Elder Griffin: The Lord is Blessing Us!

Sorry, I'm a little later this week. We went to Kellie's Castle (supposedly haunted), and we visited a lot of Chinese temples in the limestone caves, so you'll see the pictures of that-lah.

 

Okay, so this week.....

Really good, still; the Lord seems to bless us at every turn and I can't explain why, but we love it! Elder Steadman returned to Ipoh, and he has a nice six or seven inch scar from his surgery, I can also send a picture of that also. It was really long and it's awesome! We taught a lot of lessons this week, and it's so packed! The hard part is finding transport. Due to his shoulder, we can't use our bikes, which is our number one way of transport here in Ipoh. They don't have an organized bus system so we need to hitch rides from members or ask all of our investigators to meet us at the Church, which a lot of them don't really mind. So, here's the telah kejadian's of minggu lalu.

 

J: Went through the baptismal questions with him. He actually has a sincere desire to be baptized. I think he changed his name due to the possessions so now he's a "different" person. Maybe it makes it harder from them to happen....? Anywho--he really wants to be baptized, so we went through all of the baptismal questions with him and he seems to be doing well. He might be baptized June 22 with the others, although he want's to be baptized ASAP.

 

X: Moved back to China just for a two-week school holiday. When he returns, his mom will come also, so that's two more baptisms verysoon! Puji Tuhan (betul-betul)!

 

We had Zone Meeting on Penang Island, so we took a two hour bus ride (me, Elder Wayment, and Elder Steadman), and then we took a ferry over to the island. It was good--it talked a LOT about less-actives, so we've started squeezing some in with all of our lessons. Elder Wayment is in KL now, so we left him in Penang with the ZL's and returned back to Ipoh the same day. It was really good, and then we taught Esther and Manjit, some recent converts! They are so faithful and strong! 

 

WKt: A 12 year old who only knows Cantonese, so we need translators when we teach him. His parents are less-actives and the mom wants to go to church, but their grandma wants them to worship their ancestors. It's a pain because the dad doesn't really care. He just seems really lazy and way too passive to me, but we'll keep working on him.

 

And L and P commited to baptism on June 22nd with their family! Next up is the 10 commandments and then we will teach the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom and stuff! We go to see the twice a week, it's so good! 

 

M and R: R is a less-active and his wife, M, is an investigator. We've been trying so hard for them to come to church and we were about to have a drop lesson next time we met, but then they came! They even brought their nakal. And he was reverent! I think that they really liked it. K and all of her friends attended also, and so did another less-active family! It was so good to see all of the there! Me and Elder Steadman were way happy! 

 

Futsal equals fun/awesome.

 

Yeah, so just a lot of lessons and stuff. We're really, really busy, which is the best, of course! We are also moving out of our apartment on Friday, so I'll send you pics of the new place. It's supposedly pretty nice, I really hope that everything will go well this week. 

 

So, here are the pics!

 

These are just some of them, but they are so cool!

 

There was a wine cellar basement in Kellie's Castle with bats in it. They were flying all over! There was a hidden underground tunnel that led to a Hindu Temple.

 

Love you all!

Elder Joshua H. Griffin

 

Elder Griffin: This Week Has Been Really Busy!

Hey-lah! What's up?

Waddu, it was a lot of fun Skyping with all of you on Mother's day! I can't believe that Tyson's getting married already, so fast-one. Cepat-lah! So, this week has been REALLY busy. As you know, Elder Steadman broke his collarbone, so we flew to Singapore last Monday. Everything was all good. We stayed in Singapore overnight and went to the hospital to set up a time for his surgery. Elder Schuetz, my old companion is an Office Elder now, so I got to talk to him. It was all good.

I went on transfers with an Elder named Elder Wayment. He's been out for about 10 months. Steadman had his surgery and it all went well. He's coming back tomorrow. So I took an 8 hour bus ride back to Ipoh and this week has frankly been freakin' amazing! 

First off....

Cooper and Grandma Harris..... (a little late, I'll admit),

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Aiyo, I hope you have all had an amazing time together as a family! So...here's the details:

Somehow, Heavenly Father decided that we must be doing something right, and he blessed us with EIGHT new investigators in four days! All parts of families too!! Rajkumer, Maria's husband, her nephew, Nathan, Supulaxmi, Parthiban, Kitzai, and Gobi. Ah, man, Ipoh is Heaven on Earth missionary-wise. It's great, we are ALWAYS teaching, and if not, contacting and handing out Book of Mormons, which eventually turns into a new investigator.

Right now, we have 14 people on for baptismal date, and 6 (soon to be 7) are on date for June 22nd. 

So, that is what my week was like this week! I also ate the hottest food I've ever had in my entire life! I was crying, but not on purpose. I'll try to send a picture of it! 

Well, I'll send another e-mail with the pics. So, yeah. If you don't get the e-mail, you'll know that I can't send pics.

I love all of you a lot! It's great to hear from all of you, keep it up!

Selamat selama-lamanya!

Elder Joshua H. Griffin

1.The plane that we took from Ipoh to Singapore. Really Small.

2.100,000 Rupiah. That's Right.

3. A frog we caught, but didn't eat.

4. Kogilla and her friends at church!

5. A limestone hill in Ipoh.

6. The Spicy Sausage.

Elder Grffin: Ipoh is Just on Fire!

Hey guys! Sounds like it's been a really fun week back at home with Tyson's homecoming and all! Aiyo, saya hendak bahwa saya boleh datang dan dengar..... :/ Oh, well, everything here in Ipoh is just as swell as ever-lah! So, as always, here is the lowdown on this past week. Aiyo, ada banyak untuk menulis.... Okay, so as you already know, Malaysia is a Muslim country, so when I'm riding my bike everyday, I hear "Call to Prayer". If you want to hear what I hear everyday, look it up on YouTube. It sounds really cool and it's actually in a key called Harmonic Minor, which is always used for "Arabic-Aladdin" type music. Also, everything here is British style: the cars drive on the left side of the road, so that will be fun returning, and everything is spelled like "flavour, colour, neighbour" like that. And people always think that we're from England. I guess they can't tell the difference between an English accent and an American accent. Okay, so here's what happened this past week! Nikmat! (Enjoy!)

So, we were helping a Sister in the Ward, Sister L., to cut down her banana trees because her neighbors were complaining about it. So we cut them down, no pictures though, sorry. Did you know that the inside of a banana tree trunk is edible? You boil it and then you mix it with curry and spices. I eat a lot of curry here. A lot of the food here is Indian food, actually. Lot's of curry and roti and masala. So, if you ever have the opportunity to go to an Indian restaurant back in the States, you should go! 

So, we visited a potential investigator, named J., and we talked to her for about two hours answering all of her questions. She's really smart about the Bible, but we hope that she will also read and start to pray about the Book of Mormon, because she would know that it is true. "All who believe the Bible will also believe the Book of Mormon." -Chapter Heading, Moroni 8. (I think). So the day that we visited her, it turns out, was a day that we thought everything was going to fall through. It did, but it turned out for the best and I'll tell you why. So, the whole day we were pretty much "led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand what [we] should do", because all of our planned lessons fell through. So, right before we were going to teach J, an old man named Mr. T came and talked to us. He asked us to teach him about the Church, and in return, he would teach us a little bit of Chinese, so of course we said yes. 

Here's what happened when we visited him: First off, he was hilarious, I don't know why! He was like, "Oh, please, do sit. May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?" And he was way formal. Then he taught us how to count to 6 in Chinese (which I already knew), and then he goes off telling us his whole life story. How he retired in 1988, and like all of these other things. Meanwhile, some odd woman is singing her lungs out, in Opera-style, and Elder Snyder in I have our sweat-rags in front of our faces, trying as hard as we can not to laugh. It was so funny! Well, we taught him about Prophets, and we're going to meet with him again and teach him about the Restoration. The morning before, I praying that we would find someone who sincerely wanted to learn, and Mr. T found us! 

So, we were busy doing a lot of service all this week. Helping fix the church computers, the banana tree, cleaning the church......lots of stuff. Anywho--we went and visited a woman who was sick with food poisoning in the Hospital, and we gave her a blessing. She got released the next day, but then her kidneys started to fail, so she was readmitted into the ICU. We visited her family--her sister thought that I was 26, for some reason, not 19. That was really funny! And here is where it gets awesome.

So, Brother C (he visited J with us), follows us sometimes. He followed us yesterday. Well, Y, who was baptized, is already doing missionary work in his own family! We managed to teach his sister, along with another family that wanted to learn! So, in reality, we are teaching three families. Y's family (his parents and brothers and sisters), his sister's family (she has kids and a husband), and then this other family. Last night we taught all in Malay, about Jesus Christ. It's good to speak Malay again! But then, afterwards, they told us that they prefer English, because they don't really understand the Malay terminology for the Gospel. So now we will teach them in English. So, that's 5 new investigators. Including Mr. Ting, that's 6 obtained this week! Ipoh is just on fire! 

I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting about General Conference. One of the members flaked and so I had to fill the gap. Fun, right? But, no, the talk was all good, and the Spirit was really strong, so it was really awesome! 

I bought a bike. A new one. So, I don't have any money....I wish I would've known that I was going to buy one last week, I would have asked you to send some, but I'm doing okay. The bike was RM1250, so like $400, but it's a really good bike....just if it gets stolen, then I'm in a lot of trouble. So I pulled $200 out of my emergency fund, so I could finish paying for the bike and maybe buy some food to last me for the next month and a half, because I took all of the money out of my support to pay for it. The bike was originally like RM1300 or RM1400, but the man was nice and gave me a discount. It also has a 5 year warranty, but if it gets stolen, I can't replace it. It was either buy a new bike or repair the old bike and pay like RM300 and leave it here when I left, so I just bought a new bike. The old bike's brakes wouldn't work, and I wanted to live, so I bought the new bike recently. I would've waited month or two but.....yeah.

As for N, we haven't contacted his family yet. But we need to. So we will visit them soon, I hope. And with Indonesia, I traveled alone. It was District Conference in Ipoh, so my comp wasn't alone. But I was kind of scared, I didn't know what I was doing or where I was, I just did the best I could and tried to make it in and out of both countries. So, with my passport, it was either I had to leave West Malaysia and Sabah, or get deported back to the US. And I wanted to stay here, so I flew to Medan and...yeah, the rest is history. Elder Schuetz tried to get into Sarawak, but he got deported back to KK with airport security 24/7 and everything, so now he's an office Elder in Singapore. 

Well, that's all I have for now. My computer won't allow me to send any pictures, I don't know why, but I'll try again next week! I love you all! Bye! 

Dengan ikhlas,

Elder Joshua H. Griffin

Elder Griffin's Homecoming: Tyson's Home!!!

Well, Elder Griffin is finally home, 

and it's so awesome to have him back!

 I have lots of pictures to post, so I guess I'll get started!

One day left for Ty, 18 months for Josh!

One day to go!!

American Airlines Dallas to SLC has arrived!!!

The cousins came to welcome Elder Griffin:)

The missionaries Tyson flew home with from Montevideo

Unpacking...

Munching on the yummy alfajores Ty brough back from Uruguay

Headed out to hear Tyson speak about his mission in church

Visiting with the missionaries he served with in Uruguay

Zack and his friends at the luncheon

These missionaries from Uruguay love each other!

Cute little Paige is one of Tyson's cousins.  They all prayed for him all during his mission.

Welcome home from Uruguay, Elder Griffin!
We love you!!!