Serving in the Mexico Guadalajara East Mission: Christmas Week... December 26, 2016

Merry Christmas to everyone and a happy New Year!! this last week for me was a blessing in its own, but as with most blessings it was only earned through diligence, obedience, and loooooooooots of patience haha. First off we had the wonderful opportunity this week of having a multizone conference and Christmas Dinner with our mission President! This was a wonderful training as the President really pumped up the missionaries to start working harder and that we will see the miracles as we do it! we had lots of really good trainings from him, the assistants, the sister trainer leaders, and yours truly, the zone leaders haha. The only problem is that the conference was scheduled to end at 4, but this mission never follows the time schedule haha, so in reality it was planned to end at 6, but the secretary( a senior elder) told me from the second he got there at 10 AM that he wanted to be on the road at 5pm. That meant the entire day i was stressing out about time and making sure everything went according to plan. at about 445 we had had all of the training part of the conference, and the Christmas dinner, but we still had to do the Christmas program, which involves songs and scriptures and cool things like that. Well before we started that same Elder pulled me off to the side and chewed me out basically because we were gonna end late. so that made me feel a little bad. the Christmas program was amazing though and super spiritual. After the closing prayer no one got up to pack up and leave, so the president had us sing one more hymn, and he told us (with tears in his eyes) if we ever have a problem feeling the spirit in the future, just to remember that day. The spirit could be felt without deniance. Good news; the senior companion apologized after haha, and the assistant told me later that he was gonna chew that elder out for chewing me out haha. Gotta love the Christmas spirit here right? anyways that all went well and we got them on the road at 6 like planned. Afterwards we had a farewell for a youth from the ward that is leaving on his mission today! ( i dont know why we had his farewell that day, kinda weird i know). After that we stayed and cleaned the church a bit and went home. At about 10pm we realized something very crucial, although were big mighty zone leaders with over a year in the mission, were still forgetful haha. Remember when i said i froze the flu medicine we were supposed to give to the zone? well they brought us new medicine that day and we put it in the cuboards to bring it home after the activity, but at that moment at 10 at night we realized it was still in the church! so in tennis shoes, sunday pants and a tshirt we ran to the church for the medicine. the good thing is that we live about 5 blocks from the church. Lots of fun adventures right? lets not forget that up to this point its still only been one day. The rest of the week was pretty normal, working here and there. one day as we were walking to lunch we saw an older man of about 70 years of age sawing away at a huge trunk of a tree they had pulled out of the ground. since we had time we stopped and helped him. I sawed about as hard as i could for about 45 minutes and i sure was sweating after! an i got the blisters to prove it haha. The interesting thing about that service, was that as we finished we handed the man a pamphlet, he hardly cared, but another lady came up from out of nowhere and asked us for one as well. although we didn't get her information or anything, just a calm feeling came over me that my small act of service was a good example for her, and that she would never forget it. Another really spiritual experience we had was when we visited a member of the ward. He is a less active but not really by choice. This member has diabetes real bad, they've about cut his two feet right off, he only has about 3 toes on both of them, he can hardly walk, and is very very weak. He had slowly been recovering and feeling better and was walking more and coming to church more, but because of his sickness something happened that he just dropped right down back to phase 1 of being sick and helpless. When we visited him we could tell he had lost alot of hope and faith and just the desire to keep fighting. That night we sang 3 hymns for him and gave him a blessing. His wife offered the closing prayer and she had tears pouring out of her eyes at the end of it. again we felt the spirit though in its full strength. Saturday morning we had an awesome activity with the ward! we took hot chocolate and bread to a local hospital to give out to the people there! as we got there it was a sad sight to see, people living in huts made of plastic tarps, shivering from the cold, we also handed out old coats that the people there quickly took hold of. We sang two hymns with everyone there, and we shared a small message about the birth of Jesus Christ. When we started handing the food out you could tell on the face of alot of people that they were very grateful for that small gift. There were a few people that rudely rejected us, pretty sad honestly to see it, but we just kept smiling and those that wanted our helped received it. Finally that same night we had about a near perfect family home evening. We ate dinner with a family and we ate goooooood. Although while we were eating, i ate a REALLY spicy jalapeno, and i like spicy food and eat alot of it, but when i bit that thing i started crying haha. and i had never cried before from spicy food! that was funny and the whole family was laughing. then after dinner we started singing hymns and we watched the video of light the world with them. They also gave us Christmas presents! they gave me and my companion each a pair of socks haha. and we gave them little ctr rings, and they really liked it and it was awesome to see the whole family wearing them! Then yesterday was about perfect since i was able to talk to my family! i love being able to talk to them. Just reminds that what im doing is right, and i know without a doubt this is the best way i could spend these two years right now! I love the mission, i know that Christ lives and im so grateful for that knowledge and this opportunity i have to be here! I hope you all have a wonderful week and a Very Happy New Year!! A special birthday wish to my little sister Lindsey Rose Griffin!!! love you sis!!! may god be with each and every one of you! Love Elder Griffin

December 26, 2016, p-day, visited the Acuedents.