Elder Austin Graham - August 8 Letter

August 8, 2007

Hi everyone,

Estee and Lee, your baby looks awesome. I love the name. I wish I could us it, but that would not work very well. Graham Graham. NOPE. Maybe I will use Rags. Rags Graham. That sounds good. Well, I am so happy for you and wish I could be there to hold the little bugger.

I hope the reunions were a blast, whoever went.

So yes, President Ashton is staying until September. The other President is named Middleton. It is a real blessing to have President Ashton. He is one of the best examples for me and how I want to be, besides you dad.

That story of William Walker is what gave me the idea of going and doing that (going to the high bluff overlooking the city and praying for divine intervention). We really did rededicate the area. It really does work, because the Lord is really blessing us with people to teach. When and if you all come up here, we will definitely go to this look out place. It is beautiful.

We have not been able to meet with the other pastor again. But we are being very careful. I know that the only thing that will change his heart is the spirit. But he is going to have to be humble. In the end, all we can do is testify of the truth. As for other churches, it is really interesting to see, and it really does make you thankful for what you have. I love the restored and the fullness of the gospel. It is true.

I am allowed to drive. That story is just that I had a bad feeling about driving home that day. But I am the one who is driving everywhere. My comp got a ticket, and doesn’t want to drive, so I do, and I can. I am being more and more careful. It is funny how the mission changes you.

The Pow Wow was really fun. It was not as big as everyone said it was going to be. It is supposed to be the biggest, but there were a lot of them all over up here, so it was smaller. But it was still really fun. I got some video of it. I will send to you all when I can. It is really awesome.

Grandma, thank you so much for the recorder. I am having a lot of fun with it. I am going to record some of our lessons and it will be a great tool to help us learn what we need to do better. Thank you so much. I love you.

Well, on with what happened this week.

We went down to the island again. On Friday, we were really having a bad day. We were talking to people all morning and stopping by people but we were just not having much success. It was worse than a usual bad day. It was really bad and we were both getting very frustrated with the people and the members. We went in for brake and prayed that the Lord would help us and that we would not be frustrated. We showed the Lord that we had faith and went back out. God will come through for you EVERY TIME! He loves us. Let me tell you. He really does. He sometimes is just trying to teach us. I relearned a great lesson that day; you can’t do God’s work without God. He blessed us with some wonderful contacts on the street. We still didn’t teach, but God lightened our load. If you will ask him, he will make the trials of your faith easier. He won’t take them away, but he will help you learn from them and grow. With every trial, there is a lesson to be learned.

I have another great lesson that has to do with following the spirit. We were driving around on Monday and on our way to someone’s house, when I had a bad feeling, and I have learned that you really need to pay attention when that happens. I very quickly pulled over to the side of the road and told my companion, "I need to pray". I asked him what he wanted me to do. We continued on our drive. We passed one of the part member family’s houses. The Fishers. She is a LA and RC. Robert has got himself deep into Anti. He was going to be baptized but read too much stuff on the internet and now thinks that Joseph Smith was a fraud and that he was trying to manipulate people. I felt that we were supposed to visit them. I quickly flipped a U turn and drove to their house. We walked around the back of the house and all of the sudden you could feel that something was wrong. The spirit left and we both felt really dark. They were all on the back porch. Robert was sitting with his hands to his face and Stef was trying to comfort him. He really looked bad. Stef went inside and we began to talk with Rob. We asked him if he had read the scriptures that we had left him. He began to get into all the new anti that he had found. The devil was at work. We quickly finished our conversation and left. Now why were we supposed to go there? We were supposed to learn how anti is spiritual poison. It really is. Don’t play with it. It is bad stuff. We prayed for Robert. He looked so miserable. It is really sad.

But we have had some great success. We have two new families. They are not golden, but if they will allow the spirit to teach them, they will be awesome. The first is Sandy and her 3 kids. Right now she is just out to prove it wrong, but if she prays, we all know what will happen.

The other is Jerry and her 2 kids. The first thing that she said to me on the street was that “Jesus doesn’t love me”. We asked for her number and asked her if we could come and share a message about a prophet and the restoration. When we showed up at her house, she said she thought we were going to call. She was going to tell us that she was not interested. But when we started to teach her about faith and prayer, she really stared to get interested. We gave her a Book of Mormon and asked her to pray. It was a really strong lesson. She has had some hard times with religion and has really been turned off by other churches, but she likes us and is willing to try.

It was a great week. I am really sorry it is so short, but I have to go. Mom, I can’t come back until next Wednesday. Sorry.

I love you all and pray that everything is well.


Love,

Elder Graham