We have been so busy that I when I sit down to write about
the past week I can't even remember what has happened. So I'll just type it as
it comes to me haha.
So yes, somewhere last week I had a birthday.
Thank you for the package! There hasn't been an opportunity to eat cake yet but
the protein bars and shirt and cd's were perfect! I got a lot of random
birthday songs through voicemails throughout the day from both our zone and the
Spanish zone so it was pretty fun.
Something that is pretty cool is that I still
get to use some Spanish! Last Monday we started teaching a bilingual family.
The mom and kids speak English but the father is from Mexico. The Spanish
elders referred them to us because it's better that the family go to an English
branch so that the mom and kids can understand. And now that I'm here we can
also teach the father! The father speaks only broken English so I get to talk
to him and I'll translate for him when he comes to church. Working with this
family is another confirmation that I'm where I need to be and that the transfer
calls were inspired. I also get to do exchanges with the Spanish district in
our zone! So lots of fun. But to continue, we invited them to come check out
the church during the week so that they could be more comfortable coming to
church on Sunday. Side note is that the Dayton chapel is not your regular
building. It is an office looking building from the inside that has been rented
out and turned into a chapel. Pretty cool because it doesn't look like a church
at all from the outside but the inside still has the same familiar spirit that
exists in our LDS buildings. So Friday night we gave the family a tour of the
chapel and it was great because our branch president was there and he got to
testify of how the gospel has blessed his kids growing up. At the end of the
chapel tour we invited them to be baptized and the mom was super excited. In
her words she "felt like dancing." She has never been baptized before
and is excited to work towards baptism the end of this month. We actually have
several people working towards baptism for November 29th so we're
expecting a big baptismal service the end of the month. Anyways, the family
committed to come to church and the mom and kids actually came on Sunday! The
father was unfortunately called in to work last second so he didn't make it but
we'll get him this week. The process of getting the mom and kids to church last
second without the father's truck was a miracle and a half. But with the help
of some very selfless members we managed to pull it off. We can't do this work
on our own. That's for sure! The members totally saved the day in getting
several of our investigators to church. And when we got there we were surprised
and pleased to see a less active family show up that we had invited the day
before. Some people are just waiting for an invite! And by grace from above God
also blessed us with several member referral investigators at the church when
we got there. So we had a really good turn out for church. The total branch attendance
was over 100! So we were super happy.
Okay, a million things have happened but I
need to send pictures from the past couple weeks! This one will actually have
to be short because other people are waiting on me!!!
Love You!
Elder Kevin Graf
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| A CRAZY family sung happy birthday and then got me with a birthday cupcake. I will need to take my suits to the dry cleaner this week due to the frosting and due to the bird that pooped on my other suit... haha. |
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| Here is a pic of me, Elder Klodnicki and Elder Harper. They are fun guys! |
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| Really cool view of Cincinnati! The assistants took us to a really cool look out point at the end of our exchange and had us think about what it means to be an Ohio Cincinnati missionary. Cool experience. |
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| Birthday presents that I opened after getting back from our exchange with the assistants! |
