Last Monday was a super awesome night after preparation day! We had a visit with an inactive family who is planning on reactivating themselves when the year starts, and it was a super awesome visit! They are the sweetest, and even gave us a box with a bunch of necessities such as shampoo/conditioner and toothpaste and things in that area haha they are seriously the sweetest. We were also asking all of the members if they had any extra blankets laying around that they weren't using that we could gift to Olga and her daughters (I mentioned that last week) and this awesome family said she would find some, and then Tuesday she texted us and told us there were blankets dropped off at our place, and we got home and she had purchased brand new blankets for her and her girls!!
We are so thankful for the (few) members that we have in this area, and for them being so generous and loving!! We were able to take the comforters to Olga and her girls and they were so appreciative and happy, it was so cute!
We had our branch family night this week and we were also on exchanges at that time! We drove to Dilley Wednesday morning and exchanged, and then went back to Carrizo, did studies, did some service at the nursing home, and then had the branch potluck and then drove to San Antonio (2 hours from here) so it was a crazy day full of driving haha. The branch potluck was so awesome though! We were able to have Olga and her daughters come, as well as 7 other friends and family of members came, it was super awesome!!
We had to leave in the middle of the potluck to make it to San Antonio by curfew, and we made it safely! Then we stayed with other sisters in their apartment that night, and it was a good time haha one of the other sisters had received a bag of old garments from a member and they had to figure all of that stuff out haha.
We woke up Thursday morning and went to zone conference and it was AMAZING and SPIRITUAL. This paragraph is going to be long because I want to tell you all how spoiled we are being missionaries here in the TSAM! We started our zone conference by having some trainings on how to better help people make and keep commitments, and it was awesome because that is exactly what we have been needing for the people down here in Carrizo! The trainings were super inspiring too and it definitely gave me some more motivation to continue bettering myself at this work! After all of the super amazing trainings, we went into the gym and we had lunch! But this was a super special lunch! There are members that have this business, such as every year at Christmas they feed the missionaries at their zone conference, and oh. my. goodness. it was SO DELICIOUS. They had smoked ham, turkey and brisket! Then potato salad and beans and corn, and also gave us peach cobbler for dessert!! It was so super awesome. The crew also gave us the cutest ornaments that is the Texas flag in shape of a heart, and they are just precious. One of the best parts about the crew that fed us was that I saw TWO people from my first area when I was serving in 9th ward in San Antonio! One of them was Sister Mcknight, who was the relief society president when I was serving there and she ran up to me and hugged me when she saw me, it was the BEST thing!! The other person I got to see and chat with was JOSH! He was someone we were teaching, and when I saw him I was sooo happy! He still hasn't become a member, but he was there helping feed the missionaries and it was just amazing to see him! He is doing good though and hopefully the elders are going to take good care of him!
After we finished eating all of the delicious food, we went into the Christmas part of the zone conference!! We started by doing some crafts and we made some snowflakes, and also made some little trees and cute heart baskets!! After we did crafts, we went back into the gym and had our Christmas music program! We started by singing Jingle Bells all together and when we did, our President and his whole family (including 5 kids) walked in with santa hats on and a bunch of stockings and gave all of us a stocking! It was the cutest thing ever! The stockings had our awesome TSAM Christmas card in it with all of the pictures of the missionaries in the mission at this time, so that was super awesome! Then they gave us all another present and everyone had to wait to open it at the same time, and it is the CUTEST apron with TSAM on it and then the shape of Texas underneath it! We all put them on and took our zone conference picture in them and we all looked so good haha. After the present section we had our music program start and so many missionaries are so amazingly talented! We had a few missionaries play musical instruments such as the cello and violin and piano, and quite a few missionaries sang, and it was such a beautiful program and the spirit of christmas was so amazing!
We had our interviews with our mission president after zone conference, and it was super awesome! I always come out of my interviews inspired, so that was awesome and definitely what I have been needing.
We had a long night ahead of us with driving home after zone conference and we stopped at a thai restaurant because we don't have anything of that sort down here, and we ate some delicious curry and I got extra to bring home, which I finished yesterday and it just hit the spot haha. We got home that night of zone conference, and when we drive up to our house we can see the front door, and we had PILES of boxes by our door haha I think we counted like NINE boxes??? We both just cried at how loved we are, it actually made my comp pretty sad and made her miss her family so she like actually cried cried, but we are all good now, haha just always super thankful for the love we have!!
Friday morning we had a sisters zoom call with our mission president, his wife and all of the sister missionaries in the mission, and just talked about questions we have, and also talked about like receiving gifts from single men and funny topics like that that only sisters have to worry about haha.
After the zoom call we did weekly planning, and then when we went to leave and go contact and find people, our car wouldn't start.. It like wouldn't even do anything haha I had to manually open the door with the physical key and the wheel wouldn't move and the brake was locked, so then we took an hour walking our neighborhood trying to find someone who could help us and come to find out, just one of the bolts on the battery was loose haha so not a big deal, just annoying because of all the car troubles we have been having.
Once we finally went out that night, we were able to contact Mario who has been taught in the past, and he wants to have us teach him more, so that was super awesome! What was even better was that we weren't planning on visiting him, but my comp was looking at people in the area close to where we were and felt inspired to go to him, so we did, and it was great!
Saturday was a FANTASTIC day in Cotulla! We spent a lot of our time finding, and we found this AMAZING and super prepared lady named Liliana, and we knocked her door and she walked around from out back and at first I thought she was gonna be scary cause she was saying like "who is knocking on my door" but then she saw us and kind of like stepped back physically, and we introduced who we were and how we would like to give her an uplifting message of Christ, and she said she hasn't gone to church in a long time because she hasn't found the right one for her, and we then invited her to church and she started to tear up immediately and tell us that God had sent us to her, and then she raised her arm to show us the goosebumps she had and we testified that it was the Spirit. She has been having a hard time lately, and is a single mom and doesn't get much help, and we shared the Book of Mormon with her, and it was especially awesome because at zone conference we had a picture of our family and someone from our families testimony, and we put them in a Book of Mormon and were supposed to "go on a mission" to find the prepared to give it to, and I gave mine to Liliana. I showed her my family picture in the front and I told her how much this gospel has blessed my life and my families life, and she looked at us and said "I want that, I don't have anything like that" and we were able to set up a return appointment (because she was busy in a situation with her sister) and we told her we would come next saturday and she told us "come find me!! please come find me!! sometimes I hide away in my room but come bother me and find me!!" As we were about to walk away we realized we didn't give her our number or get hers, so as we turned around, she also turned around and yelled at us and said "My Facebook is ..... if you want to contact me!!" and then we walked back to her and exchanged numbers instead. She is super awesome and prepared, and we are so excited to start helping her improve her life! We finished tracting the rest of the apartment complex where she was at, and those apartments seem pretty promising and we have a few other return appointments as well!
A funny thing that happened in Cotulla was we were driving on a street and we saw 3 girls walking and I told my comp to hand them a BOM out of the window, so I slowed down and (it was wrapped) when we went to give the present to them, all three of them were like "uh, uh, uh" and then took it and said thanks and walked away haha it was a good time. Then before we left Cotulla we went to an apartment complex and put church invitations in each door in hopes to have more people come to church but it didn't help haha.
That night we stopped in Big Wells and we did some finding there and we found a few other people to start teaching as well! We found Consuelo, and she seemed pretty interested! We also found George who is a father of two eight year olds and he seemed really interested and accepted us coming back by this upcoming week to have a lesson!
That night we had a lesson with Chito and Kathy, and we were like super straightforward haha we have been wanting to be straightforward with them for a while because that is what they have needed, and we were able to do it. We reviewed the gospel of Jesus Christ with them and talked about what Chito is willing to do to become a member, and he is like a super solid guy and has good intentions, but Kathy keeps holding him back which has been hard. There was a point when we almost gave up on them, but we are glad we didn't because they both committed to doing better and following the commandments so we will see how it goes! We are having dinner with them on Christmas day so that will be exciting :)
Yesterday we had our "special come and see sunday" and it was kind of rough because there were less people there than there has been my whole time serving in this area.. A few of our member families were out of town, and we had ZERO people we are teaching come to church, so that was difficult but we just have to keep our heads up and know that we are doing the best we can. We invite everybody we can, we commit them to come and if they don't come, they have their agency and we can't let it affect us as missionaries.
After church we went out to Asherton which has been like the gold mine lately, and we found two more people to teach! One of them is named Joe, and he told us his mom used to read the Book of Mormon to him when he was growing up, so that was super cool!! We are going back by him next week and so we are super excited for that!!
We also went by Olga and her daughters, and we were able to give them the gifts we had wrapped for them, which were BOM's, scrunchies and little CTR rings for the girls and they loved them and we started teaching the plan of salvation to them but then Olga received a phone call so she had to leave. We couldn't stay with the girls alone so we had to leave in the middle of the lesson as well, but Olga later texted us and thanked us for the gifts and so we are still hopeful for them. Two of her four girls are super sick and they didn't have a ride to church since the member that usually offers was out of town yesterday, and so she wasn't able to come to church but they said they enjoyed the potluck so that was good news!!
After Olga and her daughters we went by Esmeralda and we had a great lesson with her again! We taught the ten commandments and showed her the hand signs for them, and she loved them! Last visit we were worried that she was kind of going to give up on the gospel and learning more, but last night she said that soshe still wants to come to curch and learn more and read the Book of Mormon more too, and so we are still excited for her!!
I have a few very special people that I want to tell happy birthday to this week!! First, to my cute cousin Addy, Happy Birthday! The next is one of my best friends ever, Tori Frampton! She has the same birthday as my cute littlest sister, Lindsey! I hope you all have the best birthday ever and you know how much I love and miss you!!
This week so looking like a good week! We are actually going to Eagle Pass tonight to go caroling with the elders in their area! Then we have Christmas!!! We also have some really good lessons lined up with people, and so we are excited!
Since this week is Christmas and the best time of the year since we get to remember and celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, I just want to share with you all some of the most important things I have learned while on my mission, and how much I have truly grown.
I know without a doubt that I wouldn't be the same person I am today without my older brother Jesus Christ. I am so so so grateful to have this time of year to remember Him, and how miraculous His birth truly was. I am so thankful to have the knowledge of this gospel, of His gospel, and that He has felt every single thing that I have, or ever will feel. He was born with nothing, yet did everything to save everybody, and I am in awe with every single additional detail that I have learned about Christ and His birth and His life. I am most grateful for His sacrifice that He made for us. The Atonement will always be what I am most grateful for in life, because in no way am I perfect and without Him, I wouldn't have any hopes in becoming perfect. I am so grateful for the chance I have to better myself and strive to become as He is. I am just so thankful for Him and for this season that we have to remember Him and all He did for us.
I hope you all have the best Christmas ever, and that you never forget the true reason for the season!
Feliz Navidad!
Con amor,
Hermana Griffin
TSAM Zone Conference, Dec 18, 2019
Thai food.... curry.... mmmmmmmm!
District 8C from the CCM!
I love Sister Tanner!
And Sister Guerra!
And my little sis, Hermana Groll!
Branch Potluck!
Chito is on the right and Kathy is in the hat.
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