DC Week 7!

Hello Hello Everybunny!

Well I got the call from President Sunday night about Grandma. I smiled to myself, because as soon as he called with the "bad news..." I knew exactly why he was calling--except it was such good news to me. Oh I shed some tears for sure, but I couldn't help but smile. My companion probably had no clue what was going on on the other line based on my mixed facials, but we had a sweet talk together afterwards as we held hands on our knees just smiling at each other as we silently exclaimed, "Guess what?? She's in the Spirit World!" It really helped to give us the perspective we should have when teaching those fundamentals about the gospel. In fact, the next day, I had the spiritual thought in District Meeting, so I shared some of my feelings about temple work and the joys that come from the knowledge we have, and how to teach this knowledge to investigators. There is a hymn Carly and I sang for our Christmas performance in Rexburg called Oh, What Songs of the Heart (286) about loved ones passed and this great Plan of Happiness. I read some lines from it, as well as those famous verses we read in Malachi about turning the hearts of the children to their fathers. I then talked about striving to have the Spirit of Elijah and to stress the importance of temple work with our recent converts and less actives. It was a sweet little meeting. Anyway oh how we will miss her, but I honestly couldn't have been happier to hear the news. Love you Grandma!
 
This week has been a good one. Monday, we woke up to a thick blanket of snow. No clue where that came from, but everyone's saying the Cherry Blossom Festival is supposed to start next week. We'll see how that goes according to schedule. Mother Nature may have a different idea in mind...

Last week, we had a family of three come into the Visitor Center: sweet couple from Guatemala and their young daughter, Yasmine. I made the assumption that they were members and soon found out they had simply "taken the exit" because they wanted to get a closer look at the "beautiful white building". This wasn't the first time an experience like this has happened to me, but for some reason, it was in that moment that I realized Heavenly Father literally dropped them on my front doorstep. It was in that moment that I realized just how much He trusted me with His children. To teach them what they needed to hear and help them feel what they needed to feel in that very instant.  Suddenly, I felt a responsibility for them...I felt a love for them. I testified of families, and the wonders of going to the temple, and bore my witness that Jesus Christ is my Savior as well as theirs. I knew they felt the Spirit that day. Before they left, I got their information to send them missionaries, and they were very excited about it. God is so good.

Anyway, yesterday, Sister Lawrence and I didn't have a shift at the VC, (which was different) so we had the whole day to proselyte! It was SO awesome!! We did, however, manage to make the mistake of somehow aligning our schedule so we had four consecutive meals in a row. I cannot honestly remember a Thanksgiving or Christmas in all my life that I ever felt so dang full. We grabbed lunch at The Noodle King again--so good, plus we're beginning to make friends with the Chinese gang there, (gave out a couple more pass along cards). Then we decided to have an unplanned visit to Kady Kortu again, (picked up a new investigator there named Abduli, a good friend of Kady's) and she, out of the blue, made us a native meal of hers from Sierra Leone. Can't remember what it was called but it was good. Then we had an actual dinner appointment with the Lemke family from the ward. They've been here since '74 but said they don't remember any Graff's having served here. Anyway, worth a shot. Then to end the night, we had another appointment with Iris and Paul. They had planned on feeding us in addition to the lesson, but we totally forgot. SO...by the time Iris was dishing me up a heaping second of chat curri and goat meat, I was just about ready to POP. But, in all seriousness, Sister Lawrence and I just looked at each other, smiled, and dived in for the fourth time that evening, with an encouraging "whatever-we-can-do-to-build-up-the-Kingdom" look on our faces. I even used the nan bread she had made to soak up/completely wipe clean my plate after our meal. They seemed pleased with our performance, so we proceeded with our lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It went very well, but we have some concerns we want to address next time, mainly the role of the priesthood in baptism. Sister Lawrence and I had anticipated their objection to our invitation to be baptized, knowing that they had "already been baptized".  So we decided to talk about the priesthood first, kind of as a preemptive strike. When I extended our big invitation, they still responded with what we had assumed they would. So I made the big mistake of asking if their church had the priesthood. To which Paul responded in his thick Indian accent, "Yeah, yeah, sure! They had this 'priesthood'". I kind of looked at Sister Lawrence and then we had this, "Oh-oh really?...Oh he did, did he?" moment. Sooo that will definitely take some fixing and I apologized to my companion for it after we left. But at least we know how we are going to side-step THAT landmine next time.

Okay I have rambled on way too long and need to run--we're heading into the city to go the the Zoo! I want to share a quote by President Monson that has helped me a lot this week:               

"The Lord's purposes are often accomplished as we pay heed to the guidance of the Spirit.  I believe that the more we act upon the inspiration and impressions which come to us, the more the Lord will entrust to us...His errands." I love him. I know he is a man of God. Hope you're all getting excited for Conference!
 
Love you all beyond words! Sister Graff

Picture: 
(3/25/13) No one knows why or how...but look how pretty!! :)