The importance of the Book of Mormon in the gospel

Hola Familia, This has been a challenging week with everything. I have had some pretty bad stomach problems and diarriah for most of the week. Starting last Monday I started having stomach pains, and I had to start eating a bland diet. After a couple of days it still wasn’t getting any better, and so finally I had to call President Callan and ask him what to do. On Saturday I finally went to the pharmacy and bought some pills to help out the problem that I was having. I started taking them, and now I feel a lot better, but it made for a long week with stomach pains the majority of it. On Tuesday in the district meeting, we talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon. It talks about Christ, it supports the Bible, it’s the keystone to our testimony and our doctrine, and it responds to questions of the Alma that people have. It actually helped me preparing and teaching about it to realize that I really do need to put more importance on it. We did some practices of using the Book of Mormon to testify of Jesus Christ. After the meeting (still with stomach pains) I did divisions with one of the companionships, and went to their area in Libertad. The first guy we taught was an agnostic (believes in God, but not in Christ) and he was talking about Hitler and a bunch of other weird things. I finally got on topic, and asked him about the Book of Mormon, and he said he had read it all the way through. I talked to him about it, and it just so happened, that I used our practice in the District meeting, and used the Book of Mormon to testify of Jesus Christ. He has been being taught by the missionaries for like 12 years, and they have a hard time getting him to do compromises. I testified to him of the book of Mormon, and used a quote from Jeffrey R. Holland, that no bad man could write a book such as this, and no good man would do it, unless it were true. After that he got quite and listened better. I shared with him my experiences of how I know that the church is true, and he said he had prayed three times with missionaries and didn’t receive a response. I asked him if I could invite him to do something, and he said yes. I invited him to read the Book of Mormon every day, and pray every day if it is true, and promised him if he did it he would receive a response before finishing the book. He accepted the invitation, and said he wants to try it out. After the lesson, the elder (in his 2nd change) was really surprised. Even though he didn’t really understand what we were saying, he saw that the guy just completely changed and listened. It was a really spiritual experience. Honestly, I didn’t know what was coming out at times; it was just what the spirit directed. It was really awesome to see that when the spirit directs a lesson, that it changes the people. At the end of divisions I did the evaluation, and went back to my area on Wednesday. The rest of the week was a challenge for me, because with my stomach, I wanted to just stay inside and sleep, but regardless, I kept going out and working. On Thursday, I got even worse, with headache, body ache, and the stomach ache. I barely made it through the day, but then the next day I felt a little bit better. In church we had 4 investigators again. One of them was Christian (15), who is going to be baptized this week. We already went over the interview questions with him, and he is really excited to be baptized. His mom and sister aren’t quite ready to, but we are going to keep working with them. For now, Christian has the support of the other young men, and the young men president in the branch. We set goals as a district to increase our new investigators, and the invitations to be baptized, and in the week we increased them both as a district by 12. Overall it has been a good week, I’m glad to be back to good health again, and now I can get back to working normal. I love you guys tons, and hope everything is going well. Talk to you next week. Elder Griffin

Leading the District

Hola Familia, This week has been pretty good, but at the same time difficult. My companion, Elder Graham, has a hard time getting up in the mornings. We haven't been doing companionship study very much in this week, because he usually wakes up too late to do it. It is kind of frustrating, because his first companion was really lazy, and didn't do what he was supposed as the first part of training. I am just trying to be patient with him, because I pretty much have had to teach him everything over. I am trying to help him wake up, study, and plan better, but it's kind of like teaching an old dog new tricks. I talk to him pretty much just in Spanish now, so his Spanish is getting a lot better in these two weeks. I just have to keep help him become obedient so that we can have the spirit with us. This week I taught the district meeting for the first time, and it went pretty well. I always think I learn things a lot better by teaching them, so if nothing else, it's helping me learn the doctrine, and the principles in Preach My Gospel better. I also did an interview for the first time, it was a 9 year old girl, who's mom was a less active, and they re-activated her. I also have had to take numbers, and do divisions already, so it's a lot of work, but I am learning a lot by doing it. In the district, we have on companionship: Elder Davis, and Elder Sevy. Elder Davis has the same time as I do, and Elder Sevy is in his second change. Also Edler Pastul and Elder Tilleman. Elder Tilleman has 2 weeks, and elder Pastul 6 months. Over all, it is probably the youngest district that I have seen. Elder Pastul and Tilleman had the baptism this week. We had a tough week in all, as far as lessons go. We ended up walking around a lot, but we were doing all we could to find and talk to people. We had to lessons that ended up in an argument. There was one guy that was telling us that our church is stuck back in time 2000 years ago. I asked him if his church (catholic) had a prophet, and he said no. I then told him that the only way to know god's will in our day, is through a prophet, meaning that if the church doesn't have a prophet, and only uses the Bible, then it is living 2000 years ago..... well lets just say he didn't like that comeback, but he was an investigator that wasn't progressing anyway, so we dropped him. We had another one with the 30 year old son of a member. He is in some evangelical church, and we started teaching him on Friday. Immediately, he started attacking the doctrine, saying that we are only saved by grace and faith, and that we can't be saved by our works. I told him in James it teaches us that faith without works is dead, meaning that to recieve grace, we have to have works to show our faith. He then went to a scripture in Mathew 11, changing the subject by saying that john was the last prohpet. I then showed him in Acts 20, that there was a prophet after Christ, named Agabus. Anyway, I tried to explain to him that the only way to know the truth is through the Book of Mormon, but he didn't want to accept that, and tried to keep arguing. We had 4 people that went to church on Sunday. Antonio, Cristian, Zuni, and Cindi. We had a good week overall, we just had to walk a lot most of the days. We have the baptismal date for Antonio this week, but he has a problem with smoking. He has stopped for now, but we have to make sure he has stopped so that we can baptize him. Zuni Cristian, and cindi are all for the 20th of this month. We are excited to keep working, and find more people in this week. I love you guys tons, and will talk to you again next week. Love ya, Elder Ryan Griffin

Las Residentas

Well as you already know, I am now in a new area. My new area is named Las Residentas. It’s in Asunción, touching the area of the office. It is the only area in this Stake that is a branch, but it has about 60 active members. We have a ton of lunch appointments, and really good food here. There is even a pizza hut in our area. I think I will probably gain back all the weight I lost in Acahay. My new companion is an American. His name is Elder Graham, and is from Ohio. He only has one change in the mission, this is his second. There is a new training program in the missions that now is for 12 weeks, instead of the typical 6, so now I am training, but the last 6 weeks of training. With the new system, we have 2 hours of comp study, instead of the normal 1, and 1 hour of language study instead of 30 minutes. We also have a portable DVD player to watch the District meeting to train our companions. Also along with that, I now got assigned as a District Leader…. I was kind of hoping I would get away from that, but I’m sure the Lord called me as the DL for some good reason…. I just don’t know why. In my district, all three of our companionships are training, one of the trainers has 6 months, and the other has the same time as me, and came in my group. I don’t really know what I’m doing as the District Leader, but I know the Lord will help me with it, and whatever it is that he wants me to accomplish here. My companion is almost brand new, and his other trainer didn’t really train him. He didn’t know Spanish very well when I got here, but we´ve been speaking all day only in Spanish so he has been getting a lot better at speaking now. Unfortunately he doesn’t really know the investigators, or their needs or anything, so I pretty much have to get to know everything over again about them. The other Elder didn’t really put anything in the area book, so I don’t know like anything about the investigators more than what I ask them. Regardless of everything, I’m excited to be able to work here. There seems to be a lot of people that could possibly be baptized in a little while. We had 2 investigators that came to church on Sunday, and ended the week with 4 people that have a bap. date. The members here are all really cool, and help us a lot with the missionary work. It’s probably one of the best branches/wards that I have been in. I don’t have all that much to say about what has happened so far, but I’ll let you know more about the area and everything next week. I love you guys, and thank you for your constant support and Love for me. I hope everything goes well for you in this week. Elder Ryan Griffin

Adios Acahay

Hola familia, Well it has been an interesting week this week. We got a call this morning about the changes. The zone leaders told us that our area is going to close now. We are both getting pulled out of here, and we are going to new areas..... This week we had a tough one. We have been having investigators falling like flies, and just everything was falling for us. We ended up walking a lot, and we couldn't find our investigators in their houses. I think it was part of everything that was happening, god knew the area was going to close, and I don't think he wanted us with a lot of investigators that were going to be baptized. Honestly we have been going through a lot of trials in these past two weeks, but I am thankful that God has given us hard times because I know that we will grow from them. Although right now I can't see the purpose of everything, I know that god knows exactly what I need to pass through to become a better person. I feel so grateful for all that God has taught me, and how much he has changed me in the year I have had in the mission. No matter how hard I try, no matter what I sacrifice, God always blesses me more than I can give recompense. I'm sad that our area is going to close, I feel bad for the converts that I have had that aren't going to be able to have the support of the missionaries. However, I know that God is pulling us out for a reason, and that everything will be alright. The only help those people really need is that of our Heavenly Father. Although now I won't be able to write them, they will be in my prayers. I am so thankful to be a part of this Gospel, and that God has given me the oportunity of being a missionary. I know that wherever I go, and whatever happens, it will all work out in the end. I know that I have done all that I could in this area, I know we worked as hard as we can, and I know God will bless us for that. We don't know where we are going or anything, but we will be figuring that out tomorrow in our district meeting. I'll be letting you know the details of my new area and new companion next week. I love you guys, and thank you so much for your examples to me. Thank you so much for raising me up in the true Gospel, and for teaching me the correct things to do. I am forever thankful for the countless things I have learned from my wonderful parents. I coulnd't imagine having two better parents in the world. Thank you for your support in all I do. Sincerely, Elder Ryan Griffin

Falling into temptation

Well another week has come and flown by again. We have been working all the fat off that I have gained in the mission so far. ;) The week has been interesting, difficult, and full of blessings of the Lord. On Monday we both got our hair cut. It was pretty much just a hack job…. People here don’t know how to cut hair very well. The lady did terrible with both of our hair. It was incredibly uneven when we got home. I decided to take matters into my own hands, and fix it up. I used the mirror, and pretty much cut all my own hair. It actually turned out to fix it pretty well. I evened it out, and now it doesn’t look so bad. I figured out that my companion knows Chad Hugie. He went to the same school as him, and they had some classes together…. It’s a small world after all. The Copa America (American Cup) of soccer has been going on this week. Paraguay tied with Brazil, Venezuela, and Ecuador. Then Paraguay had to play Brazil again to move on, and won in a shoot out. They now have to play Venezuela again, and then they play the winner of Uruguay and Peru for the finals. In church this week we had 12 people in total. We had two investigators that came. They are a family, and they are…. Well let’s just say they are missing a couple of screws. We gave them a hymn book to start out the class, and I had to teach the first class. Every time that I would say a page number for the scriptures, the man, José would look for it in the hymn book. Also he stood up in front after one of the classes and started saying something in Guarani. Then with the sacrament, my companion was passing it, and the woman, Estela took like 5 pieces of the bread. Well anyway, we’ll see what happens there with them. This week our appointments were dropping like flies, and we ended up having to knock doors a lot. Seeing as our area is so small, and I’ve almost already talked to everyone, it was a hard week. We ended up finding a lot of investigators though, 26 in total. 7 of which were families. We are working as hard as we can, but unfortunately we aren’t seeing a whole lot of progress in our investigators. I know that we just have to keep working, and trust that God knows what he’s doing with everything. Sometimes it’s hard to have that trust, seeing as we want to have immediate success. However, I know that we also have to have a test of our faith every once in a while so that we can progress and learn. José and Liliana had a marriage problem. They went to a party, and Liliana drank a little bit. We aren’t exactly sure what all happened, but they ended up separating. José left and went to his mother’s house. We found out what happened, and went to talk to him. They haven’t gone to church the last 4 Sundays now, and so they have let Satan take control of their lives. We explained to José that they need that help so that they don’t face problems like that, and that God was giving them a trial to help them remember him. We told him he needed to pray and ask God what to do to solve the problem, and then do it. That same day, he went back and now they are back together. Now we just need them to actually go to church. Anyway, we have changes next week, so we’ll see what all happens with the area, and what the will of the lord is for the people here. All I can do is pray and hope that it doesn’t close, and if it does, accept that it is the will of the Lord. I love you guys tons, and hope all is going well for you. I’ll talk to you next week. Love ya, Elder Ryan Griffin

Closing Acahay?

Well this week has been a battle in a lot of senses. We have had a lot of trials here, but we are pushing through, and doing everything that we can. On Sunday it rained a little bit during church. We got there at 8, and nobody was there. We waited till 9:30 before the hermana Machuca got there with her grandson. After that we waited until 10:30 and nobody else came. We did the sacrament meeting with just 4 of us. I got be be the presiding authority.... fun fun. Anyway we did the sacrament, and my comp and I gave talks, and then we left at like 10:15. We are worried about the branch because the majority of the problem, is that nobody wants to come now that the storehouse is closed. It is really sad to see that there were so many that were just coming for the storehouse, instead of coming for the correct reasons. We had passed by two of the members houses, and they weren't there, so we know that they weren't just worried about going out in the rain. After church we went to a bunch of their houses and dropped the cane a little bit. We basically talked to all of them about why they were baptized, and the covenant that tehy made with god. We told them they can keep going to church for the food, but that is all they will gain, and will lose the eternal life if that’s the case. All of them that we visited said they will be coming next week, but they told us that last week as well. We had interviews on Wednesday, and I talked to the President about a lot of the problems we are having in our area. From what it sounds like, with the things that are going on he may be closing the area pretty soon. Unfortunately it makes it very inefficient to try and do missionary work when the members don’t even come to church. We will have to see what happens, but we don’t think it will go very well since we only had 4 people in church this Sunday. The interview was really good though, and I learned a lot like always from talking to the President. He told us to just keep working hard here, and do what we can. A lot of our investigators have fallen, or just not been progressing. We had one of our better investigators blow up on us on Saturday. He accused us of being spies, and told us that the US is paying us to be here. He may have been a little drunk, but pretty much let us know that he doesn’t want to be baptized. A bunch of our other investigators have just been impossible to find, or whatever else. We do have one family that is progressing a lot. It is a family of 7, 4 of which are older than 8. The parents read the part in 3 Nephi that we left for them, and had some really good questions about the baptism. They seem to have a sicere desire to be baptized, and we are working hard with them. Jose and Liliana know them, and were supposed to go by to pick them up for church.... but they didn’t even come. Kind of frustrating that we aren’t having any kind of help from the members. Anyway we are still working as hard as we can, it kind of hard to keep positive with everythign that is going on, but we are doing all that we can. I love you guys tons, and hope everyone is alright. I’ll talk to you next week. Elder Ryan Griffin

Help with overcoming problems

Hola mi querido familia, Well this Has been good. Elder King and I are working together really well. We are working hard, and doing all that we can herein the branch. It is nice having a companion who is younger because it helps me have to be more obedient, and search for things that we can do better. We are getting along really well. He went to Utah State also, and also doesn’t like BYU. ;) No but we are getting along really well, we haven’t had any arguments or anything, and we are teaching really well together. We had just over 40 lessons in the week, and we found 21 new investigators. We are working hard to help the people progress, but unnfortunately the most important indicators (with bap. Date, in the reunion, and progressing) were all zero this week. Nobody came to church again of our investigators, and we aren’t really sure why. Usually it is a case of not explaining well enough for the investigators the importance of going to church, so we are trying to study on that, and see how we can explain it better for them so that they come to church. We found a family of 7 this week, 4 of the which could be baptized. We taught them the entire first lesson, and it was a fantastic lesson. They both had really good questions, and we left them with a Book of Mormon to read and pray about our message. We are going to visit them again on Tuesday and see how it went. A lot of the investigators that we have been teaching more time seem to be progressing, but for some reason aren’t coming to church, part of which might have to do with the cold that it is doing in the mornings. We only had 10 members in total that came to the church counting us, so it was another small group. Roberto, our recent convert came, and bore his testimony. It was awesome being able to hear one of my converts bear their testimony and hear how much he has progressed. The bishops storehouse here in Paraguay closed down recently and is going to be closed for 3 months. Unfortunately we believe that is the main source of the problems we are having with the members right now, because a lot of them were just coming for that. There was a rumor that the branch president was recieving money that he was supposed to give to the members, but that he was keeping it for himself..... we had to kill that fire in the week. Also another rumor was going around that we(the missionaries) had walked in on a member while she was dressing and that we saw her naked.... Which never happened. We are getting kind of frustrated with the members because instead of progressing, now they are getting even worse (spreading false rumors about the missionaries and the President). We are working on helping them, but the problem is that they lie to us when we talk to them, making it so that we can’t help them with their problems. There is one member that we visit that lives next to a downs syndrome guy named Juan Carlos. Every time that we go to visit the family, Juan Carlos comes over to listen. He can’t speak, and I don’t know if he understands, but I know that he can feel the spirit. It is really cool to see a special person like that who can feel the spirit, and follow it. We had a lesson with some drunk guys this week. They were in the process of drinking as we explained to them the Word of Wisdom. One of them started asking questions and recording us on his phone. Another was so drunk that he fell out of his chair. One of them however actually wanted to say the prayer at the end, and started crying as he asked his heavenly father to help him overcome his problem with drinking. He then wanted to give us a hug before we left. I don’t know if we will ever see him again, because he lives in a different part, but I hope that he really can change his life off of what we taught him. It’s been pretty cold in most of these days, and we have been making some hot chocolate every day when we get home to warm ourselves up a little bit. It’s really sad seeing the poverty of the people here now when it is cold, because the only source of heat they have is making a fire. Well I love you guys tons. Happy fourth of July. Have a great day, and shoot some fireworks off for me. Thanks for everything you do! Chau Elder Ryan Griffin