Cultural Experience in the Bronx

May 20, 2014

Hello all!

Welp. Don't think I will be saying much this time- we are down at the temple about to go into a session. But this week was good! I will hit some of the highlights...

Friday morning we went to go do service at the Antwines, members that were moving out (he is a pro wrestler- no worries, I got an autographed poster). Doreatha was going to drive the truck- there was a miscommunication though and it took forever for them to get there.  In the meantime, we were super close to little Italy and we went there- that pumped me up. I talked a little to some people and it was good. I feel like Italians don't always get pumped when you speak their language like Spanish people do. Sometimes they do. But it definitely pumped me up. Go Italy!

Saturday night we had a culture extravaganza in New Rochelle as a stake activity. Doreatha went and had a great time. And so did we!  They did some good dancing and had some good food afterwards, and it was dandy. You should ask Doreatha about it!

Yesterday I went on a split with Elder Meek. We came out together, but haven't served together until now. It was good! We had a good time, learned and grew together spoke Spanish, and yeah it was uplifting all around. I think one of the coolest things was hands out a copy of The Book of Mormon in French. We we're doing church tours and a person came by that spoke French. I could kind of understand, and so I got enough to give her Le Livre de Mormon that I had on hand ( I am trying to carry one at all times nowadays). It was cool! Hopefully I will have more experiences like that.

One thing I have been trying to put into practice is the principle of a council. Working together and acknowledging that disagreement, when handled properly, brings about the best result. I used to approach disagreement in a different way- I avoided it because I always felt mad when I would argue, but experiences out here have led me to step back and listen to the other side and work together when those disagreements come. You have to be humble, you have to be patient, and you have to genuinely want to understand where the other person is coming from. That can be tough, but it brings about the best results- maintaining a relationship, good and balanced decisions, etc. Elder Kia and I don't always agree, but we are grateful for that because we have been able to have that much more of well rounded decisions, and on top of that we love each other! It is great!

Things are great! Thanks for the support and I hope you have a great week!

-Elder Griffiths

It Was Mom

May 14, 2014

Hello!

Another good week come and gone! Things are starting to heat up- there was no mercy period- it was cold, then cool and wet and now it is getting super hot. But life moves on! We are just bracing ourselves because the Bronx just smells bad all around during he summer- haha

Anywhoo, this week was sweet! Lots of good stuff! First off, Xzavier was baptized! There was a lot of good ward support, and Elder Davidson came up from his area in Hunt's Point (south Bronx) and it all made for a great baptism. Right before the baptism, we had a cool Zone APF where we split up into three groups and hit some of the more crowded intersections in the Bronx- Fordham and Webester, Fordham and Grand Concourse and down on 161 by Yankee Stadium. We asked people why they were grateful for their mothers and then had them wrote it down. We posted it on Facebook on a page called "it was mom" for all to see. It was a good event- we didn't find a ton of people, but we planted a lot of seeds and boosted our zone unity for sure. Saturday was a busy, packed day, but it was good!

Cool thought about goal setting that I have experienced recently.
Often times we get disappointed when we don't reach a goal. I have come to see, however, that sometimes setting a goal is a necessary means to bring about a different but still good result. For example, yesterday on a split with an awesome missionary, a Elder Schneider, we were about to get on a longer bus ride to go see Doreatha. We had one more Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet that we hadn't handed out while street contacting, and before getting on the bus, we set a goal to teach that lesson and give that pamphlet out. We planned to sit strategically so that we could talk to someone and we planned to open our mouths. We went forward with those plans and talked to a family for most of the ride over there. It wasn't about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we didn't give them a pamphlet, but we did have a good uplifting gospel conversation that was hopefully what they needed. We didn't reach our goal, but we gave God something to work with and for that, he used us as instruments in a His hands. As we set goals, we might not always achieve them, but we should be nothing but grateful for what He has allowed us to do. As a missionary, if we only teach 6 lessons while shooting for 26, we still have to be grateful for 6 opportunities to change a life. So set goals! Make plans that demonstrate your faith that you can achieve them, and do all you can to get there, and then be grateful for whatever happens.

Nothing else comes to mind right now to talk about. We are about to have a zone activity- volleyball here at the church. Things are great- thanks for all the support! Hope you have a great week!

-Elder Griffiths

Ups and Downs. And Ups. And Ups.

May 7, 2014

Hello all!

This week had its ups and downs for sure. Luckily, in the context of the gospel the ups are always a lot bigger than the downs. I think a lot of the downs just came from a combination of making transitions/taking over the area/preparing for zone meeting/trying to squeeze in monthly planning/depending on public transportation/a ton of cold rain and other little stressors here and there. I had some humbling moments, but now that that is out of the way, let me tell you of the much good that came!

First off, being with Elder Kia is great! He is full of faith and knows his purpose out here. At the same time, we are having a good time doing the work- we have been setting fun goals in addition to other goals. For example, work in telling a joke during a contact, slip a nice note into another missionaries pocket, choose a baseball team and contact everybody wearing that team's hat, etc. Doing such keeps things from being mundane and has pumped me up when I am feeling down. He is great and we will have a great cycle or two together!

We set four new baptismal dates for people to be baptized by the end of the month. One is Xzavier- this story is awesome! I am just going to copy and paste from the zone Facebook page...

Elder Kia and I went to our investigator Xzavier's house last night. Xzavier has been putting off baptism for awhile now, so we decided to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to him and his family. His family is kind of crazy, but one by one they went off to do their own things leaving us with Xzavier and his mom and so we talked out baptism with him. Elder Kia popped out the calendar and pointed to May 10 to get my approval. He didn't know that Elder Davidson and I had planned out everything, after last Zone Meeting, to get him to be baptized on May 10. We already had it all planned out, and I was barely holding on to that idea of Xzavier getting baptized on the 10th, but we went for it. We exercised our faith and watched the Spirit work in him to get from saying "maybe" to "possibly" to "I might" to "I am going to do it!" He is getting baptized in  a week. I know that because we exercised our faith as we monthly planned, and kept going with that plan, God blessed us. I know that we will be able to expect that in the future and we hope all of you can build your faith off of the experience with which God has blessed us.

Just for some more context, Xzavier is a fifteen year old and is the last nonmember in his family. His family is great and I actually was in a lesson with them a year or so ago before any of them were baptized- I was on a split and we went there. So that was a miracle for sure! And then Garron is a twelve year old son of a recent convert- his mom was baptized in September last year. He agreed to be baptized on the 24th of this month, and is still feeling good about that. We also committed another son of a recent convert to be baptized and the 24th. We had a powerful lesson with the spirit present. Better than us giving a logical argument on why he should be baptized, we testified and let he spirit give him the hope that he needed and resolve the concerns that we can't see, and so he is on board. We also had a lesson with a guy named Jovan- he has come to church twice now independent of our efforts. We talked with him and it was probably the weirdest lesson I had- he claims to be the Messiah preparing for his second coming. Typical story from the Bronx... But we know and have faith that God can help him to understand things and can change things and set them straight in his mind as he is taught true doctrine, so we set a goal with him of the 24th of this month, and a return appointment for Friday. I have been tempted to deem him as crazy and move on, and have repented of already having done such, but I know that he is a son of God who needs some direction in his life. He also is a lot more humble than the other self proclaimed Messiahs that I have met or heard of out here. So yep :T Those are the people we are working with. Things are exciting! We are shooting for five baptisms this month, so pray for Xzavier, Garron, Bentley, especially Jovan, and then  a miracle!

Things are good! Chugging away at goals. I haven't had as much time in the past week to work on the French, but I still had a couple of opportunities to speak it- a couple contacts on the bus, members on Sunday at church and then a senior couple that inspected our apartment both speak French (I could understand them pretty well, but when I was beginning to learn Spanish I understood white people a lot better than natives). This week I should have a little more time (usually I take a little time at nights, during breakfast/lunch and a little bit of language study when I actually have language study- not the priority since I'm out of the Spanish program I guess). And then less active work is going well- Doreatha came to church this week for the first time since I have been here. She is a tough cookie sometimes, but I am excited for you guys to meet her, in about a week and a half now, huh? She is excited to go to the Lawrenceville Ward, so that will be good for her. Things are great- I love the mission!

Thanks for the support and prayers! You guys are great and I hope you have a good week!

-Elder Griffiths

I Heart the Bronx

Reflections

Hello all!

Transfers came and.... I am staying put!  But Elder Davidson went off to trio train in Olmstead, the other half of the Bronx. He will be finishing up the training and starting the training of another visa waiter for Ukraine. They might end up being Russian speakers in our mission- we will see- but Elder Davidson should have a great time there! In the meantime I got Elder Kia! He was up in Middletown for my first three cycles in Newburgh. Middletown is the other half of Orange County that we didn't cover, so we were in the same zone and saw each other from time to time. He is an awesome missionary and I am excited to be with him and he is excited to be with me, so that pumps me up! It will be a great cycle!

I am trying to think of what happened this week. Normally I use a planner to write down what we did for the day and little notes here and there about what happened (planners are outlawed here- have to put everything in the iPads, so I am putting to use the Italian planners I obtained during a visit to the mission office supply storage area), but we are at the Inwood chapel (North Manhattan) waiting for the missionaries to come down from upstate and so I do not have it. But I will try to cover a couple of highlights of this week.

Monday I used some French! There was a couple of women that sat next to me on the bus speaking French. I threw out a little bit of what I knew, but luckily one of them spoke English. It definitely humbled me and has given me more motivation to keep learning. Good ol' opportunity to be accountable. Another thing-Friday Elder Davidson went to a trainers meeting, so I was paired up with Elder B, somebody I served with in Newburgh. It was cool seeing how he had progressed and gotten over some things that he had worked with in Newburgh. He is going home just a couple weeks before I am so we had a good time reflecting on the mission. We spent the time in his area down in Olmstead, and that was cool seeing a different part of the Bronx. I got a good picture that I will include. We also picked up a couple new investigators, so pray for me! Their names are Charles, Tiana, Tyrone, and Shanti. We have a goal to baptize 100 before the end of May, so pray for them and pray for us! We need the help. We have too much going on and we need all the help we can get to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. But it will be good! A good load makes for good traction and forward progress.

Yesterday I had a moment where I saw a vision of what the mission has done for me so far. It doesn't seem fair that I come out on top, that I gain more than I could ever give. I came on a mission to give back, to help others gain hope that for a time I didn't feel. I have tried to give what I can to help others come closer to Christ, but in the process, I have come closer to Christ and the experiences I have had out here have built a foundation that will help my family, my career, those I serve and all aspects of my life. It is incredible. You give a little to God and He gives you so much more in return. I am filled with gratitude, especially with the fact that I have time left to serve. These last few weeks have been some of the most profound weeks, and I look forward to what God has in store for the next while!

Thanks for the great support and love! You has are awesome and I hope you have a good week!

-Elder Griffiths

Banana Splittin'!

Good Afternoon!

Things are great here in the Bronx! This past week has certainly been an eventful one so I will spare you a boring intro talking about the weather and I will tell you about ten awesome experiences I have had this past week. Here we go:

1. On the way back from the Bronx zoo, I decided to try to contact this guy on the bus. Usually when I am with a big group of missionaries, I try to just spend time with them talking with them and use that as an excuse to not talk to people. Talking to this guy was okay- he seemed a little drunk or something. But after he got off, a couple stops down a girl actually started talking with me- I had probably the best bus/train contact I have ever had- talked about the restoration and committed her to read The Book of Mormon. The sisters went on a little after we got off, and they say that she had already started reading. Cool stuff happens when you do what God wants!

 2. Thursday- started working with a couple of less actives. Stephanie and Yoneiry are awesome- they love the bible and say that we don't talk about the bible enough at church. That is not too bad of a problem to work out, so I am looking forward to working with them. And Sister Burke- I actually met her while I was on a split with a Spanish elder that works in our area. She is solid- she is from Jamaica and has a great testimony and wants to come to church, but she works Saturday to Tuesday taking care of the elderly. As we add our faith to hers, and get the wards faith going as well, our prayers will be answered and she will get Sundays off.

3. For a few hours on Thursday, we went on a split with the assistants. I went with Elder Kerr- he is a great guy. We came out together, he was born on July 31, 1993 and his first name is Jeffrey. What are the odds? But he was my zone leader up in Newburgh- we are good buds so it was fun and uplifting. He reminded me that the best things that we can do as leaders are 1. Live worthily of the Holy Ghost 2. Love those we serve and 3. Teach true doctrine. Doing those three things, in that order will allow us to influence all around us for the better. Split number one this week was great!

4. split number two with Elder Porter. In my old area in concourse. It was sweet! That happened Friday, and it was cool but weird being back there. We visited my recent convert Rafael with his fellowshipping member, Sister Nuñez- that was he best! He is doing well and serving as a secretary in the Elders Quorum presidency and working on getting to the temple. I told him to get there before August, so hopefully I will get to go with him. We saw some other people that I worked with and that was good. Elder Porter is a good guy and I enjoyed getting to know him better.

5. On Saturday we had an activity on Fordham road (one of the busier roads in the Bronx) near the metro-north station (the train that takes us to Scarsdale and other places upstate). Basically what we did was drawn on the sidewalk with chalk "Because of Him" and then had people fill in what they felt came after that phrase. We used our iPads to show people that video (if you haven't seen it go look for it right now! It is called "Because of Him") and it was great! We talked to a lot of people and we got a lot of attention. It was really uplifting for me and everybody involved and I feel like we helped bring  a little bit of the Easter spirit to this part of the Bronx.

6. Sacrament meetings can be crazy in the Bronx. This week we had a drunk guy in there hootin and saying hallelujah and clapping and trying to play this metal flute that he made and tried to kiss Sister Newsome who tried to sit next to her. Sister Newsome is awesome though and that it was sad that they kicked him out because he really needed it. I wish I was more like sister Newsome. At the end, there was a misunderstanding and a really old guy was assisted up to the stand to give what we thought would be a closing prayer. It was a really weird mumbled testimony sort of thing, though, and nobody really knew what to do. We all just bowed our heads and looked up occasionally and them said amen at the end. Haha it seems like there were some other funny occurrences, but I can't remember them.

7. Sunday we went to Sister Ihrig's house for dinner. She made us real enchiladas de mole and they were pretty good! Sister Ihrig is awesome- she is an engineer and likes may and all that hooplah so we get along. It was a dinner with the whole district so we had a good time all ten of us. She has a good spirit in her home so it was an all around good experience.

8. Monday morning we had kind of a random training meeting before district meeting at the Columbus square chapel (the temple). All of the city missionaries were there and we talked about faith. President came away from a mission president's seminar and was fired up about it. He explained that we can anything when we have focused faith. We focus our faith as we set inspired goals and make plans to accomplish the goals. We can be accountable to one another as we talk about and focus on our goals, in our case, the goals being missionary work related. He gave us a goal to have 100 baptisms between now and the end of May, so we are going to be working on that! That is about twice as many as our mission has baptized in a month before, so it is a good challenge! That meeting fired us up though, and so we will see what happens!

9. Monday night we had dinner at bishop merkley's house. It is just him and his wife- they are younger with no kids. He lives up in Woodlawn and there are a bunch of Irish people up there- that was cool. But they have an awesome spirit in their home, fed us great food and we had a great gospel discussion. We challenged them to look for opportunities to exercise their faith, then take note of what happens when they exercise their faith. They agreed and that fired them up! It was a good experience, but then we missed the bus by like two minutes and the next one came like twenty minutes later and we had a couple of other complications so we got home at like 10:30... Haha it is crazy how long it takes to travel such a short distance. Anyways, we came out of it laughing so it was good.

10. Tuesday I went on a split with Elder Ross- he came out five weeks ago and is still on fire so we took advantage of it. Plus that faith talk from President had pumped us up, so we aimed big. We planned out like six lessons. Lots of people ended up not being there but we kept chugging and working. Even though things didn't work out, we realized that in the attempt to achieve our great goals we had a lot of great experiences. We met like three people on the street that we made retire appointments with and then we got a new investigator from Antigua (Caribbean Island) and a lot of other great thing happened. It was a good lesson for both of us and we both learned a lot. I love that fire!

11. During the day Tuesday, we ran into a couple of French speakers. One was a Haitian on the bus. She was friendly and I threw out what I knew and it opened her up. We gave her a card and knvited her to church. We will see if she comes to church! Then we met a French guy from France as we were doing church tours. He wasn't too interested, but had I had a couple of other hinges to say maybe it would have caught his attention a little more. It was a good opportunity to be accountable- I feel like that is why it has been a little easier to pick up languages is because those goals are easily accounted for when you are put on the spot and have to use it. That motivated me to keep learning, so we will see where I can go.

So yeah good week! Transfers next week- we will see what happens!
Thanks for all and have a good week!

-Elder Griffiths

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

You know when you're back in the Bronx when you start eating platano (plantains)

Je ne parle français

Hello all!

Happy post April fool's day! I must admit yesterday wasn't as eventful as one might please, but maybe that is a good thing. I definitely wasn't thinking last p-day about the fact that April Fool’s Day was coming up, otherwise I might have tried to get something together- brownies that make your pee blue or something. Anyways hope you all had a good one!

This week was a little slow- seems like little things have just been coming up here and there. The work pretty much hit a climax right before I got here (there have been twelve baptisms here in this area in the last six months), but now the work that was going on is complete to a degree. Now we are trying to start things up again, so that takes a little more patience, but I have been grateful for the things we have done thus far. I will just give you a brief summary of what has been going on...

Wednesday- the temple was great! We went and had some good food at a place called Junior's- it has the best cheesecake! After that, we spent our proselyting time helping somebody move a couple of buildings away- good opportunity for service.

Thursday we had some weekly planning, after which we had a coordination meeting with the missionaries in our ward (there are ten of us so it is a good opportunity to talk about things going on as a district and check things out with the dinner calendar and getting on the same page.  It takes a coordinating to work together). Afterwards we did church tours, where we go out on the streets outside of the chapel and invite people to come in and check out the church. It's a good way to get people into the church and feel the spirit, especially as they see the contrast between the hustle and bustle outside and the peace in the chapel. After that, we finished our weekly planning then traveled a little ways to our dinner and that was pretty much the night.

Friday I went on a split with Elder Johanson! I live with him and his companion is my district leader. They are a lot of fun and it was good to get that one-on-one time with him. He is on his second transfer cycle, so he is still good and fresh. He is from Utah but likes Georgia- even has a UGA hoodie that he wears for service and stuff. Anyways, we went "train tracting" where we just go contact on trains, and then we went to look up some media referrals. We found one lady who was a less active, Dominican, but pretty Americanized and she really appreciated us visiting her. We got juked by a guy and so we kept looking others up until we had dinner at Iris's house, a little old Jamaican lady we have every week, then our online event all together as a district- talked about family history. That was the day!

Saturday we went to clean the church, after which we had lunch and then went to a lesson with our investigator Xavier. He is fifteen and the rest of his family was recently baptized (I actually had a lesson with them on a split almost a year ago when I was in concourse) and he says he wants to get baptized eventually, but not right now. He is a good guy and so we are patiently working with him. After that we spent some good time organize less actives on the LDS tools app (getting ready to try to find a bunch of less actives) and then we tried to stop by a less active with whom we are working, but she wasn't there.  We went and met with the other Elders in our district took dinner together and had a "man night" where we just are pizza together while the women were at the broadcast. That was about it for the day.

Sundays are a little harder because we can't really do anything until like 5:00- we have studies and then meetings and them church at 1:30.  What we ended up doing was going to dinner after church, but it was a little ways away and then it was a Dominican member, so she started cooking right when we got there, so it took up the rest of the night.  It was good though- we talked about family history and her parents were there- they were in concourse when I was there so I knew them and talked with them in Spanish. When it came time for the lesson, I just translated for them- I enjoy doing that, it is kind of a fun challenge that keeps me on my feet and definitely makes me pay 100% attention.  And it was good eating some good Spanish food- I love it!

Monday we had district meeting and then I went on an exchange with Elder Nelson. We lived together for four cycles up in Newburgh, so we're good friends so it was cool being able to go with him. He is actually down in Concourse right now in a different area, but lives where I lived when I was there, so that was weird going back to that apartment. We had a good day though- we painted this one lady's house, met with a less active that had some not so pleasant experiences with many other church members, and was basically refusing to go to church. And then we went to a birthday party of a girl in a recently reactivated family. That was fun, but I always feel super out of place at those with all of the Spanish people just having a good time. Haha but we shared a good message and then got on our way.

Tuesday we continued with the exchange (we do it from noon one day to noon the next- that is what President likes). It was a little crazy though because we went back to help the lady we helped paint. We were there from about 8:00am-3:00pm, but she fed us breakfast and lunch.
She had way too much stuff for a tiny little apartment. It was a pain getting it all in there, but we did it! By the time we unsplit, went back, got my stuff, returned to our apartment and I got ready and studied a little, it was about five. We had a little miracle- we were looking some people up and we came to a building that had a list of the residents on it. The name we were looking for wasn't there, so we tried the next closest thing. We knocked and found a completely different person, but she was indeed a member that was hoping to come back to church. We exchanged information and now we are planning on going back in the next week. It was cool to see God guiding us there!  Afterwards, we went to the church and met a part member family there for  lesson, then got juked with a skype lesson, then we had a lesson with a reactivated less active. That was the night!

Today is pretty chill- we don't have anything planned in particular- just hang out, probably go check out what is going on at the church.  We did have an experience this morning at the laundry mat- a lady came up to us and looked at our name tags and said "derniers jours" which is the French equivalent of latter day. She was from Congo and we tried to talk to her and give her a card but she didn't understand very well and refused to take the card. We then eased things up by having her teach us a little French. I felt like that was an experience to justify Elder Davidson’s and my desire to learn French.  Hopefully that won't have to happen again!

Anyways, it was a good week! Sorry for writing so much, but now you kind of have an idea about how things go here. It is a great area and I love Elder Davidson! He is a great missionary, companion and friend.  I look forward to continuing to see great things here.

Thanks for the love and support! Hope you have a great week!

-Elder Griffiths

I < 3 BX

Hello Everybody!

This past week was awesome! Being back here in he Bronx is awesome! I am in a little bit of a different part- I'm in the central northern part- but it is still the Bronx and I really love it. There are so many people to talk to, there are lots of crazy people, and lots of Dominicans. It will take a concentrated effort to forget Spanish because there are so many Spanish speakers around. At the same time, I am being exposed to a lot of Africans- that is new. I have met people from the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Congo and probably some other places. They actually speak French in many of those places and so Elder Davidson and I are going to try to pick up some French- we'll see how that goes! And Elder Davidson is great! He is a solid missionary with a lot of great experience and really good relationships with the ward members. He is from American Fork, Utah and we will actually go home together. He is awesome and I am looking forward to a sweet cycle!

I don't think I have ever been happier! And that is even with all the physical hardships of adjusting and leaving and getting used to things, so good things are coming. I am adjusting to walking everywhere again, and getting used to everything else that comes with the life style here. I can't wait to see how I am feeling when I am into the groove of things and when I am comfortable with all the other missionaries and ward members. Speaking English to them does make it easier to develop relationship (although some of those Jamaican and African accents can be a little tough to understand).

So a couple of cool things. First off, the recent convert in our area Doreatha, got introduced to the church in what ward? The Lawrenceville ward! Dorian is indeed her daughter and she says that she is going to be going and visiting her in May, so maybe we can work it out so that you guys can make some ribs the day she leaves so that I can get them fresh- haha. Anyways, we visit her a couple times a week, so I am looking forward to bonding over Lawrenceville. Cool to see those connections. Another sweet thing- being here in the same zone that I was in before, there are some people with which I have a great relationship, and that might come in handy. For example, last night we went over to Liliana's house, a member in concourse, with the sisters that cover her. She went through a rough patch in the past little while since I had been there, got offended and completely stopped going to church. She stopped meeting with the missionaries too. I messaged her on Facebook to see if we could come, and she said for sure! So we went and they were there and we had a good time, but a good bold lesson letting them know that the sisters would be helping her and her family get back to church in time. She set up a return appointment with the sister, exchanged Facebook names/contact info and started off what should be a great relationship. I am grateful to be able to be an instrument in that way and I look forward to having other possible opportunities to do the same. The Bronx is great!

I love being here and am looking to go out with a bang! I am excited to give you a good report next week. Thanks for keeping me updated! Have a great week!

-Elder Griffiths

P.S. Went to the temple today- it was sweet! Time flies when you go to the temple. But that's okay!