get to go to Cotulla much since we don't have many miles given to us and our area is absolutely huge, but we made sure to get to Cotulla while we could!
On our way to Cotulla, we received the text from Sister Belt, so we called the sisters and then I called the sisters covering Lori's ward to confirm, and nobody was able to confirm whether it was 100% true or not for most of the night so it was rough waiting for the confirmation, but then last night Sister Belt sent me the confirmation text she received from Lori's sister, which I will add to the end of this.. She passed away the morning of my birthday, so it will definitely be a day I won't ever forget. Obviously I am sad and heartbroken that Lori is gone, but it makes me that much more grateful that we were able to help her in her time she was here in Texas, and that she could come back to the church and change and be who she wanted to be before she passed away and now I am sure she is loving her time with her parents and continually preparing to meet her Savior. I love Lori and it is still so hard for me to believe she is gone, but I also know how much she has struggled and I know she is in a better place right now. If you all could, would you please keep her family in your prayers?

Spiritual Thought: again I am so sorry I haven't been doing these super regularly hahah but this week I have been reading the Ricciardi Letter which is about missionary work and it is sooo inspiring!! I invite everyone to read it, because we are all missionaries in one way or another, so please take the time and read it, it has been so amazing!

I want to wish my awesome cousin Colby, my cute cousin Paityn, and my wonderful aunt Calee a happy birthday this upcoming week! I love you all so much and hope you have the best birthday ever!

Have the best week!
Hermana Griffin