Wow! I can't believe it! The Aggies pulled it off! I am so
happy right now haha. Another Elder from our ward was like "hey, Elder Graf,
guess what happened with the BYU- USU game?" And I was just like
"nope, don't want to hear it." Because I will admit I doubted that
they would do it. But then he told me my Aggies won by 15! Wooo! Then I enjoyed
your emails giving more details about the game haha how great is that?!
Okay, Gospel and missionary work now.
So, Conference was great! Loved it! Are
apostles and prophets sweet or what? Here's how our conference weekend
happened. We originally had an investigator and/or less active lined up to come
to every single session and it was going to be epic but most of them cancelled.
:( But we still had a couple people show up that I will tell you about. So we
enjoyed the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions at the church (we watched
them in English with the other missionaries and a few members). I, by the way,
have decided that watching conference at the church is the bomb. I don't know
why more members don't do it. You can focus way more and the spirit of
revelation is only intensified by being in the Lord's chapel. So after my
mission I'm definitely going to watch at least a few of the sessions at the
church. I entered each session with a couple questions to search answers for
and they were answered EVERY. TIME. So I'm grateful for the gift of the spirit
that we receive after baptism. I think we sometimes underestimate its worth.
Maybe I'll watch the morning sessions at home and the afternoon ones at the
church. That way we can still enjoy our lovely Conference morning breakfast
tradition at home that dad reminded me about. I love Costco muffins. That’s one
of the few things that Ohio is missing, Mountains and Costco muffins. (Sadly, I
had to inform Kevin that conference is not broadcast at the church in Utah since it's so readily available on TV. He
was disappointed, but at least we still have muffins!) But not to get too sidetracked, I thought it was so cool
that this was the first session with talks in foreign languages! Elder Garcia
and I went into the relief society room and we watched some of the Spanish
ones.
In between the Saturday morning and afternoon
sessions, we went and contacted a referral from one of our members, Bro.
R.... He knows someone who knows someone, and that person knew a lady from
the Dominican Republic that is dying from cancer. So we went and comforted the
family and taught a little about the plan of Salvation. We prayed together and
the spirit was so strong. We and the Catholic family are obviously from
different backgrounds, but love for God was really abundant during that
experience. The lady is going with her parents back to the Dominican Republic
this Friday so that she can be with family there. Several miracles have already
happened with teaching this family. The referral was received at a critical
time for me and Elder Garcia, and Elder Garcia knows a friend who is serving in
the same area of where the family lives in the Dominican Republic and they are
making plans to contact the family when they move over there. We will continue
visiting with them until they go this Friday. If the lady's health permits,
they will move back here in January. So we are excited to see what the Lord has
in store for this family.
Right before the Priesthood session, the small
number of our ward priesthood body met up at Chipotle and we ate dinner before
going over to the chapel (at 8pm our time) to watch the session.
While at Chipotle I concerned myself with J…, a returning less active member
that only speaks Spanish. So we were kind of by ourselves because Elder Garcia
was with everyone else that speaks English. But I found myself bearing my
testimony to him. I was testifying of the incredible blessing of missionary
work and I later reflected on how quickly my time in the field is expiring. I
feel like my time in the mission is a steaming freight train, and all I can do
is helplessly try to apply bicycle brakes. I still have plenty of time to work
but it is just going to quickly! We watched the priesthood session in Spanish.
All four of us together: me, Elder Garcia, J…, and.... (wait for it)..... J…! J…
came and he enjoyed it. We are going to baptize that beloved brother of ours as
soon as he gets work off on Sundays. So, Saturday was fun, but Sunday had it's
own mix of twists and miracles.
To try to keep this email less than the length
of the Old Testament I'll try to be more brief. Even though I want to say as
much, if not more, about Sunday than I did about Saturday. So, Sunday morning
we had a sweet lesson with the father of the G… family about the Book of
Mormon. Spirit is definitely going to be able to work with them now that they
have a Book of Mormon in their lives! Woooo! We enjoyed Sunday morning session
and then left the church to go out and try to round people up for the last session.
We ended up at the apartment complex of some former investigators, yea, even
the notorious "N… gang." We convinced a lady named C… to come with us
to the last session. As we were waiting for her and her kids to get ready, we
worked on talking to N… to get him to come to. But the more and more beers he
downed the less and less likely it appeared that he was going to commit to
coming. So, as we are getting ready to leave the apartment complex with C… and
her daughters, C… pointed out a problem. There was only one missionary bike
where there are normally two. Yep, one was stolen. Yep, it was mine. Was it
locked to a railing? Yes. But some Norwood thief outsmarted the lock and got
away with the bike, the lock, the helmet, and everything within the 45 minutes
that we were in the apartment above. My hat goes off to the guy that has the
guts to do that so promptly in mid daylight. We filed a police report but I'm
quite confident I won't be seeing those set of wheels anytime soon. So we are
back on foot. It was kind of a "deja vu" moment. It wasn't that long
ago when Elder Garcia and I had found ourselves on foot after his bike crash
and broken wrist incident. :) We are already the only Spanish area without a
car, and now we are bikeless. Opposition is mounting so we must be getting
close to something awesome in the near future. So, after my initial shock and
frustration, I just looked at the stolen bike as an opportunity to learn and
demonstrate Christlike forgiveness haha. At least I got to use it for 20
months. And bikes are replaceable. I've had plenty of friends who have lost
cameras with hundreds of pictures and memories. So things could always be
worse. We watched the last session and it was good. Can't believe that the next
one I'll be watching won't be in Ohio. How Crazy!
After Conference we went to see J… but we
didn't catch him at home. Our back up plan was too far away (because we hadn't
planned on having a bike stolen haha). So, not really sure what we should do,
we started walking. With a small prayer in our hearts we picked a street that
we had never walked down before but I had "remembered" seeing a Hispanic
family drive down it weeks earlier. (John 14:26) We walked the length of
the street, passing nearly 60 houses or so. There was a house near the
beginning of the street that had caught my attention ever so slightly but i had
ignored it and kept walking. When we had reached the end of the street and it
was clear that we hadn't accomplished any purpose by walking down it, Elder
Garcia posed the question," So what should we do?" I responded,"
Well, I don't know if it's inspiration or OCD, but there was a house back up
the street that was nagging at me. Let's try it." If I had just heeded the
prompting in the first place we would have saved ourselves a long walk, but, to
our amazement, not only were there people home, but they were Spanish! We had a
great conversation with a guy named O…, a father of a family of 5. He is now a
new investigator. We really almost never tract at all as a mission. And it
really wasn't our intention to go knocking doors. But it was by no power of our
own that led us to that street and to that house at that time. It was the first
and only house we knocked and it was a Spanish family that is open to listening
to us. For me it was a cool confirmation of President Monson's quote,"
never deny a generous thought." Seriously, little moments of grace like
that happened all throughout the week. If only there were time to write about
them. The Lord is definitely guiding us and will guide us as long as we are
searching for Him.
Temple countdown: 16 days til the Louisville
Temple!!!
Love you!
Elder Graf
