Por las Cosas Pequenas

Hello All!

I guess while everybody is talking about weather, I'll put in my little bit. It's been fairly warm here in the city (I've just been going out in my suit coat, no over coat) for three days out of the past week and that's been good. Yesterday, though, it got back to being cold and today it's cold and wet and not pleasant. The wind and moisture make it kind-of-cold to not pleasant at all.

Anyways, things are going well here! Things are definitely picking up and this last week was solid. I'm going to send you a chunk of my letter to President about how things are going...

We did very well in having lessons with members and we feel like we're making good progress! Since last week we've had some good meetings with the Young Men's President, Counselor in the Bishopric over missionary work and Bishop Gamez that have given us plenty of work to do and have started the ball rolling to really strengthen this area and make it flourish. We're going to be working on the ward mission plan, the role of ward missionaries in that plan, setting up better correspondence between all of the ward auxiliaries and many more exciting things. We've presented ourselves as happy helpers in whatever the ward wants us to do and we're planning on following through and being the help that they needed. We feel like we're getting more and more support of the members as we take them out and work with them and things are looking great! I just can see the Lord hastening His work and it's a great honor to be a part of it. I can't wait to continue to move forward in the work and see everything play out!

So like I said, things are going well! There are definitely still frustrations here and there, but over all we're seeing great progress. Last Wednesday after the temple and writing home, we had dinner at the Young Men's presidents house and we just talked about the work, particularly in regards to the Young Men. He's a solid guy going to Colombia Law school and we've been working with him a good bit lately. We ate barbecue (served his mission in North Carolina) and that was sweet! Thursday we did weekly planning, passed out some English flyers and then went and had some solid appointments with some members and less actives. We ate Sancoche at a less active's house. It's a Dominican left over stew that's pretty good but sometimes has chicken or cow feet in it and stuff like that. Friday we went and did stuff in the Sister's area (West side- we worked down pretty close to Times Square where there are a just a bunch of big, nice buildings), then went to English class. Saturday we went to a lunch appointment in the Sister's area where we ate Saviche (Ecuadorean dish that consists of sea food with onions. I hate it, and ate as little as possible), then we went to a couple of great appointments. Sunday we had one investigator at church, but we had a couple of less actives that were there. Afterwards, we went on a goose chase to get some money to a member who was going out to Ecuador for a funeral then we got to an appointment late and that was it because we have church at 1:00. Monday we had district meeting and then afterwards we finished our studies, passed out some English class flyers, went to the hospital to give a blessing, then went to one of the bishopric members house for dinner and had a great talk with him. And ate great, non-Hispanic food, not that Hispanic food is bad, but it was good going back to some home cooked gringo food. Yesterday we went and did some service at an old folks home on the west side where everybody speaks Spanish, then went and did some street contacting as a Zone in our area (I'm getting better about going up to random people in the streets and just talking to them about the church- I used to have a really hard time doing such.) After that we tried looking up a less active, then we went to an appointment and got juked, so then we just went with the young men's president (who was with us) to one of the less active families that we've been working with and just had a good visit with them. That was about it for the night. And here we are today. We were going to go downtown and just walk around but things aren't looking like they're going to work out, but that's okay because it's not nice outside and I'm enjoying just sort of chilling today and not being to pressed with time. So yeah like I said, things are going well! We're working together and getting stuff done and starting to see the fruits of our labors and things are just going to keep picking up! We haven't had any baptisms yet, but we've done a good bit to just strengthen the ward and we're looking forward to chugging a lot and keeping it up! One thing we've taught and I've seen play out is the idea that "by small and simple things are great things brought to past" (Alma 37:6-7) because it's true. The road to eternal life is made up of small steps taken one at a time. As we spend a little bit of time reading scriptures everyday, praying everyday, going to church every week, these little things add up and take us to great places. It's been really cool seeing that play out and I challenge anybody reading this to give that principle some good thought.

Thanks for all the support from back home! I hope everything is going well!

-Elder Griffiths