Week 51 - May 30, 2016 One year older and wiser too!!!

Hey there hey!!

My dearest readers, I just want to say thank you so much for all your love and support!! 

You are the besets! I will be hitting my one year mark and 20th Birthday this Friday!! 

Yay!!

HAPPY YEAR MARK ERRBODY!!!!!

I have been transferred from Bezi to Toliatti. I will be serving with Sister Miller. 

I heard she is just the pal. Can't Wait! I leave tomorrow morning. 

Sorry no time again! Love ya !!!!!

A year into the mission and 7 planners in. Never made my own planner.

​My super messy desk. My life for the past 6 months....

We had a great training for district meeting about teaching with love. 

It seemed to have been a theme for me this past week. I feel like I have hit that point 

in my mission where I have already developed the habits of missionary life 

and can finally work on refining my teaching skills. Something that hit me really hard 

is just really teaching with love. When we teach with love, we'll teach with the Spirit. 

The beautiful sisters and I on our way back from 

District Conference in Samara!

We'll say the things that will touch their hearts because we truly love 

and desire their salvation. I think it is very unlikely that the Spirit is able to 

testify strongly enough to bring the messages to the hearts of the listeners if the speaker 

has no love for them in the first place. It is impossible to have that kind of love 

for someone you just met without help from our Savior. We need to have charity. 

There is no way to love fully enough without praying to God for that gift 

like Moroni suggests with "all energy of heart." I have felt that love the past two weeks 

and I felt that kind of love manifest when we were teaching our investigator Regina. 

We went over the whole plan of Salvation lesson and after a long discussion, she just said, 

"I don't know why but something inside of me just can't accept this to be true. 

It's not going to be like that (pointing to the pictures Sister Schwab made of the plan)." 

My heart just sunk. We've lost her, I thought. There were moments where I lost 

my patience with her in the lesson, she's 19 and pretty stubborn haha, 

but once I just tried focusing on teaching with love, we were able to commit 

to reading the Book of Mormon each day and try and find out different ways to feel 

God's presence and love.

 I loved my time in Bezi. I am grateful for every cycle, every month, 

and every week I spent here. It was definitely challenging at times, 

but I have learned a lot. I love the members here. So blessed to have known them. 

We are just so lucky to be able to meet there long lost friends. 

I already can't wait to come back with my loved ones to meet all these great people.

When you don't have anyone else in the room to take a photo, 

you end up getting a super awkward angle. . . 

-- 

Much love, 

Cectpa Graham