Week 12 Was Busy!

Good morning everyone!

It's Elder DeGraw again. The weathers actually been in the 80's this week, prayers really do work! The biking has gotten much easier now. How's little old Rexburg doing? Any major snowstorms on the horizon? It looks like you've gotten lucky with all those sweet sunsets. So this week...

Monday and Tuesday were both regular missionary days. We had lessons later in the day, so most of the morning and afternoon we visited less actives. The most exciting part of the day came in an email I received from President. First, transfers are on Halloween. We can only proselyte until 6. If we don't have any lessons after 6, we have to be in our apartment for the rest of the day. Second, I just copied and pasted... "About 160 missions (out of 422 missions worldwide) will be receiving smart phones. They will be used instead of tablets. We don't know all the details for our mission, but we expect to receive the smart phones in the Spring of 2018. We'll get you more details about that as we receive them. We do know that those of you with tablets will continue to use them until the end of your missions." Pretty stinking crazy! 

Wednesday was one of the best days this week. I took over my area for the day because my district leader has to finish up his exchanges before November. Elder Kuewa went to the district leader's area and Elder Newman came to mine. We left the apartment around 8 AM to go do service for a member; Brother Gaytan. Both Elder Newman and I are still pretty new, so we laughed about them trusting the "greenies" with a whole area. It was easy to feel excited and we were both anxious to tackle the day ahead and give it our all. We arrived at Brother Gaytans and instantly got to work. My job was removing the hills of dirt in the front yard. Once we had finished, we were rewarded with fried chicken and a little bit of heaven (mashed potatoes). The rest of the day went smoothly. We taught two lessons and ended our day with a game of chess. Elder Newman is a great missionary and you would never have guessed he's still green. I was exhausted at the end of the day, having my own area is stressful stuff. 

Thursday was a good day. We woke up and jogged to the church for zone sports-- dodgeball was the game everyone had voted on. After, we had studies and then headed off to district meeting. Here's a few pictures of the finest Elders in the Scottsdale Mission. Since it's the last week in the transfer, we had a district lunch. Chick-fil-a or Panda Express were the two options it came down to. I voted for Plan A which was the winner. We returned home to finish companion study, and Elder Kuewa brought up one of our investigators named Ron. Ron is a super funny guy; I always get excited to teach him because I know there'll be some good laughs. Elder Kuewa brought up something Ron had said in a lesson. For the last 10 minutes of companion studies, we both just laughed and laughed until we were in tears. We tried to pull ourselves together, and I would fold my arms to say the prayer, but then we would lose it again. Haha, mission laughs are the best laughs. 

Friday nothing really happened.

Saturday was a pretty decent day. The morning and afternoon were so slow, but I pushed through and made it to the Stewart Ward block party at 5:00. The party was huge-- about 600ish people came. There were many nonmembers and some of them were interested in meeting with missionaries. I was planning on taking more pictures, but I only got one. It's Elder Gibbons (zone leader) and I waiting for investigators to come so we could show them a mormon message.

Sunday  was the day we got transfer news. Here's what happened. I'm staying in Maricopa and my new companion is Elder Bird. He's coming down from Snowflake and I believe he's from Illinois. Elder Kuewa had the craziest out of all the Elders (to me at least). He's heading to Central Phoneix where he'll be biking, training again, and he's district leader. He's excited but not happy about biking. 

Monday was a normal Pday except for we went to the Phoenix Zoo! It was so sweet and I took more pictures then I can count. It wasn't as fun as going to a zoo with your family, but I still enjoyed being with the other Elders. We basically had the whole zoo to ourselves too. 

I hope you all have a safe week! Remember CPR. Church, prayer, and read. These three things are vital to our spiritual well-being. Have a great Halloween, watch out for spiders! 

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Love Elder DeGraw

6265 N 82nd St

Scottsdale, AZ 85250

The Maricopa District

Loads of pictures from the Phoenix Zoo...

Elder Gibbons and me

Sonoran Hot Dogs and Mexican Sodas

From Brother Felix (the ward mission leader): Today Elder Kuewa from Hawaii and Elder DeGraw from Idaho were introduced to Sonoran Hot Dogs & Mexican sodas. My work as a ward mission leader is done 🙂.

October 26, 2017

From Sister Richardson: "...They switched name tags. We had our annual YW Halloween part tonight & they came to check it out."

Week 11 in the Field

Hey everybody!

It's Elder DeGraw here. So I've got to keep this one short this week. I'll be sure to fill it with all the good stuff...

The first few days last week were pretty normal. We taught lessons, biked around, and met new people. It was in the 90's this last week which was perfect. The missions had us switch from camelbacks to shoulder bags now. I look pretty professional with a shoulder bag. Our teaching pools have shrunk, but the potential investigator pool is massive, so these next few weeks should be busy. We had a man just get out of jail and he called us telling us he wants to be baptized, so that's cool. We're still teaching Jordynn and her baptisms coming soon, hopefully. A typical day, we are on our bikes visiting investigators and a lot of less-actives. We have lessons set Tuesdays. We go out with a member and teach recent converts. A typical P-day, we go shopping, eat a lot of food, laundry, then come to the church to email/play basketball. Transfers are next week. 

Friday I woke up and made the best pancakes. Strawberries and cool whip from the can. Mmhmm, so good. I got ready for the day and realized that Elder Kuewa was still in bed. He was really sick, so I used my time to study. I read so much (4 conference talks). I loved reading about my Savior and learning new truths that were once unknown to me. I played chess against myself too. I felt so spiritually buffed. I also watch the hour long Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration video. The scriptures are so powerful. As I studied them that morning, I understood what Elder Callister meant when he said "These are messages with a heartbeat—messages that live and breathe and inspire." The Book of Mormon truly radiates the spirit. 

Saturday I got to go on exchanges with my district leader, Elder Bell. I got to go with him to his area and his comp came to mine. I was excited because Elder Bell is over the YSA Ward here (which means they have a car). We biked in the morning and talked to so many people on the street. Sadly, they were all homeless. We then got into their Ford Fusion and went knocking doors. I loved it, but nobody was interested. Our dinner was a drop off at their place. When we were eating the pizza the members had given us, we got another text from a member saying: "are you guys coming to dinner?" I don't know what happened, but I wasn't complaining that we ended up with two dinners. I thought of it as Thanksgiving Dinner prep. 

Sunday was another great day. Another Elder got sick on Friday and he was still sick Sunday. Elder Kuewa and Elder Clark (the sick Elder's companion) went to church and I stayed and watched videos on my tablet. That night, we went to visit Brother Gaytan. We talked for a while about how he's been doing and then he showed us a book called "Four Ways to Eat Right for your Blood Type." He showed us what foods I should eat and what foods I should not eat. I'm not suppose to eat bananas, oranges, or ham. Haha, that's pretty much all I've eaten the last few weeks. 

I hope you all have a great week! Remember to have faith in hard times, because Heavenly Father does have a plan for you and you simply need to keep moving forward. Stay safe and be brave!

-- 

Love Elder DeGraw

Playing chess... by myself. Having a sick companion is so boring!

While I was at the church, writing my email today, the other Elders broke a window with the basketball. Oops!

A member sat on my sunglasses.

Our zone sweatshirt (that I designed).

One of my favorite quotes from President Eyring's general conference talk.

So this one takes some explanation. Our district leader's favorite saying is "butter em up like a fish." So I drew this for him and it's my districts favorite thing now. 

October 18, 2017

Text from Sister Richardson: "Hi from your favorite Elder. They stopped by for water, and we gave them a popsicle too.  Later, I got this adorable little text... 'Hey Sister Richardson, it's the Elders. Thanks for being so darn great. There's gotta be something we can do for you? Elder Kuewa & Elder DeGraw'"

No Baptism, A Blitz, and a Prieshood Blessing

Hello everyone!

I made it to another P-day. I'll start out by saying that I did not hike Camelback Mountain today. It wasn't a very eventful week, but there were still a few neat experiences I'll tell ya about...

First off, Jordynn's baptism didn't get to happen. We've had to push it back a few weeks, but we are 100% sure it will happen. Bishop Arnett told Jordynn that even if an angel appeared to him and told him to stop the baptism, she would still get baptized. Transfers are Halloween Day, so it could be possible that I don't get to baptize her. We'll see. 

Another ward blitz did happen however. If you aren't sure what a mission blitz is, it's where all the missionaries in the zone come together to knock doors in one companionship area. Not as many members showed up this time around, so I went out on a split with one of the Zone Leaders. The invitation flier to the party was our secret weapon. Knocking on a door and talking about the gospel with someone was so much easier when we had the flier to start off with. There were two families that seemed pretty promising. We are planning on visiting them again this week. One family told us that they had just discovered an army of rats living in their home, so it'll be interesting to see what the latest update is on that. 

We've picked up a few investigators this last week. The most interesting teaching appointment I've had since I've been out happened with one of these. His name is John. We taught him the Restoration and he kept asking the strangest questions. He wanted to hang out and take us to Jack in the Box. He also wanted to take us to the Tongan Methodist church a few blocks away. We finally finished the lesson with a prayer and were getting on our bikes ready to go. He came running out to us as we were riding away and asked: "Also, I've been really looking for a religion that believes in extra-terrestrials. What's your opinion on that?" We kept riding...

Saturday night was by far the best day this week. We didn't have any lessons that night, so we were making quick stops to see our less-actives. I had the feeling that we should go visit Brother Gaytan, a great member that we've been helping install a garage. We rode up right when his sister pulled in to the driveway. She told us that she was taking him to the hospital. We knocked on the door and he was so relived to see us. He asked for a blessing and explained what had been going on. We promised him everything would be okay. The Spirit was so powerful, Elder Kuewa started to cry during the blessing. After, Brother Gaytan stood up, and with tears in his eyes, thanked us and gave us each a hug and off they raced to the ER. I had a good feeling in my heart are I rode my bike home that night, a feeling that I had done something the Savior would have. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Remember to pray always and look for ways to serve others. The Book of Mormon can bring many blessings to people's lives. Yesterday, we ate at a members house and he had invited a nonmember couple. We shared the First Vision video and offered them both a Book of Mormon. The husband Santos thanked us and was so grateful for what we had taught him. He had a light in his eyes and a desire to learn about the gospel. It reminded me of how we have been told that the Lord's work is hastening. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that he is with us wherever we may go. He know's each of us on a personal level. I'm grateful for Him, His example and His perfect love, and the chance I have to share this knowledge I have with others. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

Pictures... Us at church, my fresh Great Clips haircut, and a picture I found in the family history room.

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Love Elder DeGraw

6265 N 82nd St

Scottsdale, AZ 85250