08/07/23 A very good week and I didn't even write all the good that happened

 Hi, 

It's been a really good week! I feel like it's been two years since I got a real p day but hey that's show biz right? In fact, today wasn't even really restful AT ALL, because the zone leaders decided it would be a good idea to climb a mountainnn... it was cool, but it killed me and my comp haha. Maybe next week I'll try and send a picture of the mountain, cuz guys it was huge, we almost died basically. Well, no we didn't but it was a lot of climbing and I think my legs are gonna hurt all week. 

Random events that happened this week because I'm not feeling like putting them in order necessarily: 

-onions ---> we had lunch with my favorite member who like requires that we eat all of the excessive amount of food that she gives us. I had warned my comp about the portion size beforehand so we both ate a very light breakfast and had lots of room in our tummies to eat all the food she gave us. The elders had no such warning, and were struggling to finish their food, and we both finished before they did, so the hermana brought us dessert and said the Elders don't get the same dessert as us because they weren't finishing their meal. 

She brought out two onions and gave one to each elder for dessert. Me and my comp couldn't stop laughing!! If I remember I'm gonna put a picture of Elder Horton's face when he got the onion below hahaha. 

-Claudia---> after a relatively long week, we found claudia and she was so excited to learn about the gospel that when we gave her a pamphlet she hugged it to her chest and said she was going to read it right away!! 

-wedding plans---> two of our friends are getting married this month in order to be able to get baptized, and I have really loved being involved in the wedding preparations! It's even more fun because the wedding has to be the most inexpensive wedding ever had, because these friends don't have almost any money to spend on it. It's actually been really beautiful to see the sisters in the ward pool together their skills and abilities in order to help someone have a special day. One sister is going to make a balloon arch, another is lending her dress, another one is lending a dress for the daughter of our friend, another is getting in contact with someone who has more decorations, I'm gonna make the wedding cake, another group of sisters is going to provide food... it's like everyone is sacrificing a little bit in order to serve this little family who aren't even Chileans! 

-actually---> actually it's a miracle that the wedding is even happening because we thought that they couldn't get married because the husband is technically on probation, but then after a lot of searching and a lot of praying, we found out that they can get married!! And we were able to find a wedding date in August!!!! So we put their wedding date on the 24 August, and their baptismal date 26 August!!! We're so excited for them :)))) 

-walking lesson ----> so we're teaching this 17 year old kid, and it's been SO frustrating because he won't answer our texts or phone calls when we try to talk to him, but he goes to ALL the activities, every Sunday to church, he goes to seminary every day, and he's told various members how he wants to get baptized. So at one point our ward mission leader was driving us from one end of the sector to another end, and there was TONS of traffic, so we're going really slow, and we were going to the other side of the sector to try and find Mateo, but then we spot him from the car! So we're like, hermano, can we get out?? And he was like, yeah? So we jump out of the car and run to catch Mateo, and he says well I'm running behind schedule so I'm trying to walk fast to go buy some bread, and we were like, yeah that's fine, we can walk fast, and as we're walking fast we start casually teaching the first lesson! And we got through the entire first lesson before we got to the store. We thought about waiting for him outside the store, but we both had to use the bathroom so we went to do that and by the time we got back he was already gone again. But anyways that's the waking lesson!! It was really good and he said he would read the book of mormon. 

-self mastery---> this week I've been studying about self discipline. I've studied talk after talk after talk, and it's interesting the concept of making yourself do things you don't want to do. Because we know that we should do a lot of things. We should eat healthy, we should go to sleep on time, we should get up on time, we should read the scriptures every day, we shouldn't stay up late, we shouldn't get bad grades, etc. And I think the natural man inside of each one of us wants to do every single one of the things we shouldn't and doesn't want to do every single one of the things we should, but what we have to do is to decide to go after the long term, or even eternal desires of our hearts instead of the temporal, short term desires of our bodies. And this is something I'm still working on. But when we wake up in the morning and we understand the underlying desire to accomplish the Lord's will in our lives, we can move forward because that desire is greater than our body's desire to sleep a little more. 

-inactive because he's bored---> we met this guy who went inactive because he's bored with church. He thinks church is boring and he thinks 99% of members are lying to themselves that it's not. He doesn't understand this concept that I've laid out above. He doesn't understand that sometimes we just have to do things that we don't want to do, and sometimes we have to work with people we don't like, and sometimes we have to find the joy ourselves, and sometimes when we can't find any, we have to take a step back and recognize that these little problems and challenges that we go through are just tiny pieces of the eternal potential and work we have to do.

-potential---> and while I'm on that, I've also studied a lot about potential this week, and you guys! Do you realize that you have literally the potential to be soooo much more than what you can imagine for yourself? There's this talk that talks about how we have to embrace the future that only God can see for us. And maybe even take a few steps back with Him in order to see a little bit more of the picture. This also goes with something I learned in the leadership conference, but I'm so out of time friends, so so out of time. But you all have so much potential that you don't even recognize!!! Please never forget that!!

Anyways, love you all so much!! 

xo-hna griffin

Fotos without captions because I'm out of time