Mercado here we come! January 27, 2020

Hey hey hey family and friends!! This weekly will be short and sweet because we have a crammed day with driving up to San Antonio today (about 2 hours away)

This last week was super awesome though! We cleaned the church last Tuesday and I got blisters on my two knuckles and it looks like I got them from knocking on so many doors so that is what I say when people ask how come my knuckles are red and sore haha, but then I tell them the truth after because I can't lie as a missionary ;)
It was also my dads birthday on Tuesday and I got to call him and tell him happy birthday which is the best thing ever, I love my family!!

We had a super crazy week with Chito and Kathy. We had one lesson with them this past week in which we committed them both to living the laws of the church and they agreed and we even dumped out a beer that was in their house.. Well the next morning Kathy called us and told us that Chito isn't doing as good as we thought and that he has been helping other people not follow the word of wisdom, so we are honestly lost with him haha they were supposed to come to church yesterday but then Kathy accidentally ran over Chito.. yeah it's been a crazy week to say the least.

We had a great lesson with Lionel and we showed the video "look not behind thee" and talked about how great his future can be with this gospel in his life and it was a wonderful lesson!

With Esmerelda we talked about Jesus Christ and her relationship with Him, and it was such a spiritual lesson!! We showed the Because of Him video, and she committed to strengthening her relationship with Him which has been amazing!
We have changed our focus from teaching everyone the principles of the gospel to making sure they first  have a relationship with Jesus Christ and building off of that, and it has been working a lot better so far so we are happy about that!

We had a super sad moment with Olga and her daughters, we finally found a ride for them to come to church and when we texted her about it, Olga responded that theyre going through too much right now and can't come to church, but they appreciate all that we have helped them with, so that was super sad :(

We saw Xavier again and he said the first lesson we had, it was a little hard to believe but we testified of the blessings that come from this gospel and he is giving us a second chance!!

We had a successful lesson with Jackie and we taught her about Jesus Christ as well and she said she will work on it as well, and we showed her The Savior Understands Me video, and we were all teary eyed by the end and she said she never realized all He did for us. We talked more about the Atonement, and it was such a powerful lesson and we believe it was her conversion lesson, because her eyes were definitely opened and she told us we have helped her look at things in a whole new way which is awesome!

We received a SELF REFERRAL which NEVER happens in this area haha at least not since I've been here! She said she saw something about the Book of Mormon online and wanted one! Her name is Velma and she only speaks spanish which is awesome! She works every single day of the week between her two jobs which is sad, but we are definitely going to keep teaching her and she is excited to learn more!

We went to Cotulla on Saturday and had the cutest little miracles!! We contacted someone else named Velma who Hermana Abadia Pazos and I contacted during Christmas time, and we taught her about the Book of Mormon and her eyes just lit up! When we invited her to read it, she said "oh i definitely will!" and she is super great potential!
We went to a place called Valdez Bakery for dinner and we got a pizza to share and some donuts, and we chatted with the guy for a couple minutes because he said he recognized us, and after we were done chatting we asked if we could pay and he just handed us the pizza and donuts and said "don't worry about it, don't worry about it, don't worry about it" and it was the sweetest thing ever!

We stopped by Rosalinda and Henry on the way home and taught them the Plan of Salvation because Rosalinda mentioned how much she loves her family! Henry was also cooking out back so he brought us in some pork carnitas which were amazing! They both accepted to read more in the book of mormon though which is awesome!

Yesterday both my companion and I got to talk in church! I shared a lot from President Nelsons recent talk about the need to prepare for this upcoming conference, and it was awesome! I pretty much taught the Restoration over the pulpit which would have been even greater if there were nonmembers there haha but sadly we didn't have any of our friends at church :( We did have a family we have been working with for so long to come back to church, the Johnson family, and they finally came! It was so sweet that in relief society Sister Johnson made a comment about "the sister missionaries never gave up on us" and it was such a tender moment and just makes me love this work so much more!
After church yesterday my wonderful companion had kind of a hard moment, because we had truly worked so hard and had AT LEAST TEN nonmembers tell us they would be at church, and then none of them came, so it kind of hit her hard and she asked me "how do you do this for a year and a half?" and it hit me that I've been doing this for a year already, and although some days are longer than others, it surely hasn't felt like a year! I was able to help her though and now she is back to normal! It is super hard to have discouraging moments though, but the important thing is that we have to recognize that we can do all we can on our part, but in the end, Heavenly Father has given us ALL the ability to choose, and we can't force anybody to do anything. We will see the blessings from our labor though, I know it!

We visited the Johnson family after church and followed up with how it was and they loved it! We gave them a Come Follow Me booklet, and then Sister Johnson proceeded to tell us how all of her family (in Utah) is working on getting back into activity, and as she got teary eyed she said " and I'm the last one before we can get sealed " and it was another spiritual uplifting visit! We have super high hopes for that family :)

We visited with the Sanchez family last night and taught the restoration to little Toni who is 8, and turns 9 in two months but hasn't been baptized yet! She definitely wants to but it has been her parents, but we can definitely see her parents warming up to the idea so we are making a lot of great progress with our inactive members!

We also taught another little kid, Anthony, and he is 11 and we taught him about the armor of God and how important the scriptures are, and we related it to the video game fortnite (because that's all he plays) and how when we read our scriptures we become stronger and can fight off the bad guy (satan) and we made paper swords and then gave him a CTR ring as his "shield" and it was cute!

Well we are about to head to the store and then the Mercado soon, but here is a great spiritual thought!

This week I was reading the talk Good Shepherd, Lamb of God by Elder Gerrit W. Gong from the April 2019 conference, and this part about the Atonement of Jesus Christ really stuck out to me.

"A dear friend shared how she gained her precious testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. She grew up believing sin always brought great punishment, borne by us alone. She pleaded to God to understand the possibility of divine forgiveness. She prayed to understand and know how Jesus Christ can forgive those who repent, how mercy can satisfy justice.
One day her prayer was answered in a spiritually transforming experience. A desperate young man came running out of a grocery store carrying two bags of stolen food. He ran into a busy street, chased by the store manager, who caught him and began yelling and fighting. Instead of feeling judgment for the frightened young man as a thief, my friend was unexpectedly filled with great compassion for him. Without fear or concern for her own safety, she walked straight up to the two quarreling men. She found herself saying, “I will pay for the food. Please let him go. Please let me pay for the food.”
Prompted by the Holy Ghost and filled with a love she had never felt before, my friend said, “All I wanted to do was to help and save the young man.” My friend said she began to understand Jesus Christ and His Atonement—how and why with pure and perfect love Jesus Christ would willingly sacrifice to be her Savior and Redeemer, and why she wanted Him to be."

I think that is so amazing and a great example of Christ looking at each of us. He sees us struggling, in desperate need of help and He sacrificed everything to be able to help us when we need Him. I am so deeply grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and for all of the opportunities it gives me to change and become a better person.

I love you all so much! I hit 1 year this next week which blows my mind, but I love this work so much and wouldn't mind doing it the rest of my life! (sorry mom ;) )
Have a fabulous week!!
Love, Hermana Griffin :)

Trying to get a picture with a Goat!

Teaching Makayla how to play the guitar!

New focus in Carrizo Springs!!! January 20, 2020

Hey y'all! This week has been so super crazy and busy as always, and we are loving the work we have to do! We have seen HUGE successes this week, and I am excited to share them with you all!!

We started our week last week in Asherton, as  usual and it was awesome! We visited Olga and her daughters and they were super busy (as everyone usually is) but we offered to help her oldest daughter with her homework again and it was awesome because Hermana Gomez was a teacher & wants to be a teacher when she gets home, so she was able to help Angelica and I got to chat with Olga for a bit and all of them are still reading their Book of Mormon and still watching the videos which is awesome!!
We also stopped by Esmerelda and had a lesson with her about missionary work and doing service and she still loves everything about our church so we are still waiting for the desire to come to her and still helping her along!

Tuesday we started our morning with a zone call with all of the missionaries in our zone (our zone consists of Carrizo Springs, Eagle Pass and Del Rio, so the border areas) and our mission president and our district president have been counseling on how we can grow this area into a stake and make the branches into wards, and so they have changed our focus as missionaries down here from being on "nonmembers" and now we are focusing on less active and inactive members, so it has been a crazy week trying to figure everything out, but it has been super good as well!
We had our missionary coordination that after noon and it went alright haha we were talking about all of the people we have been working with and our new plans to visit all of the members not attending church and we definitely have a huge list, and my companion had a moment where she went quiet so after I asked if she was ok and she was feeling super overwhelmed, kind of like she was feeling in her first area right before she went home for a bit so I was nervous for a little bit but then we visited one of our awesome members and came out of the visit and my companion said she was over it, and has been stellar ever since!
We visited the Morales family, and we have been working and praying so hard that we can help them receive the gospel, and we were finally able to sit down with the mother who isn't a member, and her whole hold up has been women and the priesthood and we have been wanting to help her with that for so long but it is always crazy at their house with 8 kids, but we finally got a moment and were able to testify of the priesthood and how when we as women hold callings, we are acting under the priesthood and she finally said it all makes sense and that she is ok with it, and she has no other hold backs and so my comp invited her to be baptized and she said she would pray about it! They have been going through a lot as well, her 1 year old granddaughter was diagnosed with RSV right AFTER we invited her to be baptized so we still hope and pray she can stay strong through it all!
We had our first amazing lesson with Xavier and his son Caden, and we were able to bring one of the couples from our branch with us and we explained more of the Book of Mormon and Caden is only 9 but he was all for it and wanted a Book of Mormon for himself! He even told his dad he wanted to come to church, so we hope they come this week!

Wednesday we had our district council that we had to call in for because of miles (and time) but calling in was a pain so we will have to drive there from now on haha.
That night we had our branch game night and we had so many snacks and lots of pizza and played a lot of ping pong and basketball! It was awesome because our branch president, President Gonzalez isn't too bad at ping pong and he was trying to play his nephew but he wasn't the best so I went and grabbed the paddle and President didn't think I would be too good (cause I'm a Sister?) and I totally beat him... haha we certainly gained his respect which was awesome, but the best part was that he acknowledged that I beat him OVER THE PULPIT when he was overviewing the game night yesterday at church haha it was pretty funny.

Thursday we did our weekly planning and this one was even more killer because we planned for the nonmembers as well as members and we have a ton of work to do! We headed to Asherton after our weekly planning but like nobody there was available, and right before we were headed home we passed a trailer that looked pretty nice and I felt inspired we should go knock it and we found a 19 year old named Victoria and she totally let us in and we shared the Book of Mormon with her and we are headed back tonight!
Since Asherton was pretty dead, we came back to Carrizo and visited with Kathy and Chito and Kathy still isn't ready for marriage and she went a little deeper and explained why and we don't blame her, but it's still frusterating because she doesn't want to get married but she also won't live in her house in Crystal so she isn't helping us at all with Chito living the law of chastity, so we are really trying to come up with some ways to help them and it's a good thing my companion has some good ideas because I'm all out of them.
We also visited a family that is less active, the Sanchez family, and they had just gotten home from getting dinner and so they told us to join them so we had some good Golden Chick with them, and then we played the sacrifice game and oh. my. goodness. I wish we would have videod that! Brother Sanchez also had his older brother and nephew over, and it was soooo funny! The sacrifice game is pretty much a game where we have to choose what to "sacrifice" from this moment until we die, and it starts with worldly things such as sports and Tv and phones and friends, and then goes to spiritual things such as scriptures and church buildings and family and then the Atonement comes out, and the whole point of the game is for them to choose to keep the Atonement over everything else, because because of the Atonement, we can have all of these things forever, and it was just so funny to see everybodys reactions when "music" or "friends" or "phones" would have to be sacrificed to keep more important things such as prayer or family or temples. It's a super fun game and it got them thinking for sure! Well the Sanchez family are awesome they just haven't been coming to church and so we asked them what we could do to help them and Sister Sanchez said they don't come because it's her day off and her rest day to do everything, so we told her we would be coming Friday morning to help her clean her house so she doesn't have an excuse not to come to church, haha and IT WORKED. Friday morning we went over there at 10 and left at 11:30, and we DEEP cleaned her 8 year old daughters room, as well as her 6 year old daughters room, and swept and mopped her living room and helped tidy up the kitchen, and then right before we left she said she would come to church so we were pumped! Brother Sanchez also gave us these cute little aloe succulents and they are just so cute!

Friday we were able to find a couple people in Crystal to start teaching, and one is named Jesse and we knocked his door right as they were about to sit down to eat but he invited us in and gave us a plate of food and a coke! It was so cute haha and he accepted a Book of Mormon and we are headed back tomorrow hopefully!
We also found Brindi and she has a cute little baby and we gave her a Book of Mormon and will be going back tomorrow as well!
We visited Jackie and her family on the way home and Jackies step dad BJ did the same cig trick that he did to me the first time I met him and it was so funny! My companion still hasn't been able to figure it out haha. Jackies mom also taught my companion how to make spanish rice, and she is super excited and so am I haha I finally have a companion that can cook!

Saturday we went to Cotulla and we found 5 new people to teach! One of them is named Yanija and we asked if we could share a message and he accepted and he is about 20 years old and we started sharing the book of mormon and he started asking us these really good and sincere questions about salvation and what happens after we die and we literally taught him the plan of salvation on his doorstep haha we got out my little wood pieces and taught it on the back of a book of mormon (because there was no other woman inside so we couldn't go in) but after we were able to answer most of his questions he was like "and where is your church at?" and it was so cool haha he said he would be interested in coming so that was awesome! We just have to find him a ride haha we are like magnets for finding people who don't have a car...

Sunday was a great day at church, we had Jackie come, and then we also had an inactive member named Zac show up, as well as the Sanchez family came and we were so stoked! We have a lot of people tell us every week they will come to church and then when they don't it's always super sad but it's almost something we expect now down here, but we were so happy they came! We really hope to help get them back active again!
We also ate ribs with them last night and it was amazing haha after church they said he was going to smoke ribs and invited us, so of course we went! We played a little matching game with the two girls and it was about Jesus's life, and the 8 year old hasn't been baptized yet but always tells us she wants to be, so we asked her parents what they thought about us coming over to teach her more and they agreed to it!
We had a second dinner with Sister Flores and she made us carne asada and told us her conversion story which was pretty sweet! She has her 10 year old daughter who is a member and comes to church with her, and she also has three other kids who aren't members and we are going to start teaching her 11 year old boy, which will be awesome!
We spent all of our time (other than our dinners) contacting inactive members and it was good and we have a couple return appointments so we are super excited!

This last week was super awesome and we played a lot of ping pong, soccer and basketball with everyone we could that was out on the streets and it's always super funny when people think we are going to be terrible at basketball and then once we make a shot they are always super surprised haha.

Next week I won't have like any time at all to email, so just a heads up that if you email me and I don't respond, I promise to reply the next week!!
Next Monday we are headed to San Antonio early in the morning and our schedule is going to be awesome! We have zone conference on the 28th (Tuesday) and then I have an exchange with 10th ward in San Antonio (with Hermana Abadia Pazos and I'm thrilled) and right after that exchange I have another exchange where I get to go to my baby area, Balcones! and I get to go with Hermana Groll who is my "littlest sister" in mission terms and I seriously can't wait because I hope to be able to see my recent converts!!!! Anyways, we are headed to San Antonio on Monday as early as we can and we are going to go get some good lunch, some food that isn't down here in Carrizo, and then go to the Mercado and then we will go to a mall and then to the riverwalk at night and see all of the lights and it will just be so much fun and so relaxing! But I will try and send a small email next week before we leave to San Antonio!

Last but not least I want to share something from what I have been studying in the Book of Mormon and this last week I was reading in Jacob 5 which is the allegory of the olive tree, and I have been reading it with the institute manual and it has the most amazing insights! I took a picture and will attach it about what the institute manual says about being among the last laborers in the vineyard and I love this analogy so much about the tree and the gospel being spread to all parts of the world and us being a vital part in helping that great work, it is just so awesome!

I hope you all know I love you and pray for you daily and hope everyone is staying happy and strong and making the best decisions that they can in their life!
Have a fantastic week!!
Con amor,
Hermana Griffin :)

Cooking last week!

Painting nails of the Morales kids!

Family Game night!

Jesse sent us home with some good tacos!

Playing soccer with little Jziah!

Our cute Succulent!

We found a new friend!

A nice cactus!

Family game night part 2.

New comp and New Experiences! January 13, 2020

Hello everyone!! I hope this week was amazing for everyone! It was great for me and super crazy and we cried A TON but it has been good, so I will get on to the week! We had our transfers and some of my transfer news changed as well, but it is still good!

Monday we stopped by Olga and her daughters and let Hermana Abadia Pazos say goodbye to the girls. It was pretty sad and Olga cried and one of the girls started tearing up, and we also played soccer with the girls for a little bit but saying goodbye was sad and they cried a lot :(
We also went to Esmeralda and taught her about tithing and fast offerings, and then said goodbye to her as well!

Tuesday we said some more goodbyes and we went to the Morales family, and the little girls get SO ATTACHED to us missionaries. We played some more basketball with them and then the time to say goodbye came.. The three little girls cried and cried and cried, and so did my comp, and it made me cry cause it was so sad. This week included a lot of crying haha.
That night we also said goodbye to Jackie and her family, and Jackies step dad said something along the lines of "wow, I've never had so many women leave me until you ladies started coming around" and it was kind of funny haha.

Wednesday we were finishing everything we had to do to get my companion ready to go, and that is when I received a phone call from the assistants to the president, and they informed me that instead of getting a "brand new missionary" straight from the MTC, I would be receiving Sister Gomez! She is super awesome! At first, I was a little sad but it honestly took a lot of stress off of me after thinking about it! So Sister Gomez is also kind of technically still "new" as in I am still training her, but this will be her second transfer of being in training! She came out at the same time my other daughter, Sister Belt, did, but she had to go home for two transfers and now Sister Gomez is back out here, and I got her!! It has been super good! I was nervous when we were receiving the call from the Assistants that I wouldn't be a trainer or a sister training leader either, but I am still both luckily!!
We also said goodbye to Kathy and Chito, and those two also get super attached to missionaries and so we all cried there as well haha.
We ended my companions time in Carrizo Springs with a dinner with the Chavez family, and wow Hermana Abadia Pazos bawled when we left their house.. I also cried because I didn't really want her to leave but I couldn't cry for long because I had to drive haha. I absolutely loved my time with Hermana Abadia Pazos and I learned SO MUCH from her, but I know she is where she needs to be so I guess I have to share her ;)

Thursday we got up bright and early, drove to the chapel and transferred! My comp didn't wanna say goodbye to me so I told her to "rip off the bandaid" haha and then I met Sister Gomez, and she is awesome! She is from Pleasant Grove Utah, and she went to highschool with my MTC companion Morgan Carlson, so that is awesome!
We went from transfers to my Chiropractor appointment, and that was super awesome! My hips have been killing me for a while so that was great to get readjusted haha it was super awkward (something normal for a regular person but super weird for a missionary) but the chiropractor was a member so that wasn't as bad haha.
We drove all the way home, and we unpacked Hermana Gomez for a little while and then we headed to Chito and Kathy's house and got to know the new sister which was good for them!
That night we also had a barbecue with inactive members and it was delicious! They invited Hermana Abadia Pazos and I, but sadly she wasn't able to make it haha but it was a good first night for Hermana Gomez to be welcomed into the area!

Friday we went to Crystal and we visited with the Bustamantes and helped them start to take down their Christmas decorations so that was fun!
We later went to the Guerrero's house and we raked their front yard and then they gave us dinner after that so it was a good trade haha.
Before we headed back to Carrizo we found someone named Xavier! He is a single dad of quite a few kids, and he accepted a Book of Mormon and a return visit so we are going by tomorrow night and we are excited to start teaching them!
That evening we went to Chito and Kathy's house because they were having a house warming party, and they cooked some really good food and so it was awesome!

Saturday we went to Cotulla and it was a good day but not super successful, but we did have a HUGE success with Erica! We found her two weeks ago and she has kind of had some sour feelings towards God since her dad passed away 5 years ago, and we taught her the Plan of Salvation and she said it all made so much sense.. She has had a lot of things leading up to her receiving this gospel and we are just praying that she does! After the lesson we played with her little girls for a few minutes and just threw the ball onto the trampoline and they had to try not to get hit haha.

We sadly didn't have many people come to church yesterday, but we were able to have the Jimenez family come! They are a family that live in Cotulla, and just moved their from Eagle Pass a while back but they are ALWAYS in Eagle Pass. We visited them on Saturday and asked if they will come and we even told her we would set an alarm for her haha but we didn't have to and she came, as well as her husband and two daughters!! It was amazing to see them there.
Last night we spent some time finding in Carrizo and geez.. the people here are super hard headed haha. We had our first door shut in our faces, and that was fun! We did find someone named Mari who was in a rush but she accepted a Book of Mormon and a return visit next Sunday, so we hope she is some good potential!
We ended the night last night visiting with Chito and Kathy and Chito was busy tearing out his tub in his house, so we chatted with Kathy and she is going to let us come this Wednesday so we can start planning their wedding with her!! We are excited to help them make this next step! We still have to figure out how to get them to come to church haha but we are definitely working on it!
I never knew that being a Sister Training Leader is so crazy haha but last night I called my Sister Training Leader companion, Sister Carter (her area is in San Antonio, so we have to figure everything out over the phone) and we planned out exchanges and all that fun stuff! I am super excited!! I get to go to 10th ward in San Antonio and spend a day with Hermana Abadia Pazos (on the 29th) and then we are doing a back to back exchange and I will be going to Balcones (my baby area) on the 30th and I. AM. SO. EXCITED. I have such high hopes that I will get to see my two recent converts, Xiomara and Hoffmara!! I am super excited for this craziness that will be happening with this calling of Sister Training Leader and to be able to get to know the sisters better :)

I have been thinking a lot about how to get people to realize what they are missing out on when they don't accept the gospel, and this quote was shared with us a couple weeks ago and I wanted to share it with you all! It is from President Nelson, and it says, "In this life, you have never settled for second best in anything. Yet, as you resist fully embracing the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, you are choosing to settle for second best."

I know that when we fully embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ and put everything we have into living it the best we can, that we won't be settling for second best, and we will truly become the best people that we can.

I love you all so much and truly am grateful for the many prayers you are sending my way! I can testify that prayers work, so thank you all so much! I hope you have a fabulous week!
Love Hermana Griffin

Saying Goodbye to Chito and Kathy!

Olga's daughters saying goodbye!

Esmeralda.

One of her most favorite dogs!

Treating ourselves to a goodbye dinner!

Sister Rosie.

Guerrero Family

Service with Rosie.

I wrote her this note awhile ago, she wanted a pic.

So sad!

The Bustamantes Family.

One of the greatest people I know!

The Chavez Family.

Morning of transfers.

A pretty awesome note from the Branch President.

Sister Gomez and I playing with the girls.

We found her favorite food!

Last time playing together...For your entertainment!

11 Months / Sister Training Leader Trainer ?!?

Well hello everybody!! My subject line pretty much sums it all up haha we got our transfer news last night, and I am going to be training again, as well as be a Sister Training Leader!! I am like super nervous, especially because Carrizo Springs is like 2 hours away from every other area, so to do exchanges is going to be a pain and take SOOOOOO many miles haha but nonetheless I am super excited! My amazing comp, Hermana Abadia Pazos is leaving me and heading to an area in San Antonio, and we honestly weren't expecting any changes so she cried a lot last night, but she is excited now! We are going to be super busy today so I am going to do a breif explanation of everything that happened this past week!

On Monday we did our trial run of starting our preparation day proselyting hours earlier and it was a Carrizo day, and it honestly didn't go too well haha we weren't able to contact a lot of people we wanted to cause it was too early, but we are going to do the same trial run today but in Asherton, so hopefully it works better or else I will have to figure something else out with my new companion!

New Years Eve was like super chill and super weird haha it's always weird to have a few minutes to spare instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and so we pretty much just did studies and then service at the nursing home and did the huge calendars again, and then we went to the Bustamantes house, a family in our branch, and we celebrated New Years and we ate hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire, and so it was so good! We were pretty much in by dark though, like 7 pm we got home and did our spanish study and we popped little poppers in the kitchen, and then we went to bed by like 10 pm haha it was such a party ;)

Our New Years was quite a party as well! We had our district council and it was super awesome! We watched the last part of President Nelsons talk from this last general conference and it was super spiritual and got us all so excited for this upcoming general conference!
That evening we went to Asherton and we had a great lesson with Esmeralda and we taught the law of chastity and she didn't fully understand it but she committed to following it, but didn't understand it so we have to go over it again haha.
We also met again with Alicia and had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation and she totally loved it and like understood everything and said it all makes sense! She is progressing a ton and is super super cute, and we are super excited for her and her progression! We are hoping she comes to church this upcoming week to church!

Thursday we did service at the nursing home and painted old ladies' nails and it was like super gross haha but we did it anyways...
That night we had a good visit with Kathy, Chito's girlfriend/fiance and we had a good heart to heart with her just about her past and like how much she has been able to overcome through the Atonement, and we were also able to hopefully get them closer to marriage!! Her ring is getting resized right now, so we are praying they can figure stuff out sooner than later!

Friday was a super busy day! We had to take our car into the shop to get oil change and tire balance (because our car shakes when we drive haha) and the guy there talked to us for a good 30 minutes about God and just questions he had, and he was super super nice haha he just had a super bad mouth.. so that was fun haha but Jonsley was a cool guy and had really good questions, and it was super special because he just like brought up the conversation without us really saying anything, we love when people do that!
We stopped by one of our favorite families, the Guerrero family and they gave us this super duper good soup with cauliflower and spices and meat, ooooh so good. That night in Crystal nobody really answered our door so we went finding for a bit and met Maribel who had met missionaries in the past and they are like assistant pastors or something haha but they were super cool and we had a good little chat!

Saturday in Cotulla was fun as always! We love going to Cotulla because we always get a lot of work done there! We were able to see Liliana and she didn't have time for a lesson but we just caught up for a few minutes and hopefully can have a lesson this upcoming week! We found two new friends to teach and we just shared a message from the Book of Mormon in Enos and talked about how we can be forgiven and they really liked the scriptures and their names are Rachel and Ophelia, and they are both interested in learning more so we are going back this week and we are excited! Then we went by Hilda and we taught her the whole restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we aren't sure if she understood everything completely, especially because half way through the lesson she said how people at her church thinks that they are the true church, so that was interesting to hear haha but we had a good lesson with her and she still has interest in learning more!
We also helped our branch president move his stuff from his brothers house where he has been living for the past year into his new house that they have been fixing up, and then we ate some really good pizza from a bakery there too so that was delicious haha.

Yesterday we had absolutely no one out of the FORTY people we are teaching come to church.. It was super sad and we were quite dissappointed because we have been working sooo hard and inviting everyone, but it's hard in this area, but we will continue to work hard!
I also hit 11 months yesterday and that was super crazy to realize that I have been doing this for 11 months already, the time has gone by SO FAST!!!

I do want to invite you all to watch the trailer for the upcoming general conference in April, it is so cool and gives me the chills every time! and I invite you all to prepare yourselves spiritually for the upcoming conference, I am preparing myself as much as I can and still feel unprepared!

We are about to head out but I just want you all to know how much I love you all and appreciate your support and love and prayers!! Some days it sure does keep me going!! I am super excited for what this next transfer has in store, and if anyone has any suggestions I will gladly accept them!! I love you all!!
Love Hermana Griffin :)

Zone Conference last month!

Us on New Year's Eve!

With Sister Bustamante!

Doing nose pore strips!  LOL!

Transfer Assignment January 6, 2020