Serving in the Mexico Guadalajara East Mission: I'M A DISTRICT LEADER!!!! and this week was insane...

Hey everyone! so yeah I'm a district leader now, that's pretty cool. I'm still in San Jeronimito though with Elder Aldana, but more to come on that. first off let me just start off by saying that this week was full of ups and downs and twists and turns and spiritual experiences and crazy things happening that this email this week just might be a little long so get comfortable and enjoy my crazy life haha. Monday night was pretty cool because my companion wasn't feeling too well so he asked me to give him a blessing and he said that he felt really good after and the next day he was absolutely fine so that was really cool. Tuesday we had our zone meeting and that was pretty fun. we had an activity where everyone was blindfolded and we all had to eat different things and i ended up eating some kind of crappy rotten cheese spread that seriously made me want to throw up, I'm honestly surprised i didn't. also Tuesday night i was feeling really good because i just had another "spiritual high" and the zone meeting and when we went to visit a family i asked the mom how she was doing and she said good like always, but i could tell something was off. come to find out she wasn't feeling too good and she had actually been really sick for a few days, so we asked her if she wanted a blessing and she said yes. she also told us that she felt amazing and so much better after we gave her the blessing and it was so awesome just to see how happy she was after we gave her the blessing. on a side note she finally came to church on Sunday for the first time in my 3 months here and she said she felt amazing there as well so that was really awesome. Wednesday was fun because we gave service to a member here. guess what mom? we pulled weeds for an hour haha. i guess all those years of training served for something haha. Also at this point i should say that for last week we set really high goals(sadly we didn't reach them) but we worked our butts off all day everyday last week and i think that Thursday was the most intense! we went from lesson to lesson and had a lesson every hour and we had good lessons and then we would walk as fast as we could to the next one and by the end of the day my feet killed and i was tired but i know that i gave my all that day. also another cool story is that we finally taught the " gangster family". in case you forgot who that is, there is a family here whos dad recently was killed because he was a gangster(thug, thief, robber, pretty sure murderer, whatever you wanna use), and lo and behold the mom and oldest daughter are members. when we tried visiting them a few weeks back they wanted nothing to do with us. but this week we tried to visit their son who is 12 years old because he has come to the church for a few family home evening and english classes but never to church on Sunday so we wanted to visit him. so when we looked for him at the same house the mom invited us in and she was really friendly and nice and started asking us a bunch of questions about the plan of salvation and the spirit world and so that was cool that we could help her understand those things a little better. we went back as well on Saturday and taught the entire plan of salvation to her whole family and we even brought her daughter who is 8 years and their son who is 12 years old to church with us on Sunday! so yeah that was pretty cool:) now about Friday(get your popcorn ready because this is where it gets interesting). Friday we started off the day by visiting a less active, who then invited us to eat with him so of course we accepted haha. after we shared a quick lesson and started helping him prepare a party for his son. part of this service involved taking rocks out of the ground that were poking up that way no one would trip on them. we took out two little 20 pound rocks out of the ground and then we started working on the third. this thing was literally a rockberg. we spent about 25-30 minutes pulling out a huge flippin rock. the guy we did the service for said it weighed about 160. i think it weighed about 190 though, and i was the one doing most of the lifting. i was drenched in sweat after we finished then we helped him also bring back his food that he had cooking in a different place and we just pushed it back in a wheelbarrow( i did alot this day with wheelbarrows). so by this point its time to go to lunch and then after we do more service to help them set up another party!(this day was also the day of parties haha). we just helped them push a bunch of soda, again in a wheelbarrow, to a friends house so they could take it to the church where they were having the party. after we ended up going to a different house to take a whole bunch of rice to the church as well(guess what? again we pushed it in a wheelbarrow). then we went to the church and started helping set everything up. (ready for the most interesting part of my week?). so as i was helping set things up my companion was playing with the kids, like usual. he was throwing a Frisbee and ended up breaking a paper decoration thing they had. so one of the sisters yelled at me and said look what your companion did! so i called him over to me and had him bring me the ladder to help me out, and after he brought it to me i could just tell he had an attitude and he said "im going to the bathroom" so i followed him in there and asked him what his problem was and he started just doing alot of talking without saying much if you know what i mean. without telling me what the problem is he storms out and finally starts helping set things up just so he wont have to talk to me. so i send a text message to the mission president asking for his help. then a few minutes later me and him carry a ladder behind the church and i try talking to him again, but yet again he starts walking away. so i take his nametag and told him that until we talk were not missionaries. so then he gets real mad and starts throwing a big fit and we start arguing alot. by this point some of the members come back and see us fighting and so they go and tell the branch president who then comes back and starts talking to us and its at this point that the mission president finally calls me. and i tell him whats going on and that my companion doesn't wanna talk and so he said to let him talk to him. so my companion talked to the mission president and i did too and then he finally calmed down enough at the moment. he still didn't tell me whats wrong or what his deal was but we put it behind us just so we could get through the night. the branch president pulled us into his office though after and talked to us for a bit as well. so the night went on and we had just put it behind us and we ended up walking all the way up the biggest hill here more food for the party(yes once again i pushed the wheelbarrow up the hill). we came back and finished helping get set things up and then the party was barely getting started and we had to leave because it was late. so we went home and had daily planning like usual and then we talked about what happened. honestly dont even remember what happened that night but i know that we just talked things out and were all good now. so yeah Friday was a butt long day. Saturday was almost as interesting though. we got the call on Saturday telling us about our transfers, i was happy to find out im gonna be a district leader but also nervous as well haha. so yeah ill be staying here in san jeronimito for at least 6 more weeks, i guess well see how that goes. another funny story about saturday is we were walking in the street and some guy was like, "hey you guys wanted a yaka right?" (yaka is a fruit, theres pictures to come) and we were like yeah are they ready?(because we had asked a few weeks before and he said they werent ready) so he said he had a few and we asked how much they cost and he said he was gonna give it to us for free haha. now these things are pretty expensive, like 200 pesos was about how much ours wouldve costed, but it was awesome we just gave it to us for free and we have no idea why haha. so that was fun. also as we got home Saturday night we dropped our stuff of at the house and left again to buy milk so we could make a yaka smoothie but sitting right outside of our house were 2 girls who started talking to us and asking us a bunch of questions! like who we were and where were from and what were doing here and about our church and all sorts of stuff. we ended up talking to them for 20 minutes and we gave them pamphlets about the restoration and left them our phone number in case they wanted us to visit them. we didnt buy the milk sad to say because the store had closed by that point haha. then for the crazy story on Sunday. anybody remember our investigator baldovina? shes an older, kinda crazier lady, and we haven't seen her for all of this transfer since my last companion left. she had feelings for my last companion and we were thinking when he left so did she. but yesterday out of the blue she came to church! she said she had been having alot of doubts because apparently someone told her we believe heavenly father is satan (you wouldn't believe some of the stuff i've heard down here). we ended up having a lesson with her after church and she told us she still wanted to be baptized and during the lesson she commented that maybe in a month or two would be good and when we asked her at the end when she wanted to be baptized she said "well this Saturday would be good i think" i literally turned and looked right at my companion like, "did you just hear what she said?". so apparently well be having a baptism Saturday, but who knows for sure. my leaders are gonna talk about it and see what they think, because she has the 5 assistentces to church she needs and shes received all of the lessons but we don't wanna baptize her if she wont come to church every Sunday, and she didn't come for 5 weeks straight so who knows. also another side story, since its a really small town and i've been here 3 months i know everyone. Theres a crazy guy here who is almost always drunk, and while we were teaching the "gangster family" he just came and sat outside the door and was listening and then finally came in and sat right next to us and starting asking questions and making big long crazy comments, long story short(because this is a long story i know) he came to church yesterday. he didn't seem that drunk but he was drinking a coke im pretty sure was spiked. now for the last crazy story of the week, this morning while getting ready i found out we had a little friend in our house. weve been killing alot of lizards in our house and so they finally sent a special soldier. when i saw him his head was just barely sticking out of where my pants were!(look at the pictures). so when i kicked him out of there i thought it was just gonna be a regular lizard, but no this thing was a huge fricking iguana that ran on two feet!!! we still killed it haha. but yeah the amphibian army is stepping up its game here people, send me blow darts and firecrackers please.(jk please dont i dont wanna get in trouble). and at this point that is all of the crazy stories i can think of this week. hope you enjoy hearing about my crazy life, but dont be expecting this much each week because my fingers are tired now and this keyboard im writing on is crappy and really sticky. love you all and hope you have a great week! Love Elder Griffin

(Lizard.. or Iguana?.. or Amphibian army?)