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
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