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

Seguir Adelante

Hello Everybody!

This week was great!  It flew by like nobody's business, but it was still great!  The temple was awesome and being in the city again was good (although seeing the people down there made me glad that I'm up here- they're hard to approach and talk to...).

Yesterday we had a mission conference- Elder Bruce Carlson came and it was good.  We had to wake up at 5:00 to get down to Scarsdale on time (and we have to do something similar tomorrow to get a repair done to our car- be to Scarsdale by 8:00.  We're just going to do weekly planning in the office as we wait- maybe we'll be able to get some good insight from President Morgan...), so we were a little tired through the conference, but we still got a lot out of it.  He continued to reinforce the idea of consecration and how we need to continue to work towards it.  One thing that he said that I've definitely seen is that it doesn't matter where we are but where we're going.  A sinner going forward is in a way better position that a saint moving backwards.  Consecration is a hard thing- giving our all to God, but it's something to work towards.  As we live the gospel, we're not at all paying our way into heaven- the price has already been paid.  We're just preparing ourselves for what's to come.  He gave a good analogy- if you take piano lessons, chances are your parents have already paid for them, but you've got to take the time to practice and use what they've given you.  You can use those lessons to help you accomplish great things, like going to Carnagie Hall and playing there, or you can let it go to waste.  Either way it's been paid, you just personally decide what to do with that which you have been given.  We need to prepare ourselves by living to the fulness of the gospel, being obedient and having faith to repent and become more like Christ.  I know this gospel is true and that as we give ourselves to God, He makes a whole lot more out of us than we could otherwise become.

Things are going great!  The area is really getting pumped up and we can totally see that the Lord is hastening His work.  Just a month and a half ago there were only two Spanish missionaries here in Orange County, but next week, with transfers, we've got good reason to believe that there will be another set to go work over in the Middletown Ward because of the efforts of the other Spanish guys in our branch.  It's super cool to see that- we're a part of one of the biggest things to happen in the history of the world- the hastening of the work of the Lord.  I hope to continue to help you see how things really are moving forward!  Things are great!

Thanks for all the support!  Next week is transfers, so we'll see what goes down.  Until then, though, I hope you have a great week!

-Elder Griffiths

Una Semana de Milagros

Buon Giorno! (note frome Mom - Italian, not Spanish)

This past week was great!  And September is already over pretty much, which is crazy.  Training calls come in a week and then shock calls in a week and a half.  You hit a year and time just starts flying...

Anyway, this week was sweet!  Things are really picking up now as far as splitting the area goes.  Yesterday we were blessed to have five lessons, which is about half the lessons we have been getting in the past couple of weeks.  Elder Holbrook and I agree that the Spirit is leading us in ways that we haven't seen before on the mission.  In celebration of that, I'm just going to share some way cool stories that came from that.

Friday we drove down to Scarsdale to get our car checked out- it's had a cracked bumper and plastic hanging down from the bottom since I've been there, so that was a nice hour and a half drive.  Scarsdale is beautiful though- good contrast from Newburgh haha.  After that I went on an exchange with Elder Nelson- he came into the mission as I left Harlem- he and his trainer took one half of the area I had when I was there.  He's one of the ones that split this area too, so we just worked with people that I had worked with last cycle.  Anyways, we came out of our last appointment and had to wait for the other guys to come pick us up (their day with the car).  There was a lady who was sitting on the other side of the stairs that we came out of (it was a duplex).  She looked a little down, so we asked how she was doing.  She said that she was okay.  We started talking- she was from Mexico, so we talked a little about food and all that stuff- that always makes them happy, talking about their culture.  Eventually we talked about her family and how important that they were for her.  We then felt prompted to say some pretty specific words of comfort and we read a good, God sent scripture to her.  She started crying and expressed that we were talking for God and that we had said exactly what she needed.  I hadn't felt like such an instrument in God's hands before- we both felt the Spirit very strong.  We left her with The Book of Mormon and as we drove off, we saw her reading it.  She's pretty busy, but we're going to try to work out a good time to meet with her.  We just opened our mouths and God filled them with what we needed to say.

Sunday night, we had some things planned out after dinner.  We left the apartment after dropping the other Elders off, and we just felt as though what we had planned wasn't right.  We left the apartment just following where the Spirit was telling us to go, taking a left here, right there, etc.  We found ourselves in Washingtonville where we tried looking a couple people up.  We still felt as though we were needed elsewhere.  We started heading over to Vails Gate where we felt as though we should visit a person whose address from the directory did not work.  Elder Holbrook was blessed with some inspiration to use something called "Tell Me" (call in information thing- we use it know what the weather is going to be like) to find where they lived.  That worked and so we went off!  We walked in a hurry up to their apartment door and knocked.  A whole family answered, we sat down and just started testifying of how God had sent us there.  They told us that they went to a different church, but that they recognized that God has sent us there too and they are willing to listen.  We shared a short message and set up a time to return tonight.  I'm excited to see where things go with that!

Last night, we were coming out of a less actives house when the name of another less active came to mind.  It was 8:55 so usually visiting somebody would be a little unconventional.  We decided to go with it though, and we called him and he said come on up for a few minutes.  We had found out that he had gotten in a car crash and was going into court the next day and so we were able to share a message with him that built his faith.  It was great and I know that God guided us right to him.

Things are going well!  I'm grateful to have a part in this great work and I know that his is the work of the Lord.  Thank you for all your support in such- hope you have a great week!

-Elder Griffiths

Hello all!

Good week!  Seems like it wasn't terribly eventful, but I bet as I get more into, I'll remember some of the better details of such.  I guess I'll break it down day by day.

Wednesday-  Went with Elder Warner and Elder Nelson (other Spanish Elders with whom we share a car) to a dinner appointment with an investigator.  It ran long, so we only had time to bike over to one of the members that lives in our area to ask if she could come with us to a lesson the next day, and then we biked home.

Thursday- Weekly Planning.  We got in with Julia and had a short and sweet lesson with her and the member we stopped by on Wednesday- Hermana Landaburu.  The members always save the day- Hermana Landaburu was able to build Julia's faith and help her to find out some answers to some of her questions.  Afterwards we went around to some people that we thought would be home, but people have just been flaky in this area so far.  We knocked into a guy who talked to us for a little while.  He gave us cookies and took The Book of Mormon, so that was good.

Friday- Exchange!  Well first we went to la familia Tantao.  They're Puerto Rican (Boricuas) and she feeds a lot, so we got hit hard with rice and some beef stew and tostones (fried plantains- good stuff!).  Afterwards we went down to Highland Falls so that we could switch up for an exchange.  I went with Elder Wangsgard (who is from Logan area- Mendon I think...) in the West Point area.  That area covers Highland Falls, Fort Montgomery and of course West Point Military Acadamy.  It's a cool area and we had a good split!  Having a good old American Dinner again was nice.  But I do love the Spanish food I get.

Saturday-  Baptism!  The other guys had a baptism for Josh.  I got to perform the baptism, but they finished up teaching him and stuff (so we're still looking to get one this month- keep praying for us!).  It was a good service and he said some good inspiring things that only a kid could say.  Later we went to our progressing less active's house Mery and Carlos!  They're great and they want to go to the temple, so going there is always uplifting.

Sunday-  We had a good day at church after which we went to a couple appointments.  We felt an impression to go drop by the house of somebody who is on the ward list that we haven't met yet.  We dropped by and found that that person had moved, but the person's mom who isn't a member had a sister who passed away so we were able to help her find comfort from The Book of Mormon.  that was a miracle and we hope to get back over there soon!

Monday- We had zone meeting in Middletown after which we went and tried doing service for a less active.  She wasn't there so we came back after talking to a couple of people that were around.  We tried visiting Julia with Hna again, but she was busy so we taught Hna instead.  Later we dropped by another member's house and had a great lesson with them.

Tuesday- Lots of service!  We went and did service for an active member, the only Domincan in the ward, Marino.  Then we went and helped the less active prepare and paint some stuff.  That took up a ton of time, but it was still good.  Afterwards we had dinner at la familia Hernandez and then went to Mery and Carlos's house.  We had good lessons with both of them and then came home tired.

Today- We've got a zone activity planned- that'll be fun!  That's about it out of the ordinary.

Things are going well!  I'm still loving the mission and looking forward to another great week! 

Thanks for everything and have a good week!

-Elder Griffiths

Pictures from Newburgh

The Newburgh District

Elder Lewis and Me

After a day of biking in Newburgh

Ice Caves!

Deep in the ice caves -- totally dark without a camera flash!

Good ol' Appalachian Trail!  I've hiked it in Georgia, the Carolinas, and now New York!

Hudson River Valley

Hudson River

On the trail...

A view from the top

On top of the world!

Our district at the top of the trail

With Elder Lewis and Paul

Elder Lewis and Elder Griffiths - transfer day