Hello family! You are
all such beautiful people. Looks like Thanksgiving was a good time! We also
enjoyed ourselves with 3 thanksgiving dinners! One thing that I’ve learned from
Spanish work is how to eat. So 3 dinners was no problem. We actually enjoyed
each one as it was all very good food. We started out with Brother Smith and
his son whom we call Mario. We ate free at the Dayton Convention Center.
(Basically a stadium opened up to feed a Thanksgiving lunch to anyone in Dayton).
It was surprisingly good and the Baptist band was an added bonus. From there we
went to the K… family's home and had a good dinner. (The K….’s unfortunately
haven't fully quit smoking so their baptism has to be postponed, but more on
that in a second). After the K…’s we went to the Millwards and had an
INCREDIBLE dinner. Sister Millward got up at 4 am to start everything
and it paid off because it was super good. We took home leftovers in mason jars
:) Despite all the food I still come in at about 177, about what I started my
mission at. President gave us some crossfit exercise videos to use in the
mornings so they must be working. They are super funny but we love them.
Anyways, to answer
your other question transfers aren't until next Tuesday (the 9th?). I
don't know if the party of 3 will continue or not. They might break us up. That
will be a sad day. We've loved our time together. Literally every day has been
so exhausting, but so fun and miraculous. But either way I believe I'll stay
here in Dayton. Maybe I'll have to put a bug in Presidents ear about extending
hehehe. I'm pretty sure it's impossible but I might consider asking :)
Oh, and no I never got
a bed but honestly the couch has been great this transfer. It's nice and long
so my feet don't hang off, so it does the trick. And we have calls at night
with the assistants that sometimes don't end until 11:30 so when we
get to bed we are so tired that we don't care what we sleep on haha.
Anyways, God blessed
us with a couple incredible people last week. J… and L… are two ladies that have
come out of the woodwork. J… was a former investigator that we taught for the
first time last Friday. She is a referral from one of the sisters in the branch
and has already read the whole Book Of Mormon! She is an incredible lady and we
were blown away by her testimony. She accepted baptism for December 20th
at 2pm :) She set the time haha. L… is another incredible lady that has
read all of the standard works and has read almost all of the gospel library
known to man. She has been dying to get baptized but because of a living
situation with her ex husband she couldn't progress. But, we called President
Porter and she now has permission to get baptized! So, I have a testimony that
God will part the Red Sea when we need it most. Both of these miracles happened
after a depressing Wednesday when we found out that the K…'s baptism would have
to be postponed. It was definitely the trial of our faith before the blessing.
That is a pattern that has been very prevalent throughout my mission and I know
it will be throughout our lives; the trial always precedes the blessing just as
the crisis precedes the Miracle. And we as a mission are in a crisis. We are
reaching the close of the year and the mission is far below our goal of 720
baptisms. But I know God will work the miracle if we all show our faith in
Christ and don't waver. We as a zone have changed a lot over the past month and
it's exciting to see the faith increase within each missionary. It's
interesting to see changes as I've had the opportunity to return to previous
areas that I've already served in, such as Dayton. I've noticed that everything
in Dayton has either stayed the same or only become worse, except for the
places and people and homes that have had the gospel of Jesus Christ working in
them. I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is real! I've seen the difference in
missionaries, families, communities, and myself and I love it! It's everything to
me and I love sharing it and I hope that we all will follow the generous
thoughts that come to us inspiring us as to how we can help someone feel an
extra portion of the Saviors love this week! I love you!
Happy Holidays,
Elder Kevin Graf
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| Hopefullly this picture captures our exhaustion as we plan haha. |
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Here's our zone after one of our zone weekly planning meetings. Elder Harper's grandma sent us reindeer antlers haha.
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After giving a blessing to a man in the hospital, we drove to the top of the hospital parking lot and discovered a wonderful view of the Dayton skyline.
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These pics are from a couple weeks ago. Snowy day!
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This is the back of our church building. haha. Quite different than your average chapel.
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