Perfect Gifts

I have been trying to write a quick last note to a number of people so this might be on the shorter side.

But I want you to know that last week the miracles continued. So many things came together in such a beautiful way that I never could have expected. Blessing upon blessing kept reaffirming to me about how great the love of our Heavenly Father is for us. He allowed me to see several blessings that really taught me in a personal way how aware He is of me, and how much He surely is aware and loving of each of His children. On one level, the zone finished the transfer setting new records. We truly came to be a unified Dayton family. And with that unity came power, and with that spirit came revelation on how to build each area to be more than it was when we got here. It was so exciting to see every missionary progress and grow. Saturday was such a testimony builder to me that you just never know what impact the small and simple things you do may have on someone. I was overjoyed to be able to learn of a baptism of someone that I had found nearly two years earlier and then to be able to attend that service. After the baptismal service, I was stopped by a couple younger girls, ages 17 and 15. They introduced themselves to me as K… and M... They said I looked familiar and we discovered why. I was the first missionary to knock on their door, they have since been baptized and both are wanting to serve missions. The parents are not yet members but I know they will take that step when their time is right. But it was overwhelming to me. It was my final weekend and Heavenly Father was so kind to reserve these special blessings for that time. He is a perfect Father, He knows how to give the perfect gifts. And the greatest gift of all was his Son, Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for the privilege that it has been to serve as one of the Lord's missionaries. These past 2 years have allowed me to come to know Him in a more personal way than ever before. I love Him. I can say that now in a way that I couldn't say before. I know He lives. I know He's there. I'm so grateful for what He did to show His love to us. I feel that my mission was at most an ineffective offering. I need to be careful what I mean by that. I say that because for every sacrifice, He blessed me and my family a hundredfold more. I feel that giving my life through all my time and talents will forever be the way of saying thanks for what He did for me. I love this great work. I gave my all. I have no regrets. There is nothing that means more to me now than His gospel. I know that it has been restored to the earth. I know that God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ appeared to young Joseph Smith in the sacred grove. I know this because there is no way to deny the Lord's blessings that have come into my life and the life of others because of what happened there. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the Lord's kingdom once again established on the earth for the final time. I know this because I know the Book of Mormon is true. I have felt the witness of the spirit and the revelation that flows into each and every day that I study it prayerfully. I don't know much but I know these things are true. I love the Lord. And i have served Him the very best i could, and I wouldn't trade anything in the world for how it has changed me. 

Here is the standard of truth as revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith:

“The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”

I LOVE YOU!!! See you Wednesday for some Cafe Rio :D 

Elder Kevin Graf

p.s. the primary president wants her daughter "to find a guy like me." hehehe awkward. 

And J... and half the Spanish zone again! The Spanish zone is getting it's first new Spanish greenie since I trained Elder Gibb. It's about time!

Missionary Testimony

Alright, before I do much of anything I want to send a quick note for Bishop Brown that you asked me to write a couple weeks back. I don't have his email so you'll have to copy the letter below over to his email if you have it.

To parents: Well I ran out of time so basically you'll just have to be satisfied with reading this letter as my weekly email. Love you!!!

Bishop!

     Long time no see! The mission has been the experience of a lifetime, but it sure keeps you busy, and I can't believe that these 2 years are already coming to a close. It is surreal and I am a bit in denial that it is actually happening. I'm not very excited about returning to the "real world." Not to say that serving a mission in the cities of Dayton and Cincinnati aren't real enough, but you know what I mean. Life after the mission has a whole new list of stresses and responsibilities and opportunities. I'm excited and not excited at the same time. It's hard to describe but you probably know what I'm trying to say. 

     I am most grateful for the privilege to serve. I served 21 months as a Spanish missionary, and my last three months I was switched to English work. I am very grateful for the opportunity to fulfill my purpose as a missionary in these two capacities. The latter has allowed me to work more closely with the Stake President in the Dayton area and I have learned much from observing the dedicated way that he serves. I'm equally grateful for my mission President. I know everyone says that, but President and Sister Porter truly are the most tremendous examples of how to live a life with Faith in the Savior. They remind me of the obedience, diligence, faith, and sacrifice that I also see in my parents. I know without a shadow of a doubt that my calling was inspired from God. I know I was meant to serve under President and Sister Porter. I know I was meant to serve 21 months as a Spanish missionary and 3 months as an English missionary. I know I was meant to serve in the 3 areas that I served in and at the very specific times that I served there, even returning to previous areas 2 or 3 times. I have discovered my purpose, my gifts, my identity, my strengths and even my weaknesses. I have been left in complete awe of how the Atonement of Jesus Christ has completely molded me and changed me into becoming someone better than I was before. I know for a fact that I was meant to be with the companions that I had. I know that the experiences that I've had were meant to be, and they happened in such a chronology and in such a careful progression that I know that each transfer was inspired from above to allow me to grow in the way I needed to grow. In a nutshell, I know God is at the helm of our lives and that He has a plan for us. He knows us so individually and so specifically that He knows perfectly what we need. 

    I now have a conversion that is deeper than ever before about our Savior Jesus Christ. I now know more sincerely that He is the living Son of God. I've come to experience more sincerely and more frequently the redeeming and enabling power of His great sacrifice. I now can better recognize the Lord's voice and His hand in my life. I have come to learn, love, and enjoy the companionship of the spirit more fully in my day-to-day life. I have learned the principle of revelation through the scriptures and the power of prayer. I now know how to more fully trust in God and to seek His spiritual gifts. And I love Him. If anything I have come to love Him, and to love His commandments, and to love His words. And that love has broken barriers and has allowed me to see with a greater perspective. My perspective of myself, family, and the potential of others has changed. Even my perspective of trials and sacrifices has completely changed. I have come to love the doctrine of Christ. I know that through Faith in the Savior, repentance, making and keeping of covenants, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end is the answer to life's greatest blessings. It is the way to hope, change, healing, growth, joy, comfort, peace, and all good things. I know that it is the same gospel that has been restored to the earth in our last days through Joseph Smith, a humble farm boy called to be a prophet of God. I know that the priesthood and the fullness of the gospel, with all it's ordinances, doctrine and blessings, have been restored to the earth one final time. I have personal witness that the Book of Mormon is a powerful evidence of all these truths that will never be destroyed. Oh how it has changed me. It has meant so much to me and my family. I am most grateful for all the blessings of the Lord in my life that has allowed me to serve. I have grown so close to Him through the service of others. And by serving others I have grown to love them. I love the Spanish people, they make us English people look so boring. I plan on doing everything I can to use Spanish throughout my life. I also intend to maintain the relationships that I have developed for forever. I hope that the miracles that have been shared with companions and converts will be a launchpad for our growth throughout our lives. 

   Bishop, I thank you for the support I have felt through you and the ward. I have really appreciated the thoughtful gifts put together by the members. And not to mention the very real support I have felt through countless prayers said for my behalf and for my family. I love you guys. Nothing has been so hard, nor so rewarding and amazing as these past two years. Thank you for keeping a good eye on my family while I've been gone :) Very clever of you to call my dad as second counselor to keep him close so that my family didn't get too out of line ;) We can be a rowdy bunch sometimes haha but not really. See you soon. Adios.

Elder Kevin Graf   

Awesome!

Hey family! Happy first Monday of 2015 :) last week was awesome. We've been battling some illness but no worries, the work goes on and we had a week full of tender mercies.

Actually, I know why we are all sick. It was Elder Klodnicki's birthday last Monday and he's wanted to go running for forever so we finally went out running in the morning and it was only 12 degrees. So that's probably our problem haha :( But also, the whole city seems to have been hit with some plague of winter illnesses. But I am grateful for the priesthood and priesthood blessings. On Friday, after an all day mission leadership council, which was awesome, we worked a little bit and then returned to our apartment. There in our apartment my companions gave me a blessing and I have had quite a quick turn around. I'm still coughing pretty deep but I am feeling remarkably better, all thanks to the priesthood restored :) 

I should tell you more about Friday, because it was an awesome day for several reasons. We had mission leadership council, where President called us to repentance in such a loving and powerful way. He taught us many things. One of the messages that I liked was that our success doesn't come through our skill, but through the diligent, obedient, and faithful keeping of our covenants. So it's a good reminder of the importance of our covenants. Our covenants are designed to help us reach our divine potential. And the closer we hold to them the more power of spirit we will have in our lives. Our very characters will become as Christ's character, and that is power. When missionaries truly serve after the manner of the one who they represent, their service and ministry will truly be miraculous. And so it is in every aspect of our lives: making and keeping of covenants invite power into our daily lives. Because our covenants bind us to God, and by being bound to God we are blessed with his power and his gifts. So it is my invitation to all that we all call to remembrance the covenants that we have made and that we study them in the scriptures and seek to understand them with greater depth and that we commit to applying them more fully in our lives.

So leadership council was awesome. We had to wake up at 5:30, which wasn't so awesome, but the rest of the day was. When we got back to Dayton we only had about an hour to work in our area. We had a goal to find 1 new investigator that day. But because of time we were only going to have time to do our appointment with Paul, so I'm sad to confess that when it got to that point in the day we had kind of given up on the goal to find that new investigator. But! Our district leader, as wonderful as he is, called us and committed us to find TWO new investigators with that hour that we had left of the day. We could have said something like, "well we can't because.... we don't have time... or we already have an appointment.... or maybe tomorrow." But, we said, "game on!" Challenge accepted! So we quickly arranged for a member to do splits with us so we could divide and conquer and essentially be in two places at once. A member and Elder McEachern went to teach our lesson with Paul and Elder Klodnicki and I went out to find 2 new. We had no idea what to do but we were committed to do it. We felt we needed to contact one of the referrals that some other elders had sent us earlier that week. We went and BOOM, we found a new family :0 so we ended up not just finding 1, not 2, but 3 new people to share the gospel with. I am thoroughly convinced that we were only able to be receptive to that impression at that time to see that miracle happen only because we were strict to be obedient to the little things that day, so even though we were all dying of sickness, we were in tune with the spirit's promptings. It was a testimony builder to me of how obedience brings the power of the spirit in our life. And as well, we need not look for reasons why we can't do things, but instead we can search for the why nots? Why not be awesome? Why not see God's Grace each and every day? God is awesome so if we want to be like him we have to learn how to be awesome too haha :P Anyways, Out of time!

Have an awesome week. Yes I need to improve my vocabulary, I know. Church is true!

Elder Graf

(sorry no new pics from this week)

Happy 2015!!!!!

Yes it was great talking to you all! Yet at the same time it also feels like it never happened. Everything goes so fast! But I enjoyed seeing all your beautiful faces :) Oh and yes I did get the package! Gracias :)

HAPPY 2015!!!!! Wow. Another year behind us. Set some goals for yourselves this year! 

Here's how Preach My Gospel feels about goals :) "“Goals reflect the desires of our hearts and our vision of what we can accomplish. Through goals and plans, our hopes are transformed into action.” There ya have it, the beauty of new year resolutions. Set some and discover the joy of improving yourself a little bit this year. We could go into the story of the parable of the talents but I'm going to cut it here so that I can tell you more about last week.

Such as.... L…'s Baptism!!! Pictures are worth more than words so I'll be sure to send a few of those. But yes, L… was a Christmas miracle. I have a testimony of fasting and prayer. We fasted and prayed with her and God worked the miracles to allow her to come back to church and to get permission to be baptized. She asked me to baptize her and Elder Klodnicki confirmed her on Sunday! As she was getting baptized her feet went out from under her a little bit. So she was a little embarrassed that she had slipped but I just told her that it didn't matter, as long as she goes under and comes up again! I don't think anyone really noticed anyways haha. But she was really really happy afterwords. She said she felt like a new person! President Rohrbach asked her to give the closing prayer at the end of Sacrament meeting. She is terrified about talking in front of a lot of people, but she said she would do it. She was nervous but she did a great job! We are so proud of her! An amazing senior couple, the Mudds, that had served in Dayton last year drove 7 hours from somewhere in Illinois to come to her baptism. It was great to see them again too. But L… is a total kingdom builder. She is going to be very capable to hold a calling and serve a lot of people in the future!

Our zone is also doing very well. We may have set a new record of new investigators. For the Christmas week we found 73 new people to share the gospel with! We are quite pleased with them. We are looking forward to a big week this week as well. With the exception of a couple trunky sisters the whole zone is really catching fire to hit the ground running with this new year. We are pumped to see what we do this week. As a mission we baptized around 521 people! We have a great mission and we love President and Sister Porter. They are the examples that I want to be about how to live a life with great Faith in the Savior. 

My testimony is this: God is a God of Miracles!!! He has saved us time and time again. When we have done all that we could for a week and it seems as though if only a few people will come to church, in will walk several more unexpected investigators. We are grateful for the many, many miracles that happen each day, if only there were time to tell. But I love you for forever. Have a great week! Thanks for all your prayers!

Love, Elder Kevin Graf 

I was getting creative with my camera and discovering new functions. 

Christmas Tree!!

 Pictures of baptism :) 

the Mudds!!

Here's Elder Klodnicki, L... and Me!

The Senior couple was a major part of her conversion and they helped her through a lot of difficult and dark times. They are Elder and Sister Mudd :) They are the coolest.

This is our district again lookin' fresh hehe. 

Here is our D-town District after district meeting! go Dayton!!!

Feliz Navidad!!!

Feliz Navidad!!! This will be just a quick update about last week and a Merry Christmas to all for this week!

Last week was a fun week. We had our Mission Christmas Conference with the North half of the mission. It was fun to see many of the Spanish elders that I have served around for so long, including my boy elder Gibb. :) Probably the best part of the conference was a surprise after we had lunch, WE GOT TO WATCH MEET THE MORMONS!!! Fun time. It was weird watching a movie haha. I will confess, I almost cried when it showed Elder Armstrong saying goodbye to his family and to his little sister. After the conference 21 of us went to eat dinner at a famous place called "Amazing Joe's Grill." And then I drove us for 1 hour and a half back to Dayton and we had just enough time to teach A… about my favorite book in the whole world, the Book of Mormon, which teaches us how to follow my most favorite person in the whole world, Our older Brother :) It was a really good day. I'm surprised I wasn't tired after waking up at 4 am that morning. (We had to get up early in order to pick up some other elders on the way.) I stayed the night with a pair of Elders, just because they were struggling a little bit, and slept on the ground and only got like 5 hours of sleep but it was all worth it because I love them and they had a good time at the conference. But it was probably a miracle that I was moving the next day. And even after that the week continued to be full of blessings!!! We met this incredible couple that are totally turning their lives around and have been sober for 80 days or so. They have such a light in their faces because of how the spirit has been working with them. One of the greatest blessings of missionary work is being able to witness how the light of the gospel enters into people's lives and changes them. That couple came to our branch Christmas party on Saturday. P… and several other investigators also came!!! I had to leave the party a little bit early to help the Spanish elders with some last minute arrangements for the baptisms that they had that night! It was at the Dayton Spanish branch so I got to see Bother Bristow and Presidente Vilches and several other familiar faces of people who I love so much. And then we had a miracle on Sunday, L… came to church! She is totally going to get baptized. We have been fasting for her and it's neat to see many prayers being answered. We are very excited for her. And, P… is working on quitting smoking!! So many Christmas Miracles! But of course the greatest Christmas Miracle is Christ! Our Savior was born! What Joy and Hope have spread throughout the world and throughout history because of His life and His teachings. I know he is the very Son of God. How can we deny the Spirit that is felt at this time of year? President Monson recently said something to this effect, "You need only to drop the last syllable and 'The Spirit of Christmas' becomes 'The Spirit of Christ." And, with some of my own personal interpretation I might add that the syllable "mas" in Spanish means "more." So technically you could say Christmas is "more Christ." haha I just realized that so I hope you enjoy it :) Anyways, let us all enjoy the way we can have "more Christ" in our lives this special time of year. Let us be more giving, more loving, more kind, more selfless, and more like our Savior. He knows you and loves you and that is my testimony, In His name, amen. :)

Talk to you soon!

Elder Kevin Graf  

P.S. I will probably call anywhere between 4 and 6 pm my time.

Here is Brother Buzbee and Sister Buzbee. He's our new branch mission leader and I love his beard. He's out of town for the next month on vacation but I just had to get a pic of his beard before he left. He also was kind enough to drive me to J...'s baptism a couple weeks back.

We had our Christmas conference last Thursday. Here is me with one of my boys, Elder Gibb. Possibly the last time I'll see him so I got a picture with him. My other boy, Elder Foote was at the other Christmas conference session on Tuesday so I didn't get to see him. (Except I did see him on Saturday at a Spanish baptism but we forgot to get a picture hehe)

This morning we realized we didn't have a Christmas picture yet, so, on our way to meet with the Sister Trainer Leaders (Equivalent of Zone leaders for sisters) to do some weekly planning for the zone (which we do every monday) we threw on Our "D-town caps" (Dayton hats) and scurried over to our old apartment and took a picture next to the Christmas tree on the top floor. Shizam, there you have it, a Dayton Christmas.