We got hit by a car! Nov. 25, 2019

Hello family and friends! I hope that you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving season and that you're enjoying all of the pumpkin pie possible!! This week was a little crazy for us haha but it is always great to be doing the Lord's work! We also received transfer news, and my companion and I are both staying in Carrizo Springs! I will be here for Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years, so we will have a party transfer for sure haha.

We started our week with another amazing lesson with Esmeralda! We finished teaching her the Plan of Salvation, and it was such a spiritual lesson! She said it was all pretty much the same as she believed, other than a few parts haha but none of it really seemed to frighten her or scare her away, she really loved it all! We asked her if she has prayed about the truthfulness of the things we have been teaching her and she said she hadn't because "other people have bigger problems than me and I don't want to bother Him" and it was so awesome to be able to testify and promise her that Heavenly Father WANTS to hear from us!

Monday evening we had our mission video call, and we got told some CRAZY news, which by now you all know because the church announced it last week haha but on July 1, 2020, my mission (Texas San Antonio Mission) will be splitting into the Texas San Antonio Mission and the Texas Austin mission, it's so awesome to see how the Lord's work is expanding enough that the church needed to make 8 new missions! I come home in August 2020, so it's weird to think that I could also end my mission in a different mission haha but it is going to be a cool experience for sure :)

Tuesday was a super crazy day! It was all good and normal until we were going to visit somebody, and we were parked outside their house waiting for the person in their driveway to pull out, and the guy just backed straight into us! It was seriously so weird haha but we got it all figured out by now! We had to do a lot of calling people in the mission who are over cars, and they have to do a lot of talking to people in Salt Lake City, and we had to take it to a shop and get an estimate and also fill out this form online that every missionary has to do when they get in an accident, so it was pretty crazy day haha. Our car isn't totalled or anything, it's a small dent on the back door so we are still able to drive it!
On the way home that night, we stopped by Jackie's house! Her step dad showed us a cool magic trick that has to do with cigarettes haha, but on a more spiritual level we were able to talk with Rita more about Jackie being baptized, and they pretty much told us it wouldn't be for a while (like 6 months is what BJ said) because they don't want her to make this decision and then in a few months or a year not want to do it anymore and obviously we don't want that either, but yeah so we had to take Jackie off of baptism date :( but we are still teaching her and she still comes to church every week, so it's all good still!

We had our branch Thanksgiving dinner this past week and it was pretty good! Almost everybody in our branch that are members came to the activity, we are just trying to figure out how to get them all to come to church because if we could do that, we would have a much better chance of becoming a ward soon haha but nobody comes to church! We had Jackie come to the dinner, and other than that none of the nonmembers that we had invited were able to make it :( I ate enough for all of the people that didn't come that night though haha I am still feeling the after effects of eating too much that night!

We had a cool opportunity this last week to have a Sisters video chat, so with our mission president and his wife, all of the sisters had a video chat and talked about questions or concerns, and we also got some AWESOME advice from the two sisters going home this week, one of which is my amazing trainer!! It is crazy to me that she is going home already, she is such a legend in the mission haha everybody loves her, and she gave the most amazing advice about (i'm paraphrasing) being happy where you are and in the moment that you are in, because if you aren't happy now or making the best of where you are, you'll never be happy in life. That really hit me and helped me a lot, she is seriously so amazing!!

We went by Nicole this past week, and she is the mother of Nicholas who is 10 and he really wants to be baptized, he even introduces us sister missionaries as "the sisters from my church" and it is the cutest thing haha. We stopped by them to see how they were doing, and she told us we basically read her mind because she was going to call us because she needed our help moving her stuff, so we helped her with that! I know I always say this, but I love when people tell us things like that, it just shows that we are being led by the Spirit and there is nothing better as a missionary! Nicole even said that they are going to come to church soon because Nicholas has pretty much been begging her to take him, haha he's just the cutest boy!

We got to do service at the ranch again, and we cleaned up all of the stuff that was around me in the picture I sent last week! They got chickens and they are already in that chicken coop, and now they are wanting to make an area they can go out and run, so we helped them clean up all around it, and in doing so we found a few old and cool license plates, and they let us hammer them onto the coop! I will make sure to send pictures next week because I was really bad at taking them this week! We are pretty much professional ranchers because of doing service at the ranch every week haha it's the best!

We had the wonderful chance of going to church yesterday as well, and Benito and Jackie were both able to come which was great!
After church we went and visited the Johnson family, who are from Utah and have been living here for a little over four years, and have been inactive ever since they moved here, so we went to see how they are doing and they actually told us they are working on coming back to church! My companion told me they looked so much better this time than they did last time, like more put together and happier, and so it is amazing what the Spirit can prompt people to do and to change when they need to! We are still struggling on getting priesthood holders to come to church, and I say that because the father in  that family doesn't want anything to do with the church, but we are still happy to have the mother and daughter start coming again!
We had some extra time last night as well, and we were able to go tracting and we found Joey, and he was super nice! He even rescheduled a visit for us to come by and do Light the World on Wednesday this week!
Speaking of Light the World, I hope you have all been able to see that the Christ Child video came out, and all of the other awesome videos are on the gospel library! I invite you all to go and look at them, and sign up for the daily reminders during December, so YOU can help Light the World! We are doing a lot down here in Carrizo to try and Light the World as well.
Last night we also stopped by somebody named Santos, and he invited us to come have Thanksgiving dinner with him and his whole family, and they are all nonmembers so that was super cool!

Update on other important people: Chito is still working towards baptism, we haven't had a solid lesson with him this past week and he also didn't come to church cause he had to work, but he still wants to, so we are still hoping for him!
Olga and her 4 daughters are still doing pretty well! We only had one contact with her last week over the phone, and every time we have stopped by they haven't been home. We had one of our members stop by the night of the dinner, and also the morning of church and invite them but they had already had plans so they couldn't come, but we really hope to see them tonight, I have really high hopes for them and they have a special place in my heart!

Happiest of birthdays this week to my awesome twin uncles, Daren & Daniel tomorrow, and to my aunt Cami and cousin Hunter, and to Kaden's girlfriend, Brandee, all on this Saturday! You are all so amazing and I love and miss you all!

Last thing is that I hope you all know how incredibly THANKFUL I am for you, and for all the love and prayers you have been sending my way on my mission! Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time of year, and I am sorry if I don't have enough time to email you all and tell you how thankful I am for each of you, but I hope you all know how I know that I wouldn't be where I am without you all!
One of my favorite scriptures about being thankful is
Alma 26:8, "Blessed be the name of our God; let us sing to his praise, yea, let us give thanks to his holy name, for he doth work righteousness forever."
I love this scripture so much especially because everybody here in Texas says "have a blessed day" and every time they say that, it reminds me of this scripture!

I really do love each and every one of you so much, and I pray for you all every single day! I hope you have the best Thanksgiving and enjoy all of the turkey, stuffing and pies that you can!
Con amor,
Hermana Griffin

We asked to take a pic with the sheriff to remember this day!  :(

Right after we got hit. haha...

Received my first kiss on my mission! November 18, 2019

Hahah I hope this title makes everyone read this week cause it sure was awesome!! I'm excited to tell you all who we got kissed by!! Anyways, I hope you've had a wonderful week! I'm always so grateful for everyones love and prayers, I felt them extra this past week! I can testify that I KNOW Heavenly Father hears our prayers and that He loves us. I had a very spiritual experience this last week in which I was praying a lot for added strength and happiness, and it was the best feeling to feel so much love and support from my Heavenly Father. I promise you all that He hears your prayers as well, and I invite you to talk to Him every single day!

We started our week off with an amazing lesson with Esmeralda! We started talking about the Plan of Salvation and she really liked what we started with, and then she took us on a little tangent about how we can still be good people without going to church every week, and we know now that was an excuse she was trying to use, but towards the end of the lesson, we were talking about how we want her to find out for herself if what we have been teaching her is true, and we told her she has to do it with a sincere desire to know the truth, and that is when she said, "I'm nervous to pray for real, because what if it is true? Then I will have to become like you two." and then she giggled and was like, "Not in a bad way, you two are super kind and the way you treat people and are always out doing service (we stopped by two days earlier and offered to help her with what she was doing outside) and I don't like change." But she committed to praying with a sincere desire to know, and then she told us of the few time she has had spiritual experiences and feeling the spirit and then she asked us how we feel the spirit, so that was really cool! We are super excited to go visit her tonight and find out if she actually prayed or not!

We did some more service this past week and one of them was helping one of our members with the house he is building, and we were putting the tile down in his house! He started asking where our names come from (he only speaks spanish) and then he told us something quite funny about what "griffin" means where he is from. He said that where he is from, when they say someone on drugs, they would call them griffin haha so that was fun to learn!
That evening we did some more service for another member and we helped her and her daughter put up their christmas tree! It was fun but it did make me a little nostalgic that I won't be spending the holidays with my family, it'll be super weird but I'm also excited to spend it with people who need more of Christ in their lives :)

I had an embarrassing moment this last week in which we were trying to contact someone, and her husband answered and she wasn't home which is exactly what has happened the past two or three times, and this last time we explained what our purpose is to him because she hadn't told him what we do as missionaries and it was probably weird that we stopped by that many times to try and see his wife haha, anyways I was telling him what we do and then I went on to say, "We will stop by next week again to try and see her, but we just wanted to explain why we keep coming by because we don't want to annoy or molest you at all." ............ super awkward. hahah we got in the car and just busted up laughing. In spanish, molestar = to bother, and so I meant to say that we didn't want to annoy or bother them, but instead I told him we don't want to molest him, it was super awkward and my companion hasn't let me live it down yet haha.

We went to have a couple lessons with Chito this past week, but every time he told us he would be home, he wasn't haha so we had a good conversation with Kathy one of the nights though, and she hasn't been doing too well. She is a recent convert of about a year and a half, and she was definitely not converted, just baptized and she hasn't come back to church since her baptism... So we were talking to her and she told us some stuff about her past and it was an amazing lesson about the Atonement, and we testified how powerful the Atonement of Jesus Christ is, and how wonderful the gift of repentance is. At the end of the lesson she promised to come to church, but she still didn't come so that was sad :(

We visited with Jackie and Rita this past week, and it was so awesome! We offered her service and it was dark and we were in dresses so she told us she won't make us get on our knees and clean haha but we kept insisting on serving her, and so we did her dishes for her! She was cooking and so we helped her by cleaning the dishes and she was sooo appreciative and it was the cutest thing ever! Jackie is going to teach her how to pray, and then she is going to pray about whether or not to let Jackie be baptized, so we are really praying hard that her heart is softened! She also invited us to have Thanksgiving lunch with her family, so that is a HUGE step with her!! AND they are coming to our Thanksgiving dinner that we are having this Wednesday as a branch! It is a perfect way to get them into the church building and then it won't be hard for them to come on a regular church day! We are super thankful for the prayers and fasting that everyone has been doing because we are seeing the results with Rita, she really loves us now so we hope she can see that a huge part of why we are the way we are is because of the gospel we have!

We traveled to Cotulla on Saturday, and when we got there, we realized that it is a waste to drive an hour and to just visit the same people every time, so we decided we would go tracking the whole entire night! We had taken our bikes, so we went up and down three streets and had some funny experiences haha. The first person we saw outside was Sarah, and she was sitting outside of a house watching her husband and son fix it up, and my first thought was that they were busy so we should just keep going, but as soon as that thought came to my mind I knew it was Satan and then the Holy Ghost kept telling me to stop and go talk to her, so we did! It is the weirdest thing to just stop on your bike ride and start talking to a stranger, but we did it! We stopped and just started small talk, and then told her we were missionaries and explained more about what we do! She accepted a Book of Mormon, and she even took an invitation to church and to the Thanksgiving dinner we will be having this week! THEN she asked for an extra invitation to give to her daughter! She seems really promising and we are excited for her potential!
We tracted another house and out walked this guy who was SUPER upbeat and friendly, and he talked our ears off for about 30 minutes about how thankful he is that there are people out there like us bringing Jesus to people, and how he doesn't know why his church doesn't do stuff like that because "Jehovah Witness and the Mormons do it" haha he was suuuuuuuper under the influence we came to find out. After we shared a scripture and asked if he had any interest to learn about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, he said he doesn't live at that house and he doesn't have time, and we gave him our number and said if he changes his  mind to call us and we can get him in contact with the missionaries in his area! As we were leaving, he kept asking if he could "donate" to us and give us money for what we do haha and we told him that we don't accept money and that we are already extremely blessed for what we are doing, and so then he just pulls us both into this big group hug and proceeds to kiss the sides of both of our heads! Then he stepped back and said "sorry for my beer breath" so that made everything make a lot more sense haha we won't ever forget that experience!

We got home that night and I was feeling a little beat up / not on a spiritual high like I have been for such a long time, and this is pretty personal but I want to share it with you all because I hope it can help someone like it helped me. My companion was in the shower, and for the whole past week I have kept receiving this prompting that I need to say a real, sincere prayer. and not that mine aren't sincere, but a lot of the time I find my prayers being on repeat, and so Saturday night I finally realized that it is something I need to do, so I did it. It was the most sincere prayer I've ever said, and wow, it was life changing. There have been some things going on in the "personal life" of Sister Griffin, and I just needed some answers. I completely humbled myself and just let everything out to Heavenly Father, and I felt the most overwhelming and loving feeling of warmth that I have ever felt. I know that Heavenly Father sent angels to help me and lift me back up, and I know that one of them was my recent convert Lori. I could just feel her by my side, telling me to continue doing the Lord's work that she wasn't able to do for so long, but that she is currently doing on the other side of the veil. I am so eternally grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and the opportunities that we have to repent and become better people each and every day. I am doing a lot better and I know that the power of prayer and fasting is so real and brings so many blessings!

We spent the day in Asherton yesterday, and we found two more people to teach! Their names are Janelle and Ashley, and we are really excited for them! Asherton is like the gold mine haha we keep finding awesome people there, we just have to continue opening our mouths! It was awesome how we found them though haha we were going up to a different house to have a lesson with someone, and they didn't answer and Janelle was outside with her kids as well as Ashley was outside, and I said to my companion, "lets go talk to them" and so we walked straight over and the little boys were holding little basketballs, so I put my hand up to tell them to throw it to me and that is how we got in! I started playing catch with the boys as we explained what we do as missionaries, and it was perfect! #thankssports ;) haha
we also had an amazing lesson with Olga and her four daughters! It was the cutest thing because as we pulled up in our car, the little girls yelled at their mom, "Mom, the church girls are here!!" and ran outside and hugged us! ahh those girls have such a tender spot in my heart! We taught the Restoration, and wow it is a challenge to keep a 6 year old entertained, but Olga asked a really good question as to why there are so many churches on the earth today, and they had a few other really good questions and it was a really awesome lesson :) They committed to praying as a family about the truth of our message! They also said they would be coming to the Thanksgiving dinner this Wednesday if we can find someone to give them a ride, and we are super excited! We love that family so much :)

This last week I was studying the talk, "Good, Better, Best" by Dallin H Oaks, and it was such a good talk for me to read at this time in my life! I know it is so important for us to be  making the best decisions for ourselves all of the time, and I know that I need to make some better decisions than the good ones I have been making so I have a lot of things to change in my life, but as does everyone because we are continually trying to become like our Savior Jesus Christ!

Also, happiest of birthdays to two of the most amazing people I have ever known! My awesome older cousin Haley has her birthday TODAY, and I hope it is absolutely amazing and that you are enjoying your new little baby boy August, he is so adorable and I am so excited for the day I get to meet him!
One of my bestest friends ever, Jamie, also has a birthday this week on the 21st and I hope that everyone spoils you as much as I would if I were there!!

Thanks again to everyone for all you do for me, I can't express enough how much I feel the love and prayers and how they help me each and every day! I am so thankful to be a missionary and a representative of Jesus Christ, it is the best thing in the world!
I hope you all have a wonderful week and are getting excited for Thanksgiving! It is the perfect time of year to let people know how thankful you are for them, so please do that!! I am so very thankful for all of you :)
With much love,
Hermana Griffin :)

p.s.  Please send me your favorite scripture in your email to me!  I'd love to know!

We held a Lizard!

Non-members always treating us well!

I'm nice to her, I promise!

Putting in tile!

She's the mean one!

Bike riding all the time!  haha!

Cute little girls "hitting the woah"

Service at the ranch. We cleaned out the whole shack by where I'm standing. I am excited to show you all what it looks like after we are done!

We forgot our shoes after doing service at the ranch... improvise.

Our favorite song!

We were dumb and got cold drinks on a cold day!

9 months!! November 11, 2019

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing great and looking forward to the holidays, they're coming fast!! This week was pretty great! We have seen so many miracles (like we found SEVEN new people to teach this week) and I am excited to share them with you :)

Last Monday evening we went out to Asherton and did some great work in that area! We had an amazing lesson with Esmeralda, and we taught the Restoration of the Gospel using the introduction to the Book of Mormon! It is one of my favorite ways to teach the Restoration, since it explains almost every point (we have to sneak a couple in between paragraphs) and it also gets them to read the introduction of the Book of Mormon! Esmeralda was great and she asked some really good questions as well! She accepted the invitation to pray about it and gain a testimony herself! We also stopped by and saw her on Saturday and she had followed through by reading her invitation/assignment that we invited her to read, so that was awesome she had done that! We invited her to church as well and she really seemed excited and like she was going to come, but then she didn't :( We are really working and praying on how to get people to follow through with their commitments in this area, haha it's rough!

I hit 9 months this past week! It has been such a crazy and amazing 9 months of my life and something I wouldn't trade for the world! I have had the best companions and met the most amazing people, and learned soooo many important lessons that I will forever be grateful for! It sure hasn't been all peaches and roses, but the good times and experiences have for sure exceeded the hard ones!
We had a lesson with Chito that night as well, and we were able to review the Restoration with him! He is excited to be able to have the restored priesthood of God one day, and also looks forward to going to the temple and doing work for his ancestors! He has pretty much had all of the lessons like five times haha so we are reviewing them once more before he gets baptized! We unfortunately had to move his baptism date back a week because he didn't come to church yesterday even though he promised us he would :( So we are continually praying that people will feel the importance of attending church on Sundays!

We had an amazing lesson with Daliah this past week! She is the wife of one of our inactive members, and a couple weeks ago when we had gone over, she was completely out of it (if you know what I mean) but she confided in us a lot! She started telling us about how she has been comfortably numb since everything has happened with the passing of some of her loved ones, and we were really just able to testify that this gospel has the answers she has been looking for, and will give her peace about where her loved ones are right now. She doesn't know hardly anything about our church since it isn't really anything that she talked about with her husband, so she agreed to learning more about the gospel! I felt a big impression to tell her that she is in the perfect time in her life to learn about this gospel and to accept it, and she started crying and the Spirit was so strong, it was so amazing! We have a visit set up with her this Thursday, and we are so excited to continue helping her recognize what the Spirit feels like, and to help her with her relationship with Christ :) 

Thursday was a suuuuuper long day! It kind of felt like we did nothing haha but here is why! We did our regular studies and then we also did weekly planning, so we were in the house for so many hours doing weekly planning! We did a little service at the nursing home and then our senior couple missionaries, Elder and Sister Beck (they're serving in Eagle Pass) picked us up and we all drove out to Encinal, which is an hour and a half away from our house.. so it was a day just packed full of sitting in the car hahah. We have one family who lives in Encinal, and they are a part member family and he occasionally comes to church, and he is an awesome guy! It is so hard to get out there and visit them though haha we try to every other week but even then sometimes it doesn't happen! We had a great time visiting with them though, they fed us a delicious dinner and then we had an awesome visit planned! We had prayed about how we can best help their family, and we decided that we are going to take the focus off of the nonmember husband and give him a little break for a while! So we planned our lesson around the teenage daughter, and it was so cool because the Becks had an awesome object lesson about the importance of building a strong fortress around our cities, like it talks about in Alma 50. After we had built a strong fortress around our city, we changed it from a city to a picture of their family and then talked about how we can make sure that the outside / worldly things don't affect their family, and it was an awesome lesson! The Spirit was definitely there and that family is so awesome :)

Friday I had exchanges with one of my great CCM friends, Hermana Towery! I left my area for the day and went to Adams Hill, which is where my CCM/BFF companion, Hermana Carlson served! It was fun to see where she was and sleep in the same room as her ;) It was a great day in Adams Hill and it was so fun to be in the city again and see civilization haha. Since we don't have many food places here in Carrizo, I begged Hermana Towery if we could go get some food for lunch instead of eat in the apartment and she was great with it haha so we went and ate some curry and wow, it has never tasted better!! I haven't had curry in a while and it's my favvvvvorite!! We also did service at the food bank and there were so many missionaries that do that haha it felt like a zone conference! The exchange overall went well and I am grateful for it, especiallly since I learned how grateful I am for the missionary that I was trained to be, and for the missionary that I have become now!

We exchanged back on Saturday morning and my companion is so dang cute haha the whole way back to Carrizo (it was an hour drive just to meet them in the middle... our area is huge haha) she talked about how much she missed me the whole time and I just love her!! It reminds me a lot of how I was in training and every time my trainer left me to go on an exchange and how much I missed her haha but my comp had a good exchange too, and they even found someone new to teach that day!
After we exchanged back, we went out to do service at the ranch again and we got to help them hold down the goats while they clipped their toenails hahah it was sooo fun and even more funny watching my city girl companion do stuff on the ranch ;) (she allowed me to call her a city girl) as we were about to leave, we were watering the animals and somehow we got into a water fight with everyone, and I had thrown a whole bucket of water on Brother Tollett and then for some dumb reason I GAVE HIM THE BUCKET while we were still in the pen which was dumb on my part haha so I didn't really have a way out, but I had to find a way to I ran to the fence and I jumped over it and he tried throwing water at me from inside but didn't get me much hahah it was pretty funny and everyone was impressed that I just hopped over the fence!

Saturday evening we also spent in Asherton, and to be honest, we weren't sure what we were going to do because there isn't much work to do in Asherton.. We had troubles deciding whether to go to the festival which was going on in Crystal City and use it as a good finding resource, or to go to Asherton when nobody would probably be there.. We felt we should still go to Asherton so we did! We were able to contact a few of the people we are teaching, and then we also stopped by a lot of potentials! We had a miracle night, for sure. We met Gloria, who is the mother of Jay which is who we were looking for, and she was so cute and sweet and accepted a Book of Mormon and also accepted for us to come back tonight!
We tried stopping by a potential named Jaime, but there was no answer at the door and the whole time walkng up and down to Jaime front door, I kept looking at her next door neighbors house and having a feeling that we should knock it after Jaime's house, and as a missionary, it's really hard sometimes to get the courage to knock a house that you don't have any information on,  but I just started walking towards her house and made sure that my mind wouldn't stop my body haha my companion was a little confused cause it was the opposite way to our car (we had planned on stopping by other potentials) but she just followed me to the house, and we knocked, and Olga opened her door and we introduced ourselves and what we do, and asked if we could share a message about Jesus Christ and she said yes! Then out walk her four ADORABLE daughters! One of them walked straight up to us and hugged us and another gave us some gum haha they are seriously so cute. Come to find out they had just moved into that house about 2 months ago and have been having a little hard time, and she literally told us we were an answer to her prayers. I don't know if there is anything better to be told that as a missionary, because that is all we want is to be lead by the Spirit and having that reassurance that we are is amazing. Right before we were going to give Olga a Book of Mormon she asked us what the book was called again because we had shared Helaman 5:12 as our message and she said she was going to go look up the book after we left but then we told her this book was for her as a gift from us and she looked at it like it was pure gold, it was the best thing ever. One of her daughters took it for her and almost dropped it and she got a little upset haha I love when people treat the Book of Mormon like the gem it is though, it is the best! We invited them to church and were so excited because they also really sounded like they were going to come, but they didn't :( But we asked before we left if we could come by when we are in town on Monday and explain more about our beliefs and about the Book of Mormon and she said yes, so we are so excited for that lesson tonight! We left her house and I immediately started tearing up because I was so happy. Being led by the Spirit and finding the people that are prepared is the best thing ever. Literally there is nothing better. Heavenly Father is blessing us and giving us the prepared people and we are soooo incredibly thankful!

Church was great yesterday as well! We both gave talks and it was pretty fun! I talked about missionary work and what played into my decision of serving a mission, and I also talked about the branch mission plan and all of the members really seemed to like the idea and a lot of them told us we inspired them and they want to do more missionary work! It was even more special because our branch president got up and said a few words after we finished and he gave us a lot of credit and thanked us for all we do and it was just cool to hear that because (from what I have been told) the branch president has been not super supportive or kind of hard on the past missionaries, so it was awesome to hear everything he said about us! We had some visitors walk into church as well and they are from Utah and Idaho, and it was fun to talk to them! One of them knows the older brother of my trainer, and so that was pretty fun to make that connection since she said she was from Alpine. We only had Jackie come to church yesterday and obviously we are super happy she was able to come, but we had really high hopes for the people that told us they would come to church and we had a goal of 5 people and I was almost convinced after the night Saturday we had, that we would exceed that goal but people in Carrizo are having a hard time seeing the importance of coming on Sundays or are just lazy :(

Our last miracle for this week was our visit with Jackie and Rita last night! Jackie has been so amazing and staying so strong with all of the crap that her family and friends have been giving her since she has been meeting with missionaries, but we still haven't been able to get permission from Rita for her to be baptized, and we had a really good visit last night with them all and we were able to talk to Rita about what is holding her back, and she is pretty much just nervous about commitment, and doesn't want her children to choose something too fast but she said she is thinking about it which is a start! We were also able to give her a Book of Mormon and we are going to start teaching her the lessons as well, so she can know what her daughter is choosing to do and what she believes :) Rita's heart is softening so much and we are so grateful! The prayers are working and we are so excited! We told her (didn't ask) that we are coming by Tuesday in our service clothes and told her to have a list of things for us to do, and she accepted it! We are excited to serve her and soften her heart more :)

Happy Birthday this Wednesday to my cute little cousin Harper! She is turning eight and will soon be making that first covenant with her Heavenly Father and I am so proud of her! It was so fun to be able to see her a few times in my last area, I think I saw her more on my mission than I have the past 5 or 10 years ;)

Something else exciting that is happening this week is that on the 15th, the new missionary handbook is coming out and we have heard a lot of rumors but we also know (because our mission president has one) that all of the rules are more broad and it is leaving a lot more room for missionaries to use their agency with the rules, so we will see how it affects everyone haha.
This week will be 2/3 of the way through this transfer and my comp and I were talking about how incredibly fast it has gone and that's just what happens when you're doing the Lord's work and having fun while doing it!

Thank you all SO MUCH for all of your love and prayers, as you can see/read in my emails, we are seeing so many miracles from all of your prayers and we are so thankful. You are all so amazing!
Have a wonderful week :)
Hermana Griffin 

My new background picture!  Isn't it Beautiful!

One of my childhood best friends, from Newton, serving in the same mission!

9 month dinner celebration!

Zone sports last Monday!

Delicious Curry!

Exchanges with Hermana Towery!

Hot cocoa is the best!

Sitting in my BFF's spot!  :)

I felt at home, haha!

Working hard, or hardly working?

Our awesome visitors at Church from Utah and Idaho!

Chito on date for baptism!! November 4, 2019

Howdy yall! This week was sooo good!! I've been learning so much and having unforgettable experiences that I know I wouldn't have if I didn't make the choice to serve a mission and it's something I'm grateful for every single day, no matter what the day ends up looking like!

We started our week off by going to one of the little towns called Asherton, and we were able to visit quite a few people, one of them being Esmeralda! We almost got killed by her dogs but we made it! She is someone that has met with missionaries in the past and so we wanted to see if she still had any interest, and it was such a good visit with her! She has gone through a lot of hard things lately, and we pretty much just had a big testimony meeting and testified of the plan of salvation, and how this gospel can bless her life. We then gave her one of the cool Book of Mormons we have been making with the questions in the front and tabs to where they can find the answers, and she really appreciated that! She said she is way more likely to read that one than just the whole book like they asked her last time haha so it was a really good visit! We are going to have weekly visits with her every Monday night, so we are excited for sure to go over tonight!
While we were in Asherton we also stopped by our awesome members who live there and we talked with Brother Tollett, and he talked to us about how he has been in quite a spiritual low place, and we really just told him we are here for him and we are also going to do weekly visits with them, as well as helping them on the ranch every week for service, which I will talk a little more about later :) We invited him to watch The Savior Understands Me video, and then I also gave him my dads number because he has questions about growing hay that I could not answer hahahh so that was fun!

 This last Wednesday was quite the busy day! We woke up at 5 am to be ready to leave at 5:45 and head to San Antonio for zone conference! I always love zone conference so much because it is so inspiring and I always learn so much about how I can become better. It was also the best being at zone conference because I got to see my favorite person ever (my trainer) and also some of the other missionaries that I haven't seen in so long since I've been up in Austin! They also sang to all of the people who have had birthdays since last zone conference so that was pretty embarrassing haha. Also, I love the push our mission president has been giving us to use the Book of Mormon in every visit, and it truly is so important because the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion, and so we have to use it to help people in their conversion and relationship with Jesus Christ!
After zone conferences we had our interviews (since Carrizo is two hours away, it's hard for president to make it all the way down here for just our interviews) but my interview was super! President is always so uplifting and helpful with everything! We talked a lot about the work we are doing in the area and how we can continue helping the people we are teaching, so it was awesome!
We also had a funny experience this week after zone conference because our member (keep in mind she is inactive) was driving us home from zone conference and swore pretty loudly for no reason haha and not just any word but the f word hahah we were laughing quite hard and she was too and just kept apologizing hahaha good times.

We got back to Carrizo that night at 7 pm, which is right when our family game night for the branch started, so we were definitely on a tight schedule haha. We had a good game night though and a pretty good turnout! We played ping pong and carved some pumpkins, and it was a good time! We are really hoping we can have a better turnout for the next one though!

I'm sure you are all wondering what we did on Halloween, and the answer: nothing. haha we did our studies that morning, did some service at a nursing home (wrote her calendar on big calendars on the wall, which took 2 1/2 hours), then we went by a few people right before dinner, and then we were told to be home by 6 so we went home and did weekly planning the rest of the night! Even though I rarely did much for Halloween, this year I did the least for sure haha.

Friday was a really rollercoaster day as well haha, we have been teaching Chito, and his girlfriend Kathy is a member of a little under two years, and on Friday we got the news that they broke up... long story short, they are still together haha they just act like little kids sometimes ;) I'll talk more about Chito in a minute!
We had a lesson with Carolina, and it was so awesome! We talked about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and why it is so important, and we think that she grasped on to quite a few things! It almost felt like we were in a role play at the end because she looked at us and asked, "How do you know it's true?" and we then and there testified of the power of prayer, and the power of the Holy Ghost and that she TOO can know the truthfulness of what we shared, and she said she would pray! She didn't come to church this week, but we also understand things come up haha but we have a lesson with her this week too so we are super hopeful and excited for that!
That evening we received a call from one of our members, and he said that he is bringing someone to church with him on Sunday, and we got so excited! He brought Martha, and Martha has met with missionaries a few months ago but didn't feel that it was right at the time, but just recently she had told Brother Allen that she doesn't think her current church is the right one and wants to start coming to ours, and we are so excited! Member missionary work is so real and so important!
Speaking of member missionary work, every morning / night during my person time this past week I have kept working on the member missionary poster that we are going to put up in our church building this week (we are also both talking in church on Sunday about member missionary work) and so we are excited to see how the members react to the poster and the missionary ideas!

We also did service this past week with Brother and Sister Tollett at their ranch, and wow, it needs so. much. work! He recently bought it from his father, but it was pretty much a dump lot haha. We helped him this past week by picking up tires and throwing them onto the back of his truck, and moving them to a different location on his ranch haha but there are seriously so many tires everywhere it's crazy!! It's nice to do some service in nature though instead of doing it in an office like all the other service we do haha, and I especially loved looking all over their ranch (about 80 acres) and they have soooo much stuff that just doesn't work and is just sitting there (ex. 20 old cars that aren't being used) and so we had a fun time exploring that!  We didn't have time or miles to drive back home to get ready, so we had already packed our proselyting clothes in a bag and so we went to a gas station and literally changed in the bathroom, ate subway and then drove an hour to Cotulla which is another small town we cover. We contacted quite a few people and had someone tell someone else (right in front of us) that they can have 5 wives.. we explained that we don't practice polygamy haha and then we laughed about the experience later.. so many weird things happen out here, but I love it!
We got home that evening and had our weekly zone call, and our zone leader asked me to do the prayer and in the prayer we pray for all of the people in the areas in our zone that need extra blessings, oh yeah and I had to do it in spanish hahhah but it was all good, I am still alive so that's all that matters! I don't know how much better my spanish has got since I've been down by the border, which is weird right? but everyone speaks english here haha but my companion and I have made a goal to talk more in spanish because I need to learn more!

Yesterday we had quite a good day! We had church, and we had three people come that aren't members! One of which was Jackie, who is still wanting to be baptized but her mother still hasn't given permission yet :( and we also had Brother Tollett bring his half-brother Benito, and then Martha came with Brother Allen! It was a wonderful church service and Jackie even got up to bear her testimony, even though she isn't a member haha it was awesome though!
Last night we stopped by A LOT of people, and one of them we had a visit with a part member family, and the wife was super drunk.. so that was super interesting haha but we were able to  set up some service with her as well as she accepted for us to come and share uplifting messages every so often, and it was a pretty good visit for her being totally out of it haha. She even did mention when she saw us at the door that she said to her husband, "God sent them." and it was pretty cool to hear her say that!
Last night we talked with Chito and asked him if he is still serious about the gospel (whether or not him and Kathy stay together) and he said yes and that he has prayed about baptism like we asked him to, and we were able to put him on date for the end of this month, the 24th! We are so super excited for him, especially because he has been being taught for so many years, and he is finally ready!

Today we are headed to Eagle Pass to play zone sports with all of the elders in our zone (since we are the only sisters) so it will be quite fun! I will get to play some actual soccer since some of the elders are from Mexico haha so I'm excited! But since we are going to Eagle Pass I won't have a ton of time to email everyone, so I apologize in advance if I don't reply with a super big email but I promise I will reply!

This week is going to be a super good week! I HIT 9 MONTHS TOMORROW and it is so stinkin crazy to think that I am halfway done with my mission! I don't like the thought haha I want to be doing this work forever! We also have exchanges tomorrow so I will be up in San Antonio in the Adams Hill area and I am excited to be with Hermana Towery, she was a sister in my MTC district so it will be a good day celebrating 9 months together!

This past week I was studying the talk from the priesthood session of general conference in April 2019 by President Eyring, and he was talking about sustaining our leaders in the church, and one of the paragraphs he mentioned how before our interviews (with whomever) we should study and ponder the questions and know our answers before we go in. He related it to the time when we will meet our Savior, and I really loved when he said, "Try to remember and frame the answers you will give when the Lord interviews you, knowing that someday He will." That sentence hit me quite hard this past week and caused me to do a lot of self reflection.

I was able to see my amazing trainer this past week at zone conference as well, and she knew I had been having a hard time with the passing of Lori (its just not something you'd think you'd have to go through on your mission, loving and caring for someone so deeply, not knowing your goodbye leaving the area would be your goodbye for this life on earth..) and she gave me a letter and in the letter, she also said something that hit me at the core. She said, "Missionary work is a today thing, not a tomorrow thing." And it's SO TRUE. After zone conference, I just realized I could be doing so much better, and I re committed myself to giving my all TODAY, and not procrastinating anything anymore. Family and friends, I love missionary work. It truly is the greatest thing ever. 

Happy birthday to my amazing uncle Cory on Saturday (9th) thanks for always being so much fun and I hope you have the best birthday ever!

I love you all so much and am so grateful for each and every one of you! Have a wonderful week!
Hermana Griffin :)

Gomathi got baptized!

Our Healthy Food!

Lori and her sister when they were young!

Zone Conference activities

My Favorite person EVER!  My trainer, Sister Schellenberg!

My Little Sister!

The calendar that took us 2 1/2 hours to write at service!

Our weekly planning calendar. 

Everywhere we have to cover, haha!

My Comp makes me laugh!