Pictures!

Zone activity- played wiffle ball and soccer at the park in front of Yankee Stadium 

(where we sometimes go to work out in the mornings)

Caught outside without an umbrella...

Beethoven dog with a mohawk thing walking down Broadway

Elder Stevens and Elder Orellana!  I lived with them my first three cycles.  

Elder Stevens is home and Elder Orellana moved to my zone this cycle

My apartment last cycle- good guys!  Elder Jensen, Elder Richards, Elder Longmore, me

Found this when i walked into our pad- two of the best temples!

breaking out the Manhattan map is always good

Upper westside- good stuff!

Elder Martinez and I at Time Square today!  

He had been waiting for this day for five weeks... haha

Birthday party for Elder Richards and Sister Skinner (she's in our district) at la familia Tifa

Elder Richards in the car behind us on the Subway

Me Quedo!

Buenas Tardes!

Another week passed.  Next week we'll be going to the Yankees game- that's going to be sweet!  Look for us on TV because the whole mission is allowed to go and we are probably going to be sitting all together, so that certainly would be of interest for the cameras.

Anyways, transfers came, and...  Still here in the Bronx!  With Elder Martinez!  I'm going to get to finish training him.  Elder Richards, one of my roommates went up to Danbury, CT, so Elder Jensen got a new companion strait from the MTC.  I'm super old compared to the other Elders in the district, so that's going to be interesting.  But this cycle is going to be great- we've got some good things going on with the people that we're working on.  We went into a lesson last Saturday intending to possibly drop somebody, but we came out with a baptismal date and three firm appointments a week, so it's interesting to see how the Lord sometimes guides us like that!  We also had a family of less actives that hadn't come to the church in years come!  They want to go to the temple and the boy who is twelve wants to get baptized, so we're going to get them going to church stably before we work with him.  The referrals from the Bishop are progressing well too, so this cycle is going to be sweet!  I know that the Lord has been blessing us with this success as we've really been trying to be obedient and be diligent.  Our will is really the only thing that we have that the Lord cannot take away, so when we give that to Him, He blesses us greatly in exchange.

This cycle I'm really going to work on further giving myself to the Lord.  I know that as we drop our pride, pretty much all of our problems go away.  We can always be more humble, and I believe that until we're perfect, there's always more that we're hanging on that we can give up to the Lord.  I also know that the people around us are children of God with great potential.  We can always learn from those around us, and so I'm working on being able to see, focus on and then learn from the good of those around me.  I know that as we do that, we demonstrate a desire to learn and we also are given the opportunity to lift up those around us.  Even just in my apartment, between the four of us, we've got almost eighty years of life experience from which we can all benefit.  If we can put our pride aside, our worries about the way others perceive us, and we just seek to glorify God in all things, we are sanctified, purified and are able to come closer to Christ.  God is so great and I'm humbled knowing that He loves me enough to bless me with others to help me.  I'm looking forward to a great cycle, filled with lots of learning, and I'll be sure to share little tidbits of the great things I'm learning with you guys!

I hope you have a great week coming up!  Thanks for everything!

-Elder Griffiths

La Santificacion... Mediante un Verano de Calor

Hello, hello!

Another week down, once more left in this cycle!  And things are heating up!  We had to take an extra long lunch to be able to put in the A/C units in the windows.  They're held up from the outside with cans of beans- hopefully that works out...  Haha but yep, it's hot and sticky and just barely getting started, so it should be a fun summer!

Check out lds.org!  The first picture that comes up is from our mission!  The black Elder is Elder Lartey, my current zone leader with whom I went on an exchange a couple weeks ago, the other is Elder Hutchins- Assistant who has a Braves hat, and Ryan, President Morgan's son.  Cool stuff!  In other news, there was a giant Despicable Me little yellow minion blimp flying around Yankee Stadium a couple nights ago- made me remember how much I love that movie.  And then today we made a trip down to Time Square/Midtown area.  We ate lunch in the first Steak and Shake, checked out the Toys R Us, and then went to THE Macy's (it's massive!).  Being able to do such things is great, but I'm almost kind of glad we have a limit because not only is it stressful (we woke up at 5:45 to get our cleaning down and stuff), but it's kind of overwhelming how worldly this place is.  Haha but it's all good.

Anyways, this week was great!  I went on two exchanges being with both of my roommates in their area (one of them is District Leader).  And they're both great!  I learned a lot and had an enjoyable experience.  Also this week, we had stake conference too.  Westchester Stake is such an interesting stake because you've got the poorest zip code in the nation down in the South Bronx, but then all the ritzy areas up in Scarsdale, White Plains and so on.  But it was a great, inspiring conference.

Other than that, not a ton has happened.  I've just been learning a lot, repenting, recommitting myself and then being blessed by an increase of the Holy Ghost.  Living the Gospel of Jesus Christ and really realizing that you're doing that is so great.  That's really how we're going to become perfected in the long run, as we learn how to perfectly apply the Gospel in our lives.  Also, the word Sanctification has come up a lot in my studies.  The scripture Helaman 3:35 really hit a chord in me and I've been pondering it a lot. I've learned that as we fast and pray, we humble ourselves more and more. The idea that we can always be more humble has made me think a lot and helped me to do an inventory of myself. As we do that and increase our faith, we realize that we really need to turn our hearts over to God- to submit ourselves to him, and by doing that, we're sanctified or purified. According to Moroni 10:33, as we're sanctified, there aren't any powers on earth that can control us and that's such a nice thought! I know that as we give ourselves to God- everything- we can overcome the negative influences of the adversary and become more effective tools in the hands of God.  How cool is that?  The process of being humbles isn't always pleasant, and there's always opposition to any good things that we do, but the end result is worth the struggle. So keep on moving along!

Thanks for all the support!  I hope that you have a great week!

-Elder Griffiths

Otra semana bien ...

Hello!

This week was another just a-okay week!  Nothing too exciting went down, I don't think.  We got together as a district a lot for various things, so we didn't do as much area specific work, but the week still flew and I know that Heavenly Father is guiding us.

I think I'm finally getting to the point where I can see some of the progress I've made.  In that I'm realizing that God does put us exactly where we need to be with the exact people with whom we need to be to give us the opportunities to grow closer to Him.  That's not just a mission thing- throughout life we're led to live in certain places, work with certain people, go to school to school with certain people, etc.  I know that's true and I know that as we accept that, we'll not only be worked into being more fine tuned instruments in the hands of the Lord, but the Lord will use us as instruments in His hands to help fine tune others as well.  Ammon and His brothers were really justified in glorying the Lord- I think I've been recently blessed with a taste of the joy they had, and it's great!  I hope to always try to be who the Lord would have me be and I would admonish the rest to do the same!  Where you are doesn't matter so much as to where you're going, so if there are any corrections that you need to make, do it!  And if not, keep going forward!

Thanks for all the support back home!  I hope you have a great upcoming week!

-Elder Griffiths

Aplicando La Doctrina de Cristo

Hello!

Halfway through the cycle already, eh?  Well May brought some nice showers for us today.  Walking to pick up some pictures with Elder Richards at CVS, I got soaked.  I didn't think it was going to be raining too bad but it got pretty bad while we were inside.  But yeah the weather is nice right now, so hopefully it doesn't get terribly hot too soon...

This past week wasn't terribly exciting.  We taught some lessons, but the people we're working with are either new or not progressing.  Tuesday was great, though!  It was kind of a double whammy of out pouring of the Spirit of the Lord.  I was on an exchange with Elder Lartey, one of the Zone Leaders and at the same time we had a Zone Conference.  Between talking to Elder Lartey throughout the day and taking everything in at the Zone Conference, I was spiritually exhausted (but teaching and doing everything in English was nice for a change).  One thing that President Morgan is emphasizing is the Doctrine of Christ, or essentially applying the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our lives.  As missionaries, we essentially are inviting and helping people to apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ to their lives as they develop faith in Christ, repent and change of their old ways to live in harmony of the teachings of Christ, are baptized and cleansed, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost to help them to keep going forward and then help them to develop habits to always follow Christ until they're accepted into His kingdom.  As we teach that, we really need to be living that too.  We need to be studying, praying and going to church to receive revelation to increase our faith to the point that we want to change.  We then repent of the things we're doing wrong according to this greater light we've received.  We then recommit ourselves to following Christ as we renew our covenants with the Sacrament each week.  That's followed by the sanctification by the Holy Ghost, which leads us to more faith and light on how we can change, and the cycle keeps going.  Enduring to the end consists of constantly striving to make this cycle an active part of your life.  I believe a lot of times we kind of do it automatically, but as we take the time to consciously recognize it, we can even better apply it and gain a vision of how much the gospel really means to us.  President Morgan has encouraged us to better apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our lives so that we can teach with more conviction.  I know that as I've better understood it, I've been that much more grateful and happy and in a disposition to share it with others.  So check it out!  Read 2 Nephi 31 or 3 Nephi 27.  Learn, live, become!

Things are going well!  The mission is super humbling.  I've felt lower than dirt about four times in the past three weeks.  But with all the downs, come ups that make the downs look like nothing, so it's all worth it!  I know what I'm doing is what the Lord wants me to do and if anybody reading this is unsure about missionary service- do it!  You won't regret it.

I hope you all have a great week!  And happy Mothers Day coming up!  That should be good!

-Elder Griffiths

Mis Viajes a Upstate

Hello!

Already to May- crazy!  The flowers are starting to bloom and things are getting pretty (well for the sparse little bit brush that you find here in the city).  Short sleeves shirts are coming out more frequently and life is good!  Until it gets sweltering hot I guess.  Haha

Anyways, after having only left New York City once in the past six months, I actually had the opportunity to leave it twice in the past week!  Thursday we got to ride the Metro North train up to New Rochelle (just barely outside of the city and still very Bronx-ish where we were) for a meeting for the trainers and new missionaries.  Afterwards, we still had to do weekly planning, so that pretty much killed the rest of our day, but it was a great and insightful training, so definitely worth it!  Friday was a kind of rough day- we had three different people just kind of drop bombs on us and kind of tell us that things had changed and they didn't want to keep going forward much.  It was tough, but somehow the Lord blessed me to have a good attitude and so I was actually very happy after all of that.  It's hard to describe, but I know that as we're grateful for what the Lord has given us, we see that our blessings are so much more joyous than any sort of trial or hardship.  Saturday- leaving the city part II!  We actually left the city big time- rode the Metro North up to Scarsdale where we rode up with missionaries working in Westchester county up to Camp Lehi in Poughkipsy, up in the Northern most stake in our mission.  It reminded me a lot of the beautiful rolling hills of North Georgia covered in trees.  We went up there to do service- clear up some brush and prepare the camp for the summer.  It was fun, good to hang out with other missionaries and do service, and good to see something else other than the city.  I love the city, but seeing trees and stuff was so great!  Afterwards we had a couple of lessons that fell through, but it was still a great day!  Sunday was good- church followed by a couple of lessons.  Monday- district meeting followed by some good lessons.  Yesterday- kind of a weird day- I can't even describe how, but yeah we just had a few lessons that we're fine and dandy.  We did start working with a referral from a members last night- went over talked to them for a little while and gave them blessings.  We've been talking a lot recently about a talk that President Uchtdorf gave in the April 2011 conference about living up to our privileges and living up to the privileges of having the priesthood available to us by giving and receiving more blessings.  I love priesthood blessings so I'm always game to receive more, and it makes sense- we should take advantage of that power to help us have more patience, more charity, rid ourselves of negative thoughts and such.

One thing that President has been stressing ever since I got here is that we as missionaries teach true doctrine.  He pointed out the fact that a lot of times missionaries come in and are disappointed that they aren't teaching as much as they would have liked.  He explained, however, that we're always teaching and show we should take advantage of that!  We should always set a good example, always speak of goodly things and always realize that our words and actions are always influincing somebody.  As we choose to be more like Christ all the time, we help others to be more like Christ whether we know it or not.  So be an example!  Stick true to the principles that are true live them and teach them to others by simply being good.

Thanks for the support!  I look forward to calling home soon- I'll let you know more about the details with that next week.  But yep, have a good week!

-Elder Griffiths