Jet Set Brunette: Turning 20 in Bama!!

Hey everybody!

So, we haven't had a whole lot of craziness this past week. No more guns have been pulled on us, yet. But yesterday was a really good day, because I celebrated my big 2-0! I started the day making myself our usual family tradition of birthday pancakes! Then we had church, which went good. We came home to eat lunch and also some birthday cake, (I couldn't resist) and I opened a few presents! After that we went to visit a couple members, had a lesson with a cute older lady on her porch, went contacting at the park, had a "12 week" session with Sister Pyrah (the in-field missionary training program), and then called it a day. Overall it was a great day! A few members here surprised me as well with a couple presents and birthday treats, which I was so grateful for! I'm so blessed! Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes!

Last night while contacting at the park, we started talking with a guy named Jeff. He was telling us about his life, some of the struggles he's had, as well as his belief in God. He mentioned something that stuck out to me. He explained to us that he believes in visions, because there's been a few times in his life where he feels like God has spoken to him (not face to face, but in other ways). He said that a lot of people think he's crazy. I told him that we didn't think he was crazy because, well, our faith whole-heartedly believes in visions, and revelation, and the Heavens not being closed. I think it's interesting that Jeff has this knowledge, that he believes in it, but he didn't really know where to go with it. He has bits and pieces of the Gospel but doesn't know how to string them all together. We can blame the apostasy on that one! Gospel truths were broken up, distorted, and lost. But luckily in God's perfect timing He strung everything back together.

I've been doing some study on the apostasy lately from Preach my Gospel, as well as the New Testament. It's really interesting to note that prophecies of the great apostasy were given by Christ, the Apostles, and others. It is written so plainly in the scriptures, and yet so many have a hard time recognizing that the apostasy was a real thing and that in consequence a restoration of Gospel truths was desperately needed. I won't get into it too much, but as an example, here in Alabama, there are churches on every corner. Think about how many denominations we have. This is because of the apostasy. There should be "One Lord, one faith, one baptism", and this is why God restored His Gospel.

With that, I'll close in saying how blessed we are to have everything strung together! Love y'all!

Sister Griffith