RAIN=FUN, July 24, 2017

Hey everyone! well this week was another roller coaster in the mission. Monday was really fun since we went to Uruapan and visited the beautiful national park. Tuesday was great as well since i was able to do divisions with  my cousin Elder Ashford. we were able to work well together and also enjoy our time together and have fun and laugh alot, especially Tuesday night when all 4 of us were together in one house and thats when the real fun started haha! so that was one of the ups of this week. a down is that Tuesday we visited our investigator that was going to be baptized and we told he to show up to the church the next day at 11 for his interview and he said he would. well we were waiting for him but he never showed up... tried calling him and he didn't answer for the longest time. finally when he answered he was... upset to say the least. said he would not be coming to the church, and to quit calling him. that was a big bummer and both me and my companion took it pretty hard. we kept working throughout the week afterwards, a little slower than normal though sad to say. passed through Thursday and Friday. Saturday we decided to cut the grass around the church since it was up to my knee or higher in some parts, that took two hours in the hot sun (yes mom i got burnt, yes mom i forgot to put on sunscreen, yes mom I'm dumb and i want skin cancer haha) by the time we finished i had blisters on my hand from cutting and raking so much. but it made us feel good and the church looked alot better after. that night we had a ward activity planned that had been in the works for over a month. well when it was time to start, not one investigator nor less active had showed up, and just our luck it started to rain, HARD. and when it rains in mexico no one leaves anywhere, so we knew that no one was gonna come, and even though we are missionaries we still like to have fun, so me and my companion went and played in the rain with the young men from the ward and ended up SOAKING wet. it was well worth it though haha. finally a member showed up with a friend that had never been to the church before, so we started the activity. we gave him a tour through the church and in each room we had decorated the church to explain a different part of the plan of salvation. i was dressed in white to talk about what we need to do while we are on the earth( be baptized). so while the activity didn't turn out too well, we had lots of fun! that was an up and a down at the same time haha. and that was our week! This next week we wont be doing much, we get to travel to the area farthest away for a baptismal interview, and my companion will be getting a wisdom tooth taken out and he will need to rest after. next week are transfers as well so ill let yall know what happens and where i will be ending my mission! thanks again to everyone for all that you do! have a great week! Love Elder Griffin

 This is a Sister Missionary, he said they just wanted it to look like a baptism for the picture...

Work hard and play harder... July 17, 2017

Hey everyone! well this week i again lived up to my motto of work hard and play harder haha. Monday night we spent the whole night preparing the church for the zone conference the next day and finished planning out some little details in our trainings(even though we had been planning them for a week). Tuesday was the zone conference and everything went really good actually! i would say perfect but sadly it wasn't haha. The Mission President really pumped us all up though because he talked alot and told us alot of the things that he learned in his training in salt lake and whenever he had something come to his mind that he wanted to share, he just got up and started teaching us haha. So yeah he talked alot but it was good. My companion and I had 2 parts, where we talked about the importance of obedience and consecration, and personally i think we rocked that part. The only thing that didn't turn out too great was when the sisters wanted to  "help" out haha. But its ok we were able to work it out. and we had started at 9, and ended at 4 with a break in the middle. it was a long conference too but it turned out great. Afterwards we spent the whole afternoon in the church because the president started interviewing people that live far away. We also had a meeting with the stake president that night and all he said was that he was really happy with our work and the work of the missionaries in the stake, and that made our Mission President happy and that made us happy haha! We left the meeting at 830 and had just enough time to go eat with a member since we were starving!(conferences and trainings create hunger like nothing else). Wednesday we started interviews again at 930 and ended them about 2 o clock. The president said he was really happy with our work here, that the zone is doing good for the most part and before he left he said "i can leave Zamora without any worries and know that all is well" so that made us happy haha. Then we finally got to work in our area a bit. Thursday was a normal day, lots of planning and a little work and yeah haha. Friday was also pretty normal, worked and visited people and yeah. Saturday was alot better day since we finally found our investigator that we had been looking all week for! if all goes well this Saturday we will have an awesome ward activity and afterwards a baptism! the first one for this ward in all of 2017 and who knows how much longer! then yesterday we spent the day preparing our parts for the ward activity and also visiting a few other people. now all of that was the work hard, and the play part was today! Our Mission President gave us permission to leave the zone and go to uruapan! its the greenest zone in all of the mission, and its famous for its national park! well me and my companion had a blast there and took a whole lot of pictures!(your welcome mom). this place was literally a jungle forest, it was even cooler because there was water running along the sides of the pathways and since it was cloudy and drizzling it really just made everything nice and cool! the bus ride was a little long, but it was worth it, and ill let the pictures explain the rest. Well since everyone has been reminding me ill just let everyone know that i now have less than 100 days haha, still feel like that is alot of time but i know it will fly by fast, 20 months went by alot faster than i thought it would! I hope you all have a great week and thanks for all your love and support! Love Elder Griffin

                                                        We found a trout farm!