The Field is White and I Need a Tractor!!!

Hey y'all!!

 Ok so we, as a district, have decided to do something crazy. That is, at the end of the transfer we want to have ten baptisms! The original plan was to have eight but the spirit told us to make that goal ten. Our district leader said that he called up the zone leaders, and he wasn't sure if we were going to do eight or ten, and he said that when they asked for the goal for some reason he just said ten. The zone leader stopped and said that he could feel the spirit testify that was to be our goal, so ten is to be our goal. 

I've determined that when we go out to check up on investigators and when they don't answer that is the Lord telling us there is someone else we need to talk to. Funny story, Wednesday night we were walking down the street and there was this group of three people, and the moment they saw us two of them jumped up and ran into the house. We laughed and kept walking. We ended up walking back to the house and said "hi" to them. We laughed for a few moments and when we left we thanked them for the laugh and went on our way. My comp turned to me and said that he likes it when people do stuff like that because it means that he is doing his job. Because if they run then that means that they know we are going to talk to them, which is our job. If they just sat there then that would mean that they knew we were not going to talk to them. 

That night we met Brent and his sister. Sitting outside drinking a beer and smoking an e-cig. We stopped to talk to him and we gave him a card and the first thing he asked was "Were is the church house?" He has read parts of the Book of Mormon before. We asked if he would like to learn more and he said yes! 

Thursday was great. We met Ruthy. She is so sweet and so kind, but she is so sad. She wants to be happy. She loves the missionaries. We had a turkey for dinner that night. It was Joshua's birthday. He was so kind to us. He took us out to the back yard and we played Yardzey. Later on, we went to a family and we tried to teach them about the priesthood but some of the kids are so full of energy. Jimmy doesn't understand why God has to be white, and pure, and why he can't be dark and cool!

Friday we had a "special" zone confrence. Everyone was thinking that it was either Elder Bednar coming to speak, or that they where announcing the use of Facebook or something like that. It wasn't any of those!!  President Bednar got up and said that he did not want to do this. This statement got everyone's attention!  Thoughts of "Oh no! he's taking the tablets away!" or something like that was going through everyone's mind. He then got up to explain how the Lord gives us blessings. He asked the question, "If I pay my tithing at 7% do I get the blessings of heaven, OR, if I pay 9% do I get blessings?" The answer is no! The windows of heaven do not open up unto you until you pay a full 10%. I think of the story of Naaman. He had to dip himself in the dirty river Jordan 7 times.  1, 2, 3 times, and the leprocy was not cured. Nor at the 4th, or the 5th. Come the sixth time he had to be thinking why am I doing this. I'm dirtier now than before I jumped in, but down for the 7th time, and when he rose up out of the water he was cured. 

President Bednar talked about the flaxen cord that we have to cut off. That unless we totally cut ourselves free from it then we will never rise to our full potential.  He also said that if we don't kill off the last remains and stop feeding our scraps to the natural man, just enough to keep him alive, then we will never be able to reach our full potential. During companion inventory me and my companion talked about the little strands of flaxen in our lives that we need to cut. 

Friday morning we played some basket ball at the church, and I am seriously out of shape. I would hate to think of what would happen if I tried to swim 25 yards of the butterfly!! Then we went and taught the Jame's family about the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy. Later, we went finding a little bit and we ran into a Progressing Investigator named Randy, and he got his neighbor over to hear the "good word!" Then we had an appointment with Caitlyn and her boyfriend, Mat. They sprung a surprise on us. They are getting married this Friday! She said "yes" to being baptized as well!!! We spent the rest of the night finding. We found an old lady named Dory. She doesn't believe in Jesus but she does need someone to trim her bushes. We naturally volunteered!!  Only God can tell what will happen with Dory.

We came home and then I gave my companion a Priesthood blessing. He was super nervous about giving a talk on Sunday. He ended up giving a thirty minute talk. That Sunday they had a marriage enrichment class taught by some guy from Utah, on his way to China! He works for the national guard, and apparently the military is trying to find ways to ensure successful marriages for our service men, and women.

They had had a fireside Sunday night on this subject as well but it we didn't go. We went a little further into the sticks and went finding!  We ran into Holly who lives in Berwick, not too far from us. She hasn't heard of the Book of Mormon, but believes in personal revelation, and believes that there isn't one set way for the scriptures to mean something. We gave her a book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet and she said that she was going to read it that night! We went to another guys house and He said that he wasn't interested but he took our number anyway. It has been a crazy week, I can say that for sure!

Anyway... y'all take care now. Some of y'all are starting school today. Good luck. 

Love you guys

-Elder Griffin

To Mom & Dad

Hey Guys. Mom thank you soo much for the recipes!! Now I just have to go and buy some of those ingredients. I'll have to use the stove, rather than a crock pot but I'll make it work! All is well here in Berwick. I have to ask when did you send that letter because it got here fast! Maybe that has to do with the three stamps on it!!  Again thank you. It's so nice to have some home cooking again. The work is going very well. We are picking up potential investigators like pennies in a penny factory. Thank you guys for everything. I'm glad that Dad likes the shirt. I was worried that it was never going to get to you guys. As for the music rules, the president said this... "I'm not going to tell you "yes" or "no." That's up to the spirit. You'll know if you should have it or not!!" 

Love you guys!

Cooking Pancakes!!

Beautiful Mornings!