Serving in the Mexico Guadalajara East Mission: What a week!!

Hey everybody!! Well this last week sure was pretty crazy!! OK i need to stop saying that because pretty much every week on the mission is crazy in its own special way. But we had so many fun activities this week and so many things go on and it was just awesome to finally be in my area and be able to work and visit and we really focused this week on finding new investigators as well. For about the last 6 weeks we hadn't found 1 new investigator!! but after the leadership council and seeing how bad we were at finding new investigators we decided to go at it 100%! we had the goal to find 20 new investigators this week, and although we only ended up finding 6, we were truly blessed for our diligent efforts and we were blessed with sweet tender mercies! Monday we were only able to make one visit since we had to go home early due to a national holiday here. Tuesday and Wednesday we were able to work at 100% and it felt so good to just be able to talk to people and teach rather than sit in meeting and be traveling haha. Thursday was a very special day, we weren't able to work at all but it was a very fruitful day. We had our weekly planning that usually ends pretty late, like 1 or 2 in the afternoon, we went and cleaned the church, ate lunch, then back to the church! a school of kids with special needs asked if they could use the church for an activity, and as part of it the stake choir was able to do a short program and all the missionaries from the zone were able to do a skit! our skit was the birth of Jesus Christ, and it was really stressful since we had no clue if we were actually going to do it or not and when they ended up giving us the green light the missionary that was going to play Mary still hadn't shown up haha. Oh i love being a zone leader!! The play was awesome though, the kids loved it and so did the families. We were able to get a few references from it and there was a very special spirit there. It was kinda funny because they teach the kids to hug everyone and love everyone, so they try and put the example and hug everyone as well, and we had a few issues with ladies almost hugging elders haha, that was really awkward. Friday was my companions birthday, and in case anyone forgot im a master at throwing surprise birthday parties. we had our zone meeting Friday morning and without my companion even knowing we had brought a cake and candles and we celebrated his birthday, along with another Elder (Elder Fullmer) whos birthday was on Wednesday. the pictures say enough of what ended up with the cake haha. That day we ate cake 3 different times as well since alot of families wanted to celebrate my companions birthday. Saturday was pretty normal and Sunday we were able to sing a special hymn in a priesthood activity as missionaries. It ended up sounding really really cool and again there was a very special spirit there as we were singing. Everyone says that the missionaries sing with the voices of angels, and i think i sing with the voice of a dying cow haha. So this week has been a really great week. I did my own Christmas shopping and bought myself some really good looking ties. tomorrow is the Christmas dinner with the president and that will be awesome. And i cant wait for Christmas!!! I wish you all a Merry Christmas and i hope you all enjoy this wonderful Christmas spirit! May God watch over you and i wish you all the best! Thanks for all of your love and support! Have a Great week!!

Love Elder Griffin