Elder Kevin Graf: Recipe Disaster

I just wrote Elder Arveseth and he's doing great! We're going to be brothers after the mission. I love him tons.

Elder Garcia and I shared some good times together last week. We had some awesome lessons and little miracles that I'll share about if there's time. But after finishing planning Tuesday night we engaged in an epic battle of my umbrella shield and inflatable sword versus his nerf gun and candy bombs. It was one hit kill and I won hehe :) Saturday we also had a good time making a Hispanic cake called tres leches. We wanted to show our love for one of our less active families that was feeding us that night so we wanted to bring a cake. Get ready for the disaster...

We realized that we were out of the most important part of the cake, the tres leches (the 3 different types of milk you use to moisten the cake). So we took the bus down to Kroger really quick and got the 3 milks. While at the store I asked Elder Garcia if he remembered how many eggs we needed. "Two", he said, which was perfect because he had an egg and I had an egg so together we had it covered. We returned to the apartment and realized that we in fact needed 4 eggs. We weren't going to go back to the store, so we just called Brother R…. No big deal, he said he could help us out with the eggs. Right before we go over to his place to pick them up we also realized that we were just a little short on sugar to. So Brother R…. sends us off with plenty of both sugar and eggs. We promised we'd bring him some cake and returned to the apartment. The process continued. We didn't have nearly the amount of oil we needed. Our vegetable oil was nearly empty. We weren't going back to the store, and we couldn't call Brother R… again, so we knock on our apartment neighbors' doors. Of the 3 neighbors, 2 didn't answer and the 1 that did answer was a lady that didn't cook with oil. In my mind I was like "What? You don't cook with oil? Who doesn't cook with oil?" But we thanked her anyways and headed to our last resort, the church. At the church we found some oil in the kitchen. Good thing we live so close to it haha. We returned to the apartment and as Elder Garcia was mixing the batter he noticed an odd smell. He asked me, "Elder Graf does this smell bad to you?" I smelt it and I checked the recipe. It hit us that we didn't add the milk. Luckily we had some so we mixed it in and then figured our problems were solved. We finally popped the cake batter in the oven. After cooking in the oven it came out a nice golden color. Just perfect! But the bad smell filled the kitchen. We taste tested it. It was terrible! Absolutely gross! We felt like vomiting. Elder Garcia checked the expiration date of the oil we used. It was nearly 3 years expired!!! And who knows how long ago it was actually opened. So that was about 3 hours completely wasted. Not the most productive attempt of my mission haha. Well, many little lessons were learned from this experience, the first and greatest perhaps being: Check the recipe! So, when I come home, I can't make any promises about my personal cooking skills but I will gather a few Hispanic recipes and we can experiment with them together :)

We ended up having a great dinner with the less active family anyways. And they came to church yesterday! And the father of the family came out with us teaching for the first time! We had an awesome experience teaching J… with him. He shared his conversion story with J… and it really brought the spirit. It was something that J… needed to hear and also the member needed to hear his own testimony to. I do have a testimony that this work is the Lord's work. The spirit will always be there as we engage ourselves in His work and in His way. Members make a huge difference. I think they worry too much that they aren't going to say the right thing but their testimony is always perfect. Our visit with J… couldn't have gone any better. He is going to pray about baptism and we'll see how he feels next time we see him. He really is trying his best and we love him a lot.

We had a miracle at church yesterday. A guy named J… that comes to Soccer night texted us Sunday morning and asked what time church started. He came all dressed and looking spiffy. He stayed for all 3 hours and had a good experience!

C… has been slipping back into bad things but we are getting to know his sister and mom a lot more. Keep them in your prayers! We shared family stories over some "caldo de pollo" (chicken noodle soup Mexican style haha). We love them a lot too. I just love everybody right now haha.

And I love my Savior! He's the Brother that I never had :) I've come to know Him a lot more out here and I'm so grateful for what He did, and continues to do for me. He has never asked any sacrifice too big, and His love is always there, especially when we need it most. And His love often shines through other people, so be the one to be kind, and patient, and forgiving. Be the one that lifts, and God will always support you. En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen :)

Elder Kevin Graficito

P.S. Josh sent me a talk by Elder Bednar called "The Doctrine is the Answer". It is amazing. It helps anyone who wants to understand and teach the gospel more powerfully. I suggest that everyone read it. It's worth it I promise! I sent it to President and he had the whole mission study it for zone meetings last week. It's great! Love you!

I figured I"d snap a picture of one of my healthier dinners that I whipped up one day. Just so Mom knows that i'm not starving :) I'm about 180. Nearly what I started my mission at.