Email April 22 2012

I’m so so so jealous you get to see H and K. I miss those girls like crazy! Thank you for the advice for my companion. I definitely have gotten pretty decent at teaching lessons. The entire time I’ve been in B I’ve lead the lessons. there is always stuff I need to work on though and sometimes I let it frustrate me when I think about all the things I need to work on and I don’t know where to start but at least I realize what I can work on.

So this email probably won’t be very long because not a lot happened besides the meeting with Elder Ballard. I’m going to start off by saying that that person we were going to go see that said we could come back "wasn’t there" we could hear them inside though. So what we are going to do is have the less active member down the road that knows him talk with him and just bear his testimony to him and see if that can help. These last few days have been super hot! Sunday it got up to 100 the two days before that it was in the high 90's and today was the low 90's. Luckily it will be back in the 70's by Thursday this next week. So even though we didn’t have too much of a successful week again we do have I think 12 set appointments for this upcoming week! So that will be a good thing! We also have president interviews and I finaalllyyy get to go to the temple on Wednesday! Okay so now I’m going to talk about Elder Ballard.

Okay so all the missionaries got to the building in F where he was meeting and all just talked for a bit before it was going to start. Eventually we were all seated in the chapel and the medical guy over our mission called me out in the hall because I had talked to him on the phone the day before. I had athletes foot but it’s almost gone from my toes but I had another area right down by my arch that I thought was athletes foot but it wasn’t going away like the other part and it was starting to hurt so I was asking him about it and he told me what to do for it and I’m all good now. Anyways so he went back inside and I was sitting there in the foyer and put my shoe back on and stood up and was close to being back inside the chapel when here comes none other than Elder M. Russell Ballard, Elder Whiting of the 70, Elder Bowen of the 70, and Elder Hyum? who gave a GREAT talk and he is way up there too. So I just stopped and moved against the wall so they could go past and they all smiled at me and then Elder Ballard said "Hello Elder! What’s your name?" and then just asked how I was doing and he was glad I could be here! I went back in and was super excited! After we were all sat down everyone got to get up and go shake their hands and when I got up he said "Hello again Elder Graf!" It was amazing! The feeling in that building was awesome! You really couldn’t help but smile and you just felt sooo happy! It was awesome! So Elder Hyum spoke about Prayer and how important it is to have the investigators and less actives know how to pray and make sure they are doing it. He talked about a guy when he was a mission president that his sister missionaries were teaching and they couldn’t set a baptism date with him and didn’t know what his holdup was so they asked Elder Hyum what to do and he told them that he wanted to meet with them so he met with them and then a couple weeks later the sisters called again and said he still wouldn’t commit to being baptized. Elder Hyum met with them again and asked the father to pray and he sat there quietly and finally said that he didn’t know how to pray. Once he was taught he opened the prayer and as soon as he started he began to weep. After the prayer he asked Elder Hyum what was happening to him and he told him that it was an answer to his prayers. A couple weeks later he was baptized. It just shows how important it is to have your investigators pray. I will NEVER forget how strong the Spirit was when James finally prayed for us. It was amazing.

I don’t remember what Elder Whiting talked about. oops.

Elder Bowen talked a little about making sure we are being obedient and about the Abrahamic Covenant and how we need to all understand it as best we can and try to live by it as best as we can. He then told us that if we aren’t being perfectly obedient we shouldn’t be telling people to change and repent. It was pretty interesting.

Now Elder Ballard his topic and talk wasn’t really all that long. He spoke about giving our missions to the Lord. Completely turning them over for him so that we may be successful and come home feeling accomplished. He then had people ask him questions and I don’t remember really any of the good ones. The only good one I remember is a missionary asked how he can help his mother back into activity while serving his mission. Elder Ballard answered by telling him to just share his spiritual experiences with her and eventually she will come back. It was pretty neat. He also was extremely funny! It was a big surprise to me! We just made some really funny comments. One of them was this... he was speaking of other churches and how our ordinances are important and he said this of another church "some people just say "I’m saved.".... false doctrine if I ever heard it." and he said it just in such a way that it made it super funny. Anyways it was an amazing meeting and I think the best thing I got out of it was the feeling of being in the presence of an Apostle of the Lord. It was really great!

Well that’s all for the last few days! I love you tons dad and miss you!

Email April 19 2012

The reason I’m emailing on Thursday this week is because we were supposed to have a temple trip yesterday which means our p day gets pushed back... Well the night before I found out that I had to take Elder F to a meeting in R instead of my temple trip. So today is my half pday because we have some appointments. Luckily I get to go to the temple next week with AV zone. I haven’t been to the temple in 6 months and you’re supposed to go every 3 haha B gets left out of everything! It’s crazy when I talk about things I haven’t done for 6 months because it makes me feel like I’m soooo far into my mission but then I think about it and I’m really not hahaha but it’s okay. So really not a whole lot has been going on this last week and a half. Lots of tracting and lots of looking for less actives that want us to teach them. We haven’t really been the most successful in Elder F’s eyes but I still feel like I’m having success because I’m at least out working and TRYING. Now I have a cool story for you, mom... A couple actually. So you know how we play basketball with the poly's on Thursday? Well while tracting the last week we came across 3 people that play and they told us we could come back and teach them! It made me super excited! We will be going back soon! now the coolest thing... on Monday since it wasn’t Pday we were tracting and we knocked on a door of a guy who was really nice and we did our whole door approach but in this one when he said he had a faith in God I did a brief summary of the restoration lesson and he invited us back to teach him AND his fiancé tonight! When I got your email and it said you had fasted for me I believe that that was an answer to your fast! We will see how things go but I feel like he is going to be awesome! Now another cool thing! I am going to be on the radio!!!! I’ll send you the link that you can use to listen to it when I get it. But a lady in our ward has a radio station that is a religious station and we got permission from our President to be on it! We did a practice recording today and it turned out really well! The first one is going to be a recording and the ones the following weeks will be on air and we will be accepting call ins! I’m really excited and I feel like a lot of good could come from this! It’s a national broadcast so it’s a little scary but not too bad! Well as for everything else... things are going really well! I’m getting along with my companion and just trying to help him out in any way I can! He is a funny kid. Well that’s really all for this week... Until we have some good solid people to teach there’s not really a ton to say. J H is still doing awesome and I absolutely love that family to death. Same with S and A’s family. Sister B is pretty much like a mom to me out here. Well I love you tons and thank you for all the goodies!! Have an awesome week!

I’ve heard allllll about the hunger games out here! haha Elder U my roommate bought me and him Hunger Games pins like the ones that Katniss gets in the movie! They are pretty cool! I’m Jealous you get to see B and Family! Hopefully I’ll be able to skype with everyone again on Mother’s Day which is coming up! I couldn’t believe that H turned 4! This whole time I’ve been out here I thought she was still 2! haha whooops! I already told mom this in the big email but I’m going to tell you too. I had almost instant success with your fasting. We found a potential investigator on Monday who I feel is really looking for something. He wanted us to come back tonight when his fiancé can be there too. We are planning on teaching the restoration and focusing on how this blesses families and how families can be together forever! I hope it turns out awesome!! Well not really a ton is going on... next week my email will probably be a lot about Elder Ballard coming! Which is on Saturday! I’m really excited about it! Everything with my trainee is going good. He still doesn’t understand that you don’t ALWAYS have people to teach and that people DO cancel on you. He tries to tell people that our area sucks because we don’t have investigators. I really enjoy our area and even though sometimes tracting sucks I like it and like the experiences I get out of it... it’s funny because the other day he complained to me that after we ate lunch which took like 15 min that we should go back and work but I told him I was going to take my full hour of lunch. He says it’s just boring so I tell him to go study but he just sits there. Oh well...

I love you tons and hope your week is amazing!

Email April 9 2012

To Dad: Well our week was okay. It seems like we just don’t have the people to go see and the things to do like we used to... We have been tracting a lot and trying to find new people to teach because we are down to just a couple. It seemed like EVERYBODY was canceling or just not showing up. I guess that’s what it’s always been like but it just drives me crazy because my companion had the idea that none of our appointments would go through and that we would ALWAYS have something to do. But in reality people are flakey and sometimes at the end of the day you don’t feel like you got a lot done. It’s been crazy because we have only been teaching a few lessons a week. Its dropped a ton and I’m not sure why. Our numbers were just sooo low and they probably will be this week too because its spring break here.
Other than my companion thinking that we suck we are doing pretty good. He is progressing and yes he is much more obedient. We have some good times and had a good Easter though. There really isn’t much to tell for this week because everything but a couple of our lessons fell through. We found one lady that seemed a little interested while tracting and we are going back this week to see what she thought about the Book of Mormon. On Saturday we went to a ward party where there was food and an Easter egg hunt around the church. After that I had a meeting for the district leaders so I went to that and got back around 5 and we tried to see some people. Sunday for Easter we went to a less actives in the other missionaries area and talked with him for a bit, then went to dinner at a less active in our area and had a good time with them, then went to a members house that night and played games with their 4 kids for a while. It was a pretty good Easter. It was definitely different on my mission. Felt like it wasn’t even a Holiday just another day. This next week we are hoping to have a somewhat good week as long as we can find the people who are going to be home for Spring Break. We are also going to start meeting with our investigator M again. He has just been too busy to meet with us with work but he calls whenever he gets the chance and he has been reading the Book of Mormon and wants to move his Baptism date forward so he can get baptized sooner!! We should be meeting with him this week a couple times. I’m really hoping. Well I love you tons dad and hope you have a great week!
To Mom: I’m doing pretty good. Tired and frustrated from lack of work right now but doing okay. I was sick again this last week on Tuesday. I think it was food poisoning and I wasn’t AS sick as last time but I was sure throwing up a bit still. It was no fun. I was good the next day though. My companion is doing pretty good he just thinks that we are never doing anything even though we are it’s just that people keep canceling so we have to try and find other things to do. He always feels like we should be out working like during our lunch hour haha After he finishes and we still have 40 min for lunch he’s like well ready to get going? He still hasn’t grasped that we get an hour for lunch but he will.
I’m sooooooooooooooo happy that Darien got his call!!! I’ve been waiting to hear where he got it to! So yeah I hope you have an awesome week! I love you and miss you! Hope you had an awesome Easter!

Email April 2 2012

To Dad: Well this week has been a pretty simple week. We didn’t get very much missionary work done which was kind of a bummer but we still had a good week. I went down to the valley Tuesday morning till Wednesday night when I brought back my greenie! His name is Elder F from St George Utah! We didn’t know each other before. He went to Dixie. We graduated the same year though but were just interested and did different activities so we never crossed paths. It was pretty interesting to get a second companion from St. George. He is a pretty funny kid and we get along very well! Thursday we went tracting for the first time with him and had 4 pretty good contacts. That afternoon we had to go down to V to get our back tires changed which took a while so we didn’t get anything else done that day. Friday we had 2 service projects. One was moving a lady out of our ward and only 2 other members showed up to help move so it took a while. Then we helped an elderly couple do yard work because they are incapable of doing it themselves. Then we went to contact a referral and we got a new investigator out of it. His father is a very strong convert of a few years and really wanted his son to hear our message so we went and taught him the restoration and the Spirit was pretty strong! I messed up a couple times but I know he got the point and he invited us back this next week! Saturday was a day full of conference! That is quite literally all we got to do. During the afternoon session we got a call that the priesthood session wasn’t going to be working at the B building so we had to go down to V stake center. It turned out alright because nobody fed us that night so 8 of us missionaries went out to Red Robin for dinner and had a good time! Sunday we watched conference and saw a less active family and that was it. It was a pretty slow week besides conference. I loooovveed conference I took so many great notes on it! I don’t have my notes with me right now so I’ll bring them next week and talk to you about my favorite talks. It was crazy that the Relief Society presidency was released! And there were NO new temples! I was surprised but oh well. Maybe this fall! Well that’s about all for this week. Not a whole lot but this next week is going to be really good and we should hopefully have a lot to talk about in my next email. I love you tons! Hope you have a great week!

To Mom: I hope Grandma starts getting better. She is in my prayers. I’m sure the missionary you stopped by to see really did appreciate it. That would be really hard. You don’t have to worry about getting released from your calling. Once they decide you have been in there long enough you will just become the General Primary President! hmm.. What I got out of conference was pretty much how I can prepare to become a good husband and father and how to raise a family in the changing world. I felt like almost every talk was about that. I told dad a little about my new comp. He is from St George also! Small world. But I didn’t know him before. We get along so it’s all good! Everything has been going good though. Not a very productive week. Just conference mostly! I love you tons! Keep being the best mom ever!

Email Mar 26 2012

To Dad: well....... I’m going to be a trainer!!! Woahh! I was thinking about it this morning... I was made district leader at 6 months, trainer at 7, and have had 11 baptisms so far... I feel extremely blessed and see the blessings of working hard! I don’t know if you did this when you were on a mission or not but it’s like a mission family thing. Your trainer is your dad; your follow-up trainer is your mom. Sooo I’m about to have a baby boy! hahaha so Elder T and Elder H are going to be parents and the other missionaries that Elder H or Elder T trained or follow-up trained will be aunt and uncles! haha its pretty funny and somehow pretty much everyone out here is related. Well I told pretty much all my stories in the other email to mom so there’s not a whole lot of other stuff to tell... we have to go back to the apartment and clean it up after this because that place is a mess and Elder U and I are tired of it. We went to the dollar store this morning and bought things that can help us stay organized more and our new companions better go along with it since we are now getting rid of our slobs haha its funny comparing my desk to my comps. His is unusable. Mine is very clean. Strange that I could never say that about my bedroom back home. Haha oh a funny story about the family we ate dinner with last night! It was the H’s. We baptized Sis Hs husband J on the 19th of February. Well Sis H wants me to marry into her family. Its kinda funny... one reason is because I want to be a pediatrician... Not sure about the other reasons. But her oldest daughter is 12. hahah its really funny having Sis H joke about it and call me her future son in law because her daughter gets soo embarrassed! I love that family to death and hope to marry into a family like it. We are going there for conference this week. So yes to answer your question, we will go to the church for the sessions we don’t have people to watch it with but we are going to J's, and S and A (the girls we just baptized) and we aren’t sure really who else yet but we are working on it. Well that’s about all! I love you tons! Have a great week!
To Mom: Thank you for sharing your spiritual experience with me! It was definitely great to feel that the Savior loves me and knows me and actually cares about me.

Saturday night... transfer call night... we sat waiting around the living room with the phone on my lap. We all sat and had random discussions just waiting for the call. Who was going to leave and who is going to stay? It’s crazy how nerve-racking the transfer calls can be. I finally decided to start writing a letter to a friend to get my mind off it... My letter now that I think about it probably didn’t make a lot of sense. It was more of just me rambling because I was still focused on the call. Partway through a sentence the phone rings. I look at who it is. Its Uncle J (AP) I jump up and run in the other room away from the noise the other Elders were making. I answer the phone "This is Elder Graf." I hear Uncle J's voice "Elder Graf I’m calling in behalf of President Godwin and I couldn’t be happier about what we are about to ask you to do. President Godwin feels that you are ready to fulfill the duty of being a trainer." I was in somewhat of shock because training calls usually come the day before but I happily accepted and turned around to see Elder U wondering what was going on. "I’m a trainer!!" I yelled! We both had a minor freak out about it. But this wasn’t it... We still didn’t know who was going and who was staying! We continued to sit and wait, this time in Elder U and Elder C’s room. Finally around 9:50 we got the call. I’m staying, Elder H is leaving, Elder U is staying, Elder C is leaving, and the N Elders are both staying. This means that I will be here in B for another 3 months!!

Well that was my little story about transfer calls and yes I will be training these next 2 transfers and crazy enough there is an Elder coming out from St. George and there is a 1/8 chance I could train him! I don’t know him but it would still be cool! Well this week went by pretty slowly. We did some service helping a part member family move about a mile away and found that their new house needs a lot of work. Tile, electric, woodfloor, and painting. Elder U knows how to do electric work. And I have volunteered as a painter! (Thank you mom for teaching me how to paint walls... at least somewhat ;) hah) so we are going back this next week to help with that. We will get some pictures with my new companion and us painting. I’ll still have a while before I need to send my memory card home. It’s got a lot of room! Like 600 more pictures! So I’ll start taking more pictures! we did some more tracting this week which we hadn’t done a whole lot of for a few little reasons but I’m going to pick it up with my new companion! oh oh! We had a miracle moment!!!

My first week in B Elder H and I went tracting and while we were there we saw a guy in his 20s going down the street in a wheel chair and I walked up and talked to him and gave him a card. At the time I didn’t know our phone number and neither did Elder H so we couldn’t give it to him and he ended up leaving... throughout my time in B I have thought about him a few times wondering if he would call the number but nothing.. Well we were trying to contact less actives and we went to one on 2nd St. and he wasn’t home. I just decided to go knock on a couple doors (I’m sure the Spirit helped with that decision).Well we knocked on the door two houses down and what do you know. The same guy answers the door and I said "Hey! I remember you!" he remembered me too and invited us back to come share our message with him! We went the next day and taught the restoration and it went really well! We will have some challenges with him but that’s okay. When he invited us back the next week he said that his mom would sit and listen with him because she reads our "Mormon book." crazy right? Okay well it gets crazier. The other two Elders in our ward got a referral probably 8 weeks earlier for a woman who was looking for a church. They taught her and she liked what she heard but she has been out of town pretty much since then. Well they found out she was actually in our area so they gave her info to us. Well the other day I was looking through our area book that has all the info for people who are being taught or have been taught and saw this lady and happened to realize that her address was the same as J. J is her son. Crazy right?? Love it!

So I’m sitting here next to a guy who started talking to me and he is hilarious! Apparently he is a comedian and he just started cracking jokes to me. He has a funny looking beard and is a little crazy but he is entertaining! Well that’s all for this week! I love you tons! I miss you like crazy! I figured by the time I got to be out around 6 months I wouldn’t miss home... I was wrong haha I don’t think you ever stop. But it’s okay I’m having a good time out here and I think it’s about to get a lot better!