Hello Mom!!!!

  How are you? You sounded busy this week. Were you able to get the lady all moved? I'm so excited that Amy went through the temple! I can't believe that she gets married in less than two weeks. Time has just flown by! I am still anxiously awaiting her wedding invitation! When are you going to San Francisco with Mary? Are you excited to go?

  This week has been great! We did teach English. It was awesome! We had about 15 people there. Two people that just got baptized were there and the rest weren't members. It was great to see them use the words that we had taught them. The people that came to learn English are all from Africa! Some have been in America for months and some just a few weeks. They are such awesome people! They love learning! The Elders also helped us teach the class. I can't wait to teach English again. We are going to be doing it every week for about 6 weeks and then we might start over again. The place where we are teaching it is a non-profit organization and so we can't teach the gospel at all but we had a few people ask us questions after the class. English is needed so much in Portland.

  We met a lady this week that wants to come back to church. Her name is Stacy and she has noticed a huge difference in her life since she stopped going. Her daughter is 8 years old and hasn't been baptized. Her dad is really sick and is on his death bed. It is so amazing that I am here at this time. The Lord has placed me in certain areas for certain people. The Lord has placed me in areas where there are people that have lost loved ones or are losing loved ones. I know Dad's death was a sad time for us but I know that it has helped me help these people that God has placed in my path. I love being able to testify of eternal families! We are going to teach Stacy and her daughter this week. It should be great!

  I did get to see the Relief Society meeting. I missed Sister Burton's talk though. We were helping a lady in the ward move and so we missed her talk but we saw everything else. I loved Sister Stephen's talk. I received so many answers from her talk and from all the other ones. I had been praying to know what to do for one of the sisters that I am helping and the Spirit, through Sister Stephens, told me exactly what I needed to do to help her. It was amazing!!  I love being able to learn at the foot of our living Prophet. He is definitely called of God. The choir was amazing! My companion was saying that she wished she was still in the MTC so she could have been in the choir. It made me laugh. I can't wait for conference this next week. There were two more people that got baptized this last Saturday. It was two people from Africa that the Elders are teaching. It was wonderful!!

  This week I have really been thinking about what it means to always have a prayer in our heart. I was thinking of how we physically need our heart to live. It pumps our blood through the rest of our body. Our spiritual heart is what keeps our testimonies or spirits alive and strong.The Gospel must be a part of us. It can't just be surface deep. I was reading Romans 2:15 and I was thinking about how if the law is written on my heart then my thoughts and desires will be directed toward Jesus Christ. When we have a prayer in our heart always we are showing that we want God to be a part of us. It is our choice to open our hearts to the Spirit. My study of always having a prayer in my heart became more of a study on the heart. What does it mean to always have a prayer in your heart? 

  I know the Lord loves us. I know that as we watch conference this week that we will see just how much God is aware of us and loves us. I love being a missionary and helping others see just how much God loves them. Have a great week! I love you so much!!!

    Love,

       Sister Griffin

Here are some pictures of the beautiful fall leaves! And also a picture of the beach that is right by our place! Enjoy the beautiful colors!

Hello Mom!

  How are you?? Tell me a little more about your talk. You could have just sent your letter to my apartment. Our interviews were up here in Portland. I haven't gotten your letter yet. It always takes a few more days for the mail to get forwarded up here from Manchester. I'm glad Amy's showers went well. I'm so excited she is going through the temple this week. That is awesome!! She is going to love it! I can't wait to see her wedding invitation. As for things I need...I'm not sure! Sorry I'm not much help!

  The leaves are starting to change and it is gorgeous! I'm waiting for more of them to change before I send you pictures. The Fall is beautiful here! I love it! My interview was great! President Stoker is wonderful! He is so inspired! He told me how he decided I needed to be serving in the Portland ward and that is was very clear to him that I needed to be with Sister Beus. It was great to hear how the Lord works. I know that President Stoker is called of God. He told me some things that I needed to hear and he gave me great counsel to use, especially when I'm on exchanges with the other sisters in my zone. The Sisters in my zone are wonderful! I got to see all of them at interviews. I love getting to know them all. The Zone Leaders taught us about extending commitments and why it is so important. Extending commitments is definitely a loving way to call someone to repentance. It was a wonderful day! We are starting our English class this week. I hope it all goes well! 

  This week we met with Lisa. She came to church this week. She is really connecting with Sister Campbell (the Seinor missionary). Relief Society was all about starting with a belief and going forward on the faith that we already have. She was taking notes in Relief Society so I hope she enjoyed it. We are hoping to meet with her this week again. A lot of people came and said hi to her. It was great! We taught her this week about the Atonement and how it can help us get through anything in life. We shared Alma 7:11-13 with her. We are trying to help her understand that God loves her and will help her. She doesn't really feel God's love for her right now. I know that if she listens to what we teach and acts on the invitation we extend to her that she will start to see God's love for her. 

  The ward had a "Meet the Mormons" activity on Saturday. There were a lot of members that came. It was an open house for people to come and see who and what we do at our church. We didn't have very many non-members come but we did have a woman who hasn't come to church in 40 years come to it with her husband that is not a member. She is from Utah and she has been feeling like she needs to come back to church. When she saw the sign for the activity she decided to come to it. For all the planning that went into it, it was all worth it just for this lady. She is now really thinking about coming back to church. God works in wondrous ways!  

  This week I have been thinking of all the little miracles in my life that I don't notice. God blesses us with miracles everyday. I was reading in Mark 6 and I noticed that Christ's Apostles didn't understand all of the miracles that He performed. In Mark 6:35-52, Christ made the loaves and fishes be enough and He also walked on water. These are two very apparent miracles but then I started wondering about all of the miracles that happen around me that I don't see or recognize. There are so many miracles! There isn't a day that goes by that I don't try to notice at least one miracle. I am going to try a lot harder to notice all of the little miracles! What miracles do you see everyday? I love our Heavenly Father! I know that He loves us so much! I love you so much! You are in my thoughts and prayers!

  Love,

    Sister Griffin

Hi Mom! 

  How are you doing?? It sounds like you were busy this week. Are you still going to do the monthly cooking activities or are you going to switch up the activities? I can't wait to see Amy's invitations! I bet they are adorable. We had stake conference this week. I'll talk more about it later. It was wonderful! 

  This week has been a great one! We got two new investigators. We were teaching Oy, she is African. She wants the gospel in her life so bad. We were teaching her about prayer and she asked us how do we receive peace that we have been praying for. She got really emotional. She has been praying for peace and comfort for a while. We testified to her that peace will come. We also told her that we go through hard times to learn things. It was a wonderful lesson! She came to Stake Conference yesterday and she loved it. The talks were all about finding joy in the journey and being of good cheer. She was amazed that there were so many members of the church there. One of our other new investigators is Lisa. She was a referral from someone in the Augusta. She suffers from depression. She wants to be better so she can help people and be the mom that she wants to be. We are trying to help her get out of this slump. We shared a lot of scriptures with her on faith because she said that she is full of fear. I know the gospel can help her get rid of that fear. The Gospel can help anyone! We are going to invite her to keep a gratitude journal so she can see a few positive things every day. 

  Stake Conference was amazing!!! The Boston Temple President and his wife spoke about the sealing power and family history. We are so blessed to have the sealing power here on the earth! President and Sister Stoker spoke too. They both spoke about things the members can do to share the gospel with others. They are so sweet! President Thomas (the stake president) spoke and related a backpacking trip to the gospel. It was wonderful! He talked about how important it is for us to stay on the gospel path. There were also two people from the Topsham ward. I also saw a lot of the families that I got to know from Brunswick and Topsham. The Raineys were there. They are going to be sealed at the end of this month. She asked about how you are doing, Mom. She said that she thinks about you often. I hope one day you can meet the Raineys! They are both wonderful people! 

  You asked how often I meet with my District, we meet weekly. We usually see a lot more of each other though because all of the missionaries serving in the Portland ward is our district. We have zone interviews with President Stoker this Friday. I love interviews! I always learn so much at them. I have been studying a lot about virtue this week. I was reading in Proverbs 31:10-31. There are so many qualities listed there of a virtuous person. What is a virtuous person? How can we always be striving to be virtuous? Virtue starts with our thoughts. Our thoughts will lead to actions. We must be clean and pure. I was also thinking about prayer. How can we always have a prayer in our heart? I would love to hear your ideas! This church is true! We can definitely draw closer to Christ if we are trying to be pure and clean. One of the ways that we can be purified is by partaking of the Sacrament! What a blessing it is to take that every week! I love you! 

   Love,

     Sister Griffin

Hi Mom!

  How are you doing? It sounds like you had a busy week with your new calling. I'm sure your presidency is going to be amazing! I love that you are going to go to the temple once a month together. That's a great way to show the Lord that you want to be guided by the Spirit. The Lord will bless you for it! How is Bindi doing? 

  We got all moved in this morning and I'm going to include some pictures of the beach that is right near our place and also the view outside our bedroom window. It is beautiful! This week has been good. I spent two days in Yarmouth this week. It was great! On Tuesday we were there in a trio because Sister Caffall had to be in Manchester for a leadership meeting and then on Thursday I was there on exchanges with Sister Brown. We did a lot of service both days. I love being able to do service! On Tuesday we helped one of their investigators in their garden. It was awesome! This week was full of service. We also did service on Thursday. One of their investigators needed help in her yard. It is amazing how much more open people are to the Gospel when we have served them. Service opens hearts to the gospel. It is wonderful! On Saturday we also did service for some ladies in our ward. Sister Good-Simpson needed help getting her flowers ready for winter and so we helped her early in the morning and then she took us to breakfast. We also helped a lady in the ward pack up some things because her family is moving. Then we help Sister Rowell clean out her apartment. She has a hard time throwing things away and so she needs someone to do it for her. We helped Sister Campbell (the senior missionary) clean it. We didn't get done but we got a lot done. I love being able to serve the people here!! 

  On Sunday I saw Sister Smith who is from Topsham. She is the stake Relief Society President and she visits the wards in the stake. She freaked out a little when she saw me. It is was a joyous moment when we saw each other. Sister Smith used to go out teaching with us on Wednesdays. She told me that Brother Eldridge, who was a less active that we started working with, is now a fully active member and is getting ready to go to the temple!! I was so happy to hear that he is going to church!! It was great to see her! Sister Beus and Sister Caffall were able to teach Etem this week. He is starting to understand the role that Christ plays in his life.

  This week I have been studying charity and love. What is charity? Jesus Christ definitely performed the greatest act of charity by going through the Atonement. How can we show charity to all those around us? To me charity is loving people the way Christ loves them. We must be concerned for the eternal welfare and happiness of others. How do we see others has Christ sees them? Moroni talks about charity and defines it really well in Moroni 7:45-48.  I have noticed that I am more happy when I am focusing on others and not myself. I am going to work on focusing on others this week. Will you do the same? How can we be more charitable? This is something that I have been thinking about a lot this week, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." That is so true! I love the gospel! The Atonement is real and it happened for all of us, as individuals! The Lord loves us! Have a great week! I love you!

   Love,

     Sister Griffin

The first picture is the view outside of our bedroom window

The second is the beautiful ocean that is right down the street from our place

The third picture is our District with a few of the Africans! I have the best District in the world!

Hi Mom!!!

   I'm doing great!! It sounds like you have had a busy week! I can't wait to hear about the Stake Fall Festival. Is homecoming going to be Elizabeth's first date?? Who is she going with? I'm so sorry Matt. I remembered it was your birthday last week but I forgot to tell you Happy birthday last week so Happy late birthday. Happy birthday to Brayden this week! I can't believe he will be 7. I'm so glad Mary Broadbent came to visit you. What did you talk about? Congratulations on your new calling Mom!! You are going to do a wonderful job! Isn't it amazing how the Priesthood works. God knew exactly what you needed to hear in your setting apart!! God loves us so much!!

  This week has been good! We taught Joanna this week and she told us that she has a lot of things to pray to God about. That made Sister Beus and I so happy because we don't want her to take our word for it. She told us this week that this is the best study she has done. She feels like it is the most true! She has met with a lot of people of other religions to do Bible studies. She didn't come to church but she is still wanting to meet with us. She is hesitant to come to church because she is afraid that she won't feel anything. We are just going to keep testifying of church and keep inviting her to come. On Saturday, 5 of the Africans that the Elders are teaching, got baptized. It was amazing!! They were so happy! I'll send you a picture of them. I talked to Norbert, one of them that got baptized, on Sunday after he was confirmed and he said that he has felt so much joy since he went down in the water and he wants to feel that joy forever!! Maisha and Aziza are married and the rest of them are just friends. President Hawkes, from the mission presidency was here for it. We had about 50 people come to the baptism! The ward has been a huge support when it comes to missionary work!

  We were able to help a few people move this week. Our ward mission leader is moving out to one of the winter rentals on the beach in Scarborough so he'll still be in our ward...thank goodness!! We also helped a lady clean out her apartment this week. It was so nice to be able to do service. The people here love to be able to help people but they don't like getting help from other people. Our leaves haven't changed yet. I'll send you pictures when they do. It will be gorgeous. We don't move into our apartment until next Monday so you can send your letter to the address that you have for me right now.

Our new apartment address is 15 A Pearl Street

                                                  Scarborough, ME 04074

This week I have been studying hope. What is hope?? When I think of hope I think of trust. In True to the Faith it says that in the gospel sense, hope is sure, unwavering, and active. I love that!! Our hope isn't just wishing something will happen but that we are sure it will happen. I love 1 Peter 3:15! It says, "But ^asanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give ^ban answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the ^chope that is in you with^dmeekness and ^efear:"  In that scripture we could substitute unwavering for hope. We must be ready to answer to people why we are unwavering in the things we do! Hope is unshaken!! How can we develop hope? What are some things we can hope for? In Moroni 7:41 we are told we can hope for the Atonement, the resurrection, and eternal life. That is why we live, right?? To one day gain eternal life! We are so blessed!! I love the Gospel!! We can do all things with Christ! I love you! Have a great week!

  Love,

    Sister Griffin