Week #12

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! 

I hope that all of you are enjoying this time of year. I heard that Utah had the first snow fall of the year this last week. I don't know if that's actually true because it usually snows a lot earlier but I hope you are all enjoying the snow. Fun fact about Florida is it actually gets kind of chilly here!

This week Sister Bowen and I have had a lot of fun. Being a missionary is so amazing. There is nothing that describes it. With the holidays around the corner President Cooper has asked us to really use them to our advantage. We have been praying long and hard about what we wanted to do to get the ward members excited about doing missionary work. The Lord gave us some inspiration and we came up with an idea. It is called a Gift of Missionary Moments. It is a little gift bag that has three items in it. A pass along card, a note card with a service opportunity on it, and a Book of Mormon. We challenge each family we visit to pray about who they want to give each item to, and to pass them out before Christmas. 

Monday's are always the busiest day of the week!! So many things to do to help us prepare for the week. Today we have a Zone Development day where we get to play games, eat dinner and end the night with a meeting. It's going to be a lot of fun! 

Tuesdays we have district meeting in the morning. I really love that we get to set goals as a district and work towards them. This week we focused on how we can help our investigators to feel and recognize the Holy Ghost. We did some really fun role plays and took a ton of action items that we are going to use with our own investigators. After district meeting we had the wonderful opportunity to take Sister Bowen's bike to the shop to be fixed. Don't worry it is all good to go. 

Ligia is a recent convert in our ward. She is the lady who's baptism we attended a couple of weeks ago. Sister Bowen and I get to reteach her all of the missionary lessons, we are pretty excited about that! Ligia is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. We got to her house and she had the biggest smile on her face. She invited us in and little did we know that she is quite the artist. Every space on her walls are filled with a different painting that she has done. We asked Ligia her conversion story and I was just blown away. Ligia was born and raised in Venezuela. She married and had children and was really happy. Her Husband got into some pretty heavy drugs which tore their family apart. She moved to the United States to get a fresh start. She knew no one here and knew very little English. She met a man who helped her get a job and shortly after they actually got married. Her husband was an interesting man. He wouldn't let her speak English and was very micromanaging. Well long story short he left her after a 10 year marriage. Ligia explained that she was in a dark dark place. She was on the verge of doing something that could have possibly ended her life when all of a sudden she got a knock on her door. Two Elders asked if she wanted to learn about Jesus Christ. She accepted and was shortly taught by the Spanish elders in our zone. It truly is amazing to see how our Savior Jesus Christ's infinite love can help someone out of the darkest corners. If those two elders wouldn't have been diligent and knocked on her door who knows what could have happened. Because of the gospel Ligia has been able to find eternal happiness and has been given the gift of tongues. Her English is amazing. I would have never even guessed she started actually speaking two months ago. Towards the end of our visit we had a good laugh. I asked Ligia if she has ever painted a picture of Christ. She instantly started to laugh. Sister Bowen looked at me with the whole "I didn't know that was funny look!" When Ligia was 14 she hung out with the hippies. Well they didn't always do the greatest things. The first picture that she every painted of Christ was him singing into a microphone while smoking pot in the other. We all started dying laughing. We were so surprised!! She then told us but don't worry I have repented and I know now that I will never paint a picture like that again. She really is such an example to me of someone who has true faith. 

Friday we actually got to ride our bikes. Dad you would be a proud papa we bike 20 miles! We had a wonderful lesson with Angie. We asked her to read the talk "Am I Good Enough, Will I Make It." By Elder J. Devn Cornish. I love that the Lord really does talk to us through his servants! After Angie we had a few other appointments but they ended up falling through. We biked home for dinner. It was quite the sight seeing two missionaries in dress slacks caring a bag of groceries biking down the highway. When we finished dinner we grabbed the car and began tracting for the night. We came up to this house with an open garage. There was a man inside working on something. We walked up the drive way and this man gave us thee nastiest look. I began to feel discouraged, but we continued to walk up and talk to him. He was very standoffish at first. He explained that he was atheist and didn't want anything to do with God and wasn't about to listen to two young girls. I noticed he was working on his garage door opener. We asked him how long he had been trying to get this thing to work. He replied with a strong "5 years girls, 5 years!" We offered to help him and he said if you get this garage opener to work then I will listen to the message that you want to share with me. It took us about 15 minutes to figure it out, but we got the garage opener to work. Sister Bowen and I were dying because all we did was read the directions click a few buttons and there you have it a working garage door opener. I have never seen someone more surprised than him. He was so excited and thankful and actually let us teach him about the restoration of the gospel. It was such a great experience to see that the Lord has his hand in all things. As simple as it was to get it working, if it weren't for that service opportunity Bob would have never softened his heart to hear his Heavenly Fathers message. It reminded me of a quote by Elder Holland that says "you can never judge who is or isn't ready for the gospel of Jesus Christ." As we walked up to the garage I judged him. Don't worry I was definitely humbled! We are hoping that we will get to teach Bob in the near future. 

Saturday we had a little luncheon at Sister Burtons. She is an incredible missionary. Sister Bowen and I have helped her organize a few rooms in her home. She has had a few health challenges lately. If you wouldn't mind keeping her in your prayers that would be really appreciated. Brother Burton made this super yummy Italian dish. I can't remember the name of it but it had pasta and sauce like every other Italian dish! They invited their neighbors over and boy it was awesome. It was fun to see member missionary work in action. I never did missionary work back home. It really does show that when we help the full time missionaries in the church, the message of the restored gospel has a greater effect on those who are searching for the truth. Jerry is an Elderly Lady who is good friends with Sister Burton. She stayed after the luncheon and wanted to have a lesson. She has been to church a couple of times and loves the spirit that she feels when she goes. We taught her the restorations and she asked some really amazing questions. 

I wanted to share my favorite quotes with all of you from this week:

"Please, my beloved brothers and sisters, we must stop comparing ourselves to others. We torture ourselves needlessly by competing and comparing. We falsely judge our self-worth by the things we do or don’t have and by the opinions of others. If we must compare, let us compare how we were in the past to how we are today--and even to how we want to be in the future. The only opinion of us that matters is what our Heavenly Father thinks of us. Please sincerely ask Him what He thinks of you. He will love and correct but never discourage us; that is Satan’s trick." Elder J. Devn Cornish. 

I love this gospel and my Savior Jesus Christ. I am grateful to be his missionary and to be apart of is sacred work. I wish you all the best holiday weekend. Have fun!!! Until next week! ☺️

Love, 

Sister Graham 

P.s. Who would have thought there were more squirrels in Florida than Alligators!!