Goodbye Dayton and HELLO KENTUCKY :)
So Monday I said goodbye to as many people as I could before
Pday hours ended and me and Elder Foote went back at it for the rest of
the night to teach a few investigators.
Tuesday we drove to transfer meeting. Just from talking to the
other elders I had it pretty figured out what was going to happen, or so I
thought. During transfer meeting they call out names and pair you off. They
called me up and then told me that my companion hadn't arrived from the Mexico
MTC yet. So they paired me off with another set of Spanish elders (Elder
Carranza from Guatemala and Elder Prach). I stayed with them until Wednesday
night when Elder James Gibb finally arrived. He was the only new Spanish elder
this transfer. He's a young guy from SLC, Utah. He just turned 18. He doesn't hesitate to speak so he'll learn the language quickly. If we
stay humble we'll have great success together.
We were doubled in to The Ohio River 1 area, which is a
misnomer because we're actually in the northern side of
Kentucky. "Doubled in" means that both of us are new to the
area. So, outside the notes that the last elders scrambled together for
us, we're kind of starting from scratch. I've study the records
thoroughly these past few days so I'm already starting to feel comfortable
with how things work here.
The last Elders set a young guy up for baptism this Saturday.
He's 11 years old and he's named Jonathon. They hadn't hardly taught him anything,
so we are franticly trying to teach him as well as organize and put
together a baptismal service for this Saturday! I hope it's all going to come
together! We're going to teach him tonight and by the end of the
night we'll have a better idea of what's actually going to happen this
week.
Training Elder Gibb thus far has already been a learning
experience. I'm working
and planning so hard so that we can have successful days and he gets to be along
for the ride while he makes mistakes that are common to every
new missionary. I can't help but think that Heavenly Father looks at
us in a similar way. He has created a plan for us and works so hard to provide
us happiness and success, but we just bumble our way through life as
we learn, but we make all sorts of mistakes in the process. Elder
Gibb has a deep desire to work hard, so we're going to learn a lot together and
reap the great success that this branch has.
The branch president here is a convert of only 2 years. The
branch has an attendance of about 30 or so, similar to Dayton. There are more
Hispanics down here and there really is a lot of great potential here and I'm
excited to be Here!!!
Love you all, have a fantastic week. ADIOS :)
Elder
Graf
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| Me and Elder Foote |
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| One last visit with Penny. She exemplifies the quote that I think elder Nelson made during conference that went something like this "stellar spirits are often housed in disabled bodies". Penny has the greatest testimony. |
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| The squadron of 4 in Dayton. |
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| The R.... Familia and me, Elder Foote, Elder Garcia, And Elder Taylor (almost my twin, we are very similar) |
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| President Vilches and his family the night before I left Dayton. |
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| This apartment was trashed because the Elders before us didn't know they were both leaving until the last second. We cleaned it up and organized ourselves a cozy study space. Our apartment really is awesome. We live in probably one of the best. 2 bathroom, gym with weights and equipment, good size. Elder Gibb is really starting off spoiled. |
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One picture looks like we're ridiculously tall but only because it's propped up weird on an ironing board. (No matter how nicely I tried to pack them, after stuffing my shirts into my suit case I finally had to resort to using an ironing board for the first time on my mission, haha.)
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| Me and Elder Gibb from SLC, Utah |
