Somos Cuatro

Good evening!

Feels bad saying that (emailing this late), but when you get back to your area after 4:00, still have to eat lunch/dinner, and have got to do some grocery shopping, you're not left with much time.  We'll hit to it tomorrow for sure though.

Here's the status update though!  I'm still here in Newburgh, but now I am with Elder Holbrook!  He's from Syracuse, UT and we served in the same zone in the Bronx.  He's been out since about January, so he's got some good time under his belt.  They have indeed split the area, so now there are four missionaries in the branch.  We have four bikes and a car that we'll share and we live with the other missionaries- Elder Warner, we came out at the same time, and Elder Nelson, who was just down in Harlem.  We're probably going to be working somewhat as a foursome for the next few days until we've got everything completely handed off.  I'm excited about that- we're going to be good and unified!  They just all have a lot of unpacking to do and whatnot.

This past week flew by for sure.  I can't even remember what all happened, but we spent some time saying goodbye to people during the past couple of days.  That time between "shock calls" and transfers can be kind of frustrating with everybody wanting to do so much for us, but at least we eat well.  Otherwise we did the normal- teaching, teaching, teaching.

There are two experiences that were really great that we had- first was Saturday.  Everything was falling through.  Nobody was home at all.  It was just rough because we had a bunch of stuff planned out.  Such made me reflect on why we plan.  Sometimes, on days like those it seems like it's worthless to plan- we should just not even take the time.  But two things with that- one, that's prideful on our part, wanting things to go the way that we want, only worrying about our desires, and two, God often times already has things worked out and things fall through because he needs us somewhere else.  We plan to give God something to work with, to show that we care and to try to make good use of His time and resources.  That's not just a missionary thing, though.  Often times life doesn't go according to plan and so going with the flow is a tempting thing.  I think it's best, however, to have a game plan, but be flexible and able to roll with the punches.  We're always going to be led to what's best for as as we seek to what's right, so we just need to have faith that when we come to an unexpected bend in the road, only the best waits on the other side.  I know that's so true!

Second- we had a lesson with a less active who is living with an investigator.  They haven't been to church in awhile, and we were concerned with that.  Just before I got here, the less active was told she couldn't take the sacrament, so we felt like she took offense at that and didn't come because of such.  We planned, then, to talk about the importance of not partaking the sacrament, but how we should still come to church (3 Nephi 18:28-33 is good talking about that).  We got into the lesson and I did not want to talk about that- I felt like it would be uncomfortable and I was afraid they wouldn't take it well.  The Spirit reassured me by that burning in my chest that that was what we needed to talk about.  I still was a little hesitant, but then God reprimanded me during the prayer, asking me if I was more scared of man than of Him.  I thought hard about that and then a switch went off in my mind.  The prayer ended and then we started teaching.  At first they seemed really ify about what we were telling them and it was kind of awkward, but as we had confidence in the message that we brought and testified to them boldly but lovingly, the Spirit led us to having a very powerful lesson.  We expressed of how we are messengers of the truth and sometimes it hurts to hear the truth, but we only do that to help them, not for our satisfaction nor because we're told to but because we want the best for them.  They really felt something and the lesson ended very well.  They said they would try really hard to come back to church, so we'll see!  I know that we are messengers of the truth and that as we fear God, have confidence in the message we bring and share it with others with love, we can really impact somebody else.  This work is so real!

So yep, this is going to be a good week!  Maybe a little slower as we get things going, but as we do get things going, we're going to hopefully set the pace of the work in this branch.  I'm excited, and happy as ever so I look forward to a good report next week!  Thanks for all your support!  Hope you have a great week!

- Elder Griffiths