January 29, 2018

I'm Singing in the Rain!!!

For real though. We went tracking in the rain. It was warm, and it's January. What is this lie we call winter

Well howdy y'all,

Not going to lie... this week has been very long...  it was like a piece of taffy and it was just stretched out and there seamed to be no end, but... here we are!! 

This week we had a zone training. A bucket load of commitments were left to all of us, and I played the piano!  Afterwards we came back, had dinner and visited Shannan. She made us apple dumplings. It about died and went to heaven. They are so easy to make as well. Wednesday we spent all day trying to find potentials and less actives. At the end we did get a team up with a member, and we went down to a town called New Bethlehem, but everybody calls it New Bethlem. Pennsylvanians are extremely lazy with their words! We had a really good lesson on faith. 

Thursday there where two eventful thing that happened!  One  was our visit to Shelia Pope, and Bro Hartzell. At Shelia's we got talking and she was talking about her dad's old saxophone, she had it out, so I put it together and found an old unused reed, and then proceeded, with my limited saxaphone knowledge, to play some random notes and call it improve Jazz! Then her cousin who lives with her pulled out his guitar and then proceeded to jam out on it. He is actually really good on that old six-string. 

At Brother Hartzell's I discovered that I'm a Root Beer addict! We had a good lesson on the Holy Ghost, and forgiveness of sins. Friday was my 6 month mark I'm officially no longer a greenie! Friday I was able to cook up some crab legs, and let me just say that who ever thought that eating a crab in the first place, just have been crazy. It was good, but it almost wasn't worth it. That was too much work for too small a piece of meat! Other than that we spent the whole day weekly planning... We went out for less than two hours and the family we tried to visit wasn't there... yeah it was a very long long long day... 

Saturday I cooked up some brownies for our investigator, and in return she gave us doughnuts, kiwis, and milk. We spent the rest of the day over in Clarion. We spent the first few hours trying to find less actives, and former investigators. We ran into a lady who's mother was a Mormon, and she went to a few Mormon summer camps. She said she was having a hard time with religion right now. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said that We could stop on by latter on.

 We had dinner st the Pizza pub, it was good, but not something I would get too excited about. Then after that we spent the rest of the night tracking.... In the rain... At least it was warm!  Out of every door we knocked only two seamed interested enough to take a Book of Mormon. One of those two Books of Mormon had my personal testimony written in it. I almost didn't want to give it away. It had become a part of me, and I didn't want to let go, but I did, and I can only hope that it will change their life!

 ‎Sunday was a great day! we had 4 investigators show up, as well as 3 less actives!! It was quite a good Sunday. Then after church we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off. We found a former investigator, I cooked up a thing of corn bread, and brownies for a dinner that night and we also visited Si in the Nursing home. He is still trying to find out who Jesus Christ really is. We hope to help him in that. 

We then had dinner with Shannan, her Grandma, and the Fairbanks. Everyone loved the cornbread. We had a good talk on Christ and Romans Chapter 8. We said our goodbyes and Shannan prayed for Elder Richardson. It truly was a tender moment. Little Lizzy sang a song for us all. It was a good way to finish off a good Sunday.

 

‎Well that's it for now folks!

Ttake care.  Love you guys

  ‎-Elder Griffin

January 22, 2018

Holy cow guys... this week has been crazy!!

Guys... It's been raining. All that snow we had??... It's quickly disappearing

Guys we have a new prophet, and a new first presidency, and they look awesome. I don't know if y'all saw the press Confrence or not. President Oaks was on fire. Watch out Babylon here comes President Oaks!. We also got to have a lesson with Brother Hartzell. Brother Fairbanks came with us. That was a very emotional meeting. I'm not one to shed tears but I came close in that meeting... 

Okay here comes the fun part. So we found this guy last week named Kurtis and he wanted us to come back over to teach his wife and his kids. Well we come over tuesday. He lets us right in. His girlfriends name is Crystal. She saw us and just rolled her eyes. She didn't want anything do with any preachers who were going to tell her that what she thought about religion was wrong. Kurtis kept asking her to listen. He said that he felt something with us and he would not have invited us back over if he hadn't felt that. Finally she asked some of her questions. They were all related to the plan of salvation. So we sat down and gave her a plan of salvation pamphlet. She quickly read over it. She like what it said and she started to listen. They asked us to come back again in two days. 

Well I left for exchanges. I was over in Slippery Rock. We taught a lady named Amanda who has a baptism date for the 24th of February. That's right. My birthday!   We then talked to a guy by the name of Caleb. He is a recent convert and wants to serve a mission, but... He wants a girl friend. So he had issues with those who are transgender, and homosexual because he feels that they are taking away his chances of getting a girlfriend. We had to explain to him that we have to love everyone. We talked about patriarchal blessings. We got something set up with him and his branch President. 

The next day we had service with one of the local churches. Then we had another lesson with Kurtis and Crystal. We spent a good two hours with them answering questions. At the end Kurtis said that he wants to be baptised. So does Crystal. Then they had us over two days later with their kids. They have five. Two of them are over the age of 8. We taught them the restoration, and prophets. We are seeing them on Wednesday again. 

We then had lunch with the Rex family. Rachel the mom, is from Garland! We spent a good 30 minuets talking about Garland and how things have changed. Then we talked to RT her husband who is not a member. He has had all of the lessons before and he knows the church is true, he just has a few issues with some of the members. 

We had a lesson with Jersey. We talked about the plan of salvation and we set her with a baptism date. It happens to be her birthday... as well as mine! That's right the 24th of February!! 

On Sunday we finally got Shannon to church. She loved it. The members where so good to her. 

We had lunch with her, and then we rushed over to the nursing home, we visited with Si for a few minuets and then we rushed off to the Fairbanks for dinner. They had a mom and her daughter over. The mom is a member, but the daughter is not. This was my first time trying Curry. It was good. Then we talked about the Holy Ghost, and the importance of it in our lives. 

Well guys, there you have it. The crazy exciting week of Elder Griffin

Love you guys

-Elder Griffin 

-‎

January 15, 2018:

Well hello from the frozen tundra of Pennsylvania... no joke everything is frozen. It's a whole 4 degrees right now.

Well to start off we had our interviews with President. He is such an awesome guy. Very inspired. I guess that's what what you get when your mission President is the nephew of Elder Bednar. After that we had exchanges with the Slippery Rock Elders. Elder Anderson and me. We had a ton of fun. We spent the whole night trying potentials. Woke up in the morning and wipped up some pancakes for Elder Anderson 

We exchanged back and afterwards we went to visit Ken. He was doing well. We talked to him about the gospel of Jesus Christ. He seamed to like it. We shall see when we go to visit him next. Then we ran off to Brother Deleo' s place with his girlfriend. Where we again taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith Repentance, Baptism, receiving the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. Very short and simple. Brother Deleo cooked us up some deer meet and we had a very good dinner with mashed potatoes, and gravy. He may not look it but that man can cook 

The next day we tried a former investigator and turned out that they had moved, but we picked up the guy living there as a potential investigator. 

That night we tried Brother Hartzell with Brother Fairbanks. Brother Hartzell said he would come back to church and he did!! We gave him a preisthood blessing and that seamed to help. After that we visited Shannon. We spent a few hours talking with her about religion. She will make an amazing member someday. 

Friday we spent it weekly planning and at dinner over at the Beal home. The Catholic family that had us over for dinner Christmas eve. She said that she had been reading the book of Mormon a little bit. Fingers crossed that somthing happens. They would be such an awesome family. She invited us to attend a march down in DC. We had to decline as Washington DC is not in our mission Saturday we had a big snow storm the night before so we spent all day shoveling out people. We shoveled out Shannon and she took us out to lunch. The clarion seat. It was very good. Then that night our Branch President took us out to a steak house for dinner. I about died and went to heaven. 

Sunday we had church, and then afterwards we visited Si in the nursing home. He was so ,much more awake this time, and he asked some deep questions. He said that it's too noisy in there for him to fully feel the spirit, but I would like to beg a differ on that. Then we went to the Fairbanks with Shannon to watch the YSA event with Elder Uchtdorf. It was amazing. 

Over all this has been a great week y'all

Love you guys

-Elder Griffin

On Jan 8, 2018 

Due to the amount of cold, Elder Griffin is too frozen to send his weekly this week☃️☃️

Just kidding. Hello guys, Wow... It has been a cold week. With the wind, and the cold it has just been cold. So much for global warming.  This week has been just great. We started it out with a visit to our investigator named Ken. I feel so bad for him. I just hope that he eventually finds happiness with the situation that God has put him in. That night we went to have dinner with Geneva, and Joe. Guys if you want to make some awesome chilli mix in some bbq pulled pork holy cow that was some of the best tasting chilli of my life! We then had a much better lesson with her. She didn't bash her husband as much, and she is understanding more. It was a good night that night. We finally got in contact with an investigator named Hannah. She stood out in the cold and talked to us, and said that we were more than welcome to come on by and to teach her more. Friday was a blast. We spent all day telling people about the new Joseph Smith An American Prophet video. Then the rest of the day was spent weekly planning... It was such a long day. Saturday we had a bomb lesson with Jersey. We talked about the restoration. She is a very smart girl for a 13 year old. Then later that night we had a team up with Branch President Quinton. He is such an awesome guy. He is from Idaho accualy, but anyway we had a team up with him to go see an extremely shy brother in the ward. We went to go talk about preisthood blessings, and how to give them, and why it is important to be worthy to hold the preisthood. Afterwards we went and talk to Hailey. She let us in and when we asked her if she had gotten a chance to look into the light the world thing she said that she had looked into it, and then she looked into Mormonism. She went to youtube... of all places she went to YouTube. Apparently she was told that we believe in two types of Jesus. The one from the bible, and one from the book of Mormon... she also started asking about a secret handshake, and our magic underwear and the whole nine yards I'm surprised that she didn't ask if we had horns or not. Anyway we told her we would come back and answer her questions... we shall see how that one works out. 

Sunday was a great day! Jersey came to church, and she said that she felt the spirit, and that she felt at home, and that she wants to baptized into the Mormon church. She will have to ask her dad to see if he will let her, but she wants to be baptized!! Then we had dinner from sister Boheln from the Netherlands. She joined the church up in Canada and knew President Monson when he was the president of the mission up there!! She loves to play the organ and she always has some really cool intro music for church. Then we went to go try some people in clarion. Either everyone had someone dieing in their family, or the golden globes awards show was on, so we went to go see old Si. We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a good lesson and I hope he remembers what we taught him. He very old.

 Speaking of old... The death of our beloved prophet. What a way to start off the new year. At least he is with is sweet wife right now. Probably cracking some jokes with President Hinckley again, or maybe he is sitting in a circle with Joseph Smith, Nephi, and Mormon telling stories. Maybe he finally got to say sorry to that one guy who was asking for him right before he died. Then again he may just be working on the other side. What ever he is doing I know that he will be giving it his all. He was such an amazing man. This world truly lost a great man. I know that I will miss him. His stories, his example. If we could all try to be a little more like "Tommy Monson" then maybe, just maybe this world would be a better place. 

 ‎love you guys

 ‎-Elder Griffin

On Jan 1, 2018

Holy cow guys it's 2018!!! What is this anyway my week has been great. Wednesday we had district meeting. It's just a little four man district and it is fantastic. We went to go see Ken afterwards. He had a stroke, and he can't walk. He is waiting for a missionary named Paul, or Peter. He believes that when he shakes this missionary's hand that he will be healed. He is actually supper solid. Then we went to have dinner with the Alomn's. They are both from the south!! The cooking was good. Supper unhealthy but so good. We had desert before dinner because dinner wasn't ready yet during the course of all this we realized that we left our phone over at our district leaders apartment. We decided that we needed to go home so we went home. We wouldn't get It until Thursday evening. We have been doing a ton of finding and tracking. Saturday we went to brother Hartzell's place. He is an inactive and he is a funny guy. I like him a lot. Afterwards we went to the ward new years eve eve party. It was fun!! Then Sunday night we had dinner with the Fairbanks. They had a less active over with her daughter. It was such a great night. 

Well guys... That's it for this week

Until next Monday

Love you guys

-Elder Griffin

On Dec 26, 2017 

Holy cow it's Christmas. It finally decided to snow yesterday. 

This week has been loads of fun. It started out with service on Tuesday where there was this lady that invited us over to her house Christmas eve for dinner. She was Catholic and had only met us once or twice. We then had our Christmas zone Conference. I was playing two songs. I would be the pianist for a district singing joy to the world, and for a piano solo of hark the Herald angles sing. It was quite a good experience. During the lunch our mission President dressed up as Santa and gave us all candy. I'm convinced that people believe that missionaries don't get enough candy. I have sooo much chocolate. I could recreate charley and the chocolate factory over here 

Saturday we spent baking cookies and Sunday we delivered them out to several people. The Christmas program at church was great. They had me play o come Emmanuel. It was great fun. The organist Sister Boheln is from Denmark I think and she is an amazing organist, but she is getting old, and she asked me to play the special musical number in her place. I feel honored that she asked me to do it then we went to the Catholic family. Their name is the Beals. Supper nice people. She even took a book of mormon, and she was very excited to have it.  She just about hugged it when we gave it to her. Christmas day was a blast. We had two very big meals from two different members, and we got to spend the day at a local nursing home. It was so fun to light up their Christmas.  Any who... I hope y'all had a great Christmas this year, and a happy New Year to come. 

Love you guys

-Elder Griffin