Serving in San Antonio Texas: Thanksgiving and the Newspaper! December 2, 2019

Howdy y'all!! This was such a good week and I was so happy to have Thanksgiving, and I'm excited to tell you all about it! I also hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to eat so much food :)

We were able to have two wonderful lessons with Esmeralda this week! The first one was last Monday evening, and we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and talked a lot about repentance and baptism and she was blown away at the fact that we can repent every single day, and be forgiven of all of the little mistakes we have made! She committed to coming to church... but then yesterday rolled around and she didn't come :( So we went to Asherton last night and we had a really successful night there! We saw Esmeralda again and she said she had slept in and woke up too late to come :( It is just so challenging to get people here to follow through with commitments haha. We taught the Word of Wisdom last night as well and how important it is to take care of the body that our Heavenly Father has given us, and she actually took it pretty well! We were worried that this lesson would be a turning point for her, but she opened up to us even more and shared that she knows she needs to quit, but she just doesn't have that desire yet. We are hoping and praying that she continues progressing, and comes to church this week!
While in Asherton last monday we also saw Janelle and Ashley and were able to talk about different religions and why she thinks the one she grew up in wasn't true and they agreed for us to come back and teach them our beliefs! They also said if they had their car on Sunday that they would come to church, but they didn't come either :(

Last week we also did more service at the womens shelter and they just recently got a whole bunch of canned food, so we took like two hours putting the food away in the cupboards and organizing them and my companion has like major OCD because we got like 85% done and she wanted to restart and organize them by brand... she crazy ;)
While we were at service, we received some sad news from our branch president.. I mean, sad for us and for the members but it's kind of scary too. So we used to do service every Saturday on one of our members' ranch, but our branch president told us that we are no longer allowed to over there.. The couple is having some problems, and the husband is about to make some really bad choices, and we have no idea what those choices are, but we were just a little bummed because we loved and looked forward to service on the ranch haha. We just hope and pray that he stays with the gospel though, we have spent a lot of time with that couple!

Wednesday while we were doing service at the nursing home and playing bingo with them all, we saw the newspaper on one of the tables and we were in it!! The week before, we had gone to the newspaper place and asked if we could advertise three things and we didn't think we would get a whole article, but it reminded me back in the day of high school and how much I loved reading the newspaper every day after our soccer games!! I will add the picture of us in the newspaper, and it was super awesome because a few people have even mentioned that they saw us in the newspaper :)

Thanksgiving!!! Wow, this will be a day I never forget haha. We woke up that day super excited, right? We were going to eat lots of food and hang out with some awesome people and get to call our families!... Well yes, but it was a little miserable too hahah. Now, nobody make fun of me for this. But somewhere, I heard or I saw that if you drink a lot of water before a meal, it stretches your stomach so you can eat more food.. Well.. That morning, about an hour before our first Thanksgiving meal, I chugged a gallon of water.. It was definitely not a smart idea haha because first of all, my stomach hurt sooo bad and I actually threw up before we even ate our first meal... and second of all, I was sooo full the whole day from drinking that water haha. Our first meal was with Jackie and her family, and I had told them of the mistake I made by chugging that gallon before the meal, and they thought I was joking.. Well, I told them I wasn't joking.. Then they went on to tell me that that is what people do when they are trying to lose weight... They drink a glass of water before their meal, so they get full faster.. So pretty much I was like 150% full before I even had my first meal haha. Well I ate a full plate at Jackies house, and then some pie as well.. Then we headed straight to our second meal with a member and her family, and there I had a second plate of food.. I really don't think I have ever felt so sick hahaha BUT the food was all REALLY GOOD haha I wish I could have enjoyed it more!! I had to come home and almost as soon as I walked in the bathroom, I threw up again.. It wasn't super fun haha. I did get to talk to my family that afternoon though so that helped me feel a lot better :)

Friday we did our weekly planning and it was sooo stressful this week because we were trying to plan and think about how we are going to do all of the Light the World stuff and promote it to everyone, and it made us both a little sad because there isn't much here in Carrizo.. But we committed to doing the best that we can this Christmas season :) We would also like some ideas about how we can make the Christmas season special for us, because we don't have missionaries close to us at all and don't have many members here either haha so we want to do something that we can enjoy!!
IMPORTANT: I don't know if any of my friends or family were wanting to or planning on sending me anything for Christmas, but IF SO, please send me things that I could give to other people! I truly don't need anything and I would love to help other people have special Christmas this year. THANK YOU in advance :)
Friday evening we got a call from one of our members asking if we could come help her clean her house in preparation for her daughter coming to visit.. Well.. we got there and she was sitting on the floor and there were like knifes and scrapers on the floor with little rags haha and she told us we were going to scrape all of the dirt out of the cracks between her floor tile! So we were on our hands and knees for an hour cleaning her floor, and it was awesome because she was so happy afterwards and she even had us help her set up her christmas decorations!
After that service we went and had a great lesson with Chito, and we taught him and Kathy the plan of salvation, and he remembered a lot of it since he has had the lessons a ton, but he had some good questions too! We brought up the law of chastity when we were talking about our life on earth and what we need to do now to prepare for eternity, and they both know and understand the law of chastity and agreed to figuring out how they can live it.. we really hope we will be planning a wedding sometime soon :)

Saturday morning we did some more service at the nursing home and at the end of every month we go in and write their calendar for the upcoming month on some big boards, and it takes foreverrrr haha but we took some pics and they looked super good :) After that we headed to Cotulla which is an hour away, but we had a really successful day there! We had absolutely no members in town that night though so we resorted to subway as our meal before our fast haha we are always eating on the go. We did a ton of tracting and finding in Cotulla, since we don't have much work going on up there and we shared light the world with everyone :) WE FOUND AND WERE ABLE TO SHARE LIGHT THE WORLD WITH EIGHTEEN, YES 18 PEOPLE!! It was so cool and like everybody opened their door and listened to what we had to say and actually a lot of them said they would look into it! There was also a parade that night that we so happened to be at a gas station using the bathroom when the parade came by so that was fun haha.

Yesterday we had a wonderful day at church! Chito and his girlfriend Kathy came, and it was awesome because Kathy is a member, she was baptized a little over a year ago, and this is her first time coming back to church since she got baptized so it was awesome! Chito is still wanting to get baptized and it was awesome to see him at church :)
Last night we went to Asherton and were able to contact Olga and her daughters again! They had been out of town for about a week so that is why they were never home when we came by, but it was so awesome to see them again! They have been going through a few hard things right now, so if you all could pray for her and her daughters, that would be much appreciated! We have such high hopes for Olga and her four daughters, and it's amazing because like everything she says about what kind of church she would want her and her girls to go to is what our church is! We are going to go by again on Thursday and take a member with us, and let them get to know each other so they can come to church with our member this week :)

Well we also took our car in last week and got everything with that figured out, so we have scheduled to take our car to the shop next week on the 9th, and so all of next week we will be carless, so that will be pretty fun... haha bikes here we come!

The last couple of weeks we have had a clarification of rules in our mission regarding music standards and what we can and can't listen to, and so I have been deleting the majority of my music haha but we are allowed to listen to songs that are on the Sacred Music app, and I have come to absolutely love one of the youth songs called A Pillar of Light, and I highly recommend that you all go listen to it! It is awesome and makes me love the Restoration even more :)

I am also doing this awesome challenge, and it is to read a chapter of Luke every evening starting on the 1st through the 24th, and that way when Christmas comes, we can all understand more of why we celebrate it :) I invite you all to do it as well!

I love you all and I am so incredibly grateful for all you have done for me! I hit 10 months of my mission this week and it is absolutely crazy to me how fast it is flying by!!
I hope you all have a wonderful week :)
Hermana Griffin