Fun fun week! April 10, 2017, first week with President Assante!

Hey everyone! i hope you are all doing great and enjoying life wherever you are at. This last week sure was pretty eventful for me and my companion! On Monday we had our zone activity which was lots of fun but pretty tiring since i wrestled against another elder in our zone that also wrestled before, and man was i sore the next day haha. Tuesday and Wednesday we had divisions with some of the elders here in the zone to help train them and also see how they are working in their area. Thursday was a normal day, but the fun started on Friday! We had leadership council but this time it was REALLY different, first off because we started without a president... and just the assistants trained us for a bit on things they want us to train our zones. It wasn't until after the lunch break and we were all sitting down quietly anxiously waiting that our new president and his wife showed up. when they entered the room i felt the spirit so strongly from them and just brought peace to my heart, peace that i needed and im sure everyone needed because we were all anxious to see how the new president is. President Assante is actually alot like President Egginton, he has a very big heart and is very loving, very spiritual, and very emotional. When they got there they started telling us all about their life and a little bit about how it was that they were called on such short notice to be our president! It was really cool to meet them and talk to them and hug the new president! after that we just finished with the normal things in leadership council and spent the night getting materials for the zone and everything else we needed for the missionaries here. Saturday morning we got up bright and early again to go right back to the mission offices and have our interviews with President Assante the next day. We were the first zone to be interviewed by him, and my companion was the first person to be interviewed by him, and i was the second haha. That was also a very spiritual experience, he asked me about my life and my family and what i liked to do, we also talked about the zone the missionaries, but i could really feel his love for me and for each one of us. Interviews with the president always reminds me that i could never be a secretary, because i got stressed just from sitting around for a few hours, i cant imagine doing it all day and doing it day after day after day. It was really cool though because we got to talk alot to President Assante during his lunch break, because just me my companion and him were in the kitchen in the offices eating together and he told us all about how they got called and set apart with just a 3 week notice and how fast paced everything was, also they aren't going to end their mission until June of 2020, 3 years and 3 months!( a normal call is for 3 years, but with 7 months of preparation). his wife also told me alot of the same things that they were trying to pack everything and it was crazy for those 3 weeks, really cool to be able to talk to them. President Assante is a convert, he was baptized at age 17 and served a mission as well, and is from Argentina but has lived in the united states for a long time. And his wife is from Oregon! they are great! Saturday night we also had a meeting with the stake president here and that was great to be able to know what is it that he wants us to do here and what we should be focusing on. We were able to make a long list of things we need to do and im excited to get at it! Then sunday was great like always. visited alot of members and were able to be in our area for a day which was very nice. BUT since my motto is work hard play harder, today we went bowling with 2 other elders here and ate McDonalds haha. So the mission is going great for me! im loving it and there are so many miracles that we are seeing in our area, i love being able to feel the spirit in alot of our lessons and see peoples lives change. Well that's it for this week! Thanks again for all your love and prayers!
Love Elder Griffin