Email Dec 10 2012

Well my new companion is.............. Elder C! He was my roommate last year when I was companions with Elder H. It was crazy that we got put together and we are going to get a lot accomplished. At church yesterday we got a list from bishop that has the names of people who are single and between the ages of 18-30 and there are 900 names!! Some of them are on missions and some of them really are married but still that is going to be one heck of a list to try and contact! Our goal is to double sacrament meeting attendance! It shouldn’t be extremely hard since we average about 40 people. So we need like 40 names out of 900. Not bad at all. Our zone is still really awesome. We got some new greenies who seem like they are going to be really good workers. Not really too much happened this last week. We were trying to get things ready for the upcoming weeks and we helped in a Nativity that our stake put on and we had a booth with missionary stuff, mormon.org playing, and a table with a big sheet of paper across it that said "what does Christmas mean to you?" and people could write on it. That had the most success of anything we had but it was really really fun to be there and our investigator C came and we sat with him and had a good time. So we also taught R again and invited him to be baptized he said he doesn’t feel 100% ready yet but he had his friends there with him and they bore their testimonies and it was really powerful.  I talked to his friend M on Sunday and he said that R said he does want to get baptized but he wants to really know it’s true when he does so that "When people ask why he got baptized he would know what to say." He is really solid and we are planning on having a really good lesson with him this week. We found out W is going to be staying here over the break! Her family all got sick so she’s not going down to see them yet which gives us more time to teach her.   Her Boyfriend actually took her to church the week she was with him out at a Marine Ball which I thought was a cool thing for him to do.  She is super super awesome and I can totally see her being an awesome member of the church. Not really too much else right now. Just holding down the fort here in S B. Glad to hear you had such a good time in Disney world! Love you tons!

Email Dec 3 2012

Good to know that all the college stuff is taken care of. Well first off I guess I will write about transfers... I’m staying! But sadly Elder H is leaving. It wasn’t really unexpected though because he has been in this ward for 9 months. I’m very anxious to find out who my companion is. Usually there is just a small variety of choices for zone leaders but for some reason every zone leader companionship is changing except for 1 that means that I have 7 people who could possibly be my companion. Some are exciting and others not so much. Kind of anxious because I don’t like getting new companions (I can’t wait to get married and have the last companion forever ;) haha )

 We had a pretty good week. I went on exchanges with Elder M on Tuesday and we taught 3 lessons and got 1 new investigator who is super super solid! I’ve talked a little about him and this was the first time we got to teach him. On Sunday our investigator’s grabbed me and said. "Elder He's ready. Talk about it with him on Tuesday." So we are going to have a baptism in this ward before the year is done! The only one so far! He has already been coming to church for about 9 weeks so church is no problem we just have to teach him now and baptize him! Also on Tuesday we taught W and she said she had been thinking a lot about baptism and wants to get baptized when she gets back from winter break. I was a little worried about that but for the last week of her winter break she will be at her boyfriend’s home with his family and they are all members so she will have a lot of support from that! Things are rolling forward and hopefully will go faster and faster!

 We also got to have a cool experience this morning and go help our ward clean the temple! They do such a thorough job at it! It was really funny because the temple is locked and so we rang the bell for a worker to let us in and the man who let us in was Brother Garcia from Chaffey ward! That is where we had Thanksgiving dinner last year! I also saw Brother Nielsen, our ward mission leader in Big Bear! It was super cool to see them all and we got some good pictures outside the temple.

Email Nov 26 2012

I’m pretty excited for Christmas! Transfer calls are on Saturday and then after that I will know where I will be for Christmas! Hopefully still here! I can’t believe that Preston is home! That flew! How was his mission? Did he enjoy Japan? I think it would have been crazy to be out of the country but I’m glad that I’m here! Not really much happened this last week... so I don’t have much to write about. So I’m just going to write my paragraph for the ward news

I’ve now been out on my mission for 15 months and am loving every moment of it. I am one of the few missionaries who has been in each of the diverse areas. I’ve served in the city (the middle class, the high class, and now the lower class) I served in the High desert and also in the mountains and now I’m serving in a Young Single Adult ward. I guess all that is left is a Polynesian ward! It has been a great experience that I wouldn’t take back for the world. I would highly suggest that everyone who is able to serve a mission should because it will bless your life in so many ways! Love you all!

Well this last week wasn’t too bad.... haha pretty much EVERYTHING fell through. Probably one of the worst weeks I’ve had out here. Thanksgiving was even lame. The only fun part of Thanksgiving was the turkey bowl that morning. We played for about 3 hours then went home and cleaned up and relaxed and went to our dinner. Turns out we had some miscommunication and we were supposed to be there at 12 but we got there about 1:45 so most of the food was gone and what was left was cold. I get more full on my every day dinners than I did on Thanksgiving. After that we went by to see Elder U and his companion and then went to a member’s house that night about 6:30 for pie. That was all that happened on our Thanksgiving. I was feeling pretty homesick a lot of the day wishing I could be with the family.

 

On Tuesday we had exchanges and I went on bike with Elder A who has been out about 3 months. Everything fell through. We tracted a little bit of an apartment complex and had some decent success and I also learned how to bunny hop on a bike which was fun! Then we went to institute that night and had a really awesome lesson about how grateful we all are about the gospel. President Andrews who teaches used a comparison that I thought was really good about sharing the gospel. For the people who are afraid to share the gospel because they might offend their friend he said. "Would you be offended if I offered you a glass of Orange juice? Even if I didn’t want the Orange juice I still wouldn’t be offended that you offered it." I thought that was very well put and I’m probably going to start using that when people use that excuse.

Wednesday we did find a new person to teach and it went really well. She is the friend of one of our members and she was coming over to bake with the member and so we were also invited to share a message and to try their food they made! We taught the first half of the plan of salvation talking about pre earth life, the creation, Adam and Eve, and why we are here on Earth. She was paying really good attention and we were able to set up another appointment to finish the lesson the upcoming Wednesday.

Sunday we got some good news! A member has been bringing his friend to church and activities for the past month or so and he said that this last week he took him to the LA temple and they watched the Restoration movie and he really liked it and that he wants to meet with us and take the lessons!! We are teaching him tomorrow and he will hopefully get baptized very soon!

Well that is about all from the last week! Love you tons have a great week this week!!

Email Nov 20 2012

I’m really excited for Thanksgiving! We got invited to a few people’s homes. We are playing football with the stake in the morning and then there are a couple people who are having late Thanksgiving meals on like Saturday that invited us. We even had a Thanksgiving meal last night! ahhh it’s so good!

 

I can’t believe it’s already week 5 of the transfer! It’s going way fast. Today we are going up with some other missionaries to Lake Arrowhead to go visit around the village and look at all the shops and just have a relaxing pday. It’s been kind of funny because Elder H and I have been trying to work on our Spanish. I can now pray in Spanish. Not well. But it’s getting there! haha I’m going to keep practicing. It will be useful if I can learn Spanish.

There’s another Kevin Graf??? woah!

 

Well this week was pretty good! We had a couple really awesome experiences. One was when I was tracting with Elder N. We go up to our first door and Elder N knocks. Nothing. He knocks again. Nothing. He knocks one last time and waits and then goes to put a card on the door and all of a sudden somebody knocks from the other side. It took us by surprise but I thought it was funny so I knocked back in a little beat. Then he knocked again. After that we just waited for a minute and a younger guy opened the door and was like "hey you didn’t finish the beat." We all laughed and then started to share a little about our message. He told us he is a big believer in Jesus and asked if we had any reading material so without hesitation Elder N asked him if he had heard of the Book of Mormon. We then explained what it was and asked him to read Moroni’s promise and then got his info to come back. We bore our testimonies to him and Elder N stuck a pass along card in the Book of Mormon on 2 Nephi 33 and asked him to read it and he asked if we were thirsty, got us some water and while we drank the water he stood there and read the chapter. After he finished he said he really liked what he had read and wanted us to come back. It was sooooo neat and the Spirit was sooo strong. After that a little ways up the street there were a couple of kids trying to get a couple of balls out of a tree we asked if they wanted help. Turns out they had a basketball, a soccer ball and 3 footballs all stuck in this big ol tree. So Elder N got one football out and the basketball out and then Elders H and P showed up and Elder H got one of the other footballs out and was working on the soccer ball and I was trying to get the highest football. Finally we were going to just give up and go but we both gave them one more shot. I threw the basketball up and hit the football out! But that’s not all. The basketball came back down, bounced twice and swooshed into the basketball hoop! Haha that couldn’t be repeated if I tried the rest of my life!

 

Not too much else was really neat this week. We did get to go with our ward down to Redlands temple and set up the manger scene they have out and that was super fun. Sadly I forgot my camera but when we go back to the temple to help clean it in a couple weeks I’ll take some pictures. Well that was pretty much the highlights from our week! Love you tons!

Email Nov 13 2012

To Mom:  It’s sooo crazy that next week is Thanksgiving! I will officially spend both of my Thanksgivings being companions with Elder H! haha pretty crazy! I miss Zion’s a lot. I actually have a post card that Sister Plumb sent me that is a picture of Zion’s and I used it for my planner cover for this transfer! haha its great to look at every day!  So where is everyone going for Thanksgiving this year? Not really much to talk about this week just sending quick emails to everyone and getting back to work! Love you so much!

To Dad:  Well this week I’m not going to do a long email. Nothing really exciting happened anyways but because it was a holiday yesterday I didn’t get to email so I’m just sending short ones to everyone this week.

I guess a cool experience that we had this last week was when I was tracting with Elder M. We knocked on a door and this 20 year old black kid answers the door and just says "oh come on in!" so we went in and started talking to him and it turns out that he said he has seen missionaries on their bikes all over for the last 4 years but none of them have ever stopped to talk to him. He also told us that he wasn’t sure about religion because "there are so many churches but how are we supposed to know which one is right?" so we briefly summarized about how God loves us and has restored his church to the earth and Elders D and M are going to go back and teach him tomorrow and if he is still interested they are handing him over to us! It was really neat though and his is just a super nice awesome kid. Definitely looking for something. Anyways that’s about it for this week! Love you tons!

Email Nov 5 2012

To Mom:  It always seems like they spring those meetings on you at the last second! That’s happened to me more than enough out here haha That sounds like a lot of fun to have Leesa over. I remember her from mannny years ago haha. Not really a ton happened this week. We had a meeting ALL day Thursday that we as zone leaders now have to train our zone on tomorrow. It should go pretty well though! Things have definitely been going a lot better! We are getting more work done (not as much as I’d like sometimes but enough) and I love our zone members and being in the San B zone. This next week is hopefully going to be really good! I’m glad to hear that Becky and Joey are doing okay. We had a lot of people talk about the Hurricane over here and it was a good conversation starter to say "oh yeah I have a sister over there!" All in all our week wasn’t terrible but there is definitely lots of room for improvement! I love you tons and hope your meetings go great!

To Dad:  Well this week was really great actually! We got 2 new investigators. One was a kid named D. He is friends with that member I was talking about last week annndd it went okay. He wasn’t as super solid as I thought he was. He doesn’t believe that there is just one true church. We are going to work with him still though for at least another couple weeks. We also taught this girl in our wards roommate! It was on Halloween and we didn’t have a ton of time so we did a lesson on faith and did what we call the faith rocket where you light a tea bag on fire on their hand and right before it gets to their hand it floats off and doesn’t burn them. It’s pretty neat. We asked her and her roommate what they could do to strengthen their faith and A (the investigator) said go to church. So we invited her to church and she said she would come the next week because she had to work. Then K (The member) said she could do better at reading the scriptures and A was like "I’ll read them with you!" It surprised us all! She also said she would pray! It was pretty neat because we weren’t sure how solid she was going to be but it’s looking good! Also W is progressing very well! We moved her baptism date back to the 24th and she came to church again and likes to meet with us and just eats up what we teach! It’s super neat to see! Other than that there wasn’t a whole lot this week.. We did absolutely nothing on Halloween night. It was really lame. We went tracting a couple times with other Elders but not much happened. So a couple really good things and then just kinda a busy week with Zone leader stuff... but oh well! I love you tons and hope you have a great week!

Email Oct 29 2012

Well basically in a singles ward that is DEAD work wise and being a zone leader we don’t get very much new stuff going on so our week was pretty much average... We did get to teach 3 people unexpectedly which was awesome! We just went to a member’s house to share a message and whoa... They had a friend their so we shared lessons with them! They were all hesitant to learn more but we at least taught them! Also our investigator W came to church yesterday with her boyfriend who I found out is a returned missionary! Sweet! So she will hopefully get baptized in a couple weeks! We also had a pretty cool thing at church! so we had been trying to get this member to help his friend want to take the lessons and his friend kept saying no so we were pretty much just giving up on him... well yesterday the member came up to us and said he asked his friend again and he finally agreed!! The thing is that his friend has only missed church 1 time since I’ve been here and goes to FHE and Institute he is sooo just ready to get baptized! So wish us luck with him and pray for us!

Also some cool news! Elder N my favorite comp is now training... and he is in our zone!! He lives right across the street from us so I get to see him all the time! It’s super awesome! A couple more just really cool/funny experiences.

1. I went tracting with Elder N and we had TONS of weird things happen. We got a LEGIT door slammed on us and afterwards the old lady yelled swear words at us out the window and complained about how she had to get up when she didn’t want to and how we were bugging people. We just laughed and it made her more mad. Oh well. We got offered some beer. That’s always funny. Some guy said he had one question for us so we said go ahead and he asked "Do you really believe that you will become Gods of your own world based on how you lived here and how many children you have?" We said, "Well that’s some deep doctrine and we don’t believe it matters how many children we have." So he said "Just answer the question.. do you really believe you will be gods of your own world?" and Elder N just was like "yep!" and we tried to tell him where it says it in the Bible such as Psalms 82:6 and Romans 8: 16-17 but he just waved us off and told us if we told people that we might offend them. It was weird. So also Elder N got scared by some dogs and then we saw a chicken just wandering around someone’s front yard! haha It was soooo weird! All this happened in about an hour haha pretty awesome.

2. I went tracting with Elder M and we go to knock on the first door and this kid comes out before we even get to the door and we do our little summary of what we are there for and asked if we could take 15-20 minutes to share a message and he said sure! So we sat down right there and taught an amazing restoration lesson which was cool because we have never really taught before but it flowed way well and hopefully Elder M and A will be able to teach the whole family. But it was just cool because it was the FIRST door we went to. Usually it’s the last but we had a good time and the kid was kind of younger and really relaxed and had a lot of really good input. So there is a chance there!

Well that’s really about all! Things are going really well! Hopefully the work picks up more and more! I love you tons and miss you lots!

Email Oct 22 2012

I did get your package the other day and it made my day!! Mail has been a rarity for me lately so it was nice to see my name on something in the mailbox (:

Well as for this week we really didn’t do much but run things around for people and had some assignments from President that we had to do but it was pretty good. We got transfer calls and Elder H and I are staying together again!! I’m super excited! I was worried he was going to be taken away! I’m thinking that this will possibly be his last transfer here because at the end of this one he will have been in the ward for 9 months. Well my good buddy Elder C has been in his ward for a very long time also. So it is likely he will get transferred and he is already a zone leader so it’s possible I could have him as a next companion and most likely would be with him for 2 transfers by then I will be down to my final 4. It would be fantastic if that happened. Our zone actually didn’t have much change. Of the 11 companionships we only had 3 people get transferred. One Elder had been here is whole mission (9 months) and the other 2 were both companions and we know why one got transferred but we didn’t think they were going to take both. One of them is one of our super awesome greenies so we are bummed but we will probably get a new greenie there with a trainer.

Something really awesome happened this week! We met with a referral we got named W. We met at the church and brought a girl from our ward and taught her the restoration and she said that she liked it and we invited her to be baptized on Nov 10.... She said yes!! I’m really excited! There hasn’t been a baptism here for over a year! Hopefully this will get people started in missionary work. Plus there was a missionary who just got home from Orlando and he is SUPER AWESOME! We talked to the bishop about maybe having him as ward mission leader since we don’t have one and he would just do really great! You can tell by the way that he is that he was an excellent missionary and did lots of really good work. He is also like a superstar at sports and has tons of friends so this could be the thing to get it started!

Another really awesome thing happened this week. Elder V and Elder M our APs came and talked to us after our zone leader meeting and asked if we could do a favor for them. We said sure and they asked us if we could pick up a missionary from their place that was flying in early before transfers and keep him with us until transfers. Wellllll that missionary just happened to be Elder U!!! He is back out here!! It’s been awesome to be with him the last few days and it’s possible that he could actually be the one in our zone. Maybe. We find out tomorrow! So yeah not a whole lot of new things going on but it’s been a good week. I really hope things pick up soon because I’m starting to get frustrated. Multiple different reasons but I’m doing alright and as soon as the work starts up everything will be better because I’ve found the more work I do the happier I am. I love you tons and hope you have an awesome week!!

To Jeff:

I sure miss Zion’s! It’s funny to still see lizards everywhere up here and I’ve caught a couple of them. One time I put it on my tie while we were tracting and it was pretty funny but nobody was answering their doors so that was a little disappointing. I don’t remember putting lizards on you though. It’s been a fun week with the zone and the last couple days we did some tie trades with the missionary that is leaving because he has some super awesome ties! I love getting new ties and got 2 REALLY awesome ties. And the best part was that one of the ties I traded was one that I was just "eh" about that another missionary gave me before he went home. The other was one that was a little harder to give away but I got a good deal for it and it was just one I got at Ross. It’s always fun to try to see how nice of ties you can get. I think I’m up to about 40 ties now and just can’t get enough. I’m always on the lookout for new awesome ties haha I’m sure you remember from being on your mission. 

Email Oct 15 2012

Well this week really wasn’t all that interesting besides our meetings with Elder Grow. All the Zone Leaders had a meeting with him on Wednesday night and it went pretty good. He is a pretty interactive guy and had some pretty good topics to train us on. They were good for us but not too interesting for other people haha. The first was about us setting our goals for baptisms. Usually when you plan for the next week if you don’t already have a baptism planned your goal for baptisms that week is 0. Well he taught us a "duh" principle. You need to plan about 4 weeks ahead for the baptisms. Why we hadn’t done that. I have no idea. haha but nobody ever has done that here. So then once you set a goal of baptisms you can figure out what you need to do in the 3 weeks prior to reach that goal. Then with this there should never be a goal for zero baptisms again. It’s pretty awesome but kind of confusing when you get into the other numbers and I’m not even going to try to explain it over email. Anyways the other thing he trained on was about President Monson’s book "to the Rescue." and about how we need to work with Less Actives more because through them we will find most of our success because they usually have a lot of non member friends. Nothing new to me but I’m glad he talked about it. So they were really pretty good trainings and I enjoyed it a lot.

Friday when we had all of the Valley Missionaries meet with him from 8-2 he just went over the same things so it was nothing really new. They just figured we needed to hear it more as the zone leaders because now tomorrow Elder H and I get to train our zone on it just to make sure they really understand it. Hopefully it goes well. After that we all got to get our flu shots.... yay.... haha it wasn’t too great.

Other than that not really anything happened. We got a referral and called her and she texted us back and we are supposed to set up an appointment with her this week to start teaching her. Also J our investigator had to cancel on us this last week but he texted us later in the week to set up an appointment with us! So he is pretty solid! We are meeting with him tonight right after FHE.  Well that’s really all... love you tons and hope you have an awesome week!!

Email Oct 8 2012

Conference was really great! We missed most of the first session on Saturday morning due to some upset stomachs but made it in time for President Uchtdorfs which I thought was fantastic! We just watched it at the church building. About the age change... hmm I’m not really too sure how I feel about it. 18 seems young and with the immaturity of some of the 19 and 20 year olds it worries me a little that they will be worse. the problem with 19 year old sister missionaries is that lots more will go which means when we get home there may be a lot of girls on missions. It narrows our pool of potential wives hahaha The Saturday afternoon session we watched over at a family’s house. We actually had dinner over at their house last Thursday and they were a super awesome family and we asked if we could possibly watch a session of conference at their house. They said yes and even fed us lunch and afterward sent us home with a TON of food. They are feeding us again on Thursday. I think they like us more than the sister missionaries in their ward. hahaha Priesthood session we watched at the church building of course and we sat with the Spanish missionaries in our zone. Sunday we ended up watching both sessions at the H’s apartment. They are a senior missionary couple and are super fun to be around. It was really fun being able to watch it with them and they made us breakfast and lunch! People are too good to us sometimes haha.

Most of our week this last week was spent going and teaching members. We were really working on finding a way to help members do missionary work so we were trying to figure out what the first step would be and we concluded that the first step in missionary work is being able to recognize the Holy Ghost. So we came up with a lesson to teach people starting with reading out of PMG. (They recently came out with mini PMG's so we are able to take them around with us more easily) PG 96 and read about how the Holy Ghost gives small promptings and how we really need to pay attention to them. Then we read some scriptures the first from Gal. 5:22-23, then 2 Nephi 32:5, and last Moroni 7:13, 16-17. Then read PMG PG 97 to finish off. Afterwards we left them with some papers we made that had some scriptures about the Holy Ghost and a blank spot next to them and asked them to read the scriptures then write what they learned and we set up appointments to go back and follow up this week. We had 2 very common responses which helped us really see how inspired it was that we started with this. Every young adult we taught this too said the same thing "Yes, I have trouble recognizing the Holy Ghost." a couple even asked us "How did you guys know that I’ve been struggling with this? This is exactly what I needed." There was a family we taught it too because their daughter is in our ward but still lives at home so we ate and then taught this and the dad said "I think the Lord knew what he was doing when he put you two back together because you teach together how missionaries should." It was nice to hear that. That was most of our week though not a ton happened but at least it wasn’t a bad week. This next week Elder C. Scott Grow is coming to the mission. The Zone Leaders have a meeting with him tomorrow night and then he speaks to the entire mission on Friday so I’m really excited for both of those. Also between conferences we ended up cleaning up our apartment and de-junking it and I’m pretty sure it’s the cleanest missionary apartment in the mission by far. haha and most of the time I was thinking "well I’m glad that mom taught me how to clean well." haha It was a pretty good week... except on Friday which was the day we went up to see D B get baptized. We were almost up there and we got a text that it was cancelled. Now they are on their way to Ohio to live. We went up anyways and got to see Elder N which was super nice. He was an awesome comp. then we went and stopped by the B’s because I never told them goodbye and I heard they were upset that I left. So we decided to surprise them and boy we did. N B did like a double take and was like "Your back? For how long?" haha It was good to see them though and actually get to say goodbye and I promised to keep in better contact with them. But yeah bummer about the baptism but it was made up for. Also we stopped by the DI after an appointment in C and we found some AWESOME ties. That rarely happens at this DI but they had just restocked and they had some real quality ties there. Well that’s about all. Love you tons and hope you have a great week!

.

Email Oct 1 2012

Well you are going to be the only one to get an email this week because ALOT has happened and we are running late and have dinner in like 45 min and it’s about a 20 min drive plus we have to drop off some other missionaries at their apartment so I don’t have much time.

Well this week was kind of really crazy. We had exchanges with the AP's Tuesday and Elder M (my zone leader from V, now the AP) came to our ward with me. We worked really hard to find people to teach but didn’t have a ton of success. We were looking through some former investigators though and saw 2 people who had been being taught who had NO reason for being dropped and the last things they said were that they were loving the lessons so I looked at the fellowshipper they had and it was a girl in our ward on both of them so I called her. I asked about them and she said "yeah after this other missionary left the next missionaries never really kept teaching them... do you have an record of these other 3 of my friends?" well we didn’t so we set up a time that we could go over and talk to her. Turns out she has 5 friends that are still hopefully interested that she is inviting to either institute this week or to sacrament next week. Hopefully we see some pretty cool things from that. Other than that we contacted a little bit and talked to a couple people who seem a little interested. The best part of our day had to do with the return appointment we had with R. The first guy that let Elder H and I in last week. I took Elder M one of the missionaries that we are handing him over to and Elder M and M’s comp Elder A went tracting. Elder M and I had a REALLY great lesson. We read from 3 Nephi 11 about the Savior coming. Then we asked if he had prayed about the Book of Mormon after he read it and he said that he hadn’t so we went to the intro of the Book of Mormon and talked about how to know if it’s true we need to pray. Then we asked him to right this minute pray to know if the Book of Mormon was true and after we would sit for a few seconds so we would make sure not to miss it. After he prayed we sat and the Spirit was really strong. I asked him how he felt and he said... "I feel okay" so I told him how I felt about how I felt peaceful and happy and he told us "Yeah I feel the same... I felt this way last time you guys came too.... I have a confession to make. 99.9% of the people who knock on my door I will send them away. But there was something about you guys... I knew you were here for a reason." After he said that I just bore my testimony and said "R we are here for a reason. We cover all of S and R. We could have gone to ANY street in the city and we came here because our Savior led us here because he loves you so much that he wants you to know about the restored Gospel and how it can bless your life. You let us in because you felt the Holy Ghost and those same feelings are telling you right now that the Book of Mormon is true and that what we have taught is true." I said more things but I don’t really remember what they were. It was very powerful though. After when we were about to go I told him that this would be the last time I would be there but that Elder M would be the one teaching him. After I told him that he got up from his seat and came over and I got up to shake his hand but he gave me a big hug. It was really neat and I hope so much that he can keep progressing because he is sooo ready for the Gospel. It was a really neat lesson.

Wednesday we had exchanges with one of the district leaders and I went to their area with the district leader’s greenie. We ended up tracting almost all day and we got 22 contacts and had pretty much no success. Finally it was time for an appointment they got while tracting the other day and it was 2 teenage girls and their little brother. (Their mom wasn’t interested) but we taught them about the Book of Mormon and how it can help them. Not as powerful a lesson as R’s but they still seem really interested and wanted Elder T and Elder M to keep coming every Wednesday. I also invited them to be baptized and they said YES!! There are a couple things they will need to overcome but they will work out. before we left they even asked if they could invited a friend for next week and the mom said she liked what we were doing and next week she would make sure her other 2 sons would be there to listen too. It was pretty awesome.

Thursday we had exchanges with the Spanish elders! I stayed in our ward and had Elder M come to our area. He has been out about 22 months. We had an AWEFUL day. At the end of our day Elder M even said that it was one of the hardest days he has had on his mission. All our appointments fell through and when we went tracting people not only just said no but were flat out jerks to us. Elder M asked one old lady how she was doing and she said "none of your business" and shut the door. The guy at the next house came out and pointed at his gate and said "never come through that gate again" people were just frustrating me really bad. It was just a super bad day.

Friday not much happened but I was back with Elder H again.

Saturday we had exchanges AGAIN. This time I was in Elder M’s area on bike and we went and shared an MRR lesson with a past bishop that went really well and Elder M is going to start using it with more members to get them to do missionary work. Then we went tracting for 2 hours and talked to some really awesome people 3 of which said if we were in the area we could come by and share our message.

Sunday was Fast Sunday and was a pretty good time at church the best part of our day was from teaching a new investigator we got last Monday. We taught him at his brother’s house who is a member and taught the intro to the Book of Mormon and asked if he found out it was true if he would be baptized and he said yes! That will be the first baptism in this ward in nearly a year. Pretty crazy but hopefully it will get the work going quicker.

Today the reason we are behind is because we went on a hike up in Lake Arrowhead. We got lots of sweet pictures that I’ll get to you guys soon. Well we gotta go! I love you all tons!! Have a great week!!

Email Sept 24 2012

So yes and no about my first area. It is not in our zone but it’s in our area. Elder H and I cover all of S B zone and R zone for the YSA and it’s in the R zone. But yeah we just met with Bishop S from C on Thursday and it was cool to see him again. He remembered me which was cool. And it’s neat because all the youth that I got pretty close with there are all now in the singles ward. They aren’t going but we are working on that. Yep we still have a truck so that we can move missionaries around, move their bikes and take random things to their apartments that the office wants us to.  So we live in the Northern part of S B.

E’s baptism went really well. It started around 6 because we were a half hour late but it was alright. E was just really happy to be there. He was just kind of "eh.." about the baptism part because he’s been baptized a few other times but her was REALLY excited about the confirmation. It was neat to be able to do that. He had a really good turn out too which was awesome. Afterwards he gave Elder D and me each one of his ties. I got a pretty awesome new clip on tie haha. We do actually have Spanish missionaries in our zone but that’s all. I think my favorite part about being a missionary is seeing the miracles that happen all the time. We have seen our zone have SO much success this last week it’s crazy. When the APs called this morning to talk about numbers they said our zone had the most new investigators than any other zone. We had 31 this last week. We also as a zone this week had about 337 contacts which almost tripled what they have been getting in the past. The coolest thing is that almost all of those new investigators came from contacting which means that people were being let in when they were knocking on doors. Some missionaries still don’t get it though they just expect that investigators will fall in their laps without them doing anything. It was great when we would get calls from our missionaries and they would say. Guys guess what!  And they would be sooo excited that they found people and I loved that they would call and share it with us. But yeah. Most of our week was spent tracting but like I said last week we were working with going with everyone in our zone to try to get them out contacting and to be able to just talk with our zone members. It was really fun and we are going to keep doing that. Not AS much but with a few companionships a week. This week we are going to focus on visiting ysa's that are still going to their home wards and try to get them to come out to our ward. So yeah we had a pretty good week. Not a ton happened to us but our zone is doing great and that is what we really want. I love you and hope you have an awesome week!

Email Sept 19 2012

Welllll...... I’m emailing on Wednesday because our first Pday of the transfer was our temple trip!! So we just went to the temple with our zone this morning and now we are emailing and then we are driving up to BB for E’s baptism!! I’m pretty excited for him. Elder D is baptizing him and I’m confirming him. Anyways I guess you want to hear about where I am and who I’m with! I am in the NP YSA ward that covers the SB stake and the R stake so we have a pretty big area. And my companion is.... Elder H again!!! I was super happy when they read off our names together! It’s been fun being with him and we have taught a few lessons and it just seems like we were never not companions. It’s nice because we didn’t have to waste time trying to get a feel for how each other teaches.

The work in the YSA ward is really pretty hard and I’m still not sure exactly how to do it. We don’t really have any investigators right now but what we have been doing as Zone Leaders is this week we scheduled each companionship 2 times in the week that we were going to go tracting with them so 1. We could help them get contacts and 2. Get to know each member of our zone a little better. So far it’s been really good and we have been spending a lot of our day tracting. We are getting pretty good at it haha. Our first week together consisted of doing ALOT of just driving around and helping missionaries with their bikes, or helping them figure out their areas, and just a lot of running errands. Friday was zone leader council where the APs do training and president does training and then we take notes and in our zone meeting the next week we teach our zone. So that took up a lot of our Friday but it was good. I never realized how much a zone leader’s phone goes off during the day! It seems like I’m on the phone more than I’m off it haha. We have to charge it every night.

Well anyways we don’t have tons of time but I wanted to share an AMAZING miracle that happened. So the APs trained on having faith to find people to teach and how really faith is the key to becoming a better missionary than anyone has ever seen even Ammon and Aaron and Alma and Amulek. So after our meeting we were pretty pumped up and that’s when we started to schedule our tracting times with missionaries. Well on Monday we had 3 companionships scheduled and we went with the first 2 and got a few contacts and a couple potentials for those missionaries but nothing special. Then our last companionship cancelled on us and we were 1 contact away from reaching our daily goal of 10 so we asked them where in their area they would like us to tract and they gave us the name of a street. Well we went and parked and started knocking on doors. We had 2 pretty good contacts that seem like they may be pretty solid but they were busy at the time so we told them some other missionaries would be coming back in about a week and they agreed to listen to them. So we kept going and got up to the next street corner and we had 13 contacts so we thought "eh we could just go back to the truck and get going... well we might as well just knock the doors across the street on the way down." Well we got to the last 3 houses and we were talking to a guy on his door step and it was my turn for the door approach and I talked about a lot of stuff and it just seemed like he was just not that interested and said no to a copy of the Book of Mormon so I just said "well would it be okay if we came by another time?" and he said "yeah that’s fine." and I just had the thought. Teach him now. So I asked "hey well do you have a few minutes and we could share part of our message with you?" and he let us in and we sat and taught a VERY powerful restoration and he kept telling us "I know you guys are here for a reason. I know you are." So we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he would read from it and we set up a time to go back. So we leave the house and we are just stoked! I mean how often does THAT happen?? So we only have 2 houses left and we are like let’s just do these 2 and go. Well the next house was Elder H’s turn and it was a young man in his 20s and his girlfriend and they let us in too!! We taught ANOTHER lesson that went really well. Not AS well as the first but it went very well. It was such an amazing miracle. 2 houses in a row!! It was also a blessing because the next day we were doing our training on the faith to find and we were able to share our experience and tell our zone that hey this really does work. We did it and it worked!

So one last cool story. Elder D, one of the missionaries training in our zone (probably one of the best companionships in our zone. I love them to death.) called and said "hey I have something to tell you! After your training we were all pumped up about finding so we went tracting and it just seemed like EVERYONE was listening to us we even taught an entire family and they said that they would come to church on Sunday!" It’s so great to see the way the Lord works and I’m so glad that some of the missionaries in our zone have been able to see the things that we trained on work personally for them. Anyways it was a great week! I’m loving the new area and being with Elder H again! I love you all tons! I will email again on Monday!

Email Sept 10 2012

To Family:  Oh man! I am extremely jealous that Elder Holland was in St. George and that you got to hear him! I was thinking about it and it would be soooo cool if Elder Holland could be the one to marry me to my wife! That would be something to remember! I got your package the other day! It made my day!

Okay well.... there were some good and bad this week. Lots of our appointments fell through but we did teach E twice. We moved his baptismal date to the 19th because it will be better. He is still doing really well. We are going over to his place after this to play some pool, get the program ready for his baptism, and to say goodbye. Yes... Both of us will be saying goodbye. We got the call that we are getting whitewashed out of here. I was pretty angry at first and was thinking "how could they do this to us with so much work going on! What if the next missionaries mess it up?!" Well I got a call from a missionary who has become a very good friend and I was telling him how upset I was and he just started to laugh and said "Elder Graf. The Lord needs you somewhere else." It was simple and I already knew that concept and I don’t know why I had let it get away from me. But yes it’s true. He has a plan for us and we got the work started here and someone else (Sisters, we found out.) will be continuing it.

So Sunday was ward conference and we skipped out on ward council in the morning to write notes and start packing but we had told our ward mission leader about us being transferred. Apparently there was pretty much the upset of the year in there. EVERYONE got very upset and angry and were all pretty much how I felt the night before. Our ward mission leader called president. The stake president said that he would be calling later in the day just to figure out the why. And all through church people kept coming up and telling us how we were the best missionaries in such a long time. It was honestly insane. I didn’t see this much sadness even when I left B and I had been there for 7 1/2 months. It was nice to have our efforts recognized though and the ward members told us all day how much we meant to them and went through the things in both of us that they just loved. It was a very uplifting experience. I don’t remember what the talks were on or anything at church because my head was spinning allll day. But after sacrament meeting I went and pulled the stake president aside and I told him that I was told he would be calling president but that before he did that I wanted him to know how I felt about what was happening. I told him that obviously president is a VERY inspired man and he has another calling for us both and I told him about how at first I was very upset but through Elder C talking to me and through a big long prayer I felt like this is what’s supposed to happen and that everything would be taken care of. What the ward wasn’t understanding is that this is the LORDS work. And he will have president put missionaries here who will help it. I loved this ward here but I’m needed somewhere else and it made sense later that night.

So the rest of Sunday we went around and got pictures with people and said our goodbyes and packed and wrote notes for the next missionaries. Well we were at the M that night and I got a phone call from President Godwin and he asked me to be a Zone Leader... I’m quite nervous for it. And don’t really feel like I’ll make a good Zone Leader but I promised President I will try my best.

To Dad:  I miss being able to look through the telescope and wish I would have done that more back home. I got to do it in B because J has a decent one and we got to see some stars and planets and all. It was really fun! I’m really excited for this transfer now. I wasn’t at first when they said we were both leaving but then I got over it. Even though I was only in the best area for 6 weeks I’m over it. We found out last night that it is becoming a sister’s area which means the chances of me coming back here anytime in my mission are pretty much gone. But I have been making plans with Kody Andersen and next winter we are going to come up here to go snowboarding together because they have a lot of fun runs here from what I’ve heard. I also worked it out with one of the youth here who is 16 and he said he will take us through the good runs and all that so I’ll be back for sure. And I’ll be coming back on the 19th for E’s baptism

 I love you tons! Can’t wait to get to be with you again!

Email Sept 3 2012

Well I’m in the process of getting another migraine so this email won’t be very long. Not much happened this week anyways. It was a really hard weekend up here with Labor Day. There were people EVERYWHERE! The streets were super packed and everyone was just busy so the work was really slow and we weren’t able to see many people. The rest of the week was just tough too because we got cancelled on a lot. We had a few good moments though such as on Saturday we got a phone call from E and he asked us how he pays tithing. It was pretty cool because usually people struggle with that. Then on Sunday it was a super powerful day at church. Something cool happened in priesthood though! So E had a cutout he had to read that was part of a story that we were going through and his section happened to be on how the Holy Ghost tells us truths and how it can tell us that the church is true. Well right when he was talking about the Holy Ghost he got kind of choked up and I know that he was feeling the Spirit which was what I was fasting for! So it was really neat to see it answered that fast. OH also I forgot this was this last week but on Tuesday E called and left a message and in it he told us that after his long talk with the bishop he decided to stop drinking wine and coffee!!! It was a miracle!! So pretty neat. Not a whole lot else to talk about. Not feeling to hot right now.

Email Aug 27 2012

To Dad:  Well church this week wasn’t quite so bad. It was actually VERY good. We had E there and the Fs came and sat with us! It was a PERFECT sacrament meeting for the Fs. The speakers were a family who were almost all converts (all but the dad who had been less active for a long time) and had recently moved to BB. It was just a really powerful sacrament meeting and D F seemed to like it a lot. She also made a comment about how she felt more comfortable when she heard some kids crying and making noise because that was the reason she had been kicked out of other churches. So that was realllyy good.

E is still doing very well! At church he asked me if we were still on for September 15 and I said as long as he was still thinking that’s what he wanted. He even added his name to the roll in High Priests haha (High Priests and Elders are combined up here). The only problem still is that he likes his wine. He will overcome it though.

After church the Fs had invited us over for lunch and it was really good! They cooked hamburgers and made homemade fries. We had a really good talk with them and J F was talking a lot about his mission.

Most of our week was pretty much a really bad week. Elder D has been sick and so we have sat around. I cleaned the whole house. Like deep clean and it looks a lot better! The only other things from this week I have to talk about are on Tuesday we went down to H and had a Zone Conference which was really good. The AP's talked about the importance of asking people to be baptized on the first or second lesson and committed us to double our baptismal dates. President talked about helping investigators make and keep commitments. It was really good and we got a lot out of it. Then we rushed back up the mountain, went straight to brother M’s, got in his car, and went down the OTHER side of the mountain to the Redlands temple. It was fantastic! We got to witness 2 of the recent converts do baptisms for the dead and we switched off confirming them. Then our ward had a sealing session and we went and did a session with the ward, sat in the celestial room for a little bit then went and did sealings. I acted as a child a couple times but mostly was just a witness. I’ve always loved doing sealings.

Friday was the other good day. Elder  was already starting to get sick and he could hardly think so when we went to see our investigator J U who we tracted into I did pretty much the whole lesson. We talked about Joseph Smiths first vision and I talked about how the priesthood has been restored then I invited him to be baptized and he had a couple questions about how we do baptisms and after we told him about it he said yes!! He just wants to come to church but he is "sure he will feel good there because he feels good every time we come over." so we know that he does feel the Spirit which is good. He didn’t end up at church but he is a really neat guy! We set a date for October 20th. It sure surprised the ward to find out we set ANOTHER date haha. There will be more on the way! It’s been real good!

I love you and hope your week is great!

Email Aug 20 2012

To Mom:  Yep I’m okay and Saturday I was just sick so that’s probably why you had me on your mind. You seem to always know when I’m sick haha. It was just a cold though and I just dealt with it. There wasn’t any flooding in big bear but like I told dad in the big email that we did get a really nice rain storm and the streets had rivers flowing down them. It was no problem for our truck though ;) Yep I’m still district leader... this makes transfer number 5. That’s a loonnnggg time. But I don’t mind it. My district is really small and has great missionaries. One of them was in my district in B for the first 3 transfers I was district leader and now I’m back with him again! He is a good missionary and I enjoy having him in my district.

I love having the Holy Ghost as a constant companion to help us know when things are right and when they are not. I love you tons!! Have a great week!

To Dad: 

This last week had a lot of fall through appointments and some not so great days but we did have one VERY great lesson.

So we have an investigator named E that we picked up 2 weeks ago. He called bishop and asked to learn more about the church so we went over. Well we went back for a second lesson this last week and we had it outside because it was more peaceful and of course it felt great out there too. Well we taught the restoration and he ate it up! The Spirit was so strong when I was telling about Josephs vision and his comment right after was. "Well he came to Moses. Why not come to Joseph?" how amazing is that!! He reads and understands the Bible and so we help to show him that the Bible and Book of Mormon teach the same things and he was asking all these questions like well how did the Gold plates end up in New York. And he was just getting it so well! We then moved inside because it was looking like rain and we invited him to be baptized and he said YES! He also committed to come to church on Sunday! We set a baptismal date for September 15. So not too far out! He just asked "what do I have to do before that?" so we told him he has to know for himself that it is true and finish the missionary lessons. He is sooo solid. Now about Sunday!

E came to church! He was late and missed sacrament but he was dressed in a suit with his scriptures and he looked like he could have been a bishop haha. Anyways church was aweful haha Get this. Gospel Principles was about Tithing and fasting. Not usually one of the first things we teach investigators. Then in priesthood our Elders and High Priests got rebuked for not home teaching and taking the priesthood seriously and then the lesson was taught by a crazy guy who went into super deep doctrine and made temples sound sketchy. haha luckily it didn’t bother E too much. I was super worried. It was like a nightmare while it was going on but afterward Elder D and I were laughing as we told our ward mission leader. It sure makes for a funny story but not something I want to have happen again. But we look at it this way. If E made it through THAT he will make it through ANYTHING haha it also turns out that E knows a few people from the ward which is always just fantastic!

Our other top investigator. D sadly did not come to church. But it’s okay because she was going to come alone because her husband worked on Sunday and I feel like it would be better for her first time to be with her husband because he would be able to help with the kids and everything. We had a fantastic lesson with them. (I thought I could have done 10X better but my comp assured me I did great) we taught about the atonement and how as we take the sacrament we apply the atonement. It was really powerful and her husband J keeps getting happier and happier. It’s amazing what the gospel can do. They are an amazing couple and it would be fantastic to see them sealed in the temple.

That is the good news for the week. We had a pretty great downpour here on Saturday and there were pretty much rivers running down the roads. Thankfully we have a truck and it’s fun to drive through big puddles in the truck haha well tomorrow we are going to get to go to the temple with 2 of the recent converts and be witnesses for them doing Baptisms for the dead and I’m really excited! I’ll get lots of pictures with them and with the M Family who is taking us down. The M are a super awesome couple here who although I’ve only been here 3 weeks have already gotten to be good friends with them. I’m sure you will hear me talk about them in later emails. Also they will most likely be at my wedding when I get married so you will meet them sometime too! haha love you tons! Have a great week and thank you for the pictures!

Email Aug 15 2012

To Dad:  The ward does take good care of us here! They like that we actually do work and they support us with it all. We are starting to get referrals and hoping they turn into some good converts! I’m just worried that I will get transferred out of here after only 6 weeks. Sounds like Michelle is doing really well! I can’t believe Brian graduated and that he is 25 now!! Woooaaah! Haha I keep forgetting that I’m 20 and keep telling people I’m 19. My comp catches it and then fixes the problem haha. I really enjoy my comp.  We get along and we are doing work and not just sitting around all day. I love you tons!! Have an awesome awesome week!!

To Mom:  Okay so I am finally able to email you! Monday was a crazy day that was really busy. Our zone activity was "the Olympics" and we had 7 teams of 3 and every team was a country. I was team captain so I got to choose our own country and we were Germany haha we then had a relay race, a water balloon toss, a wheelbarrow race, and 2 games of dodge ball. Germany tied for 1st place with 24 points... we tied with Scotland haha it was a lot of fun though. Then Tuesday we had a meeting down in Apple Valley that was from 10:30-1:30 then we went and ate lunch then went to pep boys which took from 3-8. Yeah they took FOREVER. And we just got new brake pads and an oil change. Super lame but it was alright. We walked over to a barber that gives missionaries free haircuts and got our hair cut. Then walked to Costco and ate dinner. Pretty boring day haha anyways now I’m going to talk about last week! It was a REALLY good week..

Tuesday- we went and taught a less active guy who is in his 20s and his non member wife who said she would be open to us teaching her. We had a pretty good lesson about the restoration but her kids were being loud. The Spirit was definitely still there and strong but it was a little distracting. They both paid really good attention and committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. When we asked what day would be good to come back Justin said "how about Thursday?" haha 2 lessons in a week? He seems really excited that his wife is taking the lessons and we are hoping that this will also get him more active.

 
We then had our first district meeting up here which went pretty well. I have a small district here of only 4 people. But they are all good missionaries so I like it. We talked about how each of our investigators is doing and gave each other ideas of what we can do better. We did some role plays to try and practice how we can approach different topics during a lesson. I also did a little training about gaining desire as missionaries. We talked about what it takes to become an Olympic athlete. Such as. You need to practice, have a desire, be committed, many athletes have a role model, they endure to the end, and based on how they do each of these and their commitment they will receive either a Gold, Silver, or Bronze. We then talked about how this applies to us as members and as missionaries. We have a role model who is Jesus Christ, we practice in life by repenting when we make mistakes, We Endure to the End of our mortal lives, but we need a desire. We then talked about ways to gain desire. For me personally it is the reward. I gain a desire to be good at sports or what not because I think of the gold medal or trophy I could get. Things like that. But it went really well.
 
After district meeting we went and contacted a guy that had apparently called bishop and wanted to know more about our church so we went over and he let us in and we taught him about the Book of Mormon. The only problem he has with our religion is that he likes to drink wine. That will pass over time though. He said we can come by again soon so we are actually going today! We are going to teach him the restoration this time. He is a really awesome and neat guy and he is super funny and would make a great member of the church. He told us that he was joking with his bible study group that by the end of the year "he would be a Mormon and a mason." hahahah He is a really funny guy.
 
We also had a lesson with a recent convert lady and her nonmember kids. She has 3 that are baptism age but the father won’t let them get baptized when they are as young as they are :P so we are going to just keep teaching and get them to have a solid testimony before they even get baptized.  And that was pretty much the best parts of our day.
 
Wednesday- we had a really neat experience while tracting! We were just about done and were walking to the next house and the guy was on his porch cleaning his grill and looked up and said "Elders, come on up here out of the sun and talk to me." so I figured he was one of those "I’ve talked to missionaries, like them, but don’t want to hear the lessons or be a member of the church." So thinking that we just asked about his life and he asked about missions and where we had already been and everything. Then out of the blue he asked. "So what is your purpose?" We told him what we do and he asked what we believe so we got into Joseph Smiths story a little and he was very seriously thinking about it. Then we set up a time to come back and he said "do you have any reading material?" Thank goodness I had stuck ONE Book of Mormon in my bag. I gave it to him and we told him to read the intro and he promised he would! We are going back later this week! It was amazing! We were definitely led there!
 
Thursday- we went around to ward members and got things worked out for us to start a volleyball night once a week for the youth and their friends. We are starting it tomorrow night! But we had to go through a lot of people to get it figured out. For dinner we went to the ward mission leader’s house. The N’s. They are such an awesome family! They are working on adopting a 14 year old boy who has had a pretty bad growing up situation and we have been teaching him. He wants to join but they need legal guardinship over him first but he already wants to serve a mission. Anyways after dinner we read from the Book of Mormon with him and then he asked if we could go play soccer at the park. Our plans had fallen through that night so we went with him and M N who is 16. We had a really fun time together!
 
Friday- we had another lesson with D F from Tuesday. (They rescheduled to Friday) It. Was. Amazing. We taught her the doctrine of Christ from 2 Nephi 31 and talked about how important baptism by the priesthood was. Her kids were even quiet this time and the Spirit was really strong. I asked her how she was feeling and she said she felt peaceful and happy. We told her that was the spirit and we set a baptism date with her for October 13. She wants time to REALLY know it’s true and see how our church is because she has had some problems with other churches kicking her out because of her kids. So we invited her to church on Sunday. It was a great very spiritual lesson. ALSO I HIT 1 YEAR! doesn’t feel like it though.
 
Saturday- was a bummer day. haha
 
Sunday- church went really well and D F came but only for a little so we showed her the building and where her kids would go and told her a little about what happens where and everything. She promised that she would come for the full time next week! Other than that our Sunday was average. Cool story though we filled out a progress record which just goes through all the people we had taught in the last week and took it to Ward Council and the 1st counselor in the bishopric said that this was the first time in a LONG time that we had to use the back of the page. Also after church bishop pulled me aside and thanked me for how much work was going on right now and how appreciative the ward already was for the good work going on. It made me feel super good and I promised him we would be keeping it up and trying to do even better. It’s nice to have a supportive ward that likes us.
 
Anyways that is the week! I got an amazing letter from Sister Nielson and it was a copy of Darien’s letters so far and some pictures of him. It was great to see how good he is doing! I’m sending her a thank you letter but if you happen to see her tell her again how much I appreciated it. I love knowing what is going on with my friends! I love you tons!!!

Email Aug 6 2012

To Dad:  AHH Big Bear is AMAZING! It’s like going to heaven! I get to possibly see snow up here! The ward is nice up here the building is beautiful! still getting to know our investigators so not too sure about them but for now we are going to work with less actives and then see if we can find investigators through them because tracting isn’t too useful here because lots of the cabins are vacation homes or rent out homes so people don’t live in many of them. I’ve heard a bit about the Olympics especially about Bolt! I heard he did fantastic again! I heard it’s neck and neck with China right now. I’m a little bummed I’m going to miss them but I’m looking forward to winter Olympics in a couple years! Well I hope you have a great week! I’ll be sending a letter home soon with my talk and another letter! Love you tons!

Family letter:  So yes big bear is AMAZING!! It is just beautiful and everyday I wake up and it’s like being in a whole different world than when I was in Barstow! It hit like 84 as the highest it’s been the other day. It felt amazing to me! There are big trees everywhere a BIG lake that is beautiful! We live in like a little cabin which is super cool! The ward is really neat up here and they love my companion and seem to like me at least a little. They appreciate the work we do. We have a lot of strong members here. Not a lot of solid investigators yet but we are working on it. We got a new investigator the second day I was there. He isn’t too solid but we are going to at least try. Earlier last week we spent a good bit of time at the bishop’s getting the info on less actives and active members. Our Bishop is soooo good at what he does. He was in the temple presidency for a while and takes his callings seriously which is great! So we have a whole bunch of less actives he told us to visit that we will be going to see this week. Anyways, just been getting to know the area. Lots of people on the weekends not a lot during the weekdays but I got sooo lucky to be there! That would be really awesome if I could be there for the winter and see snow! It’s also cool because all the youth in the ward (which isn’t a lot) snowboard so instantly have a connection there. It is really really awesome!

Now my companion is another super awesome companion! He’s from West Jordan Utah and he was MTC companions with Elder N so I’m follow up training him. He was actually trained by Elder R who was my MTC comp! Pretty crazy! I’m sooo excited for this new area and new zone! I’m now part of the A V Zone and it has a TON of my friends in it! So zone activities are going to be super super awesome! And the best is that this is the hottest month of summer in Cali and I get to be in the mountains! Also it supposedly rains a lot in the mountains in August! I was definitely blessed! Well I love you tons!!