Weekly? More like monthly! Sorry! 9/17/18

Alright so first of this weekly email should be more like monthly email! I am so sorry y'all! I haven't sent a group email in forever. Last week I tried sending one which took me hours to type and I sent it.... well... I checked it later and it said it never sent and also that it doesn't exist! 😊🙃 

This week might be a little long but I'm just going to sum up the last like month or more. 

These past few weeks and months have been crazy. I've been busy and it's been a blast! I'm striving to work hard and do everything I can for the Lord before my time is up! It's been a roller coaster of a transfer for me emotionally, physically, spiritually just all the above haha. Part of me is so excited to come home and see my family and friends and to see my ward family again. Yet another side of me is just like nope I'm staying here! I love this work so much!

Enough about the last days emotions haha. Here are some HIGHLIGHTS from the past little while.

• We had an amazing past few lessons with a lady I am teaching. She keeps telling us that every time we come over and share a lesson with her it's exactly what she needed to hear or it's exactly the question she had and the Lord was able to answer her questions through us. It's so amazing to be apart of the Lord's work like that.
Sometimes I question myself if this is what our people need. Just cause we pray and pray and pray to know what they need. We plan some more and then pray again and I feel good about it but then obviously Satan hast to try to get me to doubt myself. It's always a great feeling to know that that's exactly what they needed. I believe that as I have continued to act on my thoughts I've been able to understand how the Holy Ghost works more often with me.

• SISTER GRIER IS GONNA GET BAPTIZED!!! I am so excited for this lady she is so amazing! Her and her husband are just doing so well! Even though we have to move her date from September 22nd to a later date she's definitely so solid that I have no doubt that she will be baptized!
• KEVIN!!! Kevin is my homie!! I love this kid haha. He's in his early 20s and we have for sure grown so close! Watch out mom he might be coming to Vegas some time soon! So Kevin is best friends with marc and marc just got off his mission not too long ago. But Kevin has gotten really interested in the Gospel! He's been progressing really well. We've taught him the first 3 lessons and yesterday we really went hard on repentance! It was powerful as we talked about Elder uchtdorffs talk " point of safe return" given in the 2007 April general conference! I highly recommend watching it! We also taught him the word of wisdom and he went and dumped the little tiny bit of alcohol that he had. It was awesome! 

He is so excited for his baptism on October 13th! Which is also MY LAST SATURDAY IN THE MISSION!!! Which was crazy because I was praying to help find and teach someone and lead them to the waters of baptism before I go home. The Lord is always excited to answer those prayers! Haha As we were teaching him last night about repentance and word of wisdom , i started to mention the temple. The sacred peace that comes with the temple, I started to tear up and I was like I don't know why but I am haha. It was great to see him excited to go to the temple and to be baptized. Side note he's trying to find a nice LDS girl so....😅 I'm just joking.. sorta not really 😂 he really was excited though and he told me I know it's not going to be easy but it will most definitely be worth it! I love this kid! He also thinks he can beat me in Madden! I told him give me 30 days I'll play you! Haha 

• I AM STAYING IN MADISON MY LAST 6 WEEKS! I've been here in Madison for 4 transfers now. I've been here 5 going on 6 months now! Crazy how fast time is flying! 31 MORE DAYS YALL! I feel like I just got done getting trained haha. Sorry sis I don't think any more sisters or people in the mission know you. But it was super fun getting to serve around a few of your companions and areas! 
• MY LAST HALF MISSION! So we have a general authority coming to the mission! I am so excited to learn from him. It's going to be an interesting study to. He asked all the missionaries to study the current subjects! 
1. The Abrahamic Covenant
2. The oath and covenant of the priesthood
3. The baptismal covenant
4. The house of israel
So I guess you can say it will we a fun discussion! He's also asked that all missionaries going home stand up and bare their testimonies. So I get to share my testimony with a general authority haha 😊🙃

• Another highlight I got to go to an FSU game! It was so awesome! Besides them getting destroyed by Virginia tech but my seats were amazing! Members got us sky box tickets where all the rich people are at. We had a great time!! Haha I'll send some pictures from that day. 
• Football is a religion out here no joke. It goes the Lord, football, and then hunting/fishing. P.s. my kind of people! Haha 

I am also going to be creating a facebook event for my homecoming! Please let me know if you will be able to make it. My mom wants me to give her a head count. we will be having a get together after church on the day of my homecoming talk. More information will be given as we plan out that get together! I am really excited to see yall soon! Only a month away! 

One last thing I want to share is that I know that the Gospel Of Jesus Christ is true! I am so grateful for my family and my parents raising me in the gospel. My testimony has grown so much but more importantly my relationship with the savior has grown so much! I urge all of you that are just even having the thought about going on a mission to just stand with Nike and JUST DO IT!! Its the best opportunity for you to bless your life for eternity! I love you all! 

Also SHOUT OUT TO MY CUZZ KAMI FOR GETTING CALLED TO SERVE IN THE BANGKOK THAILAND MISSION! YOU ARE GONNA DO GREAT THINGS! LOVE YA! 

Alright Peace out until next week yall!

Love,

Elder Graham

Blessings 8/6/18

This week has been crazy!
SOOOO all the people we had appointments with didnt keep their appointments.Typical missionary experience, but there were a few people that did keep their appointments and we had some good lessons!
Alright some highlights from my week!
Number one! We had a lesson with a part member family and we prayed in the beginning about what we should share with them. I felt strongly that we needed to talk about the Word of Wisdom with them. My companion also felt the same way. As we are sitting, talking with them they start to talk about giving up smoking and other things. They kept talking about health and other things pertaining to the Word of Wisdom. Elder Dean and I just look at each other like what the heck! So it was really cool to see that the Lord truly is aware of us and the people we are teaching. We testified to them about how we prayed before coming here today and the Lord directed us to talk about the Word of Wisdom today. Sister Griers eyes just got super wide and she was just amazed that the Lord has been so aware of her and her husband. It was such a cool experience. We taught the Lesson and it went really well. Its so amazing to see people you grow to love make chances in there life that brings them closer to Christ! I love the work I get to be apart of!
Highlight number dos! We got to drive to crestview for Elder Deans person he was teaching, who was geting baptized. Which also meant that we were only 30 minutes away from Fort Walton Beach which also meant we took a detour! ;) I was able to see one of my two favorite families! The Nausses and the Birds!! It was so funny! The birds pulled up while we were at stewbys (by the way if you ever go to FWB you need to go to stewbys!) and it looked like she was about to cry haha and her kids came up to me cause they all made me pictures. It was cute, and I got to see matt (Her husband)! Then shortly after the Nausses pulled up and sister nauss comes running at me screaming ELDER GRAHAM!!! I dont care im hugging you! Hahaha shes like oh my gosh im going to cry and then begins to start to tear up. Im Like no you cant do this to us sister nauss cause if you cry then sister birds going to cry and then im gonna start crying and this just isnt gonna be good. hahahah It was funny. I got to see sister nausses husband brandon and hes super chill! haha one of my favorite people in FWB! They have the cutest little girl named Ellie! Anyways it was so awesome to catch up with them and get to see them before I finish my mission! It was kinda crazy cause I didnt realize how big of an impact I mad on the people there. In reality it wasnt me it was all the Lord guiding me and Directing me in the way I could help them most. But I love those people they have become my second family. One of my favorite things is being able to grow close to the members and build a connection and a life long friendship! Cant wait to see them again!
Highlight number 3 we set a baptismal date with one of the people we Are teaching! She was taught by a sister missionary that I came out with. So it worked out perfectly cause she's getting baptized September 1st and that sister missionary is going to be visiting that weekend! So many blessings have been coming forth this past month!
I just know that this is the Lord's restored church on the earth today! So much peace and happiness comes from the many blessings of the restoration. The power of prophets and the priesthood back on the earth for our heavenly father to bless his children! I know with all my heart and soul that the Book or Mormon is true! It came forth the way Joseph Smith said it came forth and it is to stand as a beacon of light calling all to come unto Christ and be perfected in him! I know the savior loves each and every single one of us. He is my Elder brother and I love him deeply. I am grateful for his sacrifice that I may return to my father in heaven with my family. Jesus is The Christ the son of the living God and I am called to be his representative no greater calling have I ever received than to be a witness of his name! I love his work!
Let's not sleep through the restoration!
I invite everyone to take a moment and listen to this talk! It will bless you!
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/are-you-sleeping-through-the-restoration?lang=eng
I love you all thank you for all the support you have given me thus far in my mission! I will see you all soon! :)
Love,
Elder Graham.

PICTURES:

1. Pictures with the birds 

2. Me catching a bass today 

3. Getting our country on with fishing and wearing our boots.

Happy 4th!!! 7/9/18

Alright so this week has been so awesome!! I first want to apologize for not sending a weekly in so long! I've been trying to do it by recording my week but it won't let me send it to y'all. So I'm back to the original typing it all out.

Alright so I guess just an update cause I don't remember what I've said to y'all this transfer. But I'm a district leader again. I'm over the Tallahassee east district. I have a really awesome district full of great missionaries. 

My week started out with a great p day being able to talk to family and friends. On Tuesday I had my companion and I train on teaching simply. So I had everyone list a lot of the main basic words we use when teaching the restoration such as restoration lol and apostasy and so on. So after listing all of them I had them define what each one means and then we threw a wrench at them and told them they had to teach the restoration with our saying the actual word restoration, apostasy, prophet and so forth. Everyone was like what the heck! Haha but it worked out really well and we realized how there are a lot of words that we use that people might not understand. It turned out to be a great training and my companion did really well. So after we spent all day in Tallahassee... We were supposed to go back to our area down in Perry but that didn't work out.

We had an event coming up the next day for the 4th of July in Madison. We were going to be having a booth for family history, the book of Mormon and free Bibles. So we had to prepare for all that! Being that Tallahassee is where the mission office is and it's basically like a store for missionary supplies haha. I had this idea come to my mind on how it gets so hot here in the south and people are always wanting a fan or something to either keep them cool or to keep the bugs away from their face. I decided to call up a few sisters that I know are always willing to help and I explained my idea and they were so down to help. So I made this fan where we had a bible on one side and a book of Mormon advertisement on the other side. It was such a great tool to use to like have people be comfortable to talk to us but also for us to talk to them about what we are sharing. A lot of people were receptive.

One of those people being receptive turned out to become an amazing person who is searching for truth. We met her at the event and she had a bunch of questions for is "what's different about your church from other churches?" So we taught her the restoration and started to explain how we share another message we share about three questions of the soul. 1 being where did I come from before this life? 2. Why am I here? And 3 where am I going after I die? 

She looks at us and is like alright answer them haha I wanna hear. So Elder Hansen, elder Briant and I teach her the plan Of salvation and she tells us she wants to come to our church! So we give her the time and address, long story short she comes to church and she had a great time and learned a lot and she participated so much. It was awesome. 

We also have a few more investigators come to church and a returning member and his wife who is not a member come to church. The branch was so happy with the many new faces that showed up. It really helped build the trust with us and the members of the branch.

Oh also we have a member that does a lot of farming and so we offered to help. We went to his corn fields and picked buckets and buckets full of corn and then drove up to there property and started to make creamed corn. It was a lot of work but it was fun. After we chilled under an oak tree and ate watermelon with a cool summer breeze and a beautiful view of acres and acres of open fields, trees, ponds and a blue sky. Talk about peaceful! I love the south. 

Over all I had a really amazing week! I am so grateful for this beautiful country that we live in to be able to have the freedom to choose. I am so thankful for all the men and women who fight for our country. For 12 months of my mission ive served on military bases. First one being on NAS and Corey station in Pensacola. 2nd being on Eglin Air Force base in fort Walton Beach. I can say that I have such respect for the men and women who serve this country and the sacrifice that they give for us to have this freedom. Let's not abuse it. 

Last thing for my personal study I've focused a lot on how to recognize the spirit. Being more in tune with spiritual promptings so I can share the gospel better but to also secure myself in righteous habits of always following the spirit. One reason why I picked this topic this week was because of the guidance and council our beloved Prophet President Nelson gave to us in his last address at General conference. For those who aren't familiar with general conference, general conference is an annual world wide meeting that happens every 6 months for the latter day saints members to gather together and listen to living Prophets and Apostles speak to us and give us warnings, guidance, direction and an amazing ability to lift and inspire the hearts of many. So with presient nelson he gave us this warning and council stating "in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost." That hit me realizing how I need to understand and make sure that I'm more in tune with the spirit of the Lord. 

I am grateful for Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ I know that they live! I am grateful for the Gift of the Holy Ghost and the role he plays in my life and his ability to testify of the savior. I'm grateful for all of you who give me love and support while I've been out on my mission. I'm excited to be coming home in October to see everyone. Just a few short months away but these next few months are going to be filled with ever lasting miracles that will forever affect my life! I love you all and I hope you have a great and amazing week! 

Love,

Elder Graham 

PICTURES:

1. The best watermelon right out of the farm.

2-3.The big Bible and Book of Mormon 

4-6. 4th if July booth 

7. The ring toss we made

8-9. The fans we made

This week in Madison! 6/18/18

This week has been awesome!!

So I got a new companion and that's not why it's awesome haha I loved my last companion. My new companion is Elder Dean. He's really cool and he's also from Idaho. We got along really well. Once he came we went out with a youth in our branch to see some less actives and it went so well! We taught about eternal families and basically taught the plan of salvation! He is a member but his wife is not. And she's starting to become Interested in the church and he wants to like slowly come back! It was so awesome as we taught she said how she felt at home and how she felt the spirit!! It was so awesome and powerful! 

We also made a funny video for zone conference about like sharing the Gospel but making it funny!! I'll try to attach it.

We also had a great time fellowshipping with members and helping them share the gospel! The mission here is so amazing I love my mission so much! I'm now a district leader again  so that will be fun to do again. I was really surprised I was called to be a DL again but it's cool. 

Update on my leg after the MRI It turned out to be a torn ligament in my toe that connects to my knee. And so now I just need physical therapy to get my ankle strong and help heal that ligament. 

But anyways that's kinda the update nothing crazy happening here just a lot of medical runs. I hope you all have a great week!! The book is blue and the church is true! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Graham

Mom or Melissa if you could send this out on the blog. I don't have the ability yo send it in a weekly to everyone. 

My weekly recorded 6/4/18

I tried to record it and send it but it won't send! Sorry I'll figure out a way to send it for next week! 

The Gospel Continues to be sounded in every ear 5/28/18

Hey y'all!!! Alberto is here! And we are receiving some blessed rain haha. This week has been great! 

I do a lot of driving in this area since I cover two branches. Our work loud has been getting bigger and bigger. Which is good! But.... It's hard to be in two places at once. So we had to divide up our week, Monday we are in Madison for p day, Tuesday until Thursday morning we are in Perry/Tallahassee, Thursday to Sunday we are in Madison. So it takes us about an hour to get from Madison to Tallahassee and then another hour from Tallahassee to Perry and then another 45 min to an hour from Perry to Madison. So we kind do a triangle the entire week. 

Good news!! Our investigator in Perry has a baptismal date!!! Which is awesome because Perry is a lot older branch about 20 people go (maybe). And the youngest person there is probably in there 50s. Or early 60s. So our investigators are like in there 20s. So it should be interesting coming to church haha. Anyways we had an awesome lesson with her on Tuesday and then we came back on Saturday to teach her family! We taught the plan of salvation and it was so awesome!! The spirit was so strong!! I was able to testify of her true Identity as a daughter of God and we both started crying it was just very powerful! Gosh i love this work!! 

We had a member take us down for our lesson in Perry on Saturday and oh my gosh I thought I was gonna die! His AC went out in his car so we drove with the windows down, which I'm totally fine with. Except it started raining so we rolled the windows up and the car windows got extremely foggy. And also those who know southern rain. It doesn't just drizzle small drops like Vegas. When it rains here it comes down in golf ball size rain drops and they come in buckets and sheets of rain! So we couldn't see anything when he was driving. Yet we were still flying at like 70 MPH! Haha it was crazy and we like would hit pockets of puddles in the road and So the car would like dip down and it would just like freak me out haha it was a lot of fun though! I'll add pictures! 

Another highlight of the week we finally got it scheduled to get an MRI on Saturday! Wish me luck! Once we get the results back I'm sure the mission doctor will tell my mom so if you have questions about my leg and the update/ news you can ask her! 

I love you all! And I'm excited to see y'all soon! Have a great and blessed week!! 

                                         

Doctors are fun! 5/21/18

So this week has been um... interesting... Tuesday we went to district meeting in tally and then after district meeting we drove down to Perry and did some work down there. Stayed at a members house (which was super weird) and then did some more work down in Perry. It was awesome though! We found a lady and taught her about the BOM and since last week she's read the introduction and a few chapters into 1 Nephi. She said how before she reads it she prays for truth. I'm like wow this girl is awesome haha. After that we rushed to Tallahassee because I got the okay to go see a doctor in Tallahassee. So we rush up there because it closes at 6 and we got there at 5. After dealing with all the paper work and insurance I tell the lady I need to see an ankle specialist and they are like okay sounds good. Well I go see this guy who I thought was a doctor! And he takes my ankle and pushes on it and asks the dumbest question of "does this hurt?" Yes you are pushing on my ankle, I almost hit the guy it hurt so bad. He was making me so mad. He looked at my x rays and was like your bones look fine and I'm like yeah I know that we are here because we are concerned about my ligaments. He looks back at the x rays and says yeah no your bones look fine... I'm like you are killing me right now... So I tell this to sister puls the mission orthopedic surgeon and she gets sooo mad! She's like what's his name and so she looks him up... turns out he's only a PA a physicians assistant... she's like he isn't even a real doctor!! So after that we had to stay in Tallahassee because she wanted me to go back to them. So I do but they didn't open up until 10 am. Long story short the rest of the day was going from doctor offices to doctor offices. We didn't get back to Madison until 8pm on Thursday. I was so done with doctors haha but now I have to go back and get an MRI. So that was my week. Lol

Full of fun doctor visits! But the work of the Lord continues! Even with all the stuff happening with my leg he still guided us and directed us to those were needed to hear from us! #BlessedWeek!! 

I love you all!! Have a great and blessed week! 

Love,

Elder Graham 

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!! 5/14/18

I just wanted to say happy mothers day to all the amazing mothers out there! Im gonna take a little time to brag about my momma! She is the most amazing mother I could have ever asked for! She is so loving and shows the amazing Christlike attribute of Charity. My moms life has been full of love and service to me! From listening to me vent about my life problems on the bedside, to holding me in her arms in life scariest moments. All the way to sharing laughs and making fun of each other which includes sticking our tongues out at each other! I am so deeply grateful for her! I knew there was a reason I chose you in the premortal life! ;) PS She is an AMAZING cook! The south has good food but ill always love my mommas food! Thank you for all you have done mom, I could not be the man I am today if it wasnt for you and the way you have raised me to be humble and kind, to treat others with respect and to always trust in the Lord! Im eternally grateful for you! I love you momma you will always be my mom and bestfriend and ill always be your little boy! 

Im not gonna say much about me. Ive had a great week! I Have some trials that lay ahead of me but With heavenly fathers help ill get through it! I love you all! Have a great and Blessed week! 

Love,

Elder Graham aka crutchy 

Maddison 5/6/18

Hey yall!! 

Sorry for my lack on the weekly's! It's been crazy and with me getting transferred when I didn't think I was gonna be transferred it like totally caught me off guard. I had to say a lot of hard goodbyes. So I'm sure y'all are wondering what's going on with me. Well I'm now in Madison Florida. Which is like a really small town with about 3,000 people maybe. I'm serving in a branch, we had about maybe 50 people at church. Which was good cause we usually have like low 40s. I'm also covering another branch which is the Perry branch. Which is about almost an hour south of me. So trying to get down there is gonna be kind of difficult. We also have to go to Tallahassee Florida every Tuesday for district meeting. Which is an hour west of us. So we are closer to missionaries outside of my mission then we are to the missionaries in Tallahassee haha. So hopefully that kind of maps out like how small it is and how far away I am from everything. There is no Walmart here so that explains how small it is here and we don't even have a piggly wiggily here haha. 

So I am done training my greenie Elder bowman he is still in FWB and has a new a companion Elder Daw. I'm in Madison like I said with my new companion Elder Hammon. He's been out for 9 months. He's a really cool and great missionary! I'm just trying to work really hard so the members can see that we are hard working missionaries that they can trust with their friends. A lot of cool and amazing members here. I want to turn this branch into a ward. I think it can be done with love and ministering to members.  A lot of members have already said to us that they are really excited to have me here. And have us here as a companionship. So I'm excited for the work! It's just a change going from seeing like 20 missionaries a day to nothing. Haha 

Anyways so transfers was cool! Yet horrible! I had to say goodbye to my best friends!!! My heart broke. But it was awesome cause I got to catch up with a lot of the sisters that were going home. All the sisters that were going home were the sisters I came out with. So that was really flipping crazy!!! I didn't like that part.. I'm not that old in the mission basically at 18 months. I don't like that lol all the members are like wow you go home soon haha I'm like no I just got done getting trained lol

Once I got to my new area we unpacked and went and saw a few people. We also go to this K9 bite club place. Where they train the dogs to be protective dogs. It's so cool but so scary haha. They have this one dog named huey and they tell everyone not to look him in the eyes if he looks at you. Look away and and if they come and bite you don't move just give them what ever they bite. They will release faster. So that's like the only scary part about watching them train these dogs. Another cool thing that we are gonna do is we have a returned missionary in our branch and he has a friend that's kinda interested so to break the ice he's gonna take us fishing with his friend so I'm excited about that! They also might be able to take me to the coast and fish for sharks from the shore! 

Update on the leg:

It's still here haha. I'm still going to be wearing the boot for another two weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to start walking in a few weeks. The doctor said possibly two more weeks but I'll still need to wear an ankle brace and what not for another month or two. 

ill send yall some pictures from this week! I love you all I hope you have a great week! Sorry...? this isnt crazy long ill put more into it next week! 

P.S. Shout to all the sisters that just got home, Yall were amazing missionaries! Keep sharing the Gospel and have fun with all your Endless P-Days! hahaa 

Love

Elder Graham 

Transfer news! 4/30/18

Elder Graham did not send out a weekly email however, I thought I would update you on his life currently. He received word that he will be getting transferred to Maddison Florida which is an hour east of Tallahassee. 

His ankle has also still been killing him and he has not been able to bare any weight on his foot. He is still on crutches and has to wear his boot all day. Maddison Florida is a small town and so he is nervous that he is not going to be able to do much missionary work (such as trackting/finding) with the way his ankle has been. He is feeling pretty bad about that and is sad that he is not able to give his all right now. But in due time he should be back to his full self.