We are getting to know the ward a lot better and we are really
gaining their trust. One evening we ate at the S…'s home and it felt like I was
eating dinner at grandma's and grandpa's. Another night we ate at the M…'s, and
it felt like I was eating with the Lampings (you know, like Josh's parents). It
was really weird haha. A ward takes more time to get to know everyone but we
feel like we've got good relationships with just about everybody. Apparently a
few transfers ago there were some missionaries that had kind of lost the trust
of the ward council... But now they are giving us names to contact and we're
seeing little miracles come from each contact. Even a grandmother told us that
we were right on time to help her 8 year old granddaughter get baptized. Now we
don't have jurisdiction over nonconvert baptisms, so we won't be teaching
her, but it was cool to be able to help the process get going for her.
Saturday the English elders had a Baptism for two really cool
young guys that are brothers. They are just in their mid 20's but their baptism
so such a neat experience. The G… family, one of our biggest focuses right now,
was able to come to part of the baptism. The father of the family was late
coming from work so they missed the actual ordinance but it was so cool that
they came! They couldn't come to church though because he got called into work
last minute. It was disappointing but we will try to get them to stake
conference this weekend! We haven't hardly taught them anything but they have
been keeping every commitment we've given them. We have been developing a good
friendship with them the past few weeks and now we feel that we are to a point
where we can really begin to teach them. For whatever reason they have taken a
while to open up to us but we finally have a pretty good friendship with them.
That is something different about Spanish work here, at least in this mission.
We really try to develop friendships before we teach them a lot, and when we do
teach them, it's broken up into smaller pieces. The Spanish people focus more
on how much you love them and less on how much you know.
We were quite a site for a bus full of people the other day. We
saw the bus approaching from a distance and we engaged a frantic pursuit on our
bikes to get to the next bus stop in time to catch it. We got ahead of the
bus just when Elder Garcia’s bike chain fell off. Still determined, he
grabbed his bike and started running with it but the bus passed us. I
quickly get off and put his chain back on and we start riding after the bus
again. We get ahead of the bus just in time for everything in Elder Garcia’s
shirt pocket to spill out and all over the street: pass-along cards, planner,
pen, everything. The bus ran over his planner, we save it from the street, and
we were laughing so hard that we were too winded to chase the bus again so we
just admitted defeat and waited for the next one haha.
Oh, I gave a talk yesterday. It was quite nice to be able to
give a talk in my native tongue. Quite comfortable. They asked me to speak on prayer
and personal revelation. I learned a lot from preparing for it, even though
they asked me to do it kind of last minute. I talked about how revelation is
"communication from God to His children." and I talked about how
revelation comes through the spirit. I shared the story of when I saw Grandma
Ruth praying. I was only 7 or 8 when she came to visit us for the Christmas
holiday. I ran up to my room to grab my pajamas when I accidently interrupted
Grandma praying. I quickly closed the door again but that memory of seeing
grandma, who was nearly 90 at the time, kneeling in prayer has always
stayed with me and has always taught me the importance and power of prayer. I
then talked about Enos and Joseph Smith’s experiences. I can't type it all up
but here are some good scripture references on the topic. John 14:26, John
15:26, D&C 19:38,28 , Matthew 7:7 , Enos 1: 2-12, 1 Nephi
10:19, JSH 1:10-20, Moroni 10:3-5, and Alma 5:45-46. Read these if
you like and study them and write down the patterns and impressions you get.
For me it was pretty sweet! I know heavenly Father loves us and answers our
sincere prayers!
LOVE YALL :D
Elder
Graf
One last scripture reference! D&C 6;22-23 enjoy :)
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| I realized that i hadn't taken any pictures the past two weeks so this morning we entertained ourselves with the camera while waiting at our bus stop. |
