it works now. I changed that in the config under “record”

Old:

device : null // recording device (e.g.: "plughw:1")

New:

device : "plughw:1" // recording device (e.g.: "plughw:1")

@sunilkvr
{
module: “MMM-AssistantMk2”,
position: “top_right”,
config: {
useWelcomeMessage: “brief today”
}
},

this simple config should work just for testing and making sure the module loads.
I ended up fixing mine by rolling back to grpc 1.2 and gcc7 then rebuilding the binaries. Took about an hour on my pi 2, but its up and running now.