07/27/23 That time p day was Thursday

Elder Horton's birthday

Hello everyone! Happy Thursday!

I know after not hearing from me on Monday everyone was worried I was dead or something, but nope, they just did a weird change with transfer weeks, so on transfer weeks we have p day on Thursday instead of Monday. So if it's felt like a really long week, for me it has been haha.

Elder Horton's birthday

We also received transfers last night, and it's crazy, they told us at like 9pm last night, and there are people who are leaving at 8am today, so they had to pack everything and clean everything they could last night, and then get going and leave the house at 7am this morning to make it to the terminal.

My companion got transferred and she leaves today at 12:30, but my new comp won't show up until tomorrow at 9am. She's in Arica so it's like a 22 hour bus ride for her. Her name is Hermana Newlon, and she's from somewhere in the United states, and that's about all I know about her.

I'm also getting two new roommates, one from Colombia and one from Chile. I've lived with the hermana from Chile before and I LOVE her so it's going to be fun living here with them. The one from Colombia arrived to the mission with me but goes home one transfer after me, which is just crazy. It's because her 3 weeks in the mtc don't count but my 6 weeks in the mtc do count.

It's been 10 days since my last email and a LOT of cool things and interesting things and entertaining things have happened, so I'm gonna do a nice long list of them, trying to do them in order but definitely not succeeding.

Exchanges: I did two exchanges in the last ten days. Both with the same person. The first one was because basically her comp (her trainer) like actually hates her. . It was to the point where we had to go over and do a comp inventory with them, and she wasn't willing to accept that she just needed to be more patient with her companion. So we separated them from each other, and Hermana Darracq is an absolute light, and in need of sooo much validation. We had some really good conversations and I gave her some advice to help her survive the last week of the transfer. From what she told me in the second exchange, it worked! But more on that in a second. That first exchange with her we saw sooo many miracles, like we found 3 families in one day who were interested in learning more and taught them a short lesson to each one. They all said they would go to church (none of them showed up, but hey that's show business).

Two days after that exchange we had a day where everything fell through and nobody wanted to listen to us and everyone was slamming their doors or being rude or disrespectful... so there are days and days.

Today picking up new missionaries

Machy: anyone remember me talking about machy before? She's a member from Vallenar who was like my best friend. We connected from day one and I still talk to her every p day. Well, here in copiapo we're only 2 hours from Vallenar and she had told me that she was going to visit me, but so far never had. Last Friday, we were doing our studies and we got some weird texts asking if someone could talk to hna mendez. She was like uhhh, okay, and then they talked to her, and later she was like, let's go to the capilla, and I was like what? We've got stuff to do. But we went to the church building and there we found MACHY!!! Along with 2 other members from Vallenar!!! They traveled two hours literally just to visit me!! It was really special to catch up with them, and they bought us ice cream and spent a good amount of time with me and my comp. It was legit one of the coolest things and we made tons of jokes and they told me all about my friends from that branch. I would totally go back to vallenar if I could.

Chile with its key indicators...
it's just missing high in salt haha.
Oreos are the only thing
I know of that has all four.

The rest of this week was good but really long. No p day does that I guess haha.

There were some other things, but I'm running out of time! I really had the intention to write a lot but it's just not gonna happen.

Something I was studying this week is that once we understand the gospel, we need to stay with it. And if we don't, our own understanding and knowledge will be our condemnation. It would be better if we never knew at all than to deny our covenants, especially those made in the temple.

In the mall

Nonetheless, anyone who makes this mistake and sins in that way always has the hope of repentance. It's not a punishment, it's the most glorious way to overcome our past and to be free of out mistakes that could possibly exist. And it exists through the atoning blood of our Savior. (Mosiah 3:12)

I simply want to testify to you all that repentance is joyous. It's freedom. I've felt the difference between carrying my sins on my own back and letting Him do it for me, and I will choose to let Him take them over and over and over again. My job as a missionary is to cry repentance unto anyone who will listen, right? Well, if any of you have sins that are weighing you down, and especially if Satan is using that tactic where he says you're not worthy to talk to God, I invite you, urge you, exhort you, beg of you, and implore you to get down on your knees as soon as possible and beg for Him to take the weight away and to free you from your sins. Ask God for forgiveness, and I promise with all my heart that you will wake up tomorrow feeling happier and lighter, and more than anything you will feel free. You will feel your light shining behind your eyes and you will be forgiven.

I say this because I love you all , so much

xo-hna griffin