GLORIOUS WORK OF THE LORD! 5/22/17

This week has been awesome!!! 

So this last P-day we went fishing off the 3 mile bridge. It was fun we all caught a fish and then Elder baldwin and Meidlinger caught a Blue crab! They were some good eatin! We literally fished all day! 

Majority of this week consisted of doing the best work and having the best job in the world! Our investigator is getting baptized this saturday at 10 am!! he asked me to give the talk on baptism! Its so amazing being apart of the Lords work! I love seeing the members willing to baptize our gators. It gives them a fire and gives our gator a great friend. I honestly dont care if i ever baptize one person, the biggest thing I have learned on my mission is being selfless. I love this work and I love seeing how happy our Investigators are!! He is so happy and excited to go to the temple!! We told him the closest one is 3 hours away and he said that is not that far to be able to go to the Lords Temple!!! I was like you are absolutely right!! hahha 

Also some fun things that happened this week. We were driving in a neighborhood and we had like an hour to fill and we did not know what to do. I said a silent prayer in my heart and I sat and pondered and a name popped in my head. So we went to go see this less active family. when we showed up they just got home 5 minutes ago. They loved having us over and the message we shared with them. They are excited to get back to church and it is just amazing to help people see the light and truth. So the Lord gives us tender mercies. Which the Less active had a beautiful chevy bell air classic!! He said it has about 500 HP!!! Yes that beautiful classic car has 500 HP!! He takes it to showes all the time!! But he took us for a ride. We pulled out of the neighborhood and he looks over at us and just smiles and says this is called Line Lock. Then before you know it we are doing a burn out and then he peels out and that was the fastest 0-60 I have ever gone! IT was SOOOOO FLIPPIN COOL!!! UGH I LOVE CARS!!! He is so cool though! They are moving to st. george sooon and they want me to come visit when i get back home! YES PLEASE!! hahah 

Now we also got a lot of new gators this week!! A lot of amazing gators, like they are pretty prepared! 

For todays P-day we are going to a Blue wahoos baseball game!! Shout out to Talbot keep playing and keep hitting dingers!! Love and miss you bud! 

I love and miss all my family and friends!! Thank you all so much for writing me and keeping me updated in your lives! 

Love Always, Elder Graham!

6 Months in the mish! 5/15/17

Hey yall!!!

So this week has been good! We went bowling on P-day and it was a lot of fun! It made me think about all the times I went bowling with my friends at red rock! I did not score high, only around like 150. That is basically all we did for P-day. This week we had some cool lessons. It is so amazing to be a vessel for the Lord. For him to work through us as missionaries to help people find the TRUTH! So many sacred and spiritual moments happen when sharing the gospel! I love this work that we have all been called to do!

Our investigator is still working his way to baptism! Its so awesome to see the progression with people and to see the spirit work within them! We had a lesson with him about The Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was so awesome. He had some questions about the sacrament that we answered and some questions about the name of the church. It was awesome because we turned to 3 Nephi where the Lord tells the Nephites the name of the church. Its so cool how the Lord is like , If the name of the church was moses then it would be moses church. If it is in my name then it is my church! He was just like "yes!" that makes so much sense! hahha it was funny and cool!

This week I also had an opportunity to teach a fireside to the YSA's about missionary work! It was awesome! They had a desire to share the gospel after and it was cool  to see the spirit burn within them, helping them to have that desire! 

So for today's P-day we are going fishing off the Pensacola bridge! I cant wait to go salt water fishing!! Taking me back to the day we went out to California for the Priest camp out over the summer! That was a fun day! Shout out to Bishop Heideman and Joe Herrera for the great time that summer!! 

Yesterday was Mothers Day! It was so amazing to see my family!! I loved seeing your faces and hearing your voices!! 40 Minutes is never enough time! I swear I only got 10 minutes with yall! I loved talking to my sister! I wish I could have talked to my other sister amanda :( But I will for sure on Christmas!! Shout out to the GUCCI SQUAD, melissa knows what I am talking about!
I love you mom so much! Thank you for all that you do! I am so lucky to have you as my mother! keep killin it! I cant wait to see you next Christmas!

Love, Elder Graham!

Skyping Melissa!!!

This week in Perdido! 5/1/17

So this week has been crazy fun! yet sooo long!!

So we had Zone conference this week and it was soo long! It was awesome but just so long! We got to the stake center at 8:30 AM and didnt leave until 5PM. It was such an awesome training! After Zone conference, Elder baldwin, Orndorff, Meidlinger, casper and I went out to eat because we didnt leave the stake center until 5:30. We then went and Dropped off the Pensacola Elders at there apartment and so we didnt get home until like 6:30 or 7. Such a long day! 

BAPTISMAL DATE!!! So this week on like Tuesday we went and saw our gator Lee. After Having such a great spiritual lesson and him testifying to us about the apostasy we extended a baptismal date to him. May 27th LETS GOOO!!!! We are so excited for him and he said "I think that is going to be a great day!" I love being apart of the Lords work!!!

Also we have been looking for service opportunities and we had an awesome service activity! We helped build a 37 ft wheel chair ramp for this guy. It was an awesome and fun project!

Hi Civitans:

Ramp project #441 took place on Saturday, April 29, 2017.  Civitans built a 37-foot, L-shaped ramp at the home of Amburs Burney on Cobb Lane.  Mr. Burney is 67-years old is paralyzed on his left side from a brain aneurysm.  He is in a wheelchair.  The ramp materials were funded by Rehab Foundation of NW Florida ($700) and our Club ($35.07).

Thank you:  Mike & Cindy Barrington, Ed & Nancy Berry, Anthony Darnes, Cheryl Edwards, Fred Knodel, and Jack Peterson.  Additional help came from four young men serving in Pensacola as missionaries with the Morman church:  Ian Baldwin, Bradlee Graham, McKay Meidlinger, and David Orndorff.

The guys were today's planksters and also were great using the pneumatic nailer on the railings.  Work went smoothly with the help of the Berry's homemade blueberry muffins!  The ramp was completed by 1 pm.  Mr. Burney was unable to come outside for the final picture, but his caregiver offered her many thanks and posed with the group for last picture. 

Pictures:

01 - Getting started

02-03 - framing the ramp

04 - Planksters Bradlee and McKay

05 - Progress!

06 - Chairman Fred

07 - Bradlee and Ian

08 - Anthony, on break!

09 - Jack

10 - Bradlee, McKay, David, and Ian

11 - working on the railings

12 - Mike

13- Finished Ramp...

14 - and Hard-working crew

Another BIG thank-you for a job, well-done!

Overall this has been a pretty fun and great week! Thank you everyone for all the support you give me! I can feel the love and prayers! Have a great week!

Love, Elder Graham

--

Elder Graham​

ps pictures are not in order!

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME/CRAZY! 4/24/17

So this week is awesome!! Today we played basketball and volleyball!! It was awesome!!! We also got a Air force show of the THUNDER BIRDS! They were flying right over our heads and apartments! SO SICK!! This week consisted of sharing the gospel to so many people and feeling the spirit! THE best job I will ever get to do! We had some amazing lessons this week! Like The Lord just proves to me over and over how true his church is! 

Elder Baldwin and I have had a long and crazy week! Some awesome stories and just amazing opportunities to share the gospel with people! I am excited for this transfer! We are hoping for some baptisms but we shall see! We both love to go into some deep Doctrine! Deep Doctrine is so awesome, it is MIND BLOWING! Anyways, we had two sick lessons this week where one of our investigators said the deepest most sincere prayer and most humble prayer ever. The spirit was so strong! The other lesson was just way to spiritual for me to even explain! 

Also we have a Professional Opera singer in our ward. She travels like all over the world! So she invited us to come to her concert last night, she performed it for our stake. OH MY GOSH!!! Their voices are so amazing!!! Her and her sister are opera singers and wow just wow! Then after having our ear drums burst, we went over to the Foxrun elders apartments and stayed with them because it was too late to drive back home. It was awesome, 6 Elder in one apartment! Then the next morning is when we played basketball and everything. 

Okay, I just love the Jets its so dang cool! So here are some videos!
I love all of you! I love all the support I have been given and it really does help a lot! 

THANK YOU!

Love, Elder Graham!

Transfers!!!! 4/17/17

So we got transfer calls this last Saturday and I am staying here in Perdido!!! My companion Elder Christensen is going to Troy Alabama! I am getting a new companion Elder Baldwin who has been out for 23 months so he goes home next transfer. That is the Update on Transfers!

 

This week has been awesome! We have been teaching a lot of people and finding a lot of new people to teach!! Also The BLUE ANGELS have been practicing a lot this past week and oh my gosh!! They flew right over our heads and write past our apartment!! They were only like 500 feet off the ground! It was so awesome! Ill attach the video but Elder Christensen and I get soo excited when they fly by so I apologize for the loud screams that we made when they flew by haha.

 

Also Easter sunday!!

 

My Easter Sunday was great!! A lot happened. So Our recent convert that we baptized on Christmas gave us a referral. It was one of her friends and we taught her the restoration and she loved it! SO she came to church on Easter Sunday and she LOVED it! Also our other investigator came to church and he really enjoyed it! He has been reading so much from The Book of Mormon and it has been awesome! We are hoping to set a BCD ( Baptism and Confirmation Date) for this next month! We are hoping to have 3 baptismal dates this next month! We are so excited and happy! The hard work is starting to pay off! Also This guy just walked in off the street and into church. He asked if he can come back and we are like umm yeah of course you can! We are hoping to teach him Next week! He is so cool! Loves to Surf and play Volleyball. So that will be easy to strike up a conversation.

 

We also went over to Sister Harrisons house, which by the way she is a GOOD SOUTHERN COOKER! We had some good ol southern BBQ and let me tell you I was sooo stuffed! I probably gained like 20 pounds there! She gave us these things called cholesterol Bombs... Yeah the name just explains itself! it was so good! Over all is was a really good Easter Sunday!!

 

That was about all that happened this week. OH Also Elder Christensens bike tire exploded so we had to walk a few miles back to the car so that was interesting. And we went tracting one day and some dark clouds were starting to come in. So our car was parked at the end of the street and we were just knocking on all the doors on that street and we had some really rude people but we had a nice guy finally talk to us. So after we talk to him its sprinkling and so we were like maybe lets try one more door. Well before we could make it to another door the Rain just started to pick up so we are like lets just walk back to the car, because the rain wasn't really bad but we knew it was gonna hit stronger. With in 15 seconds of us walking back to the car it just starts Dumping the Rain on us like crazy!!! LIke the kind of rain you see in movies and you just think that must be fake. Yeah well Florida rain is no joke! So we just grab our bags and start SPRINTING to the car! So I can only imagine all the people that slammed the door in our face, who are just looking out the window watching two missionaries in white shirts and ties sprinting in the rain pass their house hahah they are probably just laughing and saying "suckers!" hahaha It was so awesome though!

 

Other than that that's how my week was! I love all of you! I hope yall have a great week!!

 

Love, Elder Graham! <3

Elder Graham

HEY FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!! 4/10/17

So this week nothing big has really happened! We have been doing a lot of finding and trying to teach a lot of people. Right now we are working on trying to get the youth involved in missionary work so that has been going pretty good!

In general conference Elder Ronald A. Rasband gave a great talk on listening to the spirit.

He stated:

we must act on the first‍ prompting.

Remember the words of Nephi. “I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless,” he said, “I went forth.”

And so must we. We must be confident in our first promptings. Sometimes we rationalize; we wonder if we are feeling a spiritual impression or if it is just our own thoughts. When we begin to second-guess, even third-guess, our feelings—and we all have—we are dismissing the Spirit; we are questioning divine counsel. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that if you will listen to the first promptings, you will get it right nine times out of ten.

In listening to his council this week on acting on that First Prompting the Holy Ghost has lead Elder Christensen and I to so many people whom I believe the Lord wants us to teach and it has been amazing to be apart of that.

Other than that this week has been good, except none of our investigators came to church which is a bummer but its all good. I am excited for this next week because it is transfer calls. Yet I am also sad because I love my First area here in Perdido. So I am going to be really sad if I get transferred but I am also going to be excited for a new area. We shall see this upcoming Saturday and Sunday what happens.

I cant tell you how much food we eat! Oh my gosh I am so thankful for a gym right next to us because if I didn't have that gym this 20 to 25 pounds I have gained would have been all fat. I LOVE FOOD SO MUCH!! The southern food is the way to go! But overall my mommas cookin is the best! Love you mom! This Lady in my ward Sister Harrison, she feeds like 4 missionaries every sunday! She is so awesome! But she has some good southern food! She made Gator one night and Elder Christensen and I missed it because we had some where else to be!! It was a sad day! She also makes this one meal called the CHOLESTEROL BOMB hahha Gotta love the southern food!

Well I am sorry there isn't much this week! But next week will be interesting! I love all of you and miss everyone back home!

Love, Elder Graham!

THIS WEEK IN PERDIDO! 3/27/17

This week has been like a roller coaster!

Monday- Monday we did our normal P-Day stuff, we got up got ready, eat some breakfast and then did daily planning. We then went and emailed at the college and then went shopping. After we came back and went to the gym. We got a GYM membership to this gym that is walking distance from my apartment. After the gym we went and played sand volleyball and hung out in the apartment.  We had dinner at Sonnys BBQ. Then we had a lesson with a gator.

Tuesday- Today we had District meeting and then we had a trade off. So Elder Christensen went to Pensacola and I stayed in Perdido. I had Elder Howelle as my companion and it was awesome! That guy is pretty funny! We did a lot of biking and we saw a few people. We taught some Less Active members which was really good! We then taught a non member and invited him to be baptized and he accepted it. So Tuesday was a pretty good day, BUT it was SOOOOO HOT!!!!

Wednesday- So today we were trading back off so I was getting Elder Christensen back but we didn't do that until later around 12. So in the morning we planned to go see a few people on the way to the trade off spot. So we went to go see this lady in this apartment complex. So we are walking up and there are all these little kids sitting by the stairs and so we walk up the stairs to go to the apartment and then all of a sudden you just hear the loudest noise ever! I cant describe the sound over email but the houses started to shake and we knew exactly what it was. So we run down stairs and look in the sky and all we see Is blue skies and then we look to the left and there is a BIG HUGE F-18 SUPERHORNET BLUE ANGEL JET flying 300 FEET ABOVE OUR HEADS!! I COULD SEE THE PILOT!!!! WAS THE COOLEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN!!! Elder Christensen was so mad because he wasn't there to see it, it was so awesome!

Thursday & Friday- Not much happened in these two days just the normal visits and having some really good lessons with people.

Saturday- This morning we had to go teach a new investigator at 9 am. We show up to his house and he didn't answer so we called him and he ended up coming outside and we got to teach him. So we taught him the Restoration and the SPIRIT WAS SOOO STRONG! He loved it! We invited him to be baptized and he said he would have no other choice when he finds out that The Book of Mormon is true. So that was a really good way to start off our Saturday! We then gave a blessing to a member in the hospital and we taught a few other lessons. So overall it was a really good day! :) Saturday night after dinner we went to go try some people in our apartment complex and so we were told a storm was coming in but we didn't think it was coming in that fast. So we walk like 10 min to the other side of our apartment complex and we tried one person who just ignored us haha. So we keep walking and then we just see the biggest darkest cloud! So we are like oh its not raining yet we will be fine. 30 Seconds later BUCKETS AND BUCKETS of rain just falling on us! We were soo soaked! It was CRAZY and then we are taking pictures of how soaked we are and lightning strikes the ground it was even loader than the F-18 we got so scared! IT WAS SO CRAZY!

Sunday- We had an investigator come to church and it was awesome!!! We Taught some LAs and we taught someone and they are just a heavy smoker so after being in there for 25 min our clothes smelled like smoke. I wanted to throw up I felt so sick after. But we taught some lessons that day and had dinner with the scott family and it was really awesome! They are doing some really good Member missionary work! Its so helpful and awesome! Overall it was a great day and when I got home I just knocked out! :)

That was my week! I love yall so much! I am so grateful to serve and to have all yall supporting me! It means more than you can even imagine! I love yall!

Love, Elder Graham

PS I started out as 150 pounds and now im 175 pounds so I need to work out so I keep this as muscle not fat lol

B-DAY dinner pictures & us putting 4 bikes on a 2 bike only bike rack hahha YUP

Birthday week 3/20/17

​This week has been super long and interesting. 

This week we had a double zone conference which was awesome! We Had Pensacola zone and Mobile Zone. So there were TONS of missionaries there so it was a lot of fun! But I had to teach in front of both zones which was nerve racking but it was a lot of fun!! Everyone liked our teaching so thats good. We later on in the week had some great lessons! We have taught some gators who are progressing a lot and it is awesome! I love this work!

SO on my birthday we did tons of service! I drove so much! We had to get to jay which is an hour away and I had to go pick up some elders in pace and milton so i drove a lot! The service project took up like half of the day which was fine, We had a lot of fun. Half way through the service my zone like surrounded me and sang happy birthday to me. Not going to lie it was really awkward but it was really cool of them to do that. They also got me a card and they all wrote in it and inside the card they had a sticker that said i just turned 5 so i had to wear that for the entire day haha it was really funny. My ZL Elder Jones wrote a rap for my birthday it was funny. Cause he is sooo white haha I love that guy though. Also we went to this awesome BBQ Shack to get lunch it was soo good!

Not much has been going on this week. I love the work but its been kind of slow right now. I am just so happy to be out here serving. I miss all of yall back home! Thank all of you who wished me a happy birthday and for supporting me on my mission. I love yall! Have a great and amazing week! Ill try to make this next week more awesome!

Love, Elder Graham

BAPTISM!!!!! 3/13/17

SOO this week yall has been crazy! So many different emotions have been coming my way this week. Elder Gaither went home and we said our goodbyes to him. Which was sad yet I am really happy for him! He's such a good missionary! We now have a new missionary in our 4 pad straight from the MTC. Its so weird how I have been out for almost 6 months! Looking back already a lot has happened!

This week has been so exhausting!!! Physically we have biked soo much. My legs are getting huge with like pure muscle from how much we bike! We also have some crazy work outs haha We don't have a weight bench so we just use two cases of Books of Mormon to lay on and then use two chairs to rest our bar on haha. Welcome to the FTM! Our Ward Mission leader is so awesome! He is such a spiritual man who has such a big desire to do the Lords work! He is always like pushing so hard to do everything he can to help us progress in the work! He also is building us a bench for us to use weights haha.

Now this week has also been emotionally exhausting! I am doing everything I can to know the scriptures to the best of my ability and my studies are always super great! So that has been a plus this week! What is emotionally draining is trying to get our investigators to church! We have an investigator that like has told us she cant stop thinking about The Book of Mormon but something always comes up where she cant go to church but its okay she will come next week! We are just trying so hard, continues prayer and study for our investigators to know how to help them. The people here are so awesome and I just love them! The work here is great!

WE HAD A BAPTISM THIS WEEK!!!! JOHN WHITE!!!!

This little boy is such a stud he's so funny! He loves Alabama (ROLL TIDE) so I always say (GO FSU) he gets so mad hahha He is 10 years old and he got baptized a day before his birthday and then he got confirmed on his birthday. His family was so happy! The spirit was so strong at his baptism and confirmation. His family has said how much he has changed from when we first started to teach him the lessons to now. His family is so awesome, especially his Mima! She has this like really southern accent and she's an older lady so shes just like a sweet ol southern grandma haha She is like Elder Graham, Elder Christensen yall need to come back here now after the mission. We are never gonna forget you two. Yall come back here now and visit, ya hear. Shes so sweet haha

We also had a brand new investigator come to church! It was awesome he stayed all 3 hours and he enjoyed it! It was crazy because we were on a trade off when we found him. I was taking over my area and had another Elder from a different area be my companion for the day. The lord lead us to this guy on the corner of the street and we just started talking to him. He used to take the lessons when he lived in California but now he gets to hear more from us. ;)

I ALSO GRADUATED!!!!!! hahha I GRADUATED FROM 12 WEEK! 

We find the craziest names out here! (Quavion, Latrice, Latrel, LaTonda, Aquarious, Shakisha, Falisha, and Jabree) hahah gosh I love the south!

I hope yall have a blessed week! I love all of you!

Love, Elder Graham

This Week in Perdido (lost) 2/27/17

So this week was great! I got a few packages from my loved ones! Thank yall so much! I really appreciate it! PS I am sending letters, I just did not have any time this week! Sorry :( But I love all of you so much! I really love and appreciate all the support! It really helps like so much!

This week was fun! We had a trade off with the Spanish Elders so I went to the Spanish area. It was a lot of fun! I said a few prayers in Spanish and bore my testimony (not in Spanish, I aint that good yet) to some Spanish investigators, It was awesome. The gift of tongues is real! During the lesson they were speaking Spanish and everything and it was weird because I could understand what they were saying and what was going on. (most of the time) but it was really fun to go on a Spanish trade off!

Elder Christensen and I go to some pretty run down neighborhoods. SO we were going to go visit a less active and their are some kids outside playing and throwing a football, so one of them throws it to me and I start playing with them for a second. We both ask him what his name is and he says: "My name Quavion, But my nickname DANK" It was the funniest thing we have ever heard all day!!! We didn't laugh about it until later when we realized like what he said and re played it in our heads hahha I LOVE THE SOUTH! ROLL TIDE!!!

We did A LOT of going door to door this week, a lot of doors slammed in the face and rude comments but then we get the awesome chance to meet the elect. The people the lord has prepared for us to teach! We had like 3 people who really took our message well this week! Its so awesome to find out people are searching for something and then we show up! hahaa

We have had a lot of spiritual experiences yesterday (sunday). I had the opportunity to give a talk in sacrament on faith. So that was really good, a lot of people loved it so im glad the spirit was there to teach and not me haha The mission is awesome! I love this work, And all the people in it! I am so grateful for my family and friends back home who give me so much support! I think about yall all the time! I drive past a lot of things that make me think about all the different moments I have had with all of you!

So this morning was rough, I woke up at 4:30 AM with the biggest stomach pain and it hurt so bad I almost woke up the elders to take me to the quick care. After hours of pain and wanting to puke, I was finally able to lay back down at like 6:30 AM and then all the alarms went off hahah I had to just sleep in but it was the worst night ever. I am doing better now but I just hope my appendix didn't like burst or something. I guess we will find out. Overall my week has been awesome! A little girl drew me a picture at dinner last night with a member and it was so cute. I miss being able to play with little kids in nursery! Like my main beau babes and all my nieces and nephew.

I love yall so much! Have a great week!!! My next baptism is March 11th!

Love, Elder Graham!

2/20/17

Monday- SO last P-day was sooo awesome! We went to the NAS museum, it was so cool. We saw a bunch of F-18s F-16s and some T-6s it was super cool. We also got to see the Blue Angels! If anyone has a chance to look them up it is super cool!! I have so many pictures of Monday it was so much fun. Elder Christensen had some of his investigators come by and they took us out to this fire BBQ place called sunnys it was so good. Then we went back to the museum and looked around some more. We have a member in our ward he is like the 2nd counselor to the bishop. so he is a trainer for fighter pilots and so we were able to go into this sectioned off place only for military. He met us outside of this big building and he took us in to this room that had this huge round metal ball things lol so he let us fly in these simulators and it felt sooo real! Like some of the elders who were standing up watching had to sit down because they felt super dizzy when I was taking turn or doing like barrel rolls. So brother monks asked who was from vegas? I was like me. Hes like watch this... He simulated me flying in las vegas it was soo cool! SO I flew over my house and showed everyone where I lived and showed them where my high school was and where I worked hah it was so sick. Then I flew downtown and was going like sideways through like two hotels downtown. It was so much fun! I kinda felt at home. So that was Monday. I also got my family something aka ill be sending that this week probably. I think yall will like it.

Tuesday- Friday- So we have had a lot of work seeing a lot of people but then again a lot of people don't keep their appointments and it sucks. But some funny things happened. We were riding our bikes to see some LAs (Less Actives) and we see this like little like house on a post but its like a book shelf. So I was like looking in there and its just like this random book shelf full of books for anyone I guess it was so weird hahah so im like huh might as well put a Book of Mormon in there lol

Friday!! ROAD TRIP TO TALLY!!!!! SO  I had to drive all the way to lynn haven to stay there Friday night, which was super cool because we drove all along the coast and through destin which is where my sister served which was super cool and I also realized that she served the most spoiled mission well for her first area that is hahha IT is so BEUATIFUL there! SO the next morning we got up and left at like 5:30 am to drive the rest of the way to Tallahassee. SO I drove like a solid 4 hours. I was so tired but we had a blast! So we show up to the stake center in tally at like 8:30 am and we get some good seats like 3 rows back from the front so like right in the middle. Then at like 9 or something I cant remember, but Elder Gary E. Stevenson from the Quorum of the 12 Apostles walked in and so did Elder Parker and Elder Maynes from the Quorum of the 70.  We all got up and were able to go shake their hands. PS I am never going to wash this hand hahha jk But I got to talk to an Apostle of the Lord and shake his hand! It was so amazing! They all talked about some things we can do as missionaries to improve our work. The spirit was so strong there and it was so amazing to hear him speak. He moved around a lot and like was walking up and down the chapel talking to us. It was so amazing to hear how simple yet how powerful his testimony was.

We then went to a park where all the Missionaries got to hang out and talk for a little it was so fun to see everyone in the mission! We then went to this place called chubbys hahah it was so good and the name was interesting but its name fits haha We then went and drove past FSU. Everyone said they can see me serving there... lol oh no. But it was so cool to see the stadium.

That was my week yall and I hope yall have a great week! I love you and I pray for you.

Love, Elder Graham​

Family and friends 2/13/17

Hey everyone,

So this week has been pretty good. Through out this week we have been doing a lot of service. For about a couple days the majority of our time was spent doing service, which was awesome. We later on in the week hade a trade off with the the zone leaders in Navarre.Which is like right by gulf breeze florida. We had a lot of fun with the ZL's. Missionaries get to eat free at this sea food place, oh my gosh... It was soooooo good! I love sea food! During the trade off we had some great opportunities to share the gospel with others and it was really cool to see how well people take it. We did have some people where they just did not care about us at all. But they just aren't prepared to receive the restored truth yet.

On our P-day last week we played some sand volleyball! We have a sand volleyball court in our apartment complex and oh my gosh!!! They have the best sand I have ever played on! So every time we play volleyball with our zone people are like I want Elder Graham on my team. Its just funny cause I don't go all out and play. I am afraid ill hit a sister in the face so I don't really get to play my hardest  haha its all good though it is still so much fun. We later went fishing in our backyard, we caught like 10 fish but we just did some catch and release. Hopefully next p-day or sometime we will get to go fishing in the ocean!

We have sadly had a lot of appointments fall through which really sucks but its okay because heavenly father directed us to other places. We had like all of our plans fall through on Friday and so we decided to go see a less active and he ended up not being there. So we go back to the car and decide the pray specifically on who we should go see. During that prayer I received some kind of answer because the numbers 86 or 68 popped in my head. Once we got out of the car and started to walk on of the first houses I saw had the number 68 on it. We were almost walking past it when I then told Elder Christensen "lets go to this house" so we knock on the door and no one answers. We then ring the door bell and I see someone walking to the door. He opens the door and he was like so happy to see us it was kinda weird. We shared the Book of Mormon with him and he was like super excited to read it. It was just a testimony builder to me to see that heavenly father really wants to answer our prayers, we just have to be willing to listen.

Later this week, actually on sunday the same thing happened we did not know who to see after church. We got a prompting to go see this potential investigator that told us to come back in a few weeks. So we decided to go visit her. As we pulled up we saw a couple out side on the lawn. We get out and happily say hello. We go to their neighbors house the lady who we were trying to see and they shout they aren't home they just left. So we took that as an opportunity to share something with them. we simply strike up a conversation with them and they say something about religion so we started to tell them who we were and what we do. We asked them if we could share a message with them for just like 5 min. They said okay and we started to teach them the restoration. They were soo amazed and agreed with everything, I then recited the first vision, her eyes just got so wide and she was so amazed and the spirit was sooo strong! We gave both of them The Book of Mormon and we didn't stop right there the spirit told us to tell them about how we have a living prophet today that leads and guides this church. They were so amazed that when we left they were saying to us thank you so much oh my gosh he has answered our prayers. When we got in our car  I look over at them and he was already reading in The Book of Mormon. It was so amazing!

SO that is what happened this week! For todays P-day we are going to the NAS museum. Its on the Navy base. A member in our ward has connections to the Air Force Flight Simulators so we are going to go do that today! I am so excited its gonna be so sick! haha

Also sadly this week we had a death in our ward. His name was Brother Jones, we got a police escort to the naval base which was super awesome! We got to be apart of a funeral service on the base. It was such an honor to be there and see them fire their rifles and fold the Flag. After they folded the flag and gave it to the wife of Brother Jones, a F-16 flew super low and right over our heads, it was sooo amazing to see that! AMERICA!

That was my week, so I hope yall have an amazing and blessed week!!! I love yall

Love, Elder Graham