Hi Mom!

  How are you doing? Happy Birthday this week Mom!! I was going to send you something for your birthday but I might just wait until Mother's Day! I got your letter about school....you're right I need to get back into school. I talked to my mission president and he is going to let me come home the transfer early. So I could come home at the beginning of July. That isn't final yet but it is in the works. It is a hard decision to make. I don't want to end my mission any earlier than I have to but I think that is how it is going to work best. It has been something that I have been praying long and hard about. It hasn't been an easy decision for me to make. I don't know about the skyping yet for Mother's Day...sorry! I won't be e-mailing next Monday because Sister Tarawhiti and I are going to the temple. Our p-day will be moved to Wednesday so I'll e-mail then. 

  This week has been good! We had a wonderful lesson with a less active that we are teaching. She is blind and Sister Tarawhiti's mom sent her an object lesson called Sensing the Savior. It is an object lesson with music and using all of your senses except sight. We did it with Sue and she loved it. She said that it was one of the most powerful things she ever felt. We had a member of the ward there with us and she testified how she has felt of the Savior's love. She talked about feeling the Savior's love for her. I know that we all felt too! It amazes me how much love the Savior has for us and all that He was willing to do for us. We are so blessed to know Him.
  We had another lesson with a less active this week. We talked about how to look forward with Faith. She told us that she felt guilty for hanging on to things that she shouldn't. The member that we took with us talked about how she feels like that a lot but then she remembers all the stuff that she can do and the things that she is doing right. She talked about praying and reading and how those help her remember the good things that she is doing. It was an amazing lesson!

  We had stake conference this weekend. We were able to go to the Saturday night session and also the Sunday session. Both were fantastic! The people in the stake are wonderful! The Stake President is wonderful! He talked about changing our attitudes from "I can't because I'm a Mormon" to "I won't because I am a Mormon." Saying, "I won't because I am a Mormon" is a statement of who we are. Saying, I can't because I'm a Mormon is more of an excuse. He talked about that Saturday night and on Sunday he talked about how Spiritual gravity can pull us down and make us become more like the natural man. Something that the stake president said, "Submission to God is unnatural for the natural man, but is natural for the saint." I love that because in Mosiah 3:19 it tells us how to become a saint and submit ourselves to God. It was a very uplifting meeting. I love you!! I hope you have a great week!! Enjoy Women's Conference!!

  Love,

    Sister Griffin

On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 6:05 PM, griffincru@juno.com <griffincru@juno.com> wrote:

Hi Missy Callee,

How are you doing?  Have you had a good week?  I love to hear of the miracles you take part in.

I have some exciting news!  We now have dates of the Ogden Temple Open House and Dedication.  .  The Open House will be Aug 1 through Sep 6 and the dedication will be Sep 21.  You will be here just in time for it.  I’m excited!!

This week has been good.  Tuesday, I went over to Mary Broadbent’s to get your school stuff going.  I’m excited about that, too. Miss, pleas know it will be okay for you to get back into school.  I need your PIN # for your AG account and your password.  Lauren will leave out that info before she forwards your e-mail.

Wednesday, I went by myself to the Brigham City Temple in the afternoon because Diane couldn’t go to Bountiful.  Daines and Overdyn’s from the group weren’t going to be there either.  It was a full session.

Thursday, “D” and I went to Zaxby’s for dinner.

Peggy and I went Visiting Teaching four times to catch everybody. I am going to Women’s Conference this week so we went this past week.

Our weather yesterday was rain, rain, rain and more rain all day long.  The grass was soggy, too.  Today is sunny, but supposed to rain later on.

Jennifer and I went shopping for her birthday.  Then we went out to an early dinner to our favorite place.  It was an enjoyable day.

The Methuen Ward is sure good to you.  I’m grateful.  Tell Sister Allen thank you for me for doing things for Easter for you.

I received a letter from your mission office asking to verify e-mail addresses for me, our Bishop, and President Christiansen.  Tell the office they are all correct as they have them.

The Mickelson’s brought their twins to church today.  They are so cute.  The Newman’s spoke today in Sacrament Meeting.  It’s special when we have whole families participate.

I am at the Ewings today.  We are having ribs, baked potatoes, homemade bread, and cake, I think. 

Do you know anything about skyping for Mother’s Day yet?  Let us know as soon as you do.

Elizabeth is going to the prom this coming Saturday.  Her date tried to ask her in a unique way in the commons area of the school on Thursday.  He was using some cast members from the Beauty and the Beast.  Something went wrong with the sound and he was going to try to do it on Friday.  I haven’t heard how it came out.

Ben Lomond is losing three of their seminary teachers.  Mueller is going to be teaching Institute, Bro. Anderson is leaving, too. One other one is leaving, but I can’t remember who.  The kids are all bummed about Bro. Mueller leaving.  He wants to retire in a year – begged to stay one last year at Ben Lomond, but he was told time to move on.

Well, I’ll close for now.  Take care – I love you so-o-o-o much and miss you, too.

                                           Love, Mom

Hey Mom!!

 Sorry I didn't e-mail yesterday...we had zone conference and so today is our p-day. Thanks for the things you sent in Mary's package! I love the shirt. I wore it to Zone Conference. That's awesome that you got pictures hung up! 

 Easter was amazing!!!!! We got invited to Sister Allen's, the lady that you met in Utah. She had us over to watch her kids do an Easter Egg hunt and then we had dinner with her. She also had an Easter Basket for all of my companions and me. She is so sweet! We have SO MUCH candy!!! We don't know what to do with it all. We also went to a couple Easter Egg hunts on Saturday. Two different members in the ward had invited all their neighbors to the hunt and to eat. It was great to talk to people that way. It was definitely more productive than knocking on doors all day. Their neighbors were really nice. It was a great missionary tool!

  Zone Conference was amazing!!! President Stoker talked about how important the Spirit is in our teaching. I have really come to realize that the Spirit is the true teacher. We as missionaries don't know what people need without the Spirit. An example of that happened just last night. We met with one of our investigators and she was worrying about a lot of things. We weren't sure what to tell her or how to help her. We started by inviting the Spirit through prayer and then she told us some of the things that she was concerned with. I love teaching with my companions because when I'm not sure what to say they know what to say. Sister Fratcher and Sister Tarawhiti did a great job of testifying to her about how to give things to the Lord. It was amazing when one of us was done talking another one of stepped in. I know that the Spirit was helping us. It was a powerful lesson and I know that Ann felt the Spirit! It was amazing!! Sister Tarawhiti and I sang in the Lawrence ward (the other ward that meets in our building) on Sunday. We sang, "I Know that My Savior Loves Me." We did it acapella. It made me nervous because I sang the first verse and my companion sang the second verse. The Spirit was there though.

  This week I spent a lot of time studying the Resurrection and the Easter story. I was thinking about how Mary knows who Christ is after he says her name. A man in our ward that gave a talk in Sacrament mentioned that Mary's feelings of deep despair were changed instantly to feeling of eternal joy. She knew immediately who was calling her name. Do we know the Savior well enough that we would recognize Him if He were calling our names? If we don't we can continue to strive to know the Savior more every day! What a blessing the Gospel is. Go to this link and watch the video...it is amazing!! I love it! mormon.org/becauseofhim 
   As for school, I don't know what classes to sign up for and I know that I am still coming home August 13 so that is going to only give me a week and a half before school starts. That's nice of you for wanting to do that but I don't know how well that is going to work out. Thanks for all that you do for me!! I love you so much!!!

  Love,

    Sister Griffin

Hi Mom!!

 Your week sounds like it was busy. The next time you see Jack tell him I said hello...not that he would remember me. What did D do for family home evening? Sister Tarawhiti's mom sent an Easter package this week and she sent both of us stuff for Easter. I am sending you a picture of the pajamas that she sent us. It made Sister Tarawhiti and I so happy! I got Tammie Tycz's package. She is so sweet for sending that. If you see her tell her thank you for me. I am going to try to write her to thank her but if you see her will you tell her too? I'm not sure about Mother's day yet. I know we will be skyping but I'm not sure what time. Go ahead and make plans and then I will adjust our plans if need be. There won't be another transfer before Mother's day so I will be in Methuen still. We teaching a blind lady and she was wondering if the Church has a library for the blind. Is there a number that the church has to order books from for books on CD? I wasn't sure if you would know that but I thought since you helped Melba you might know if there was one.

  Our third companion is from American Fork...another Utahan!! She has been out a little shorter than I have. She came out the transfer after me. Her name is Sister Fratcher. She is a visitor center sister too, like Sister Tarawhiti. They were called to serve at the Joseph Smith's Birthplace Visitor's center but they have the chance to go to other areas too. It's been an adjustment having three people instead of two but it's been good.

  Transfer meeting was huge! There were so many missionaries there. A lot of Elders and Sisters got moved. I got to see some sisters that I haven't seen in a long time. All of my old companions that are still here were there except one. It was awesome to see them. Sister Huefner that I told you about on Christmas is going home next transfer. I can't believe it! She might come visit you. We received 4 sisters and 2 elders. This next transfer we aren't getting any elders...isn't that weird?!

  We had a sisters' conference this last week. It was in Farmingdale, Maine. It was great to go back up to Maine. I didn't realize how much I missed Maine until I went back up there. The meeting was so wonderful!! Sister Stoker talked about Esther and her important role in saving her people. Esther had great courage! The theme of the conference was "Such a Time as This" from Esther 4:14. There is a great video on mormonchannel.org that she showed us. It is called Courage. If you have time you should watch it. It is so good!! We all need to have courage like Esther! President Stoker talked lasting happiness and how we find it. He gave us 5 steps to happiness. They are 1. Fervent Prayer, 2. Exact Obedience, 3. Diligent Scripture Study, 4. Hard Work, and 5. Making and keeping covenants. It was exactly what I needed to hear. We had some women speak from the stakes that our areas cover. They did such a good job!! They are all inspiring women. One of the ladies from my last area came and talked about the companions she had on her mission. She was a wonderful missionary and she still is great at sharing the gospel. I got a picture with her. She is the lady that wrote the article in the October 2013 Ensign. I felt like all of the talks that were given were just for me! It was wonderful!!

  I have been studying the Atonement. I thought about Christ's love for us and what He says in John 15:13-15. He showed the ultimate way how to love. I was thinking of the scripture in 1 Samuel 18:1-3 how it talks about David and Jonathan. They were forever friends. Christ is our forever friend. He loves us more than we can comprehend. I hope that makes sense. Have a great week! And have a wonderful Easter!!!  I love you so much!!!

  Love,

   Sister Griffin

Picture 1-Here is me sitting in a porsche that a man has in our ward. It is a 1965. He just sold his red one for $165,000. These cars were so sweet! I thought Matt and D would like the picture.
Picture 2- This is the Easter stuff that Sister Tarawhiti's mom sent us. She sent us so much candy!

Picture 3- Here are the pajamas that Sister Tarawhiti's mom sent us. We are the Griffiti Sisters....aren't they cute!!! We were so happy to get them!

Hey Mom!!
 That's awesome that you were able to go to Conference. I bet you were pretty happy that Elder Holland spoke in that session. I did get your package...thank you so much!! The snickerdoodles were delicious! I love the skirt too!! Thanks!!! You are always so sweet to send me packages! You are wonderful! I don't thank you enough for all that you do for me!
  Transfers are coming up! We got a transfer call on Saturday from President Stoker. We were both pretty nervous. We wanted to stay together one more transfer. We answered the phone and he told us that we were both staying in Methuen and that were are going to receive a third companion. We were so surprised!! We are going to get our new companion tomorrow. We are arranging our apartment so we can have three people in there. It will be an adjustment but we know it will work great! We are hoping she is as crazy and fun as we are. I'm sure she will be!
  This week was awesome!! My companion is so inspired! We have time to come to the library for an hour each week, besides p-day, to get familiar with the videos that the church produces. We came earlier in the day then we had originally planned and there was a lady that was sitting next to us and she was looking up ways online to kill herself. We weren't sure how to approach her but we knew that we needed to talk to her. We decided to wait until she got up to leave to talk to her so we didn't talk to her in front of everyone. She got up to leave and we tried to follow her out to the parking lot. When we got out there she was no where to be found. I told my companion that maybe she went into the bathroom. We started to walk into the bathroom and sure enough she walked out right as we were walking in. It was a little awkward. She walked away to her car and my companion started running after her before she drove off. We told her that we felt like we needed to talk to her. My amazing companion then asked her, "Do you know that you are a daughter of God?" She said, "Yes, I do, but I needed the reminder." We then kept talking to her and exchanged phone numbers. It was great to see the Spirit work through us to help someone know who they are. It was a wonderful miracle!!!
  Conference was amazing!!! We watched it at the church. What were some of your favorite talks? I loved Elder Holland's talk...don't worry, Mom, I don't get food thrown at me or spit on. I liked it because we are definitely heading into a time that takes a lot of courage to not only live what we believe but to share with others what we believe. I love the promise that he gave about if we defend our faith with courtesy and compassion. He told us that if we do so we will forge unshakable faith. President Eyring's talk was amazing!!! I noticed that there were a few talks on family history and the lessons that we can learn from our ancestors. I love how they talked about our faith being strengthened by knowing who our ancestors were. I noticed that there were a lot of talks about being persistent even through discouragement. Elder Bednar's was another one of my favorite talks. We all have a load to carry and that load will definitely help us all get back to Heavenly Father one day. I love how he brought out the point that we can receive strength through the Atonement. That is so true!!! I loved Bishop Gary E. Stevenson's talk too. We all have a labor to perform and we have medals to earn. It made me wonder if I am doing all I can to perform to the best of my ability. Another theme I picked out was how important it is to be a true disciple of Christ and to love everyone. There were so many good talks. I wish I could talk to you about all of them. I love you!! Have a great week! Thanks for all that you do for me!