Mar 20 2012 Email

They are doing an air show in St George now? I hope they keep it up so I can come see it when I’m home! We see lots of different airplanes and helicopters and tanks and such being in Barstow because Fort Irwin is just down the road and it’s pretty cool. It was nice this last week to get a little 2 day vacation! We had a 2 day Leadership meeting down in Rancho Cucamonga and since I’m all the way in Barstow, my roommate Elder C and I went down Wednesday night and stayed through Friday afternoon. The meeting on Thursday was from 8-5 and felt like forever but it was a really good meeting they just trained on things such as gaining member trust, the Doctrine of Christ, How to connect with people more effectively and the Book of Mormon. It was extremely good! After that was over I was companioned with Elder H and his new Companion Elder N back in C Ward again!! It was good to be back but all we had time to do was go to dinner and then the appointments after that fell through. It was so great to be with my favorite companion again though. Even with that meeting our districts numbers jumped a whole lot and it made me super happy as a district leader! This week might not be AS good but will still hopefully be good!
Saturday was such a great day! We had the baptism of S and A B!! The girls we have been teaching! There was a really good turnout and they had so much support it was awesome! I baptized A and Elder H baptized S. I super super love that family so much they are really great people. After the baptism we went out to H to a less active members house and visited with them for a while and had a good time with them. After that we had dinner at the R family’s home and they had a new dog that was about a week and a half old. It was a girl and they named it Toby? I didn’t approve so I named it Gertrude and the dad thought it was funny so supposedly it stuck! haha I named their dog!!
Sunday was a pretty good day also. We set a baptismal date for June 12th with our investigator M. It’s far away because he has some things to work through but it’s going to happen. I also realized while I was sitting in Church that I could name ALMOST every person that was in sacrament meeting. It made me feel pretty good! That night our dinner didn’t work out and Elder H and C were going to a different dinner. Luckily a less active family we were going to see said we could eat with them! It’s the same one we see every week but this week I took Elder U and we played air hockey with the kids and I taught a couple of them some chords on the guitar and then we went and talked with the mom who is the less active member and her aunt who was pretty tipsy but was being really really funny! We had a good long talk with them and hopefully we will see the mom at church this week! It was definitely a pretty good week and I’m really happy that this is the last week of the transfer!!!!! FINALLY! From what I’ve been hearing is that I’ll be staying in Barstow a few more which is okay with me! Also we found out that M. Russell Ballard is coming to talk to the mission on April 21st! Just a few more weeks! I’ll let you all know how it goes afterwards!!

Email Mar 12 2012

Well this week has been pretty good! Although we had some tough days... I don’t have my planner with me so I’m just going to try to remember the things that happened each day.

Tuesday- I had district meeting and it went well again! After that I got my hair cut! We had an appointment out in H at 2 so we drove out there to find that she wasn’t home and rescheduled to the next day so we figured we would go visit other people that we didn’t know that lived out in H. It was extremely windy though and since there is so much sand everywhere it was getting kicked up and you couldn’t see 3 cars in front of you and it hurt to get out of the car and get hit with sand so we headed back to the apartment until our 4 o clock appointment with our recent convert J. It wasn’t a very successful day although we did stuff all day. I always love going to the H’s home because they are one of my very favorite families out here in California and it’s been a blessing to me to get to know them.

Wednesday I went on exchanges with the zone leaders! We went and dropped into another companionships companion study to see how well they do it, went and dropped things off to the zone, then went out to lunch with Elder S and a few other missionaries. We tried to see some less-actives but none were home so that didn’t work out. We had an appointment that night to teach a member of his ward and then the guy took us out to dinner. After dinner we had an appointment with a less active family and we read Alma 32 with them and just had a good time. I got to see some crazy things while on exchanges such as a big plane yard where they fix up planes and sell them and saw some really HUGE planes and we saw an ostrich farm that had easily over 100 ostriches haha it was super funny!

Thursday for some reason I don’t remember what we did...

Friday we got to go with a member family here down to C to do service at the DI. It was super fun and V who we went and taught each week while I was serving there, works at DI and I got to work with her and she is doing sooo well right now! I’m really happy for her because you can really tell how much the Gospel blesses her life now that she is back at church and how happy it makes her. After we got home we went and tried to find some less actives and we found that one moved but we talked to the lady they lived with who is the primary president and had a good talk with her and we also briefly met a less active family that is really really friendly and said that we can come over any time. They have twins that are 17 and a 19 year old and the mom and dad and they are super awesome so we will hopefully go meet with them this week with what little time we have. (Thursday and Friday I have a meeting down in the valley so I’m staying overnight down there)

Saturday we met another less active family that the missionaries used to work with. The mom and daughter are members but aren’t active and the dad isn’t a member. They are a super super nice family though and said we can come over anytime because they love having missionaries over and the wife said that she wants us to teach the lessons to her husband and after he gets off parole he can decide whether or not he wants to be baptized. It was a good week!! The spirit has blessed us with some new people to work with and I’m really excited about it!! I love you so much and hope everything is going good for you!

Email March 3 2012

Well for some reason or other I didn’t get dads email this week... so I guess I’ll hear about T’s baptism next week! But it was good to hear about the wedding! Elder S and I were just talking about that today! We had a good time being able to hang out at our zone activity which was hiking and we got a couple of good pictures together. I’ll be writing more about that in my snail mail I’m sending to you!

This week has been a good/bad one. We had a couple pretty hard days due to weather but the other days went pretty smooth. First of all we had an awesome amount of people that attended church yesterday!! We had 4 investigators including the 2 girls we have been working with which makes it so they can get baptized! They have a date set for the 17th so it should actually go through this time! We also had 2 of that family of 3 we are now teaching come and they really liked it and the members actually stopped and talked with them!! Big improvement!! We also had 9 less actives at church including a family that hadn’t come the whole time I had been there! It was the S family and I have met all but the dad who is also a member. Yesterday the WHOLE family was at church! We met the dad and set up an appointment to come see them later that night! It was really awesome to see!! Between us and our roommates we had about 23 less actives/investigators at church! It was a really good week! We ended up seeing a lot of members this week and just trying to get them working on missionary work. Sunday was definitely our best day! We had a zone/mission fast Saturday night-Sunday night to be able to be more united with the Spirit and to find teaching opportunities. Well Sunday we saw 3 less actives and had all those people at church. Answer to prayers? I think so. We had a good lesson with Brother S who calls himself a "jack Mormon" haha He really does want to improve though and he is a really funny and nice guy and just wants a better life. He is devoting himself to finding a job and studying the scriptures! After that we saw a family I had never met. It was the S family and they were super nice! At least the parents were! The 17 year old daughter looked at us like she wanted us to leave the whole time. I got over it though and besides my headache from fasting we had a good conversation!

It was a smaller email this week because not a whole lot happened and it was extremely windy for a couple of days and it made work hard. But I was able to update our area book and organize it to a way that will be very helpful! I love you all and hope you are having a fun time back home!

Email Feb 28 2012

Tuesday is when I last wrote but that night was a really good night. Our investigators S and A’s mom called about our appointment and asked if we wanted to eat dinner with them too! So we went and had some pizza and salad with them then had a mini lesson that didn’t go too well because of my migraine. It was just a little mixed up. Now after that we went over to see that family the guy at church told us about and had an amazing lesson with them (mom, dad, and 22 year old son). We talked about the Holy Ghost and its importance starting with John 14:26-27 talking about when the Holy ghost was given to the apostles, then read Galatians 5:22-23 about the fruits of the spirit and read Helaman 5:30 about how you need to pay attention so you don’t miss the Spirit. We expounded on everything and had the member with us bear his testimony about the spirit and it was soo good after he bore his testimony I asked if it would be okay if we just sat in silence and felt the Spirit that was with us. They said it would be okay and we spent about 20 seconds in silence and the dad and mom had tears in their eyes and the son did a little bit too. The Spirit was soo strong and they said that they would be at church on Sunday... but they didn’t go. So we will find out what happened tomorrow when we see them again.

Wednesday we went to visit a couple of members in a rest home on our side. We see one of them about every other week and she is super nice and friendly, just lonely. The other is a member that just got there because he is recovering from a hip replacement so we went to see him and he told us stories about being a police officer and how much the Holy Ghost can guide and protect us. It was a really fun and neat experience. We also had a tracting experience that was absolutely awful and disgusting that I’m not going to expound on but it made me think how lucky I am to have been raised with the morals that I have and the belief in God and Jesus and how much they do for us. We went to Mutual that night and hung out with the Young men/Young Women because some of the stake came and put on some fun games. It was pretty great and I love the youth in our ward

Thursday we had a good meeting with a couple of newer investigators and we taught them the restoration. It didn’t go as great as I wanted it to because there were a lot of distractions and he seemed really distracted but his wife really seemed to be pondering what we had taught her. We then went and met with J our recent convert and got to visit with him and his family for a while. I love that family to death!

Friday I went on exchanges with Elder C in my district and went on bike! It wasn’t too bad actually! We had a full day of appointments and we started to help a less active start on a program we have that helps people stop smoking, we saw a recent convert and a less active family that we watched the testaments with. It was a very good day and it was fun to be with a different companion and see how he works.

Saturday we went and did service on the other Elders side of a less active that we all love! He is a super funny guy and I’ll tell you more about him later but yeah we helped him do some service then went out in the middle of nowhere and saw a family and are working on convincing the 81 year old dad to get the priesthood so him and his wife can get sealed in the temple. He just has a lot of excuses why not to do it but we got him to commit to seeing the bishop soon! That night we went and played basketball with the same less active we did service for.

Sunday we had church and went to dinner and spent awhile there then left and went back to that less actives house to pick up the other elders bikes. We had nothing else to do that night so we stayed for a bit because he said he was bored. He is a Samoan guy and has a super funny sense of humor so we stayed. After a bit he handed me his scriptures and said "Elder Graf I want you to share a scripture with me." so I opened up and found a scripture in Helaman about prayer Helaman 3:35 and he opened up to me and my roommates because my comp was talking with the less actives friend in the next room. But the less active said that he was committing to us all right there that he was going to start going to church again. He knows he should be so he will start going to sacrament meeting at least because that’s all he can before work starts and also he told us how his 2 friends he was living with know that the church is true but one of their moms is too pushy about it and they don’t want to do anything right now about it but they only opened up to this guy and he told us that they really do like us being around and enjoy our company and that every time we come over to start sharing little thoughts with everyone. It was a really cool experience to be a part of.

Well that is the exciting parts of my last week! I love you tons and hope your week goes well!

Email Feb 21 2012

Tuesdays were transfers so we drove down to R. I miss Elder H a lot even though at first we didn’t get along too well and were pretty different he is one of my favorite companions and I miss being his companion. Well I got my new companion and his name is Elder H from Utah. He loves to sing and works very well with kids. This transfer is hopefully going to be a pretty good one!

It was really fun on Saturday I went on exchanges with Elder U who is one of my roommates and we went down to V for a meeting I had to go to with the zone leaders. Then from there we went down to C because J who we taught while I was there was getting baptized! We got there about an hour and a half early and so we went by the J’s house and visited with them for an hour. It was funny because it felt like coming home haha. After that was the baptism and it was sooo awesome! The Spirit was very strong there and she seemed really happy. Also her husband was there who stopped taking the lessons and her mom who is not a member. It was really neat! After that we headed back up to B only stopping at Wendy’s in Vbecause we don’t have one in B. We got back and went over to the Church to teach our investigator J one last time before the Zone leaders did the interview for his baptism! It went really well and he said the closing prayer which is a recent thing that he started doing for us. Before he was really shy and wouldn’t pray in front of us but he did it the last 2 times we met with him and let me tell you. I have never felt the Spirit so strong during a prayer in my life. Now the reason we were at the church was because there was a Valentines dance/dinner going on that was being put on by the young women for the adults and that’s where James was going to be. After we finished with that we talked to a couple members for a bit and then it was almost over so we helped them clean up which was pretty fun I suppose. hah altogether it was a really good day. Probably one of my favorites!

 

Sunday was a really good day also! For the first reason being that J got baptized! The Bishop did the talk on baptism and the Holy Ghost; he baptized him, and confirmed him. It was a very simple baptism and that’s exactly what J asked us for. I absolutely love the H family though. They are so dang great! they have a son that’s 9 almost 10 and he was wearing a suit so I took off my magnet name tag and put it on his suit and put my other name tag on my coat. The people at the baptism thought it was really funny and called him mini Elder Graf. He looks like me a little too which was funny. Sister H was very happy about the baptism too. And they talked about already having plans to go to the temple in a year to get sealed together! I’m also excited to go to their house for dinner again because J said he would pull out his telescope and show us some stuff which is awesome because he lives out in the far part of our area where you can see the stars REALLY well! Also on Sunday we had a guy in Gospel principles class who wanted to talk to me and Elder H after class and turns out he has been teaching a family about the church and wants us to come teach them! So we will do that tonight! He has already taught them some from the gospel principles book, from the Book of Mormon. The dad and son both already told him they know that it’s true. They hold family home evening every Monday night with this member and he has given them the family proclamation to the world! Its super great to find a member that will do missionary work! The thing is he is only down here once a month for a couple weeks so he wanted to introduce us before he left again so we could get started on the lessons. Hopefully we have a new family to be teaching!

 

Now about the other baptisms we were supposed to have of the 2 girls... well they still need to come to church. We moved the date to March 3rd but they still didn’t come to church so we have to move it again. BUT we finally met their mom and she is one of the nicest ladies I have ever met! She fed us dinner last week and we have an appointment with them tonight at her house and not the Grandmas! And she just called and asked if we have a dinner tonight and we don’t so she is feeding us too! Things seem to be going pretty good for the most part. I only had one day that really was awful and that was Friday.

 

We went out to try to contact people in front of a couple stores but pretty much every person said no. and it wasn’t in a nice way either; they were jerks about it. Then we went to see a less active who told us we could come back and he was a jerk to us and a couple other people we tried to see were just not kind so finally I was about to just go back to the apartment because I was sick of it all but decided to go see a member of the ward that has been taking care of her father in law who has been really sick so she has to stay with him and can’t make it to church. She let us in and we had a really good talk with her for a while and it made me feel a little better. Then we went down the street to a less active and she let us in and we talked with her and her family for a while and they are really awesome too just super super busy with a lot of different activities. So the day didn’t end up too bad but for the first part it was awful. But thus goes missionary work haha. That’s pretty much all for this week! I love you tons and miss you!

Email Feb 13 2012

Well I’m going to hop into my email again it always seems like I don’t have enough time to ever write all the emails I want with all the info I want in them. Transfers are tomorrow (Valentine’s Day) but I’m not going anywhere but my companion is. Also I will be Senior Companion. The reason I know this is that the AP's called me last night and I apparently have been called as the new District Leader. Not too bad haha I guess I’ll be figuring out how to do all the things a district leader does now! haha my companion also got a district leader call for whatever area he is going too.

Well this week was full of a lot of cancelled appointments so we didn’t get to teach as many lessons as last week and spent a lot of our week with members getting to know them but some of the highlights of the week would be that we did get a new investigator and will be getting another couple tomorrow hopefully. The other missionaries in our ward talked to her on the street and she invited them over but they found out she is in our area so they got the guy with the tattoos and we got a different lady. I would much rather teach the guy with tattoos because he was a really awesome guy.

I got a call from Elder T who is still in C and J the lady we taught while we were there whose husband was the reason she hadn’t been getting baptized finally decided she was going to get baptized whether he did or not so that will be this upcoming Saturday and I get to go to that. I’m pretty excited to go back to that area for a little bit. We also have our baptism in B on Sunday and it should be really great. We ate dinner at their house last night and it was my first time to actually get to meet and talk with most of their kids. They are a way awesome family and the 2 oldest kids pointed at me and said "I like this Elder!" haha it made my day! I’m really excited for him to get baptized it will be a good experience and he is ready for it. We are still working on finding people and may have found a couple new potentials!

We also had a baptism yesterday! It was just for a boy who turned 8 but his dad isn’t a member so he asked me if I would baptize him so we got to go to that yesterday and I was able to baptize him. I had to dunk him twice though because his foot came up haha they are a really great family though and even though the dad drinks and smokes and does NOT want to be a member he was at the baptism and he is very respectful of the church and of us and is a very friendly guy.

That’s really all for this week next week I’ll tell you all about my new companion and how being a district leader is going! I love you all so much and miss you!

Email Feb 6 2012

This week was a really great one and a very good blessing!

Tuesday I went on transfers with a missionary in my district who is new to the mission field! We had a super great day! We went out to a members house (Elder H and I are still working on meeting the members here and gaining their trust) they were a pretty old couple and they are Navajo. Their son who is less active was there which was a plus but we talked with them and got to know them then we shared a really good lesson on the Atonement and on Repentance and what a great blessing it is. After we were done, all three of them asked for blessings because they are not doing too well healthwise. It was a great experience and I don’t remember what I said in the blessings but the spirit was VERY present. After that we had a visit with a less active family who is one of my favorite families here in the ward. It’s interesting because every week that we visit them they go to church. Our ward mission leader said we should start visiting them every week haha. After that we hurried out to H which is the farthest town in our area and saw our investigator who is married to a member that we have been working with. We had a great lesson on the Gospel of Christ and invited him to be baptized and he accepted and we set a date for February 19th. His wife is very excited.

Wednesday we met with more members and saw a couple of more less-actives. One of them is only less active because she has medical problems so we go to see her in a rest home every so often and she really appreciated the visit. We also met with a couple of our other investigators. A 9 year old girl and a 10 year old girl and we set a baptismal date with both of them too! They are sisters and their mom is a less active and so is their grandma and I’m not sure if their dad is even a member. But yes we set another 2 dates for Feb 18th! Sadly they did not come to church so we will be moving the date.

Thursday we went to another member’s house who we had received a call to go give her a blessing. We gave her a blessing for her back which has problems and then just talked with her and shared a message with her. The rest of our day was alright we did a lot of talking to people. But later that night we got a call from her and she left a voice mail and she thanked us for the blessing and said she has not had any pain in her back since the blessing and she talked about how great the priesthood is.

Friday we had interviews with president which went very well I suppose but by the time we got back and studied a little we didn’t have a whole lot of time. We went out to talk to people around Vons and we had something interesting happen! We were walking by the front doors and there was a guy sitting on the bench outside. He was all tatted up, he had a few piercings, and he was smoking. I walked up to him and introduced myself and gave him a card like I usually do and he said "yeah I’m a Christian too" I told him "that’s great! have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?" he said he hadn’t so while I took a copy out of my backpack Elder H explained what it was and he got pretty excited and said we would definitely check it out. So I asked him if he would like it if we came over and shared some lessons and taught him more about the Book of Mormon and he said "yes! Do you need my address?" We got it and he said that we could come over anytime and that he AND his wife would love to learn!! It was really cool but sadly he is in the other missionaries area :( we didn’t get anything else done because we had to go back and weekly plan and eat dinner.

Saturday I had the great opportunity to drive an hour or so to the valley back to R to see T get baptized. It was a great baptism and he knows that he has made the right choice. After the baptism me and Elders H, H, N (H’s new comp), C, G, J (good friend of mine), and his companion went out to lunch and I went back to the old apartment to get some things I had left. We went back to good old Barstow and went to visit a couple more members.

Sunday was kind of tough because it was Super Bowl Sunday but we met with MORE members!! But anyways it was a really great week and we have some referrals we are going to visit this week and hopefully get about 6 new investigators. We taught about 14 lessons this last week. I’d just like you to compare that to how we were doing 3 weeks ago. I love you all and hope that you’re all doing great!