02/13/2023 Cucumber chips are NOT good

 And yet I couldn't stop eating them. Idk what's up with that BUT HELLO EVERYONE and welcome to another chaotic good letter from your one and only hermana griffin... 

"How's chile?" you might be thinking... 

well, it's on FIRE but like, my part isn't. Not yet anyways. 

We received cambios this week... and they didn't  so I get 6 more weeks to torture hermana Sorenson. We're both excited 

 

HEY does anyone wanna do a challenge with me??? I'm gonna read the Book of Mormon in one transfer!!! Six weeks, which FUN FACT, in Spanish it's like 100 pages longer somehow  so I'm gonna be reading 15 or 16 pages a day!!! And those of you joining me in this challenge, but in english... its only 12 pages. Easy peasy!!! 

This week we climbed several mountains and that was cool. Not like for fun or anything, it's just that Vallenar is literally a valley, so like our sector is the part in the middle, but there's parts of our sector that are built into the mountain... however, we also helped one of the OTHER sectors a bit this week (because the elder there got transferred earlier because hes the new asistent to the president), and their sector is on top of a mountain. So yeah, my calves are looking pretty toned these days

We also got to teach a very good lesson on the plan of salvation to Claudia. She had tons of questions which is my favorite way to teach... until the questions are about things we don't really have answers to  but it's ok I love the spirit of learning!! 

One of my favorite things that happened this week was when we went to the house of this guy named Carlos. We met him in the street with his kids, and with another lady who we thought was his mom maybe. So we went over on Wednesday and we had planned to go over and teach just them 2 and maybe the little kids. Well, they sat us down in the middle part of their house and let me describe this to you... there were more than 10 children running around, and twice as many live chickens. There were also many dogs and cats. The roof was made of some kind of aluminum, and there were no real chairs. There were about 5-6 bedrooms and in each one lived a different little family, and they all shared a kitchen. There was not a single real chair, just a rickety wooden bench where they sat us down and several buckets that other people sat on. Amongst all this chaos, I had never felt the spirit so strongly teaching the restoration, and I kid you not there were 4 full sized adults whose attention was locked onto our every word. As other adults and children would filter through the main kitchen part where we were seated, they would stand and listen for a minute, mumble amen and then hurry away to wherever they were going. We both came out of that lesson on a spiritual high and we felt like the environment was a lot like movie portrayals of Jerusalem where Jesus and His apostles taught. It was really cool. 

That same night, we were able to schedule an appointment with Dennis, who we've been struggling to coordinate with lately because he works, SO much.... so the spiritual high led to a little miracle haha. When we did the lesson (Saturday), it was another one of those question-filled, profound, beautiful lessons. They're going to progress if we can work around their schedule!! 

Something else very cool that happened was that we were able to meet with that old English Professor that I think I mentioned two weeks ago. We were able to give them a tour of the church in spanglish, and we were able to help them make some friends with other members. It was so special to help make this guy's day and help him practice his English!! 

We also had this word activity where we played Elefante Blanco (white elephant) which we had to explain to them because they've never played it before! We also had sopaipillas (basically fried bread, kind of like a scone but thicker), and I made little heart shaped cookies because it was a valentines activity. And anyways, I decided to bring cucumber chips which I bought in this random Chinese store... they were literally just Lay's but cucumber flavored. Well, they didn't really get that the point was to bring something mildly funny and useless so most of them brought chocolates  which is fine, but yeah my chips were not very popular, so I stole them myself, I wanted to try them!! And they were terrible. But I shared them with like the entire branch (I was like hey you should try these they're terrible, and every person was like, they're terrible? Ok well now I have to try them!)... no one liked them. But Machi and I both had a thing where, even though we didn't like them, we couldn't stop eating them thus, my intro and subject line today. 

Another awesome thing that happened this week was right after church, this girl walks in with her son, and starts asking a bunch of questions, so eventually someone pulls us out of ward council (miracle!! lol) and we got to teach them right then and there. When I say a prayer with an amigo I usually ask them if there's something special they want me to ask for, and she asked me to pray for her to find work. Well, I did that and moments after we said amen, ward council let out... and a member of our branch council starts talking to her about how he needs someone to make and serve ice cream in this little restaurant thing he has in centro, and we don't know if shes going to be hired, but she was immediately given the beginning of an answer to, well, my prayer  

Also on Sunday, after having received cambios on Saturday (I was a stress case, I really really didn't wanna leave haha) we decided to have dinner with the Pierces and the elders from our branch because one of the elders is leaving. And we had actually kind of planned to have lunch with the Pierces, just my comp and i, so we had already bought plenty of stuff to make Mexican food!!!!! Which by the way, basically doesn't exist here. So we came home from church and I made two different flavors of meat, one being more like Cafe Rio sweet pork (except it was ground beef), and the other being very traditional normal taco meat. Everyone liked the sweet meat better!! Which is good cuz I just kinda threw some stuff in a pot and hoped for the best. But yes, overall it was one of my favorite lunches ever... we even found refried beans!!! Which also don't really exist here. And yeah, we all ate a LOT of food, and topped it off with hna Pierces brownies  literally I was in heaven, and we made a LOT of food, but with these elders we finished off everything except for the black beans (because the black beans were a HUGE batch). 

In the evening we had a lesson with this guy who just wouldn't listen. Like he would ask us questions and we would start the answer them and then he would interrupt us with a story that had nothing to do with anything. I was feeling kinda frustrated by the end of the lesson, and as we started on our way home, these guys started asking us to share about God... they were out in front of their house barbecuing some meat and offered us some (we declined). One of them was obviously drunk, so we were kind of on guard, (and I was already not in the mood from the previous guy, ya know?) And the one who seemed more sober tells us, "what you do is very far from Christ. You are not of Him and you don't teach of Him." I asked him why he thought that, and he said it was because we believed in "John Smith," even though Paul was the last prophet on the earth...I testified with all my heart that Joseph Smith was a prophet sent to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ after it fell from the earth after the death of the apostles. He started yelling at us about how we are lying to the people and leading them away to hell. And at this point, with a combination of frustration from the previous lesson and the spirit of contention I could feel radiating from this guy's countenance, I kid you not, I grabbed hermana Sorenson by the arm (gently but insistently) and told them we had to go, right now. Those men had such a dark spirit about them and I felt so uncomfortable, like if we had stayed there I feel certain something bad would have happened. It was just... gross. 

After that hermana Sorenson and I had some cool discussions about the bible and about all the things that happen in the New Testament.

It's been an interesting week. And hey nobody get too worried about us talking to the drunk dudes (lookin at you, dad), we were a good distance away so that we could talk without them being able to be anywhere near to touching us, and we had a big protective dog following us around. 

Anyways. 

Something I really loved this week is the idea that members of the church should have the best self esteem in the world, because we know who we are (children of God), and we know what we're worth (He gave His Son to die for us). I heard this in a devotional that one of the elders we share a Branch with shared with our zone... but what it made me think of was two things from the scriptures. 

First, in Moses 1:12-13

Satan says, "Moses, son of man, worship me." 

Moses says, "who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is they glory, that I should worship thee?" 

And after a bit of back and forth, Moses gets Satan to go away.

And second, in several accounts, but im using Luke 4:3 (now that I think of it this one might have been in come follow me last week...) 

After Jesus fasted for 40 days, Satan comes to try and tempt Him...

Satan says, "If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread." 

And of course, Jesus answers that he (Satan) cannot tempt the Lord. And Satan goes away. 

Ok so what's the parallel here? The FIRST thing Satan attacked was their identities as sons of a living God. He comes to Moses, one of the most famous and influential prophets in history, and then the Savior Himself, and tries to convince them they're not children of God. Has he ever done that to you? Has he ever tried to convince you that you're less than what you are? That you're not worthy of love or of the great inheritance that you can receive or that you'll never make it and never be good enough? 

I know I've been down that road many times. I can't be perfect, I can't be enough, God doesn't love me, and I can't meet His expectations. 

But these are all lies. Directly from the adversary himself. It's literally one of his oldest tricks in the book! 

Perfection is a process, and his expectation right now is that you try. Just a little. You're already enough, because YOU, yes YOU are his child. He loves YOU. And he knows your heart. He's cheering for you and He's a lot closer than you think. 

This life is so much more than how many people liked our post or how well we did on that test or how cute our house is designed or how cool we sound when we talk about ourselves... this is eternity we're talking about here! Like, forever! And it all depends on what we choose to do while we're here! So choose wisely, and remember that He is cheering you on and He loves you. So much. Like, more than we can comprehend or fathom. 

You got this, I believe in you  

Love you all, so much!! 

xo-hna griffin 

Pictures: 

-Mexican food!! 

-i forgot to mention we had a party as a district and made arepas 

-me explaining white elephant 

- pretty sunsets and pretty girls (I'm having high self esteem remember??)

-us climbing a mountain 

- you'll never guess the flavors of these ice creams... one is forest berry (the purple one), and the other is... GUMMI SHARK FLAVORED 

-the ice cream dyed our tongues