Email April 8 2013

We actually haven’t had much wind here. It’s been breezy but not windy. Which is good because the other day we took a bike day! It was sooo much fun! Biking is so much more fun when you actually know how to ride a bike well! The streets here are perfect for it too because there are only a few main streets and everything else is residential so you can get where you want to go by taking side streets because most of them connect. So that is fun.

I got an email from Morgan today and it sounds like he is doing really well. It really has brightened my day to see everything going on with my friends. Some getting baptized, lots on missions, it’s so crazy!

It is really crazy that conference has come and gone again. It was really weird when President Monson said until we meet in 6 months and I thought... "I will be at home...” It was really crazy. It’s coming quicker and quicker.

I really enjoyed conference and the values that they talked about. Mostly what I got out of it was that 1. Families need to be raised in a Gospel Centered home. 2. Member missionary work is extremely important and 3. No matter what the world is doing the standards of the church stands strong.

I really enjoyed the talk that President Uchtdorf gave in the Priesthood session about the 4 names that we have as men and priesthood holders. I also liked President Monson’s talk on Sunday morning... Mostly because I went to watch that session with a question in mind that I wanted answered and that was "How can I become a better/the best missionary I can be?" and his entire talk was on obedience. It’s interesting because I have been really working on that and doing even the small things that most people don’t think matter. Like, Make your bed, Write in your journal, clean your apartment, talk to EVERYBODY. Things like that and as I’ve been doing that I’ve noticed a lot more blessings.

As far as things this week we had kind of a rough week for a couple of reasons… it was transfers and we got a new greenie in our zone and he and his comp are on bike and had some meetings in R so we were the drivers for that. Then our brakes were having major issues that presented a very serious problem haha so our truck got worked on in 2 different shops. Luckily the second one was close to our house and in our area so we just took a partial bike day and I LOVED it!  I want to take a bike day at least once a week because our area is really not a hard bike area at all. So we didn’t really do anything from Tuesday-Friday... it was crazy... but on Friday we went to see that family of potential investigators we got from knocking on doors and taught them part of the first lesson, told them about conference, and set up a time to teach them again. We found out that the mother is going through cancer right now and her sister in law who is a member is encouraging her to listen to us. We had a really powerful lesson and promised her that the gospel would help her through her trials. Not take them away but give her the strength that she needs to overcome them.

Sunday night we also had a neat experience where we went to see a member who just got active about a year ago. She is having some difficulties because her husband won’t come back to church with her and so she is doing it alone. While we were there she brought up a concern that she was feeling guilty about something and felt like she shouldn’t pray because of it. We read her 2 Nephi 32:8 and told her never to feel like that. We then had a very spiritual experience and just let her know that God loves her and she should never leave him. She talked about how hard of a time she is having and how she feels like the better she gets the more trials she has and we promised her that the Gospel would help her through those trials and that if she backed away from the Gospel she would still have trials but she would no longer have the strength of the Gospel to help her through them. It was really neat and the spirit was strong.

Well that about sums up our week! Oh yeah funny story though! So the missionary that is training in our zone is Spanish speaking and I told him. If you get Elder Graff lets stand up and hug each other in transfer meeting. (That’s what the trainers do when they get called with their greenies; they get up and go hug their greenie and sit on the stand.) Well that was while I was sitting next to him but I ended up getting up and moving to the back side to sit by Elder U. Well lo and behold Elder C gets Elder Graff as a companion. So I’m sitting in the back laughing because there are now 2 Elder Graffs in Ontario and I look up and Elder C is coming up the aisle towards me with his arms open. So I get up and we hug each other and everyone is laughing and his greenie looked sooo confused! haha it was super super funny. Anyways there are 2 of us in Ontario! He is from Washington but has many ties to Santa Clara. crazzy! Well I love you tons! Have a great week!

Email April 1 2013

I missed being able to do the Easter hunt on Easter. I have been hearing from people I haven’t heard from. Mostly other missionaries who are now out on their missions. I found out Morgan Potter is in the MTC on his way to South Africa! That made me super happy to hear! Not really much has changed. It was a rough week. The baptism went great!

 

I’ve been tired lately... really tired. And stressed but we went to the chiropractor that’s in our ward this last week and I mentioned that I was stressed and he asked what about so I just told him mission things not wanting to say much more and he seemed to get what I was talking about and just said "If there are things you can change, change them. If there are things you can’t change, give it up to the Lord." It was just some simple advice that made me think a lot. So I’m just going to keep doing what I can to improve myself and the blessings will come. Either sooner or later. So that’s been my week! Love you so much! I get to talk to you in about a month and a half!!

 

I sure did enjoy my package! So there isn’t much to tell for this week. Not too exciting. We did get to go to W’s baptism and it was awesome! She was so happy! She is going to be so awesome! It was also really neat to see a lot of the people from my old ward. They kept telling me how much they missed me and it made me feel good! I asked about if one of the S girls got her mission call and found out her open house was that night so we after the baptism we went up there to their house and we went in and when I walked into their main room her mom was sitting on the couch and did a double take and FREAKED out because she was so excited! She even made a comment while I was there and said "It’s like one of my sons came home!" It made me feel really good. Other than that we have continued to look for more people to teach and haven’t had a ton of success and I’m still really frustrated. I don’t know what else more I can do.

 

Easter was really good too we had a big Tongan party that we ate our lunch at and I was stuffeeedd. Then we had to take Elder C to his departing devotional and went to a couple really quick appointments. Nothing really special happened and it felt like a normal day. We got transfer calls Sunday morning. Nothing is changing with Elder B and me. We will be together for another transfer. That really is the highlights of the week. I love you tons and hope your week is great!

 

Email Mar 24 2013

I really like those pictures! You did a really good job on them!  There are so many people out here with drug problems and things of the sort. It’s really crazy and really sad to see.

Things this last week went really well. I’m just going to focus on the neat experiences that we have had.

On Thursday night we went to teach the Less Active that is coming back to church regularly and we got there just a few minutes early and Brother W from the Bishopric was already there waiting for us and talking to Bro S’s neighbor who is his brother in law. Well we went over to talk to them and Brother W said, “M is going to join us for the lesson tonight. We had a really good lesson about Reading, Praying and Church. Brother S was just bearing his testimony about how much they helped him in becoming a happier person and telling his brother in law how much it could help him. We are going to go back and teach them both again this week!

We also had exchanges on Saturday with the AP's and I went out to F with Elder S. We had kind of a different exchange but it was really good! It was their stake’s Youth Conference and they were doing a 24 hour mission. So they had their companions and name tags and went around to 4 different stations and we were in charge of one of them. Ours was the importance of planning and goal setting. You would think that would be the most boring one but we made it really fun and people told us that they liked ours the best. We were just super interactive with them. We were getting them to focus on some friends who weren’t members and how they would invite them to do things like go to mutual with them and what not. So then after those 4 rotations they lowered it to 3 and us and a few other missionaries did a finding station where we taught them to go door to door and had them practice going down the hall and knocking on classroom doors where missionaries would answer them. After that they came back in the room where I was and me and another missionary would help them evaluate and go talk to them about how it went and what could do better, then they would go do it again. It was really awesome! Then we went to a baptism in R and took some of Elder S’s Investigators. It turns out it was Elder U’s baptism so I got to see him! He is doing really awesome!

So now for another couple of miracles. As you know we have been praying for families. Well we got a call from some of the R Missionaries and they said they had a referral for us who was really interested. So we went by and it was a family and we are meeting with them this next week. Then on our way out of their apartment complex I started talking to a guy and he said his wife had talked to us before. We were in a hurry so I just asked if we could come teach him sometime and he said "yeah sure!" It was really awesome. So through much prayer and fasting things continue to look up. I decided to fast again yesterday and we got a call from bishop this morning about a non member who came to church a couple weeks ago that wants to meet with us. It’s him, his mom, and his brother. We also got a text from a girl in the singles ward who said that for our dinner this Thursday she is bringing her non member friend and we will be teaching him! So many miracles! All because of prayer and fasting! I was feeling really stressed again earlier this week and I decided to read the scriptures before going to sleep and I read D&C 58:4. It made me feel a lot better.

Things are looking up and it looks like we might have a really amazing week this week! Also W gets baptized this Friday! Soooooooooooooooo excited! I love you so much!!

It was a good week for a couple good reasons! I got an email from Maxx Pope last week. He got baptized a couple months ago. It is really weird because before I left on my mission I was told that the hardest part was coming home and seeing that your friends are all the same and nothing but you has changed. I’ve been really set on that but things ARE changing a lot! Maxx got baptized, soooo many of my friends are on missions. Those are like the biggest changes you can have!

We are just trying out something new that I hope continues for a long time! We have a notebook that says "Missionary Experiences- (name of ward) " and we go teach members a lesson about praying in faith and about "going about doing good" from PMG and then tell them for the next week we want them to pray for missionary experiences and we are going to focus on their family and praying specifically for their family and when they have an experience they write it in the notebook and in a week we pick it up and talk about what happened. Then take it to another member and so eventually they will have a notebook full of the missionary experiences the ward has had! We just started it last night so we will see how it goes. I’m very much looking forward to this next week and seeing what happens! I love you tons! Have a great week!