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.

Sacrifice and Blessings

So last week I thought we were just going to drop Elder Harper off and then Elder Klodnicki and I would come back to Dayton, just the two of us, but! We got another companion! So we are still the 3 amigos :) Elder Cody McEachern has now joined the Dayton trio. He's from Utah. He's a swimmer. He's Irish. He's a Mormon. And we welcome him :)

After Transfer meeting we didn't get too comfortable because we packed things up and moved apartments on Thursday! We inherited a former senior couple's apartment that is really nice. Two floors, 1 1/2 bathrooms, washer and dryer. It's the complete package. AND, I am getting a bed today :) We are having another zone fun day today so I invited the assistants to come, and to bring a bed while they are at it. So that'll be nice, especially because the rooms are slightly bigger in the new apartment. So more elbow room for the three of us. 

Last week was a good week. We are doing well and our zone as a whole is doing well so we are excited for them. The only issues are that we have a couple sisters in our zone who are "dying" this transfer so they are a wee bit trunky. But I'm determined not to be and quite honestly it's not hard to stay focused if you stay busy. And serving the zone gives you lots a reason to stay busy. There are ALWAYS things we can be doing. So that's quite nice. We are hoping to get in better contact with J… and L…, our two main baptismal candidates. They are incredible ladies. Both have read the entire Book of Mormon. L… is working with her manager to get Sundays off and J… will just need to quit tea and coffee, which should be no problem for her. If they remember what they really want and hope for in life, they will make the sacrifices necessary to reach it. That was a big part of my study on Friday, or Saturday? I can't remember which day. But anyways, it's a pattern that we see all throughout the scriptures. We see a commandment, and a sacrifice and blessing attached to every commandment. A few examples: Commandment - Law of tithing. Sacrifice - 10 percent of income. Blessing - Malachi 3:10, and "Subtle but significant blessings" (talk by elder Bednar). How about another example. Commandment - Law of the Fast. Sacrifice - 2 meals and a generous fast offering. Blessing- "Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God."  (Helaman3:35). It's a simple pattern but it's everywhere! What about Prayer? What is the sacrifice? Maybe time, effort, pride, our will, or our desires? But what are the blessings? They're all throughout the scriptures! I find it especially interesting to read what the Bible dictionary has to say about prayer. It's cool stuff. It changes my perspective about the commandments and it makes the sacrifices to keep them much easier. Why then does God ask us to sacrifice? Why can't He just bless us without sacrifice? Because that's the way we grow. That's the only way we change. Think about the greatest sacrifice of all time, the atonement of Jesus Christ. He sacrificed His life. What are the blessings? Faith, hope, repentance, baptism, covenants with God, spirit, healing, change. Everything! So why then does God give us commandments? Because He loves us. Every commandment is an opportunity for us to trust in Him and to change, and that's why we came to this big beautiful blue planet in the first place. :) The Gospel just makes sense. Anyways, I don't know why I shared that but it just kind of fell out onto the email. So hopefully it meant something haha. We could spend a lifetime just studying the fundamentals of the gospel. The more I learn the more I love and the more I want to share. That's just how it works.

I'm Grateful for this time of year that we have to focus on the Savior's birth. I love the spirit that this holiday season brings as more hearts and minds remember the Savior than ever. I love him and I know that He lives.

Have a great week!

Elder Kevin Graf 

Dayton for Life!

I'm staying in Dayton!!! :D Transfer calls came in about an hour ago and pretty much our whole zone is staying the same. Only 2 sisters and 1 elder are leaving our zone. One of the sisters is going home so that was to be expected. But we are sad to say that Elder Harper will be leaving us. I guess the tri-companionship, or "trifecta!", "We 3 Kings", "the 3 wisemen", or "the 3 Amigos", as we were referred to, are no more! It was too good to last. :( probably one of the most fun transfers of my life though. But I'm excited for the transfer to come. We as a zone are set up to see some amazing miracles the month of December. And there is no better place to die than where I was born, in the great land of Dayton. I will have completed a year of my mission here by the end of this transfer. 

Last week was a great week. On top of the regular blessings of missionary work we had an outstanding zone conference with President and Sister Porter. We talked about the doctrine of Christ (obviously), but also having vision for how the gospel can build happy, strong, unified families for ourselves and for our investigators. We talked about the importance of receiving revelation each day through our studies. If we want to have God's power in our life we have to continually turn our hearts to Him in prayer and be treasuring up His words in our minds. So one thing that we started doing in our own area is memorize a scripture about Faith each day while we're driving around in the car. It's been another effective tool for us to maintain high vision throughout the week. We quote those scriptures often and we've seen a huge change. We were working hard before but thinking about those scriptures gives us added spirit and energy to do even a little more.

On Saturday we did another "social media split." If you remember it's a day where we have members follow the missionaries all day and take pictures and post them on social media sites like facebook and twitter. It shows that we are good people out to help the local communities. It's something that started in our mission and has spread to surrounding missions. We have also been using the "He is the gift" video on christmas.mormon.org. We have a goal of inviting at least 10 people to watch the video each day. Social media is a powerful tool that we can all use to do as Elder Bednar has charged everyone to do, "to literally sweep the earth as with a flood."

This last week we also had stake conference. It was a really good conference. President and Sister Porter spoke during the Sunday session. But apparently last year I missed out on Elder Christofferson coming to Dayton. The Dayton stake has had a general authority at every stake conference over the past 3 or so years with the exception of only 2 times. Unfortunately those are the only 2 times that I've been here haha :( But all well, I was raised in Utah so I can't complain. I get to be around the prophet all the time there.

So we might be moving apartments here sometime this month. The Nelsons, my all time favorite senior couple are going home this week, but they set us up with a nice apartment to move into because they're awesome and they love us like that :) As for other news, we are loving every minute. We are serving some of God's most amazing children. They are just diamonds in the rough. There are a lot of weird people in Dayton but everyone is so real, nothing superficial about them. So you can't help but love them. We are hoping to baptize several people this month. It's going to be great! We are still working with the K… family, and P…, and J.., and many others. I love them all! P… also called us on Saturday and told us that he wants to get baptized so that's always a good day :) we are grateful for God's miracles. He always seems to know the best way to surprise us.

Love you!!! Elder Kevin Graf

Sorry, no new photos this week... So here's Elder Harper eating a 2 pound snickers bar!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is Real!

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

Hopefullly this picture captures our exhaustion as we plan haha. 

Here's our zone after one of our zone weekly planning meetings. Elder Harper's grandma sent us reindeer antlers haha.

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.

These pics are from a couple weeks ago. Snowy day!

This is the back of our church building. haha. Quite different than your average chapel.