La Tecnologia ya viene

Hello everybody!

Life is good here in the hood!  Things have been going well- we're staying as busy as ever with the trio life (we had twenty seven lessons last week, and that was after a lot of people juked us- things are looking to be about the same for this week!).  Tomorrow, for Halloween, we have to be inside by 6:00 at the very latest, so I guess that'll be a good break.  Transfers are in two weeks so hopefully we'll be able to get somebody else in here to keep all this momentum going forward!  And I'm hoping this situation means that I'm staying, because I would love to stay here for as long as I can.  At this point at least.

Anyways, Wednesday we had some good lessons in the evening- we were surprisingly on time for everything (that just doesn't seem to happen on the mission in the Spanish program) and so it was one of the smoothest nights of missionary work in my life.

Thursday was sweet too- we spent a ton of time weekly planning (like until 6:00 pretty much), but then we went out and did a split with President Romero (branch president) and both sets (Elder Nelson and I, then Elder Warner and President Romero) were able to knock into dinner appointments by dropping by members houses, and so we had four lessons in about three hours and we only put 8.2 miles on the car (we've been around 40-50 usually- not good...), so that was another sweet day!

Friday we had a zone conference in Ossining (about an hour south and just barely on the other side of the Hudson).  It was a very good, uplifting meeting and we were also instructed on and authorized to use Facebook and other things to proselyte online!  We can have blogs, email, do facebook, use skype and some other things.  All of it, of course is meant to help us fulfill our role the help others come closer to Christ, so we can't just chat with friends, but if there are friends back home that come to us with questions or wanting to learn, we can talk to them.  I'm working on cleaning up my facebook to make it missionary-like, so hopefully I'll have that up and running soon.  I'm probably also going to start a blog out here, but I might do it in Spanish, we'll see.  And yeah we're getting iPads and iPhones in a couple weeks, so that'll be sweet!  I'm looking forward to letting you know how that goes.  That night we went to Paul's house and he gave us some great Italian food!  That was about it.

Saturday, after being encouraged by President Morgan to spend more time on our bikes, we did such and went out on our bikes for the day.  We got some good lessons in and some good exercise after doing some faecbook.

Sunday we had Stake Conference!  It was good and there were a lot of good inspired speakers. We spent some time on facebook and then got out and had some lessons.

Monday we had district meeting in Highland Falls in the apartment of the Senior Couple in our district, the Hohosh's.  That was fun and afterwards, we went on an exchange- Elder Kerr came with Elder Nelson and I, so that was fun.  We stopped by a less active in Highland Falls as she was heading out the door.  She has had some discouraging times recently and so we were giving her some uplifting words when she just said "I love listening to you guys," after which she sat down and we shared a lesson.  That was cool seeing her faith and desire to hear the gospel.

Tuesday was good- we cranked out some good lessons.  I also got to talk to my buddy, Salvatore, who runs a pizza shop by the Sister's apartment.  My Italian is kind of coming along- I'm hoping to place an Italian Il Libro di Mormon the next time I see him.

Today- we're going on a tour of Westpoint!  It's kind of chilly, but it should be fun! 

Things are going well!  Things are still beautiful, although it is a little chilly.  The winter is coming soon, but things are still great!  I love the mission and I'm looking for another great week!  Thanks for the support and I hope you have a great week too!

-Elder Griffiths

Finally a few pictures...

The Newburgh District

Baptism of Sebastian and Josh

View from the Westpoint Missionaries' apartment.  Nice!

Watermelon bus on Broadway in Newburgh.  Bus???

La Buena Vida del Trio

Buenas Tardes!

Things are great here in Orange County!  The trees are as beautiful as ever and I am loving the weather.  I'm just trying to soak it in because I'm going to be missing out on a good eastern fall for the next few years after this.

Being in a trio hasn't been too bad at all.  I feel like we've got a good dynamic as a companionships and we haven't run into any problems at all.  Being in a trio is nice because then we only need one priesthood holder to come with us to do a split, so we've been trying to get those going consistently.  Doing such is getting the branch more involved and is probably just going to lead to some great success!

We actually had a baptism last weekend!  It was from the other guys, so I was kind of brought into that baptism.  Her name is Claudia and Elder Lewis and I actually started a connection with her less active grandma, Reyna.  We had been working with Reyna and she had come back to church when the other missionaries came in.  We passed Reyna off to them and then in a little bit of time they started working with Claudia, and she decided to be baptized.  Reyna is now fully participating in church and Claudia is as well.  I had the honor of confirming her in church on Sunday so that was sweet (I also gave a talk, blessed the sacrament, gave the lesson in Priesthood and it seems like I did some other things too- I've had plenty of opportunities to serve out here- haha it's been great).  So yeah things went well with that, and we're figuring out how to balance the work of both areas for the time being.  Some people are falling through the cracks and we haven't had a lot of free time to find and get other people going, but we certainly have been busy.

Things are going well and the work is certainly going forward!  I hope everyone is doing well at home!

-Elder Griffiths

Un Tiempo de Cambios

Hey Everybody!

Fall most certainly is here!  The leaves are beautiful and I'm so grateful to be serving here.  I love the weather and the general atmosphere- it's so great.  I'll try to get a couple of pictures that sent off sometime soon to show what's been going on...

Anyways, this week has been interesting!  My companion actually had to go home to attend to some family matter back at home, so I got slapped on with Elder Warner and Elder Nelson who came in to take over the other half of the area when it was split.  We're back down to just one companionship covering it all, but at least with a trio, all it takes is one member to go out with us for us to be able to do a split, so we're working on having that down to help things keep running smoothly.  We should have both areas back up and running at the very least at the next transfers.  We'll see what happens in the meantime!

Anyways, crazy stuff has been going on all over this week!  Thursday we had to drive all the way down to Scarsdale again to finish getting our car fixed.  We then went again on Monday so that my companion could talk to President.  I've been to the office four times in the last six weeks or so, having never been there before.  The office elders delivered some stuff to our apartment on Friday and commented on how they had been seeing us a lot.  Elder Lee's (on of the office elders) face was great when we walked into the office on Monday.  Haha so that's definitely been interesting.  Another tricky thing- Friday-Saturday.  We had an exchange with the Zone Leaders on Friday, ending Saturday morning.  Friday night we realized that the Zone Leaders had to do a baptismal interview for Elder Nelson and Elder Warner, but they had agreed to come with Elder Holbrook and I to an appointment where we needed them at the same time.  After a crazy group planning session with the six of us, we somehow decided to have one of the zone leaders go with each of the companionships for the entire day.  It was a little crazy and hard to explain, but it was a lot of fun and we were able to get a lot done on both sides.  Sunday was fun too!  We hung out at the church and helped our branch president, President Romero, fill out the quarterly report.  President Romero is a funny guy, so I had a good time joking around with him and the branch clerk, Brother Milton.  After serving here in Newburgh, I'm actually pretty familiar with MLS.  I probably shouldn't be- not sure if they should be involving missionaries in such things, but oh well- haha.  Tuesday we spent the morning/early afternoon reaaranging the apartment.  We ended up taking out bunk beds and putting them together so that the top bunk is actually between two lower beds instead of just one.  Things have been pretty good!  Things are going well and as enjoyable as ever.  We're just adjusting to the trio life, but we're finding out lots of advantages to being a trio, so it's good!

Thanks for all the love and support back home!  You guys are great and I hope you have a good week!

-Elder Griffiths

Dios Abre las Puertas

October 9, 2013

Hello all!

This week has been great as it has flown by!  I think I'll just stop talking about how fast time is going because it probably gets pretty annoying.  Anywho, yeah it was a good week.  Wednesday was not too shabby, nor was Thursday.  Friday we had a bunch of stuff planned, set appointments and everything from 11:30 and on, but then things just didn't go as we planned (though they did go how God planned).  Nevertheless Paul came in to the rescue and offered us dinner at his house.  He's a third generation Italian so he makes some really good red sauce (says that Italians call it gravy) and I got the recipe for it!  So that was a treat- he's great and will put anybody in a good mood.  Saturday and Sunday were great- good ol' conference!  We watched all but the last session at the church- we watched the last session at Paul's house.  I loved conference and got a lot out of it, especially as I tried to prepare myself for it with specific questions in mind.  Monday was a pretty good day- there was a tornado watch for the first part of the day, so that slowed us down, but afterwards we had some pretty cool experiences (I'll share one in a second).  Tuesday was good- we had a nice bike ride from the church to Newburgh.  We've done it twice now and it takes about half an hour, but the weather is perfect for such.  And it's just beautiful outside with the trees changing and stuff, so I'm not going to complain about that.  So it was a good week!  Today we're going on a hike, the same one we did on my birthday, so that will be fun.  And then after that, back to work!

Anyways, Monday we had a cool experience.  I wrote to President Morgan about it, so I'll just share what I shared with him...

People have been pretty inconsistent with us lately- scheduling appointments and then not being able to meet with us- but Elder Holbrook and I have faith that such only happens so that we get to where Heavenly Father needs us. We had a cool experience Monday. An appointment fell through, as did the back up, so when listened to and followed the Spirit as He directed us. After a little while we ended up at a less active family's apartment. They live on the second floor and the door to the stairs is normally locked, but we had a strong impression to just confidently open the door and go on up. We did that and the door opened with ease! We knocked on the door of this family's house and they gladly let us in. We found out that their phones hadn't been working and for that reason they hadn't responded to our texts or calls. We had an impromptu family home evening with them wherein we learned that they had been fighting amongst each other and having a hard time. By the end of the night they were cheerful and we could feel love once again present in their home. They were grateful and so were we. I know that Heavenly Father guided us there and through that experience we gained their confidence, helped them out, regained contact with a family with great potential (one of the members of the family told us to stand outside and yell her name when we want to come over and she would come let us in), and we saw God's hand in our lives. I'm grateful for the experience and all the experiences that I've been blessed with in this service as a missionary. I know that it is His work.

Cool stuff just keeps coming.  Sometimes here in the mission field, just as in normal life, life can seem kind of dreary and lackluster in the moment, but when you take a step back and look at things as a whole you can really see how God is guiding us and see His hand at work in our lives.  That's one of my favorite things about being out here- having been able to have my vision of such improved and better seeing God's hand in everything.  I know he loves us all and is giving us our life experience, the end ultimately being our happiness.  So keep chugging on and look for the good- it's there!

Thanks for everything- I hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Griffiths

Los Transferencias Vinieron y Voy a...

Quedarme aqui.

Hello!

For those of you non-Spanish speakers, I am staying put here in Newburgh!  With Elder Holbrook too!  I'm excited because I love this area and Elder Holbrook is great too!  Our apartment (which are the missionaries in our branch) stayed the same, so we're just going to keep on trucking.  I don't have a ton of time, so I'll just share a couple brief things...

Primo, il mio italiano e molto bene!  Not really, but I've had some experiences that have been sort of Heavenly Father giving me the go ahead to keep learning it.  Yesterday we met a guy from Italy, just talking to him on the street.  I spoke a little Italian to him, but he didn't seem too interested.  Later we went to the Hernandez's house, a member that feeds us every Tuesday, and the daughter took Italian in high school as does her friend who we taught a lesson to, so we were speaking a little Italian last night.  And then today we stopped by a Pizza place in Elder Topham's old area on the way back from transfers and I talked to the owner in a little Italian.  I don't have much down, but maybe by the end of the mission, I'll be able to hold a simple conversation.  We'll see!

We had a cool experience Saturday night.  We were driving to the people that we had planned to see, but things weren't lining up to work out well.  We felt like we should head down to Highland Falls (West Point area) to visit a less active, so we did.  That less active was not there, though, so we went to another less active who lives down the street.  We found the family home, but the mom was super sick, so we gave her a blessing.  She told us that she had been praying all day, and then we suddenly appeared.  I'm grateful to have been an answer to a prayer, and I love to see God guiding us in His work.  Learning how we personally hear the Spirit is so important and so handy and it's something that I'm learning.

Things are going well!  This cycle is going to be great!  And I look forward to shooting you off a good report next week!

-Elder Griffiths