El Gozo del Evangelio

Buenas Tardes!

Already done with five weeks in the cycle- crazy, crazy...  Next week is transfers, so everybody is getting a little antsy.  I feel like things are going to switch up for me- from what predictions have been made by other missionaries and what I've felt it sounds like I might stay and Elder Topham will go back to one of his old areas or something for his last cycle, and I might train.  But I'm really trying hard not to anticipate anything so that when things don't go how I think they're going to go, it doesn't throw me off or anything.  But I know that President Morgan is inspired, so whatever happens is going to be the will of the Lord.

Anywhoo, this week was pretty good.  We went on a split with a couple of ward members on Thursday night and that was different being without another missionary for a couple hours.  Friday we had a great leadership conference for the Manhattan missionaries (I think there's about fifty to sixty of us on the island) and it was super inspiring!  We've got a new set of what we call "Standards of Excellence" that give us the number of lessons and such we should be having every week.  We also talked a lot about how we really need to step things up with the new missionaries coming.  The work of the Lord is really going forward!  I really thing we're going to see some drastic things happen in the next year or two alone.  After that we had some appointments, then English class, then one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Hulme (Zone Leaders work in the North part of our ward), came to Harlem East for an overnight exchange.  We had some good appointments on Saturday and I just enjoyed being with Elder Hulme- he's funny and just a good person to talk to.  He's going to be majoring in Chemical Engineering at BYU too, so I'm looking forward to being able to keep up our friendship after the mission.  Saturday night the sisters had a baptism and then we switched back.  Sunday was good- went to church and then pretty much just came back and I split with our roommates to be with one of them that wasn't feeling so good.  We talked and enjoyed one another and I was able to make some phone calls and set up some appointments (speaking Spanish on the phone is rough, but I'm able to hold my own nowadays, thanks to God of course!), and baked some brownies for district meeting the next day.  We went into Monday with five lessons scheduled for after district meeting, but two of them didn't work out.  They were good though and we had a member at each one.  One the greatest things I've seen thus far in the mission is the progress of a less active family we've been working with.  I do believe I talked about the miracle of finding them like six or seven weeks back or something.  Anyways, they're making great progress!  The whole family came to church Sunday, we've had some great lessons with them and their thirteen year old boy said that now he wants to serve a mission!  Seeing them progress and return to the joy they once knew is super satisfying and helps me to push on through the rough times.  I also have had a chance to use math on the mission, helping one of our investigators to prepare for the GED and then helping another with some prep for her Calculus exam coming up, so it's cool to see how the Lord has utilized such specific blessings during my service.  Yesterday we had planned to travel down to 14th street to translate for a recent convert at the LDS Employment center, but that fell through, so we we're able to go put some English class fliers in some deli's and other stores and we had a good appointment with an inactive who has a nonmember husband.  They said they were both going to come to church Sunday!  Afterwards, we had English class and then came home.  Today we're planning on playing volleyball with our zone so that'll be cool.  And starting tonight, we're taking one of guys in our ward with a mission call (to New Jersey- crazy...) on a mini-mission where he'll be with us until Saturday (including sleeping over and stuff), so that's exciting.  Things are going forward!

So yep, hope all is well at home!  Thanks once again for all your support!

-Elder Griffiths