Week Five: November 28, 2019 Almost There
Hola! This will be my last email sent from Mexico, next monday I am flying out to Chile! I am super excited. I listened to a clip of Chileans speaking though and did not understand a word. They speak way faster and different than the Mexican Spanish I have been Learning. But I am not worried I know that God will help me as long as I work diligently and do my part.
The past two weeks have been fun, Me and district had a competition to see who could eat the most Peanut butter sandwiches and between 12 of us we ate 57 sandwiches. The cafeteria people were a little upset with us. We have a lot of little fun times, but mostly we are just studying hard. Trying to push through this last week at the CCM.
I heard a quote by C.S. Lewis “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” I really beginning to understand this during my time here. For these next two years I am representative of Jesus Christ. I wear his name on my chest for the next two years. With this comes a responsibility to represent him. I have found this to be a much greater task than I had previously thought. Every night as I write in my Jornal I think of something I could do better, many times multiple things. I have so much I can improve, so much that I need to change. A Quote by Joseph Smith sums up my situation
"I frequently fell into many foolish cerrors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God. In making this confession, no one need suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins. A disposition to commit such was never in my nature. But I was guilty of dlevity, and sometimes associated with jovial company, etc., not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was ecalled of God as I had been. But this will not seem very strange to any one who recollects my youth, and is acquainted with my native fcheery temperament." JSH 1-28
While this seems an insurmountable task I have come to rely heavily on the atonement of Jesus Christ. Through its forgiving and healing power I have realised that while it takes time, work, and a lot of effort, I can change to become more christlike. My goal is only to continually improve and not to go backward.
I have also never experienced so much joy in my life, as I say a prayer of gratitude every morning my heart is filled with joy and I remember how lucky and blessed I am to have this opportunity. I have one scripture that relates to this which I really love.
Book of Mormon "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."
Good luck to all y'all back home, I wish you the best.
Elder Graff
Pictures:
The group picture of us sitting seems strange unless you understand our companionship. It perfectly shows how we all are; Elder Dorotheo is taking the picture (he is always taking the picture), Elder Markham is studying (he is always studying), Elder Powell is singing (he is always doing what he is suppose to), and I am sleeping, enough said.
One picture is with Elder Powell and me and a new friend we met here. He works the grounds and has become a good friend of ours. With us leaving on Monday, we bought him a tie as a going away gift.
Week Three: November 13, 2019 We saw an Apostle
Hola! This week was a lot of fun, but the longer I am here at this training center, the more I cannot wait to get out to chile. Still The people here and the environment is pretty great. One of the twelve apostles visited us yesterday and gave a devotional. He talked to us about a lot of different things, but one of my favorite things was actually what his wife said "press forward with fear." Typically the phrase is press forward with faith, but press forward with fear put a unique and relatable swing on the phrase. Learning spanish has been quite a humbling experience for me, reminding me of how much I need the Lord's help. Many times when we practice teaching lessons in spanish it is scary and I would rather stick to a prepared script. But that is not the way to teach i need to press forward despite my fear and do my best to use my spanish trusting that the lord will help me where I fall short and the spirit will testify of the Truthfulness of my words. I know that as I am diligent in my work, and trust in the lord he will make my weaknesses strong and I will not be handicaped with my lack of knowledge, but he will make me whole.
In other important news I am becoming a master at foosball, and me and my companion have a score of 23-14 against the other companionship I share a room with. We got the beatles picture from last week and made a poster of it and put it up in our room.
One of the coolest things though was last wednesday We were able to go to the mexico city temple and drive through mexico city for an hour. It is really different than the united states, half the houses look like ruins and on everyone's roof they have clothes on clothes lines, and trash is EVERYWEAR. I never appreciated the waste management service in the United States quite so much. all the parks are super scary looking. But the city is really colorful to, and the people are really nice. It is just different. Well I hope everything is going well back home thank you for your emails. It is always fun to hear what is going on with your adventures. Buenos suerte y hasta luego.
Week Two Temple Trip to Mexico City Temple
Week Two: November 6, 2019
Honestly time is flying by here in Mexico. We are all so busy that it seems like it was yesterday that I left. This last week has been really good. I talk almost exclusively in really bad Spanish now to everyone and it is a lot of fun. We started teaching lessons in Spanish to "interested people" who our really just our teachers pretending to be investigators. We are doing this to learn how to answer questions and teach in Spanish. It is sometimes really frustrating when they ask a question about a gospel concept and I know the exact right words in English but I am lost in Spanish. It is really a humbling experience. It helps me to learn that if it wasn't for God's help I would be completely useless in teaching the gospel. It forces me to rely on His grace and help.
And boy does He help! Things that used to take me forever to learn come way faster. For example, yesterday we had a devotional by Elder Uchtdorf that was really good. I got one of the translator things, and listened to almost the whole thing in Spanish and I actually understood most of it. It was cool. This place is seriously a wonderful place of learning. If everyone could go to school in a place like this, the world would be an incredibly smart place. I can't wait to get to Chile, but I am seriously loving my time here. Thank you all so much for your friendship and prayers. Hasta Luego.
Elder Graff
Week One: October 26, 2019
Today I have a short P day so I am not going to send a massive email to everyone, but I did want to send one to you. The CCM has been awesome, it is beautiful here, it rains about once a day for about thirty minutes to an hour, but other than that the weather is perfect. It is nice and cool, but not cold. My compañeros are asombroso (our new favorite Spanish word). I am positive God meant for us to be together in the group that we are. They each bring something needed and good into the group. Andrew was supposed to be sharing a room with me, but since he got transferred we got a new elder, who is asombroso. These are my compañeros
Elder Powell (tall) he is my actual companion, the other two are part of my district and roommates. He is from Fresno area in CA. He is pretty cool and I feel like me and him are at about the same level in the gospel. Me and him both have a big desire to learn, and work which makes us work really well together.
Elder Dorotheo (dark) He is the comedian in my group, he is always good at making jokes and keeping us positive. He is also really good at Spanish. He lives right next to Knott's Berry Farm.
Elder Marcom (glasses) He is our transfer that took Andrew's place, but our group really needed him. He helps us focus on the gospel, studying and keeping the mission rules. He is super enthusiastic about the gospel.
We also had a super asombroso talk last night from a member of the seventy, It was so powerful, perfect for missionaries. I had a really cool experience with his wife's talk. She shared a story about how an elder bore his testimony of Joseph Smith, and when she repeated his testimony it felt like that elder was in the room bearing his testimony to me, and I felt the spirit so strong. In Doctrine and Covenants 62;3 it talks about how our testimonies are recorded in heaven, pretty sure that some angel pressed play and that is what I heard at that meeting. It really strengthen my testimony of the power of testimony.
We get about and hour of gym time a day which we spend playing basketball, and yesterday we tried out tennis. Lots of fun. The Spanish is really difficult, we have to memorize a ton of stuff everyday, I freaked out for a solid minute when I found out everything we had to get done. After that though I am fine, I am working my hardest and whatever gets done gets done. I also believe that Mi Padre Celestial will help me with el don de linguajes (the gift of tongues).
I will talk to you next week (Wednesday) unless I figure out how to Skype you guys.
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