Los Miembros Son Claves

Hello!

This past week has been great! I've learned a lot and we've made some good steps forward in the work. I guess I'll just give you a good briefing of my days, day by day.

Thurday- weekly planning. That's always fun. Actually I really do like planning and just getting stuff down on paper and seeing what we need to do. We spent some good time with the Bishop handing out little papers for our English class and doing some other business. Our bishop is great! Then we had dinner I believe and then went out and tried visiting some families from our ward and we met with one that was in the area and they said the missionaries hadn't been over in over a year, so that was really good. We're really focusing on improving our relationship with the members, gaining their support and teaching them how to be better missionaries, and that was just one of a few visits that have gone very well.

Friday we had a new missionary/trainer training meeting up in the Bronx that we went to. It was good and insightful and I learned a lot. President Morgan is a very insightful man and he's got a lot of good stuff to say. His meetings do run a little long at times, though, so it shot our plans a little. Afterwards, we got dang good sandwiches at a bodega (little corner convenience store things. New York thing), went to a hospital to give a blessing, came back and then the assistants called to do an exchange with Elder Topham and me. I went with Elder Fusco (from Brazil- super cool Elder) up to Inwood (very north Manhattan where the Assistants work) and worked there- it was great and I got a lot of good advice from him and it just got me excited about the work.

Saturday we went and did service. I saw the video that you posted on my Facebook page and it was really good. We didn't work in the areas that the video showed, but we still had plenty of work to do. The people were very grateful for what we did, and it was good to see the unity that came from our service. Sometimes it takes drastic measures to get us to go down to the basis of our relationship with one another as children of God. Seeing that relationship in the finest as we served our brothers and sisters was really encouraging and uplifting. Coming home on the train, I had some good sharing opportunities. I talked to a guy from Mexico, Javier, for like twenty minutes about this and that and then I eventually started talking about his family and how the gospel could strengthen his family and help them strengthen the already strong unity that they had. Then Sister Richardson, a sister in my district gave him a pamphlet and he was very happy. It all just fell together nicely- I just hope he follows up and has the desire to learn more. We talked to some other people on the train to and it was just nice and uplifting. Then we got back to the apartment, got ready and went to an incredible stake Christmas concert (you can imagine the talent found in the New York New York Stake).

Sunday Elder Topham wasn't feeling so well, so we took it easy, did our studies, went to church and then essentially came home and I did some productive stuff while he relaxed. We had a good noche de hogar (FHE) with Victor, a good buddy of ours in the ward, and his roommate and his roommate's girlfriend and it went well! And that was about it for the day.

Monday was a glorious day. We had studies and a district meeting after which we went looking for service ideas with the Sisters in our district (they serve in the west side- really nice area with lots of money, so it's pretty hard to work in). Afterwards, we came back to our area with the intentions of visiting some members of our ward (dropping by as opposed to setting up appointments works best with the Latinos). Anyways, we were standing outside of the building of one of the members without a way to get in (private buildings are tricky here- being a missionary in New York is just a whole different ball game in so many ways) and then one of the recent converts, Teresa, comes up and says hey and invites us into the building because she lives there. We then go to the apartment of the members we intended to visit, find the kids home so we make friends with them. Then the mom comes home and we talk with her and then their neighbor comes out and it turns out he's a member too! The thing is that they're all pretty inactive, but we struck up a good relationship, shared a powerful message and now we've got a firm appointment to have a noche de hogar (FHE) with them this Saturday, and they all seem very interested in coming back to church. It was miraculous and we definitely saw the hand of the Lord in all of that. We then went to our dinner appointment at la familia Chavert (fun bunch- probably one of our favorite families to visit), had a good experience there, then dropped by our ward mission leader's apartment, then went home for the night.

Yesterday, we had a Multi-Zone Conference with Elder Paul B. Johnson of the 1st quorum and that was good and insightful! By the time we got home it was about time for our 5:30 appointment with one of our investigators, Paulina a 16 year old Dominicana. She's hard to teach at times but she's fun so we enjoy our visits with her. After that we went to English class, after which we went back up to the Bronx because my companion had a meeting with President Morgan. We got home close to 10:30 (we were justified in doing so, obviously...) so after planning and stuff, we crashed.

Today we've just done some studying, washed clothes, went shopping and now we're about to make some dumplings with the sisters in our zone two of whom are from Taiwan and Singapore, so that'll be good. We also had some dang good and legitimate enchiladas from a Mexican street vender. Then later we're just planning on dropping by an investigator, some less actives, and other members, so that'll be good!

Things are going well! We're moving forward in what we feel is the way that the Lord wants. We're just beginning to see some of the fruits of our labors, but there's definitely moer on the way and I can't wait to keep everybody posted about it all! Thanks once again for all of your support, and I hope you all have a great week!


-Elder Griffiths