Oct 22

Hello everyone,

This week was a true blessing for my companion and I. Lately, we have been struggling to find new people who are interested in our message. But, last Sunday a man came to church with a member. His name is Oscar and he is really nice. He came looking for some guidance in his life and he heard that by living in accordance with our Gospel standards you can receive blessings. Well, he is absolutely right haha.

So we met with him on Monday after pday. And we taught him the Restoration. We gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to pray about Joseph Smith. Then we met with him again on Wednesday. Tuesday, I had exchanges with Elder Briggs, our District Leader. I love being around Elder Briggs. He has become another best friend added to my long list of friends. haha. He really helps me feel the Spirit. He knows how to work really hard, but have a lot of fun while doing it. I learned a lot from him that day. So after exchanges, I mistakenly forgot my wallet in Woodburn, which had my license and my Tiwi card. So Elder Robinson and I got to walk around all day. In total, we walked about 15 miles. We were dead tired by the end of the day but it was all worth it.

We called to cancel our appointment with Oscar because he lives in Stayton, which is a 30 min drive from our house and there was no way we could have walked there. But, he said he found a job here in Salem, and that he would meet us at the chapel to be taught. The Lord blessed us there. We were able to teach him the Plan of Salvation and at the end, he told us he wanted to make it to the Celestial Kingdom. It was so cool!

Thursday was weekly planning and we got a good planning session in. Friday we had a district meeting and also did some more finding. Saturday we were able to meet with Oscar again and teach him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We really emphasized baptism and extended the Baptismal invitation. He said he needs to be baptized, but wanted to pray about it first. He came to church the next day and I asked him how his reading and praying went and he just smiled at us and said, it was really good. We are meeting with him again tonight to set an official baptismal date. When you work hard and just put your trust in the Lord, the Lord will bless you. I truly have a testimony of that. Also, the talk that was given during sacrament meeting may have been the most spiritual talk I have ever heard in my life. It truly hit me deep. Which also shows that the promise made in Ether 12:27 is true when the Lord promises he will make your weak things become strong. I'm not very good with the whole Spanish language thing, but I am able to understand almost everything. 

I was reading and I don't remember where I got this quote, may have been a talk or something but it says this, “After baptism, all members slip off the path—some of us even dive off. Therefore, exercising faith in Jesus Christ, repenting, receiving help from Him, and being forgiven are not one-time events but lifelong processes, processes that are repetitive and iterative. This is how we endure to the end. “ (Elder Dale G. Renlund, "Choose You This Day". October 2018)

We all have the chance to come back. So do it.

I love you all  

Oct 15th

Good day Hermanos and Hermanas. So this week went by pretty fast so I will try and give you a quick update of what happened. 

Monday:  we found this kid named Juan. He was super cool and really open to our message we taught him the Restoration and he accepted another appointment.

Tuesday:  we spent the whole day searching and talking to everyone. It wasn't super successful but I was able to practice my Spanish. 

Wednesday:  We had a book of Mormon class and it was really good to get some less actives there read and share testimonies. Juan dropped us and said he wasn't interested. I think it was his family.

Thursday: we had weekly planning and we had a really good lesson with a new investigator. At first he wasn't open at all. After the lesson, he opened up and allowed us to come back another time.

Friday: we had District Council and it was really good. Elder Briggs is really in tune with the spirit and gives great council. That night we had a Noche De Hogar with the ward. We shared a spiritual thought and then played kickball. It was awesome! 

Saturday: we had correlation and then we found a new desire to teach. 

Sunday: church and finding. We then finished the night with dinner at Alex’s and had a great time. 

That's a wrap on this week. 

If I haven't talked to you in a while, email me! 

I wanna hear from you guys!

Love Elder Graybill 

Oct 8th

Hello everyone! This week was a quick one. Had to say goodbye to Elder Heiner, who has become one of my best friends. I stayed with the Woodburn Elders for Tuesday and Wednesday. We worked hard together and it was a blast. I love Èlder Briggs and Elder Woodruff.

We met a man named Job and we started teaching him. At the end we asked him to pray about what we just taught and he looked at us and said, "I will, and you guys are so full of the Spirit." It was a really cool experience. Then on Thursday, I went up to Newburg and picked up my comp Elder Robinson. We sat through the training meeting and got back and got to work.

Friday we had district meeting, and it was really awesome. Elder Briggs is our new district leader and he brought some new fire. He gave some good ideas to apply to our areas. 

Saturday was conference and we watched the first session with a less active member and they made us breakfast! It was super cool. Then we went and watched the second half with Javi. He has been taking huge steps with re activating himself.

Sunday we stayed at the church like all day. We did our studies, watched conference, and then went and found some new people. 

Cool experience, I dropped a guy who wasn't progressing, but felt a prompting to go back by one last time. So we did, and his son answered and was super interested. 

Hope you all had a good week. 

Oct 1st 2018

The transfer is over, and I am going to train next transfer and I am a little nervous. Anyways, life is going well. We had a lesson with Arturo, a man we are teaching, and it went fairly well. We went in with the plan of teaching the Restoration, but the Spirit lead us to teaching more about the Plan of Salvation and the Family Proclamation. I felt prompted to share Moroni 10:4-5 at the end. He read it out loud and I told him to think about what it meant. We sat in silence for 5 or 6 minutes. He finally answered and said he needs to pray and find out if it is true or not. This is exactly what the message is. He then said "everything that we had talked to him about earlier was going over the top of his head, but after reading that scripture, he felt peace and comfort and that he needed to listen." It was really cool!   We struggled on finding new people. We had 14 lessons set up with people with interest and they all fell through. But we worked with some less actives this week and saw a lot of success. Javier was baptized like 4 years ago, but he hasn't been to Church in like 8 months. And before that it was 2 years. He came this last Sunday and he said he really felt the spirit and wants to keep coming to Church. We also met with another less active and she invited us to keep coming back every Saturday. So this next Saturday we are going to go and watch the first half of general conference with her. Then we will go over to Javier’s and watch the second half with him. Also Elder Heiner is going home along with Elder Beard (my first comp) and Elder Stringham. So that's really sad for us here but happy for them, they've been great missionaries and are ready for the next step in life. Since our area is huge, 2 stakes in size, we had some long drives with nice country side scenery. It's truly amazing how beautiful this Earth is. God has blessed us. 

Today for pday, Elder Heiner and I went to this old school bowling alley, and it was so cool. It's like one of those that you see in the movies. Then we had lunch with the Woodburn Elders. 

That's it for this week! Love y'all 

                                                Members that feed the Elders are the best

                                                   Dogs...You love em or hate em

                      Keizer Elders Graybill and Heiner. Heiner is going home this week to Ogden, Utah

Sept 24th

This week went by and I don't remember really anything. 

Monday: we did that hike and then just walked around and tried to contact people. 

Tuesday: more contacting and then I started a exchange with the Disrtrict Leaders trainee. His name is Elder Woodruff and he is from Arizona. He is super cool and is doing well.

Wednesday: Elder Woodruff and I had a very successful day. We taught a lesson and she wants to learn more. And not just that, apparently there is 7 of them who want to learn! The Lord blessed us with that family find.

Thursday: we had zone conference and received some good things from President. He really got everyone excited 

Friday: we did more finding trying to get more people to teach. 

Saturday: we had a ward party and The lady we are teaching came with all 7 people. They had a great time. I was super happy to see them there getting to know everyone in the ward. We plan to really get the ward involved with them this week. 

Sunday: we had church of course, and that was nice being able to take the sacrament. Marta didn't show up but her parents did come and they enjoyed it! They want to keep coming back. Fun fact, Martas dad and a member know each other and the member has been inviting him for years, but he never has come. When they saw each other at church, Martas dad said it was a "sign from God" that he met us and then came to the church his friend had referred him to. Super cool experience!

Today we've just hung with the district and bowling. 

I love all you and hope you have a good week. Remember to do something nice for a family member or friend 

Elder Graybill sorry the pics are blurry 

Sept 17th

So I have bad news for you all. Christian was not baptized. He wants to wait and check out other congregations and see if there is a better fit. 

We are staying in contact with him and sending him scriptures. He knows this church is true but is just a little nervous that's all. We have the faith that he will be baptised soon. But more prayers are better, so if you all could pray for Christian, that would be great!

I went on exchanges with our District Leader Elder Stringham. It was super awesome. He is a super cool Elder and I learned a lot. He works really hard but very smart. Every event is well thought out and pondered. 

We did a lot of finding for future people who have interest. This week we will be focusing on getting them lessons taught. One of them is named Marta and she is super cool. She is showing interest in the Book of Mormon and wants to know where it came from. 

My scripture from this week is Alma 32: 21 and 27

21 And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true

27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words

Today we did a super cool hike to a waterfall and took some cool pictures.

I love all you. Hope you have a good week