How Bad Do You Want It?

April 9, 2014

Hello all!

Yet another good week has passed. Time has been going even quicker since I got to the Bronx- maybe it is just the pace of the city that is making things seem that way. I just have to hold on tight and keep going!

Anyways, this week has been a doozie as far as receiving revelation goes. We had interviews on Thursday, Mission Leadership Council on Friday, Conference on Saturday and Sunday, then Zone meeting on Monday. We spent pretty much all our time between sessions of conference preparing for the zone meeting and applying the things that we had learned at Mission Leadership Council (aka MLC, where president and the assistants give us trains on what we need to focus on as a mission and stuff). That made things a little stressful, but the things that I have learned this past week have really had a great impact on how I am not only going to finish my service here, but also how I am going to do things after the mission too. So let me tell you about it...

Basically, a lot of what I have learned has to do with goal setting and planning. In my interview with president, I ask him if he had any advice for me. He told me he quote by President Kimball, "make no small plans; they have no magic to stir the souls of men." He told me to go climb a mountain, not to just go with the swing of things, but to do great things as I go on with my service. The next day at MLC he talked about goal setting and planning for those goals. We should set goals with faith and exercise that faith by making plans to accomplish that goal. With the special blessing of having iPads, he told us that we need to put those plans in the iPads as to do tasks, specific events and things that need to happen to get people baptized or reactivated. Our plans should reflect how bad we want to accomplish goals. I noticed my faith increasing as I listened to him and the general authorities the next couple of days. I feel like I can do anything, so that has been helping me to be motivated to work harder than ever. I hope to hold on to that and keep chugging for the rest of my life. Should be good! And we were reminded that just as we often times don't notice our heart beat even though it is always there, The Lord is always guiding us, there with us even if we don't notice Him. As we seek to notice Him and His hand in our lives and in the lives of others, we can really be uplifted! It is great!

Thanks for the support! I don't have much more time to write anything else (we are heading down to the city- gonna hit up Chinatown and a couple of other hot spots), but I hope you have a great week!

-Elder Griffiths