Jet Set Brunette: "Praise Jesus! Come on in!"

Happy Belated Easter and Conference weekend:)

I hope ya'll had the chance to watch or listen to conference, it was really good! I could barely keep up in taking notes, good thing they'll post the conference talks for us all to read or listen to again. I specifically loved the talks by L. Tom Perry, D. Todd Christofferson, Wilford W. Anderson, and (of course) Holland! There's so much to read, learn, and digest. Not only with conference, but within the scriptures. I'm glad that we have two hours every morning to study.

Last week we were tracting in a ghetto near our apartments. We knocked on a door, and this older lady answered and exclaimed, "Praise Jesus! Come on in!" And she immediately invited us in and hugged us and told us to take a seat, which is so very different than the typical response we get at someone's front door! We spent just a few minutes in this woman's home, but we learned that she's a minister, and that she loves everyone no matter who they are. We learned that she was an alcoholic in the past, and that she didn't have the best life, but that she found Jesus and it has changed her life. She told us how she's been talking with a few prostitutes, and that she is helping them become "saved" and change their lives for the better. You can tell that Christ is in her life. You don't have to be a certain denomination to have Christ in your life! Anyway, we talked about Easter with her, wished her a good day, and went to go knock on more doors.

Another interesting experience we had last week was with a couple in our ward. We were having dinner with them, and they told us about how they were here during the very bad tornado in 2011. The tornado was a mile wide. It went right through their neighborhood, and demolished their home. This Sister was at home taking care of her 1 year old baby granddaughter when the tornado came, and all she could do was get into a closet and try to keep her granddaughter safe. When the tornado passed, she looked up to the ceiling and found the roof had been taken off, and when she opened the door of the closet you can only imagine what she saw. She then emerged from her home and began trying to help her neighbor who had been badly injured. This Sister is such a cute lady, and upon first meeting her, you'd never expect her to have gone through such an ordeal. You can never judge a book by it's cover. This Sister also has such strong faith in God. You can see Christ working through her as she tried to keep her granddaughter safe, and that she went to help her neighbor. This couple also notes that although storms like that are devastatingly hard, they help people come together no matter what age or race they are.

Talking about storms, we've had a few thunderstorms recently, and there's been a couple times when the District leaders told us to stay inside (luckily, it's been at night when we would have been home anyway.) Hopefully we won't have to deal with any truly bad weather!

Easter was good yesterday. :) Sister Bailey and I just get spoiled. The Sister's that we live with set up a little Easter egg hunt for us, and got us a cute gift, and made pancakes for all of us!! And then a family in our ward invited us over for Easter dinner, and we had a great dinner and they gave us little gifts and candy! Isn't that so sweet?! I'm so grateful for everyone's kindness. And talking about kindness, thank you to Rena Redmon and April Larsen for sending me cards! I really appreciate it:)

Hope ya'll had a good Easter!

Sister Griffith