Week #11

HELLO!!! Family and Friends, 

This week has been crazy! Just going to share with you a few high lights from this week!:) Friday was an eventful day. Sister Bowen and I are the only set of missionaries in our area right now. Which is kind of hard sometimes because our area is pretty big. We have this lovely huge lake in the middle of it which divides our area in half. There are only two roads that you can take to get to the other side with out going out of our area boundaries. With all of this being said we have used a ton of our driving miles, so we decided that we would ride our bikes. We packed up all our stuff for the day and carried our bikes down all three flights of stairs! We got to the bottom and Sister Bowen attached this basket to the front of her bike and off went riding in the parking lot. Well we didn't even get to the front gate when all of a sudden I hear this crash behind me. Sister Bowen wanted to have a little extra fun and go over the speed bumps in the parking lot. The basket that we thought was attached to her bike fell off and BROKE HER FRONT BREAK! 😂 the whole thing was bent and the front wheel of her bike wouldn't even move. She wasn't too happy as we walked her bike back up to the apartment. We knew that this happened for a reason. Sister Bowen's breaks on her bike have been acting really weird lately and we were going to be biking around 20 miles that day. We knew that Heavenly Father had protected her. Don't worry we laughed had fun, grabbed the car and off we were to our appointment.

Our first appointment was with a less active named Angie. She is quite the character. Angie recently had a back surgery and still hasn't recovered from it. She is going blind in both eyes and lives alone with her cat Sophie. She tells us every Friday that she has thee worst life ever. I have been visiting with Angie every Friday since I arrived in Palm Harbor, but this was Sister Bowen first lesson with her. We asked Angie to find 5 scriptures on how she could build her relationship with her Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ. She did an incredible job. We had a wonderful lesson on the nature of God, and how our Father in Heavens love is infinite. She kept telling us how profound our words were. She asked us to repeat things several times and we finally had to break it to her we couldn't remember what we had just said because it wasn't us. The spirit was giving us the words to say. She just couldn't believe. After our lesson, Angie always gives us a bag of groceries. The best part is, she gives us the same groceries every week. 5 boxes of pasta, a box of meat loaf, and a packed of cookies which has a row missing because she decided to eat some. Oh gotta love Angie!!

Our next appointment was with Conner. We met at Paige's house after the girls got home from school. Paige the young women in our ward is awesome. She got us going into the lesson right away. Conner just amazes us every time we talk to her. She had the most profound questions about the Plan of Salvation. Which by the spirit we were able to answer all of them. Conner has a strong desire to be baptized, but expressed that her dad doesn't approve of it. One morning as Conner was leaving for seminary, her dad told her that Mormons are part of a cult. She was so cute she told us that she hoped that it didn't offend us. Haha no worries Conner we have been called much worse! What was even cooler is Paige taught Conner most of the Plan of salvation.

The Riveras are a recent convert family in ward. We have had the opportunity to reteach them the lessons and get to know their family. Friday evening we had a lesson on the 10 commandments, which was a lot of fun. They have three little kids who all just love the gospel. We taught them the little hand signs that go with each of the commandment. Gabe, the middle child is a wizard. We taught them all the signs once and when we asked them if they remembered Gabe knew every hand sign and commandment that went with it. Man I wish I had that kids memory. Carlos and Mercedes were just a little proud of him! 😊 When we finished our lesson with the Rivera family we had plans to tract in there neighborhood. There was an event going on at Palm Harbor High School which was right down the street. We decided to check it out. One thing President Cooper has asked us to do is 10 hours of service a week. We talked to two high school girls about service opportunities in the community. Don't worry these were the right girls to talk to. One of them gave us every event she could possibly think of. 

It was almost time to go home for the night. Sister Bowen and I were beat. It had been a long day packed full of awesome lessons. We had two options. One to stay out and finish the night out strong, or two return home just a little bit early. We both knew what the Lord wanted us to do. So we did it. We stayed out. We said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father to lead us to a heart that was ready to hear the gospel. The streets were pretty dark by this time of night, so we only knocked on the doors that had lights on. We came up to this one door and a lady answered. The spirit prompted Sister Bowen to ask her if we could say a prayer with her. She immediately started to cry and replied with a "yes please." We asked her name and what she was in need of. Robin explained to us that her husband cheated on her a year ago and she just hasn't been able to find peace. They had been married for 30 years and she needed comfort that God had a plan in store for her. Sister Bowen and I were honestly shocked. We looked at each other with the whole "I think we have a new investigator" look. We said a prayer with her and Robin was just sobbing. After the prayer was over she said that she has been asking God for over a year to send her something to help her get out of this dark place. Robin invited us into her home and we got to teach her the whole restoration. You could feel the sense of peace that the gospel brought into her home. Robin was just sobbing the whole time and kept asking us why are you here at this time of night, in this neighborhood, on the one night she am home. We knew it wasn't a coincident that we stopped by but that we were led to her by our Heavenly Father. We invited her to church and she promised us she would come. We noticed that she had been drinking a little bit. We're praying that she was sober enough to feel the spirit because she didn't end up coming to church. We are excited to follow up with her and teach her about our Savior Jesus Christ. Even if we don't get to teach Robin again the Lord taught me a very valuable lesson. We can not give up because we are tired. We can not let worldly things get in the way of our Heavenly Fathers plan. If Sister Bowen and I would have left 5 minutes early we would have never met Robin. We would have not seen a miracle. Most importantly we would have lost a little bit of Heavenly Fathers trust. I can't even describe how powerful this moment was. I'm thankful for this gospel and the peace that it brings into the lives of those who are willing to let it in.

We returned home and Sister Bowen and I were just shocked. We are still getting use to not having trainers. There have been a few times when we have felt inadequate, not good enough, that we didn't know enough. One day Sister Bowen explained that she was sick of complaining. There is a reason we don't need our trainers so let's figure it out! I know that Heavenly Father wanted us to grow. We have been able to rely on him in times of need. We have been more in tune with the spirit. I know that Heavenly Father blesses us when we are asked to do hard things. I'm grateful that he blessed us with the opportunity to teach Robin. It reminded me of the conference talk that President Uchtdorf gave this last general conference "fourth floor last door" you never know who is behind that last door!! 

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. I love attending church and partaking of the sacrament. We had a wonderful lesson in relief society on families. One thing that I can't wait for is to be a mom. Sister Burtalen had this huge house drawn out on a poster board. We wrote inside the house the things that as families we can do to have the spirit of the Lord in our homes. All of them were the basic answers. Prayer, family dinner, scripture study, quality time, good movies, attending the temple, etc. All the things the prophets have counseled us to do were on the board. It really is so simple. Sometimes it feels like a chore to do these things, but when we do we grow closer to the lord as a family. I'm so grateful that my parents taught me these things. Because when times do get hard and you feel like you can't do it, you have been taught how to use all the tools the Lord has given us to feel peace. Love love loved her lesson. After church we didn't have any appointments. Caroline Clawson is a young women in our ward. She comes out with us at least once a week. She is incredible. She came tracting with us yesterday. 

I want to bear my testimony. I know that our Heavenly Father's love is real. He knows each and every one of us perfectly. Our Savior Jesus Christ walks with us every step of they way through every up and down. He loves us and he is the only way that we can make it back to the Father. I love this gospel and I love my Savior Jesus Christ. I am thankful to be a missionary and have loved every minute of it. I hope you have thee greatest week ever. Until next week!!! 

Love, 

Sister Graham