Homecoming for Elder Garrett Mifflin

Garrett will speak in church on July 30th at 9am.  The address to the church is
2925 E. Bengal Blvd (7800 South)

June 30, 2017

Elder Mifflin continues to serve for a few more weeks in what will be his final area.  On July 18 he will celebrate his 20^th birthday.  Yeilin, one of his current investigators, shares the exact same birthdate so perhaps they will celebrate together.  Below are some excerpts of recent emails.

“I am enjoying the mission but I can definitely feel my return day getting closer.  I am hoping to be able to help a lot of people in these 6 weeks and do some good in the world before going home to become a slave to college.”

“One thing that I will miss, but at the same time not miss at all about the mission is being able to meet and get to know so many random people everyday.  It is cool to meet all different types of people and try to help them in their lives…the not good side of that is we meet some people that are not so excited to see us…”

“We have been able to work with the bishop and the ward council to improve on some small but important things that need to change here” such as having members clean the church and starting sacrament meeting on time. “It is interesting how as a missionary you basically learn how to fulfill all of the callings in a ward because sometimes you are the ward.”

Recently Elder Mifflin was working to help a couple go to the temple but some challenges arose in the family and he was able to act as an intermediary.  He writes, “Believe it or not I have become quite the marriage counselor during the mission.”

 “On Monday (P day) we went back to Conani, my first area of the mission.   I was able to see a few of the people that I knew and worked with.  Overall it went very well.  The ride back to San Francisco was not very fun though.  It was only about 50 minutes but the bad part was that we had 15 adults and 8 children packed into a van that should probably not hold more than 12 people.  To make it even better, it started raining heavily which forced us to close the windows, turning the van into a giant sauna.  At that point my stomach was bothering me quite a bit so in all it was one of those things that are just terrible in the moment but later on you can laugh about it.  It was a pretty classic DR moment.”

Elder Mifflin was later diagnosed with Giardia but has now been treated and is doing much better!  We will see him in the flesh in a few weeks!  He will return home on July 27^th and speak in sacrament meeting on July 30^th 

More pics June 2017

Pictures

May 22, 2017

My comp and I have mostly been in the process of finding new people. That has always been the hardest part of the missionary work but it is cool also. We have met a lot of cool people over these last 3 weeks and yesterday found a small family that seems very promising. The bishop was released the other Sunday and the ward is still with out a bishop so we are waiting to see what happens there. We are also working a bit with the members because the ward is actually pretty close to becoming a branch.  Freddy and his family and also Lizmari are all doing very well. They should all be going down to the temple on Saturday for their first time so I am excited about that.

Elder Mifflin

May 8, 2017

Well this week was very good and very interesting. First off we did end up having transfers. Elder Reyes left to go to a place that is just outside the city of Santiago. I sent you some pictures of the little goodbye party that some members had for him. It was cool and we ate cake. He is pretty close by though and should be able to come to the baptism of Lizmari.  I was pretty bummed that he left though, him and I got along really well and worked together well also.  I was hoping that he would stay for one more transfer but as normally happens with the transfers things did not turn out the way that I wanted, but there is always a reason.  My new companion is a Dominican named Elder Medina. He has about a year and four months in the mission.   The week was very busy and as always were have been trying to find new people to teach that are actually interested in our message.  We were also working hard with Raidelis and Lizmari to get them ready for their respective baptisms. On Saturday I was able to be the one to baptize Raidelis which was cool. It was the fulfillment of one of my mission long goals of baptizing a family of at least two parents and one child. The three did not all get baptized on the same day but either way it has been really cool to be able to teach and help this family. It has also been a great privilege to teach Lizmari. She honestly is the best investigator that I have ever had in terms of understanding and willingness to put in time to read and learn.  I will baptize her and confirm her the next day so that should be awesome. I have never actually been the person to do the confirmation so I am excited and nervous. Yesterday after church we ate at a members house and I ate so much that I was full for about 6 hours. It was super tasty though so it was worth it. Today was our p day Santiago and we decided to go. I bought some souvenir type things and also set things up with a member that is going to make a case for my Spanish triple combination. By pure chance I "ran into" a guy in the street named Jonny. I taught him while I was still in Pueblo Nuevo and he was later baptized after I left to go to Dajabon. It was cool to talk to him and see him again. I also ate at the member´s house that lived next door to us and always cooked for us. It was cool and fun but a very tiring day. Time continues to go by quickly.  Very soon we will be talking on Skype for the last time and the month of May will be half way over.  I hope that they leave me here tranquilo to "die" or to finish the mission but who knows. 

Elder Mifflin

May 1, 2017

 My comp is doing well and even though he can not walk as far as normal we have been able to leave and work at about 80% of normal.  Due to not leaving the house for about 3 weeks we have had to focus a lot on finding new people but it has gone really well for us so far.  We also have two people that should be getting baptized in the month of May. The first is named Raidelis, she is the daughter of the couple that got married and baptized and her baptism will be this upcoming Saturday. The other one is a girl named Lizmari who has been one of my coolest investigators on the entire mission. Never have I taught someone that has progressed and learned everything so fast or that has had such a big desire to change their life and live a new lifestyle.  She should be baptized in May.  We do have transfers on Wednesday but I highly doubt that I will leave. I would imagine that I will finish my mission here in this area, at least that is what I am hoping for.  I can feel myself slowly getting closer and closer to finishing the mission. I have less than 90 days now and it just keeps going down faster and faster.  It should be an awesome 90 days!  Also fun fact for you; Do you remember seeing a baptism that I had in Santiago last May that was my first time actually performing the baptism?  That girl turned in her mission papers about a week ago and should be receiving her mission call soon so that is awesome.  I am super happy about that and I am excited to see where she will go.  I love you all!

Hablamos el otro lunes 

Elder Mifflin