August 29, 2016

Transfers, August 29, 2016, still in San Jeronimito...

Hey everyone! So since God is trying to teach me as much patience as possible on this mission, i feel its only fair to share the blessing haha, so ill get to transfers in a minute. This week was awesome though! on Tuesday i was able to do divisions with Elder Potter who is in my district and he came to my area to work! we were able to do a service for a lady who just barely had a baby and it was awesome! some of you might have seen the pictures on facebook apparently, but anyways we helped her clean out her font. Not a baptismal font haha, but its where they store all of their water to use for washing dishes and clothes. so that was a good solid hour of hard work and lots of scrubbing, but we got it clean!! And afterwards we helped her clean up her yard a bit and she has coconut trees so we helped clean up all the dead branches that had fallen. Now since im a monkey and i dont learn nor do i have any regard concerning my personal safety(sorry mom) i decided to try and pull a few down that were dead but hadn't fallen yet. in doing so i pulled one down and i fell to the ground, and it was then i realized that there were bees on the branch, and alot of them! long story short one entered my mouth and stung me so for about the next 4 hours i had a fat lip haha. but it was all good after, funny story though haha:) Then Wednesday was pretty normal and we ended the divisions thursday morning and me and Elder Aldana had weekly planning! in weekly planning we do something called companionship inventory, and that just means we talk out our problems and concerns and things that are bugging us and things like that. well this was probably the best one we had ever had, just because my companion said "ya know, alot of people know im immature, other missionaries, the members, even the president. i just dont know where the line is sometimes, i know im not mature but if you can help me im willing to change". at this moment in my mind i just thought ´WHY COULD YOU NOT HAVE SAID THIS WEEK ONE?´ but on the outside i just smiled and said of course im willing to help. So needless to say me and him really got along well since that day. Thursday was a normal day. Friday night was awesome because we helped burn all of the trash outside of the church haha, it was nice to have a fire again. and then i had the best dinner i had had in a long time! a hamburger and 2 hotdogs! and let me tell you what man was i one happy camper while eating that hamburger haha, you'd be surprised but they really do know how to make some good hamburgers down here! Then Saturday we helped clean up the church a bit since Sunday was the Branch conference! that was pretty cool since alot of people from Lazaro came to our branch. The Branch turned 14 years! the stake president talked about how this place soon should be a ward but that everyone needs to start working to make it happen so well see if things change. Alright well that was this week so now ill get to the good part, Transfers!! Well, im still in San Jeronimito! ill be here at least 6 more weeks. elder Aldana however went to uruapan and ill be receiving Elder Hernandez, and no one knows anything about him haha. so it should be interesting to see how this transfer goes! Right now im with Elder Pop and Elder Juarez because our companions left last night to go to Lazaro. aaaaaaaaaaaand thats about it for this week i think! i love you all and again thanks for all of your love and support! ill be sure to let you know next week how my new companion is! Have a fantastic week!
Love Elder Griffin

 On Divisions, Service with Elder Potter.. scrubbing out the "font".  She recently had a baby.

Cleaned up well after the service project, ready to go teach the gospel!

 Haircut day.

 Happy with Elder Herrmann...

Seperation sadness...  Elder Herrmann is transferred to Morelia...

Tie Exchange.. Elder Aldana is Transferred to Uruapan. 

 Service cleaning up the church and burning the garbage!  This is Elder Griffin's kind of service!

Reward:  Hamburger and Hotdogs!  Elder Griffin said he was just a little bit over the top excited to finally eat a hamburger!  

                                      

Zihuatanejo, P-day transfers.  Awaiting new companion.  Elder Pop and Elder Juarez

 

WE FINALLY HAD A BAPTISM.

But just because i wanna make you all wait im gonna tell you more about that in a minute haha. Well this week had its ups and downs and its hard times and its good times. On tuesday we were able to help a guy basically just clean up his yard for 2 hours, it was fun working hard and sweating and i think we really suprised him just how hard us "mormons" can work( i dont know why but the missionaries are known as the mormons down here). so that was fun, they made fun of me though for how much lemonade i drank after haha. OH on wednesday it rained, alot. We got home soaking wet, again haha. But it rained all afternoon and most of the night. the bad thing is that the sun was out without a single cloud in the sky all day thursday, friday, saturday, and sunday! so when it only rains a little and then the sun comes out, it just boils the water and makes it feel even hotter and humider! so this week was really REALLY hot!!! but we made it through thankfully. Walking from one house to another yesterday afternoon at about 3 oclock, i honestly thought i was gonna have a heatstroke because of how hot it is, but thankfully im still alive haha!! Oh another funny story! I always make fun of Elder Herrmann that he doesnt take care of his shirts cuz hes always ripping them, well i finally ripped one of mine as well haha. i got it all stitched up though by hand and its looking good again! also another funny side story, if you all remember i used to have rubber bands on my hands to stretch out my finger, well i ran out! dont worry though, my finger feels 100% and actually my right hand is stronger than my left now! just another blessing from god that i have 2 fully functional hands! And now let me tell you how fun it was cleaning the font! it honestly wasnt too bad, we cleaned it in about an hour, the problem was everytime we tried putting hot water in it, the hot water brought like dust and dirt with it, so while we filled it up we also had to slowly drain it to get the dirty stuff out. all in all the font was pretty clean for the baptism, just a few little dirt particles at the bottom, not as clean as i wouldve liked but it still was good. ant today me and my companion as well as the 2 other elders in my district came to zihua to play soccer and hangout with Elder Herrmann and his district! we played soccer a bit and hung out and ate some lunch and traded a few ties and so today was a pretty fun day as well! it just might be my last p day in this area as well! how crazy is that? anyways.... NOW i will tell you what you all wanna know! So the lady we baptized honestly is very special. Her name is baldobina and she lives alone and she lives in Peta! she lives about 30 minutes walking from our house but every sunday she walks 15 minutes to the highway from where she lives so she can take a bus and go to church. This is really hard for her since she has ankle and knee problems but it just shows just how big her faith is!  she actually came to the church three times this last week! on wednesday to do her interview, on saturday for her baptism, and on sunday to go to church and be confirmed! she doesnt have alot of money but she knows and understands just how important it is to go, so she always does everything she can to make it! she also understands that this is just the start, and now the real challenge begins of enduring to the end! i had the blessing of being able to baptize her and we had to do it 2 times just because the first time her foot came out of the water, but she said that she felt amazing after! and we had a lesson with her after church yesterday and she said she just feels so good and she can really feel the spirit! she doesnt have the strongest testimony but she has alot of faith and she believes and she is willing to try to learn more! so yeah that was about it for this week! it was tough and stressful but also very rewarding, im so very thankful that we finally had something pay off for all of our hard work. I hope you all have another wonderful week and i hope and pray that god is always watching over you! Also happy birthday Grandma Bowcutt!! i love you so very much and thank you for all that you do! Thanks for all your love and prayers everyone! Love Elder Griffin

Lazaro Zone Mtg and District Leader Training in Morelia...

Hey everyone! so im calling this week vacation week because it was basically a big vacation for me haha! i left my area tuesday morning and didnt get back until saturday morning! We left the house tuesday morning at about 6 o clock to go to Lazaro Cardenas for a zone meeting. That went really good and it was really powerful and it made me want to really be a better missionary. After that me and Elder Herrmann stayed in Lazaro with the zone leaders and our companions went back to work in our areas. It was really cool because right after the zone meeting on tuesday me and Elder Herrmann got to go eat lunch with Elder Smith and his companion! so that was fun to have mini divisions with him haha. After though we had actual divisions with the zone leaders. I went with Elder OJeda and Elder Herrmann went with Elder Creason. Man having a few lessons with Elder Ojeda just made me realize that the zone leaders are on another level of teaching! it was amazing the way he taught and the questions he asked and it was just really powerful all the lessons we had! it was really funny as well because while i was with Elder Ojeda we gave some weird forms of service! first we each had to fill a little notebook by numbering the pages and just writing in 1, 2, 3 etc. so that was interesting! and we also got to help fold clothes haha! and my mom knows just how much i love folding clothes! it was good though. then we slept on the floor tuesday night with the zone leaders and we worked with them on wednesday for a little bit until it was time to go! me and Elder Herrmann and Elder smith got on the bus at Lazaro at about 4 and we got to Morelia about 815! it was glorious getting off of the bus though. The bus had air conditioning but when we got off the bus IT FELT THE SAME! it didnt feel like we had just entered an oven like it usually feels getting off the bus at Lazaro! so yeah when we got off we almost cried haha. We stayed with the zone leaders of Aeropuerto that night, it was amazing sleeping on a COLD bed! and sleeping without a fan haha! then we got up thursday morning and we had our district leader training and that was awesome! we talked about so many good things and what we can do to be better district leaders and we also talked about how to do baptismal interviews so it was awesome! i loved seeing Elder Ramirez there as well! we also saw Elder Antuna there! so yeah that was a fun time. Then that got over but the zone still had another meeting, but since we arent part of the zone we went to search for food! Since Elder Herrmann had been in that zone a little before he knew his way around a bit of morelia, so me and him and Elder Smith just searched for food! eventually we found some tortas that were pretty good and then we just walked around and saw the sights! we really were just enjoying the fresh air and the nice breeze haha. Me and Elder Herrmann ended up finding a tie store and we both bought new ties! they were originally priced at 837 pesos, so i was like nope not today, but thankfully they were having a sale so i got it for 150 haha, im really happy with it its sweet. We also found a mcdonalds! so naturally i bought a big mac haha. So yeah visiting Morelia was amazing and i hope i get called there one day haha. Then we spent thursday night with the zone leaders and we got on the bus to go to Lazaro friday morning! before we got on though we went and searched for a famous torta restaurant! the best tortas in all of morelia! theyre huge and they only cost 40 pesos! so i bought two of them haha. one i ate there and i got filled up, so i put the other in my bag and i ate it about 12 hours later after heating it up in a microwave haha. the bus ride home was so comfy though! usually the buses have 4 seats per row, but the seats in this bus were so big and comfy they only had 3! so yeah we felt like millionaires haha. Friday afternoon we had a surprise training from the assistants on obedience and it was amazing as well. i just felt the spirit so strongly there and i left there feeling very pumped up. Then after that we traveled home to Zihua but we ended up getting there at 1030 which is really late, so we stayed the night there and traveled home saturday morning! so yeah it was a pretty crazy week! i loved it though and it was awesome. OH the last funny story i have is last night we had a lesson in Peta where we live and we ended up leaving there kinda late, so we had to run home, and just my luck it started to rain right as we left! so we got home right before 930 and soaking wet, but all is well! Fun week, im tired and i miss the cold air haha. I love you all and i thank you all so much for your prayers, i can really feel them pushing me along! have a great week!! Love Elder Griffin

Hello Everyone! 

Tortas...

Elder Griffin's words..."Elder Herrmann being weird, like always!"

District Leader Training.... Got to see his past companion.... Elder Ramirez  

and many others... Elder Ventura

 Elder Herrmann, Elder Antuna and Elder Griffin

 Elder Suarez

Another new tie that he is really proud of purchasing for 150 pesos!

It finally rained!!!

Hey everybody! so this week was pretty good i guess haha. I went to pantla again and i had divisions with Elder Potter! hes the other white guy in my district haha. doing divisions with him was good! but holy cow did we walk alot and was it hot! wednesday was the worst! we had to walk an hour to a little town where they work at and its just an open dirt road to get there. We got there and the 1 appointment we had wasnt even home, so then Elder Potter decided he wanted to "explore" so we just went and walked a butt load haha, and then it was an hour walk back to the main town! all of that with the sun beating down on us was a killer! my shirt was literally soaking wet from just how much i was sweating! speaking of that im finally down to 200 pounds haha, i just checked on thursday. but yeah that was fun walking a whole butt load and feeling like i was on the point of death haha. it was also very very hot on thursday as well. the people who even live here are complaining about how hot it is haha! but when the biggest trials come thats when we get the biggest help, and thats excatly how it worked out, because it rained!! It was kinda cloudy on friday in the afternoon and while we had the family home evening lesson inside the church it kinda started drizzling, and we had a lesson after with an investigator as well and thats when the rain really hit! if anyone remembers my rant awhile back about mexicans and rain, i thought that everyone had gone home, but we left the church and they were all playing in the rain! i honestly was planning on going home but that wild hair just told me to go play, so we did! we went and played soccer in the rain for like 45 minutes! by the time we finished we were soaking wet but it was way way fun! then on saturday it felt really nice since it would rain hard on and off and it was cloudy the whole day! then saturday night we helped clean up the church! other people cut the grass and i raked it all up and my comp and a member threw all the grass away outside. we were there for about 3 hours as well and it was way fun and awesome to be able to help out! even though it was kinda drizzling while we were working and i was soaking wet again by the time we were done, i was happy. oh since it rained on friday, all day saturday there were a bunch of rivers in the roads haha, im not kidding these were about halfway up to my knee some of them! so my feet had been wet for about all day on saturday so that was fun as well. saturday night there was a fireworks show close by our house, it had something to do with the catholic church but who knows haha. the show wasnt nearly like anything at home though. oh and i almost forgot! i had the opportunity to do 2 baptismal interviews this week! one for an investigator in pantla and another one in Zihua for Elder Herrmann! usually the zone leaders do the interviews for district leaders, but since they werent gonna be able to make it they asked me to do it! so that was cool as well. and this week should be sweet! tomorrow we have a zone meeting in guacamays(lazaro basically) and after me and Elder Herrmann will stay there with the zone leaders and our companions will be in divisions, because wednesday afternoon me and him are going to morelia! theres gonna be a big leadership training basically and so itll be sweet, and then well come back friday afternoon! so this week will be one big party basically, a vacation from my vacation haha. Well thats all i got to say for this week! i hope everyone is doing well! i love you all very much! Love Elder Griffin

week 2 as a district leader! August 1, 2016

Hey everyone! so this last week was pretty good i guess, i dont know im a little down just because our numbers weren't that great this week and not alot of people came to church, but im still happy and i feel like im doing all i can to help the people down here, and i just have to hope they use their agency for good! but yeah im doing good haha. Anyways let me tell you a little about this week. First off i went to pantla this week to do divisions with Elder Menchu. Hes a really cool dude from guatamela and hes really chill and laid back. hes also a really hard worker though which is great. while we were in divisions we had a few fun memories haha. first off we bought pizza tuesday night and feasted like kings, even though it was a small pizza haha. then another funny story is as we were walking two old ladys(jehovas witnesses) who were sitting down called us over to the little table they had and told us to take a book or whatever we wanted, and at first were like no thanks we gotta go we dont have time but they just kept bugging us, so finally we went over and i took some book that apparently talks about Jesus Christ and my companion took a little pamphlet and after we started reading them just to see all the mistakes they had haha. when we were in divisions we also went to see some crocodiles! in their area in pantla their kinda close to the beach, so after a lesson we went to ixtapa and the beach to see the crocodiles and take a bunch of pictures there and that was way fun! the crocodiles were way cool to see! makes me wanna go home and hunt some alligators haha. then after we went and took some pictures on the beach which turned out really cool haha. also i made a new friend! his name is donkey! haha he was close by the beach and he would walk right by us as we walked, and when we stopped he would stop, and when i would run he would start running too! so we messed with him for a bit and that was really funny haha. After we had the divisions me and Elder Aldana had our weekly planning in the church and after we finished we started cleaning the baptismal font! whoever had a baptism last didnt drain it, the water had been sitting there for a way long time and had made really nasty mold.  the branch president helped us drain the water and then we cleaned it out a little bit just to get the mold off, but were still gonna go through and clean it with soap before we have our baptism. speaking of that, so thursday night our zone leaders came from Lazaro and Elder Aldana and Elder Ojeda went and did the interview for our investigator and me and Elder Creason(my Grandpa) went to work for a bit in my area! that was cool and i learned alot from him. but long story short our investigator didn't pass the interview. just because she doesn't know if Joseph Smith was a prophet or not and she also doesn't know if the book of Mormon is true. so were gonna keep working with her until she receives those answers. friday was probably the hardest day of the week. we walked a long ways to visit our investigator and see how she was and talk about everything and that went good, then the entire afternoon we had 0 lessons. first off our lunch appt canceled on us, we called her and told her we were gonna be late and she told us she was in Zihua... so we ended up eating with the branch president haha. after that it seemed no one wanted to have lessons, we even had an appointment with an investigator for 5 at the church but she never showed up... so then we just waited until 6 for the english class but no one showed up to that either, and then at 7 there were only 3 people there for the family home evening, so by this point i was honestly pretty discouraged, but we just went back to work. we ended up going to a less actives house and he had just killed a pig, so naturally, I, Elder Griffin wanted to help cut it up haha. so we helped him chop it up and skin it and yeah it was cool. saturday i had another little test of patience. Satan really tried me this time, because we went to visit our ward mission leader who is inactive, and he wasn't home but his mom was. she was just really rude and onery and plain mean asking us why we hadn't come to visit him and where were we and how other people had come to visit but ´where are the missionaries?´ i left about ready to tear a coconut tree out of the ground and throw it at that lady. but i repented and forgot about it and the rest of the day was good. then sunday was normal.  then later we were able to do some service cleaning up some huge coconut leaves or branches or whatever you wanna call them haha. the lady is pregnant so she cant do it and her husband only rests on sunday so we helped them and that was cool. and that was this week! Sure had its ups and downs but im still pushing through each day and im fighting the good fight! i hope everyone is well at home and i just want you to know i love you all! thanks for all the love and support and prayers! have a great week! Love Elder Griffin

Divisions in Pantla, Ixtapa Beach and Crocodiles

crabs...

 Iguanas.

 

 Thinking and Pondering... learning new camera settings...

my new friend the donkey... playing follow the leader!

Helping to butcher the pig... my kind of service!

It's a new month!  August 2016!