Luke and Bernadine's Baptism!! March 30, 2020

Hello everyone! I hope this email finds  you all happy and healthy! I've been praying for you all so much and I love and miss you all! This week was awesome! Doing missionary work inside a house sure is different, but it is still super joyful! There were quite a few sad moments this week as well when a lot of my really good friends had to return home from their missions because of the virus, but I know they all did exactly what Heavenly Father needed them to do! We have also been doing this thing that every day, we watch a Book of Mormon video, and we started at the beginning, and wow I love these videos so much! If you haven't seen them, you all have plenty of time to have a Book of Mormon Video marathon so do it!!

Tuesday we started the week with a Sister call, so we had a video chat with all of the sisters in the mission and with our mission president and his wife and talked about any questions or concerns we had and just checked up on how everyone was doing! It was during that call that I found out Hermana Abadia Pazos would be leaving the next day :( That was super hard for me, I had been hoping she'd be able to stay at least another week but I know God has a perfect plan for her, even though it was still hard to have her leave.
We had an awesome lesson with Luke and Bernadine over video chat and finished teaching them all the things they needed to know before their interview, and they were so so so excited!
We also got permission to message all of the past missionaries that served in this area to ask if there were any people on their minds, members and nonmembers, that we could try and get in contact with and we got quite a few good referrals to contact! We also contacted my last two companions and the sister that served here before i got here (the one I replaced) and got them to send us notes for Veronica and her family, and we are super excited because we are making the family like a "missionary notebook" because Veronica had mentioned she is afraid she will forget all of the missionaries, so we are making a notebook for the family with a picture of each missionary and a little note from them! It's super exciting and super cute!
That night we also updated our FB page, Church of Jesus Christ in Carrizo Springs, and if you haven't already liked it, PLEASE DO! We are working super hard to try and get everybody in our community to see our page so that way we can still be reaching people even while stuck inside! We took a nice picture last week in front of our church which we edited and put as the cover image, and then we made our #whyweserve video and it blew up on FB, it was so awesome to see! It was pretty funny to make it too haha because I do NOT like taking videos of myself but we really love talking about why we decided to serve our missions, so that was fun to do!

Wednesday we had Luke and Bernadine do their baptism interviews and they passed! It was a fun day on Wednesday! The elders from Eagle Pass got to drive down, and we had district council and then the kids got interviewed and while they did that, I played ping pong with Veronica and then the elders, but while playing with Veronica she was talking to me about a lot of stuff and one of them was all of the missionaries she has gone through and just how thankful she is that none of those missionaries gave up on her, and she was just so sweet about it and started to tear up while talking about it. She has the sweetest heart and is just so cute.
That afternoon my dear friend Allyson Abadia Pazos had to go home and that preoccupied my mind pretty much all day, but she finally emailed me so that made it better ;) but she is amazing, and I know she will continue to do missionary work because she was just such a natural missionary!
Some of our lessons that evening cancelled and we had a moment sitting inside that we almost went crazy hahah just kidding, but we did play a game of me throwing jelly beans and her trying to catch them in her mouth and it was pretty funny, especially the way she would react every time it hit her tooth, but that was a pretty good way to keep us entertained haha.

Thursday was a crazy day and everything changed this day! We started the day by having a family history video call as a mission and our mission president showed us how we can do more with our family history while we are inside, and it was super awesome! I was looking at my family tree and I honestly have no idea what I can do because my awesome grandparents have pretty much done it all! like my family tree is full through at least 7 generations back haha but I will continue looking!
That night we had an "emergency mission call" so our mission president first started by calling us all unto repentance, because he has the ability to look at everyones schedules in the mission and pretty much he said we haven't been using our time wisely and we all need to be better at doing the most important things every day. THEN he went on to tell us that because of all of the missionaries coming in so soon, transfers were being MOVED UP to Saturday, and he was going to send out transfer news THAT NIGHT, and he said there would be a lot of changes so I for sure thought I was leaving hahhaha but NOPE I get to stay in Carrizo again!! and honestly I'm super happy about it :) If I would have left on Saturday then I wouldn't have been here on Sunday which was AWESOME and I'll get to that soon :)
I also found out my first daughter in the mission, Sister Belt, is going to be training a new missionary!! So I now have a granddaughter in the mission! I feel way too old hahah but I'm super proud of her :)

Friday we had Mission Leadership Council over a video call, and it actually worked pretty well! We were trained a lot on working more with members, and my district leader asked if I can give a training this week in district council on that, so that will be fun!
We also got to call and talk to our families on Friday, to help update them and let them know we are doing good and still thriving and that was fun to be able to see my family again during the week :)

Saturday we had quite a few good lessons! We had a phone lesson with Jackie, and talked about the temples and as of now, her mom still won't let her be baptized until she is 18 which isn't till next March, BUT Jackie is so super excited to go to the temple after she becomes a member and it is so awesome to still have her progressing even with this small road block :)
We also had a lesson with Danny, who is someone we started teaching this past week! Now that we aren't able to go out and knock doors or street contact it has been a little different to find people to start teaching, but we have been doing two things that have worked pretty well! The first one is we can see people in our records that we have their phone number, so we have been calling a lot of potentials and explaining how we can't visit people but we still want to share messages of peace and hope and we ask to share a message with them and then set up another time to call during the week and it has been super awesome!
We started doing another thing which is that we friend a bunch of random people on FB (that live in our area) and once they accept our friend request, we message them and thank them for accepting it and say we are missionaries and ask if we can possibly ask them a question and they usually reply with "sure" and then we ask them one of the "questions of the soul" and it has been pretty successful too, and that is how we found Danny! Someone named Victoria just answered us this morning too and she seems to have super good potential :)

Sunday was AWESOME! Luke and Bernadine got baptized and it was so cute! We had 12 people (I know we broke the law... but their family was 6 people already hahahh) and then our branch president and his wife, and the brother that baptized them and his wife. But even though there were only 12 people there, the spirit was so strong! It was seriously the most simple yet amazing baptism service ever! They both got baptized and confirmed, and Luke also received the priesthood which is super awesome because now he can bless and pass the sacrament to his family, and in the meantime we are going to work with their dad to get him back to being worthy to hold the priesthood as well :) oh and before the baptism, we went early to fill the font and clean up the church and we found a scorpion!! My comp wanted to keep it as a pet hahah

We got a message last night asking us to do 45 pushups and that we will find out tonight in our mission call, and the thought came to me "we got 45 baptisms this month?!" so i asked our zone leader and he said yes! There is a crazy story behind this which I'm not sure if I already talked about it or not but if I did, here it is again. At our Mission Leadership Council that we had last month, we were setting our goal of baptisms that we wanted to have as a mission, and when all of the zones came together of how many baptisms we wanted to have and added them together, it was like around 60 I think? Our mission president had come to MLC with 44 as his number that he had received as revelation, and so he asked us as the leadership council to reconsider our numbers, and he had us reconsider 3 times until we finally met his number of 44! At the time, we were all quite surprised that we were actually bringing down our goal, but also at the time, we had NO IDEA what March had in store regarding COVID-19 and everything that would change, but our goal for March was 44, and our president was happy about it and said "I feel that is our number but if we get over it, even better!" and we found out last night that we actually got 45 as a mission this month! Revelation is super amazing and it's even more comforting to see our mission president receiving that, and it's a testimony builder to me that he truly is called of God and I trust everything that our mission president has been doing lately! It is also satisfying to have been able to help our mission by helping 3 of those people enter the waters of baptism this month! This area of Carrizo Springs sure has been one of the harder areas I've been in (which I've only had 3) BUT it's also been the most rewarding to see the Atonement of Jesus Christ work in people's lives, and see their hearts soften.
Last night I was nominated/invited by Hermana Kenzie Spencer to share a message of hope that I have found through Jesus Christ in my life and it was pretty funny because as soon as I saw that her companion had nominated her to do it, I turned to my companion and said "she's going to nominate me" and sure enough, she did! haha I really don't enjoy videoing myself, but I guess during this time of doing missionary work inside, I'm going to learn to love it! So shout out to Kenzie for pulling me out of my comfort zone hahah

I love you all A LOT! This last week has been a huge growing experience for me as I have had to refind my motivation to do missionary work, and to stay exactly obedient, but I promise you all that it has been amazing and I am doing so good and I am so happy!

I am even more excited for GENERAL CONFERENCE this weekend! It has been eye-opening to me to see the words of our modern day prophet come true! Last general conference he told us this one would be unforgettable and I am 110% sure that nobody will ever forget the general conference during COVID-19. I have been studying a lot about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I have a study journal that I have been working on since the first of the year that I definitely won't be able to finish by this weekend, but I am excited for the day I finish it! It'll be one of my prized possessions from my mission along with my regular journal :)

I hope you all stay happy and healthy this week, and don't go too crazy! Know I am praying for you all and I am always so thankful for everything you all do for me!

Con amor,
Hermana Griffin

District Council Luncheon!

A Picture I seen and really liked!

Self Isolation! March 23, 2020

Hey everyone!!! As you probably already know, as missionaries we have been put into self-isolation which pretty much means we are quarantined in our apartments except that we can leave to go buy groceries or to go to the church if we need anything,  so we have used that to our advantage haha. This week has been good, it did have a few really challenging moments (one of them when I found out my BFF has to go home :( ) but I have also learned a lot!

Monday we were still able to go out, so we went to Asherton and visited some of our people there! We first went by Esmerelda but she was sick.. we don't know if she had Corona or not haha but we didn't visit with her. We did stop by Veronicas parents and had a little visit with them and talked about the book of Revelations in the Bible and how crazy everything is right now.. Then we stopped by Rocky and his mother Juanita, and Rocky was the one that asked my comp a few weeks ago to go with him to Vegas... hahah but he was super under the influence during that contact with him so we decided to go back and he was pretty normal! We talked with them both about what we do as missionaries and they invited us back, but sadly we couldn't go back because she is in the age range we couldn't visit when we went back on Thursday, and we can't leave our house today which is when we would have gone back..
We also had another lesson with Yiselle (we found out that's how you spell her name, not Giselle haha) and we talked more about church being postponed and also talked a little more about baptism and she pretty much agreed to being baptized, she just said she wants to come to church first a couple times and we agree except that's a little challenging for her to do right now haha but we are going to start having our visits through technology..

Tuesday we kind of started our online proselyting a little bit and we asked to be in all of the online garage sales in the areas we are serving, and in the Carrizo Springs one we put up a Free Book of Mormon or Bible, and a lady named Jessica sent us a message and this was our conversation...
J- "Is this still available?"
Us- "Yes it is :) would you like one?"
J- "Yes but I need it to have extra large text"
Us- "No worries! Unfortunately we do not have one in large text right now but until we are able to get another one, we would love to come and read with you if you would like that?"
J- "No I don't like for no one to come into my house can u please just send it to me"
Us- "Ok we totaly understand. We will try and get it as soon as possible and then send it to you. Where would you like it sent? and you'd like a Book of Mormon, correct?" (She laughed at that message...)
J- "No. the bible."
Us- "Ok unfortunately we do not have the bible in large print, do you possibly have a magnifying glass? We would love to still send you a Bible."
J- "Then I don't want it."
hahahha and that was how our online proselyting went for that day... rough start right?
We also had a lesson with Donovan that day and talked more about the gospel of Jesus Christ and tithing. When we asked him if he remembers what tithing is about, he said "yeah, isn't it that we give the church 99% of what we earn and we keep 1% for ourselves?" and that was kind of a funny moment hahah. He is doing good and still wanting to become a member, it's just been a tricky situation haha.
We went over to Veronicas house and had an amazing lesson with her and like 5 of her kids!! We taught them all the plan of salvation and Luke (he is 15 and a big kid) started crying when we talked about seeing our families again and wow it was the most tender moment ever!
We found out that evening as well that there wouldn't be a senior couple coming to live with us anymore.. NO MORE SENIOR COUPLE... that was the whole reason we moved to the shed... hahah

Wednesday we drove to Eagle Pass and had district council with the elders and they brought a TARANTULA and just had it in our district council with us hahha it was gross.
That evening, we had set everything up for our branch president to meet with Donovan because that is literally the last thing he has to do before he can be baptized, but it didn't go as planned.. We had scheduled for them both to be at the church at 5 pm, but Donovan unfortunately couldn't make it until like 5:45 because he couldn't get the truck from his friends until then, and by that time we were at the Sanchez home with President because Toni needed to be reconfirmed, so Toni was reconfirmed and then after that apparently President needed to do errands in town and then was gonna stop by the church again on his way out.. well, donovan waited from 5 45 until like 6 45 and then left and president ended up going by at like 6 50 so they barely missed each other but our branch president was upset and said he will meet with him when church starts back up again... so pretty much donovan won't be baptized until church starts again :(
That evening we also had a lesson with Rey in the park, and it was super awesome! He is seriously super cool and came to this first lessons with questions! He had heard about how we get to "choose" where we end up after this life and we explained how it is relevant with decisions we make in this life and he loved it. He asked us also why we decided to serve missions and our conversion stories and and he said he got the chills (which means he felt the Holy Ghost) so that was awesome! He read 2 Nephi 31 after our lesson, and texted us and told us we were inspired for sharing that with him because he felt it was meant exactly for him!

Thursday we spent an hour and a half in the morning moving everything back in to the house.. yes, it only took us that long!! We were pretty impressed haha we think there should be moving sisters too...
That night we went to Esmereldas house to see if she was feeling better and she was! We stood on her porch and talked with her about her word of wisdom goal has been going, and she actually quit this past weekend!! Pretty much because the stores are closing and she doesn't want to go into public to buy any more, so she has been doing good!! We were able to reset a goal with her for her baptism for April 19th and she seemed to feel pretty good about that!

Well, for the saddest part of my week... Thursday night after we got home, we received a call from the sisters in 10th ward, which is Hermana Thayne and Hermana Abadia Pazos.. I answered the phone, and Hermana Abadia Pazos was crying, a lot.. She informed me she has to go home due to health reasons and pretty much the whole missionary department is sending missionaries home that could have any health risk at all, but this one is especially hard for me to accept, but I'm still working on it :( I haven't heard when she has to go home, but I've been able to stay in good contact with her througout the weekend and she seems to be doing good every time I've talked to her! It makes me happy cause I think she has accepted it faster than I have haha, I know it has to happen and God has a plan for everything, but it's sad my best friend has to go home :( good thing she only lives 2 hours away from me ;)

Friday morning we received the message from our mission president that we are officially supposed to be in self isolation.. so wow, Friday was a whole different day.. haha we went to the church and cleaned the whole church (which luckily it isn't that big) and then tried calling a ton of people but a lot of them didn't answer :( we did have a video lesson with Bernadine and that was fun :)
I also found out that night that my other last companion, Hermana Gomez has to go home soon as well :(

Saturday we spent a lot of our afternoon making a Facebook page for our area.. if you have seen it and liked it, THANK YOU!! if not, it's called Church of Jesus Christ in Carrizo Springs, and I'm begging you all to go like it and invite your friends to like it!!! At this time we are not able to go knock doors, so we are trying to spread and share the gospel with people through technology and we need your help!!!
The Russos are super awesome and they sent my companion some Mate, which is like an herbal tea type drink that they drink all the time in Argentina, so we have been drinking that like all weekend and it's actually pretty good (if you add sugar haha)
We had another lesson with Bernadine and Luke that night and they are all set to be baptized this Sunday and we are super stoked for that :)

Sunday we went to Crystal and we were able to have the sacrament in the house of the Guerreros and it was so awesome, and definitely an experience that I will always remember! Afterwards we went with Brother Guerrero and were there to see him administer the sacrament to the Morales family and that was super sweet as well :)
We had a more successful night last night and had a video call with the Johnson family, the Sanchez family, with Donovan and also with Rey!

I just want to thank everyone for all of the prayers you have been sending our way recently! This past week I was definitely feeling the power of your prayers as I was really needing them this past week! I am praying for you all as well and hope you all stay happy and safe! Thank you again for your love and support, you all mean so much to me!

Con amor,
Hermana Griffin :)

Bernadine and her little brother OJ

My new screensaver.

My desk back in the house.

She is going home...

A cool pic I saw on FB last week.

OJ is so cute!

Lesson with Bernadine.

Our cute little church.

Bernadine and Luke

Mi Companera!

Another cute pic from FB!

Coronavirus = moving into the shed!!!

Well hello everyone!! This week has been INSANE if you havent guessed! We had a lot of good lessons, I had two exchanges with AMAZING hermanas, we had zone conference, and we moved into a shed! I apologize for this coming out later than usual, we were advised to run to the store as early as possible today so we went first thing to try and get what we needed, and we were able to get some stuff haha it's crazy how empty the stores are (there were people from Laredo that drove up to Carrizo for food) and how much everybody is freaking out about it all! Of course it's a big deal or else church wouldnt have been cancelled, but everybody is still freaking out haha.

On Monday we had an awesome lesson with Giselle and she is someone that we stopped teaching right after I got into the area because she wasn't keeping appointments and was super busy, but she was about to have a baby, and now she had her baby and she is still super prepared to hear and accept the gospel! We talked a lot about things she learned from past missionaries and they even showed her the Restoration movie! She had such a big smile on her face while talking about how much she loved meeting with missionaries and learning more (she is from the DR) and we asked her if she would like to be baptized and she said YES! She was even planning on coming to church this week, and when we texted her Saturday telling her church was cancelled, she was super sad because she was already getting everything ready for her kids to come as well! We hope and pray she keeps that desire for when church starts back up again!

Tuesday I went on an exchange with Hermana Thayne (who is the comp of my fav Hermana Abadia Pazos) and it was so awesome! We had dinner with someone they are teaching named Gwen, and it was so sweet! She has a baby girl who is so adorable, and we were able to have an amazing lesson after dinner! She is super duper smart and would seriously be the best member ever! We committed her to pray to figure out exactly how the Spirit speaks to her, because that is super important to know in order to come to know the truth of the gospel, and she totally said she would! One of her holdbacks is that there isn't "physical proof" of the Book of Mormon... if anyone has any help for that, send it my way!! I've got that question a ton on my mission!
We went by one of their self referrals named Danny and he is SUPER cool!! He is so spiritual and talked our ears off about all the experiences he has been through and how he knows without a doubt there is a God. He asked us to go visit his mother and so we did the next day and ended up finding two more people for the sisters to teach! Josie and Jerry, Danny's mother and brother! They are also super awesome and Jerry talked our ears off as well, they are definitely brothers! Danny even happened to stop by at the same time we were there and when we were headed out he thanked us again for going by his family and told us how much it meant to him that we kept our word! It was so sweet, and that family would be so solid! I hope they continue with that desire to know the truth!

Wednesday we exchanged back, and I went with Hermana Chamberlain (my Sister Training Leader companion and my little sister) to her area in Adams Hill for the evening because our companions wouldn't be coming from Carrizo Springs until late that evening. We had quite a cool experience that night! We had a lesson with someone named Flor, and when we went by she wasn't there so we texted her and she didn't reply until a little bit later that she was at walmart but she was on her way home and asked if we could come by again. We were actually just about to enter Walmart because we had to go grab something, but the crazy part is that Hermana Chamberlain had never met her either, so we were joking about "we are going to see them and  not know it's them" and that's exactly what happened! We were entering Walmart as they were walking out, and we saw her and her son walk out and when I saw them, I said to Hermana Chamberlain "what if that was her? just kidding haha" and it was kind of a joke of ours as we were walking through the store as if everyone was Flor. Well, we go back to her house, and we walked up to her house and sure enough, there were her and her son, the same ones we saw walk out of Walmart! Well we had a great visit with her, and she told us what her son had told her and this is the best part! She said that when we all walked past each other, her son said "mom, they have the same hearts as those other girls that have been coming to our house" and they had never met either of us, but apparently her son saw something in us, the same thing he saw in the other sisters that had visited with them, it was so cute!

Thursday we had zone conference and it was a crazy day haha. My fav part about it was being with Hermana Abadia Pazos all day and getting to catch up about everything! We also had to wake up nice and early and go pick up other sisters in a different area and they don't have a car so we got them, and then we had zone conference! This is the day that everything got insane with the virus as well haha. At the beginning of zone conference, our mission president told us we didn't need to worry very much, just keep washing our hands and have good hygeine. By the end of zone conference, he told us we can't shake any more hands or give any hugs, and that was hard to not hug my BFF! After zone conference we exchanged with the sisters from Del Rio, and Hermana Leister came with me, and we had a long drive home so we asked President Tveten where a good place to eat was and he suggested a cafe with a good burger and he was right! While we were there, he actually stopped by and chatted with us a little bit longer and told me that when we get home that we need to go to the store because we are in little carrizo and if anything happens, there isn't much there, and that kind of scared us haha so we did! It was cool that our mission president stopped by and spent time with us at dinner though, he is so amazing! We got home that evening, and we had a mission call which is when he told us about church being cancelled and things we need to be cautious about as missionaries, and it was crazy to think about how quickly something like this virus can spread and make everyone go insane haha.
We also found out we couldn't do Donovans baptism this week which was sad, but we are working to figure it all out for this week hopefully!

Friday I had an awesome day with Hermana Leister and she is a killer missionary!
We also received a phone call and were told that WE HAVE A SENIOR MISSIONARY COUPLE COMING TO LIVE WITH US, and they're coming from Singapore so they're being reassigned and coming down to Carrizo, and so this weekend has been CRAZY preparing for them to come this week. The Russo's (the house owners where we live) are also coming back this week until May, and so we were thinking about it, and that would have meant 6 people and 2 bathrooms, and we were like there is no way.. so we asked President Tveten if we can move out to the shed where missionaries lived before, and he said we could! So Friday and Saturday we spent the majority of our personal time in the morning and evening moving our stuff out into the shed! We also had to move stuff from one room to the other in the house to prepare for the senior couple, so it has literally been crazy and a long weekend haha, we've decided there should be moving SISTERS because that would be fun haha.

Saturday we spent the day in Cotulla and weren't able to contact a ton of people but it was still a good day! Most of what I remember is moving a ton hahhah it was a lot of moving, we moved our beds, study desks and a dresser.. oh and we had to clean the whole shed too because it was abandoned for 8 months, sooo yeah it was quite gross haha.

Sunday was a crazy day as well haha it didn't feel normal... We obviously didn't have church, so we had a ton more time to do things and visit people.. like way too much time hah. We went by 26 different people.. so crazy.. haha and so we did our personal study and then some come follow me, and then we went to Toni's house and her dad blessed the sacrament and we partook of it there, and then Toni also got confirmed and it was so super special! We told her she will never forget that she was confirmed a member of the church in her own living room! We also delivered the bread and water to two different families and we arent exactly sure if that was right to do or not but out priesthood leaders told us to hahahh.
We also had an amazing lesson with Jose who we found a couple weeks ago and he told us he has been wanting a Book of Mormon! He scared my comp a little haha because we got there and his car wasn't there so I wrote him a note and my comp was running it up to his door, and he was sitting on his porch and he scared her because she wasn't expecting him there hahah it was funny! Then we sat down and got to know him and he is seriously so awesome and we are excited to start teaching him!
We were also able to find someone named Rey yesterday and we met him walking out of someones house and he was walking up to visit that person, and we started talking and he knows the Russos and it was awesome haha Rey is super sweet and drives a motorcycle so that was cool to talk about!

As y'all can see, it's been a crazy week haha but we are excited for what's to come! A little nervous for the possiblity of being quarantined, but it'll all be ok! I'll try and have my mom attach a video on my blog of the shed! The last picture is my side of the shed haha my bed and desk and dresser! Craziness! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Mucho love,
Hermana Griffin

Hermana Chamberlain (we are wrestling)

My BFF!

Zone Conference.

Cookout and queso, my favorite!

Hermana Leister!

Sisters moving.

Coconada, yum!

My desk wall...

Sisters delivering the sacrament?

What happens when there is no church...

My desk.

Our shed!

My side of the shed!  Haha

March 9, 2020 Toni's Baptism!

Hey everyone! Another crazy week has come and gone, I can't believe how fast time is going! I completed 13 months this last week and just cried at how fast time has gone haha but this week was full of more miracles! #miraclemarch

Monday we weren't able to have a lesson with Esmerelda :( We actually couldn't catch her all week haha but we have been in contact all week and she still sounds to be progressing which we are excited for!
We did have an awesome visit with Veronicas parents! We went over to their house to see if either of them have had a chance to read in the Book of Mormon and the husband had looked at it a little bit but they hadn't had much free time since our last lesson, but they both invited us back sometime that we can have dinner and talk more because they said they have more questions, so we are super excited :)
Monday night we received a super sad text though from Jackie, and she said that her mom said she can't get baptized still.. we were super sad and confused because we had finally got her mom to be good with it, but we will keep working with them and keep praying for a miracle.

Tuesday was a treat... hahah every time I think about this day I die laughing. So everything was going good in the morning, we did our personal study and companionship study and then headed to do tasks at the church, which included doing the program for Tonis baptism. It was about 10:40 am when we were at the church doing the program and I had to run to the other room to grab the list of songs that our automatic piano has on it, and when we walked out of the little office, the door shut behind us, and it was locked... well... all of our phones were in there.. as were our keys.. AND we had a lesson scheduled at 11 with Donovan at the park and this was an IMPORTANT lesson that we had to make it to. SO. we sat there thinking what we could do, and it was funny because you can tell what kind of a person someone is when you are in an emergency because my companion started crying, when I was thinking about what we could possibly do and I remembered there was a junior high across the street so we ran over there, and used their phone and I don't have anyones number memorized, which would probably be smart, but we do have a few members that are teachers, so we tried calling the high school but the teacher there was in testing, a different school said they didn't have our member working there and then we called the intermediate school and found Sister Sanchez, who found Montse who is a youth in our branch and she called her dad. Well, by this time it is about 11 and we have absolutely no way to get ahold of Donovan. The brother in our church showed up and asked what we needed (didn't come with the key, and said he had to go to his wife who works at a school and get the key) so we hopped in his pickup and had him drop us off at the park on the way there.
DONOVAN- as we were pulling up to the park he was just driving away (it was 11 30 by then so he waited A LONG TIME) but we caught his attention and he turned around. We had an amazing lesson with him and taught the whole restoration! We invited him to be baptized and he said as soon as possible, so we put him on date for the 15th, which is THIS SUNDAY! He is super prepared though haha we told our branch president and he was like a little uneasy about it "being so soon" but when you're handed a miracle, you have to take it! He is super prepared and has been going to our church for years in lots of different states but was never baptized! He came to church and two weeks later is going to be baptized.. super awesome!
after our lesson with Donovan we went back to the church, and our brother opened up the office and let me tell yall.. I haven't let go of the keys or phone since then haha. It was definitely a good learning experience for sure.
That night we had gotten permission to go and see Jackie and Samantha(the youth that has come back to church and has mentioned going on a mission) perform in their school play, and they did so good! It was super weird to sit down and watch something, but it was nice and short so I didn't feel weird for long haha

Wednesday was also pretty crazy and awesome! So that morning I had the thought come to my head "the elders will already be down here in carrizo today for Toni's baptism interview, so why don't we have Donovan do his baptism interview too?" ok so this is crazy. Donovan comes to church in Carrizo Springs on Sunday the 1st, and Wednesday the 4th has his baptism interview... crazy right?? We had scheduled a video lesson with him for that morning, and so we changed our lesson plan and instead went over the baptism interview questions and taught the commandments that has to do with that, and he agreed to following them all!! So we had our video lesson at about 10 am, and then at 11 am he came to the church and had his interview with the elders and passed! The elders (and us) were amazed at what is happening in this area haha.
After Donovans baptism interview, we had district council and it was awesome! Our new district leader, Elder Gardanier has started doing this different way of accounting for each area which includes setting goals as a district and working towards them and everyone has been doing great with it!
After district council we all went to Miguelitos and ate lunch, and then we had our district blitz! For those of you who don't know what a blitz is, pretty much it's when missionaries all go and do finding in one specific area. So the elders from Eagle Pass came down and on Wednesday we had a few hours to go on a blitz, and they went to one side of Carrizo and we went to the other side (Carrizo Hill) and when we came back together 2 hours later, we had found 8 people between 3 companionships!
After our blitz we had come back and brought them some cherry limeades from Sonic to thank them for their help (and wow those are expensive) and then we had Toni's baptism interview and she passed as well! While the one elder was interviewing our two friends that day, we had set up the ping pong table and I played everybody and nobody can beat me still... hahah it's super fun and we all had a good time even though WOW elders don't like losing.....

Thursday I hit 13 months which was crazy! We did our weekly planning and then went out to Asherton and we had a good time there haha super crazy too though. We found somebody named Alamar, and wow she was so sweet! She is a widow, and works two jobs so is barely ever home but she loved us coming by and we gave her a Book of Mormon and she looked at it like gold!
Then we found Alicia, who has been battling with cancer, and when we first started talking with her she wasn't super interested, but throughout asking her questions about her family and her life, she told us she has family that are members of our church in Washington! Well we stood there and talked for a good 30 min about a lot of good topics, and then she told us she is usually in San Antonio for her doctor appointments but her daughter lives by Stone Oak.. well, we knew where that was because that is where our temple is! We asked her if she had seen it and she said she had and she marvels at how beautiful it is every time she drives by, and we invited her to go walk around it next time she needs to feel peace and promised her it would be the best experience, and she said she is definitely going to do that! We gave her a Book of Mormon too and promised it would change her life if she let it and she then invited us inside and we prayed with her and she was crying, it was just such a tender experience! 
Well, after that tender experience we went over to Olga's house and introduced the new missionary to her daughters and like usual her daughters wanted to play football (it's usually soccer but football works too) so we had a few minutes and started playing catch with them, and after a few minutes a guy from the neighbors house named Rocky came over and started playing with us. Well, after a few minutes he walked over to my companion and asked who we are and then started asking a lot of good questions! At first, he was completely sober, but his dad was literally on his death bed, so Rocky was drinking a lot.. and by the end, he was totally crazy hahah but let me tell ya the story. So at first, we were standing in the street answering his questions he had about the difference between our church and other churches, and questions about life after death and lots of different topics. Then randomly he said he had to step inside, but then invited us up onto the porch where his uncle and brother were sitting. We went up and started chatting with them and introduced who we were and then Rockys brother has heard a little about our church so he asked questions like where we are from and how long we serve and then they asked if we get paid and that's actually one of my favorite questions to answer because the look on people's faces when they find out that we pay to do this, it's funny haha. Well, we answered some more questions and then by the end, Rocky asked my companion to run away to Vegas and get married (he has made many comments about her accent and how this would be the first time he fell in love with an Argentinian) hahahah it was a good time. As we were walking to our truck he asked if we would drive him to the liquor store and we just got in the truck and drove away hahah it was insane but so stinkin funny!!

Saturday we had a good day in Cotulla! We saw Liliana, and she looked like a completely different person! We just stopped by to see if she still lived there because last week we stopped by and the apartment looked totally different, but Liliana answered the door and seriously looked so different! She said she has been working really hard on fixing everything and is working to get her daughter back, and it was crazy haha I barely even recognized her, but we are super happy she has been able to be getting better.
Right before we left to head back home, we stopped by Ashleys house who is someone we found a couple weeks ago, and she wasn't home, but her mom Lucy answered the door! She said she wasn't home and asked how she could help us so we introduced who we were and how we had met Ashley a couple weeks ago and she said we could come back, and Lucy said she would tell her we stopped by and Lucy said she would love to sit and talk but was headed somewhere soon, and we asked if we could leave her with something before we left and she said of course, so we asked if she had heard of the Book of Mormon and she like lit up and she was like "I was actually just about to go online and order one!" and she told us how someone had told her to read the Bible and the Book of Mormon together and the Bible will make more sense, so she was just about to go order one when we stopped by! She was amazed (as were we) and it was a cool experience! She invited us back this next week and we are excited :)
That night we got home and went to Toni's birthday party she was having! Toni turned 9 on Wednesday and so we went to her party and it was a glow party and it was super awesome! We helped set up a lot of it throughout the week, so we were happy it turned out good :)

BEST PART about this week was Tonis baptism yesterday!! We had our church service and then afterwards we had Toni's baptism! It was so cute and I got to be a witness which was super special :) Toni had her grandfather come to her baptism and he was crying during it which was so awesome! Toni's dad baptized her too and that was just so amazing. Through Toni wanting to be baptized, her whole family has become active and we are so excited for the future that this family has in the church!

This week is going to be a crazy week too! Tomorrow I head to San Antonio to spend a day in 10th ward (I get to see my fav Hna Abadia Pazos tmw and I couldn't be more pumped) and then Thursday we have zone conference and Friday another exchange with the sisters in Del Rio, and then Donovan's baptism on Sunday and I am super excited for this week!!

Happy (late) birthday last week to my uncle Troy and my little friend Carter (both on the 3rd) and Happy Birthday this week to my aunt Elise (11th) and my uncle Brian (13th) as well as my little best friend Whitlee (13th)
I hope you all have the best birthdays ever!!

Thanks again for all of your love and support and prayers! We are definitely seeing them bless the lives here in Carrizo and bless the missionary work going on here too!

I love you all!
Have a wonderful week!
Hermana Griffin

Bad quality... But Jackie did awesome in her play!

Kris Burke from my last area got baptized!  

Our schedule for March...

Glow party...

Toni's Baptism.

We got a show yesterday!

The special Sanchez Family.

Miracle March with a Truck! March 2, 2020

Hello family and friends! I hope everything is going great at home, or wherever you all are at! This week has been full of miracles and this month is going to be packed with miracles! Kenz (aka Hermana Spencer) last week told me they have "Miracle March" in their mission, and that really stuck with me so I have also taken that, and I 100% believe this month is going to be full of miracles regarding the Lords work!

I'll start by updating you on Esmerelda, since a lot of people have asked me about her! We REALLY appreciate all of your prayers for her, and they are working!! We had a lesson with her last Monday, and she was probably the happiest that I have ever seen her! She spent the weekend with her family, but she also had been watching a ton more videos about our church (good ones from the church website) and she loves them! She said that she noticed that something has been trying to make her not be happy and she recognized it was Satan! We were also able to talk about her progression with the Word of Wisdom, and she finally gained enough desire to quit her habits that we were able to set goals! This has been the first time we have brought it up and she has actually had the motivation to start quitting, which is a MIRACLE!! We have been in contact throughout the week and she is progressing better in the word of wisdom! We have a lesson with her tonight and will talk more about the Law of Chastity, so please pray some more so that can go well also!

We had our first after-baptism lesson with Veronica, and it was so cute! We gave her a new quad of scriptures and the little picture/note book that we made her to remember her baptism, and she started crying! She said we apparently just love to make her cry haha. It was a good visit and she even told us how "it felt like she had a backpack on her whole life, and now it's gone" and this is important because it will come into play in a second. A little bit after we visited with Veronica, two of her kids got home from school, Luke(15 years old) and Bernadine(11 years old). We started chatting with them both about how they felt at their moms baptism and what their thoughts were, and Bernadines words were "it was awesome to see my mom get baptized, and it makes me want to do it even more" and Luke said "watching her, I knew she felt something. It was like a load was taken off of her back, kind of like she had a backpack that was holding her down, and when she came up, it was gone" and as those words came out of his mouth, Veronica almost passed out hahah they hadn't talked one bit about the baptism, and they said the exact same thing and it was crazy. Well, we talked about their desires in the church and they both want to follow their mom and be baptized, so we put them on date for March 29th!! We taught them both the whole Restoration and it was super awesome, we are seriously so excited!!!
Later that night Veronica texted us and asked us to come back by, and they gave us a huge plate of brisket hahah we LOVE that family so stinkin much. They're the best.

On Wednesday we had district council and then on the way back from Eagle Pass to Carrizo, we have to go through border patrol, and this was rough... hahah on the drive home, I realized we would have to go through it and I had a bad feeling my comp didn't have her passport (it was also my fault because I totally forgot to inform her we had to go through border patrol) and we got there and they asked "are you both us citizens?" and we said "no" and they asked if we had her passport and we said no and so they asked us to pull to the side and they would look up her name. WELL. Her name is SUPER long, and at first they couldn't find her name when they looked her up in the system, and we sat there for a good 30 min thinking the whole time she would get deported... hahah they finally found her name though in the system and we were good to go. We got straight home and she put her passport in her bag.

We had Mission Leadership Council this past week, and it was super fun! We drove up to San Antonio on Thursday night and got some rolled ice cream which I haven't had since I was home (and it was gooooooood) and spent the night with other sisters, and it was awesome haha we had a story night which consisted of my companion telling the other sisters her scary stories of terrorists she had met that come to Temple Square... super crazy stuff haha.. I also got to see my little sisters in the mission and it was so cute!! The first time the Schellenbergitas have been together ;) hahaha Well we learned a lot of amazing stuff at MLC and had a really cool training about teaching online, either through facebook messenger or like a facetime, and it was perfect for what happened this weekend for us! I'll get to it soon ;)
One of the best parts about MLC was we arrived in our Nissan Rogue, and we left with a Toyota Tacoma! SO. NICE. and I am SO. HAPPY. to have this truck!!
We were driving home that night, and Jackie had been struggling all week with doubts about being baptized or not and she kept wanting to wait a while longer, but thankfully we had extra time that we didn't think we would have that night, so we  stopped by her house and had such an amazing visit with her. We sat down and I just asked her whats up, and she started to explain how she doesn't know why, but she just doesn't feel ready. She couldn't find a reason why though, and so we helped to explain that these doubts and this confusion is Satan trying to stop her from accepting this gospel and receiving all the blessings that come from it, and that helped her a bit. Jackie grew up in another religion, but so did my companion as well so it was awesome that they were able to connect on that and it helped Jackie a lot. When we left, she was 100% set on being baptized on the 15th and we are seriously so excited for her. I realized that she is basically the same age as Makell, and I think that is why I care just so much for her and want this so badly for her because I look at her as one of my little sisters. I am just thrilled she ready to accept the gospel, and her mom said she will support whatever decision she makes, so it's awesome :)

Saturday we started our day with a video call with all of the Sisters in our stewardship and we just told them about MLC and things they should know, and it was great to see and be able to talk to the sisters, especially my fav Hermana Abadia Pazos, I love being her Sister Training Leader and being able to chat with her every so often haha and then we had another long day of driving haha we went to District Conference (like Stake Conference but a lot smaller) in Del Rio, so that was quite the drive.. we left at 12:30 with our branch president and his wife, and got there right before 3 pm. There were leadership trainings, and the adult session and our mission president, President Tveten, was speaking and it was super awesome! We also got to see the Hermanas that serve in Del Rio and it was awesome! One of them is the one I was able to "inspire" (as she says) regarding when we went on the exchange last transfer, and I just followed up with her about how things were going and she felt a lot better, and that is just one of the best things to hear as a Sister Training Leader is that I am able to help other sisters out, I love it!

Sunday was full of miracles as well!! We had a pretty decent turn out at church! It was an amazing service as well because we were streamed into District Conference in Del Rio, and all of the talks were so amazing and touched every single person in our building! We had the Johnson family there, and they have been returning which is awesome, and also the Sanchez family! We had 5 nonmembers come as well! Michael which is one of our members nephews, and then Toni came, and so did Jackie (it was her birthday so we had some cake after) and so did Esmerelda, and we had this boy named Donovan walk in, and he is 19! He introduced himself as "half mormon" which we didnt understand haha so he explained it as "I believe and know everything, I just haven't been baptized yet" and we were like "hahah we can help you with that!!!" it was so cool haha SO MANY MIRACLES are happening in this little area of Carrizo and I'm lovin it. The cool thing is that the trainings we had in MLC about teaching over social media came in super handy with him, because Donovan doesn't have a working phone but has an apple watch, so we can message through that, and so we were able to have a lesson with him through messenger yesterday and it's gonna be super awesome!

Last night we also had dinner with the Johnsons and wow. It was so good. But also so. much. food. hahah it was insane. It was a super good time at dinner though and even though Brother Johnson doesn't want to come back to church, he listened to our message and he liked it too! His wife and daughter are technically active now which is super awesome, and the daughter talked more about how now she is PLANNING on serving a mission!! She mentioned it a couple of weeks ago, but then at district conference, a recently returned missionary talked and some of her words were " if you have ever but thought if you should serve a mission or not, do it. you will never look back on that time and regret it, and it will bless your life forever " and that really hit her, so now she is planning on a mission and it's so super cute!! Her dad is supportive too which is a good step for that family!

After dinner last night we had a lesson with some people that we have been trying to teach for forever, and Anthony is a less active member, and then we also taught Cassandra and her sister Nadia, and it was a super cool lesson! We started talking about the plan of salvation but then Nadia had pretty much come prepared with questions she had for us, and it was super good! They were like sincere questions and it seemed like she was really impressed with our beliefs! We invited them both to the baptism we have this weekend, and they all seemed excited!

Our last lesson we had was with our little Toni, and she turns 9 on Wednesday and then gets baptized on Sunday (she really wanted to be baptized before her birthday, but we couldn't yesterday because of district conference) so she gets baptized this Sunday and we are super excited for it! She is having this big party on Saturday too which she invited us to and it was so cute.

This week is going to be a crazy busy week as well, and we are excited! I just want to again thank you all for your love and prayers, this has been one of the most amazing transfers to see this gospel actually changing their lives now and I'm loving it so much! I am kind of in denial that I hit 13 months this week, time is going too fast!

I hope you all have the best week!
Les quiero mucho!!
Con amor,
Hermana Griffin

Our introduction video!

Curry!

Rolled Ice-cream!

My little sisters (even though they are taller than me!)

Basketball for exercise!

Our new Truck!

Our delicious dinner with the Johnson family!