Villa Agricola 11 - Maireny

Villa Agricola 11 - L. Tom Perry, Maireny, little Ilan

First off, my heart and prayers go out to L. Tom Perry and his family. It really surprised me to hear of his death but I know that God has a purpose to everything and he really was one of the most influential apostles for me, especially how he always knuckle bumped people and always had on the biggest smile.

But life is great. Maireny passed her interview with President Corbitt this last Tuesday and he should be coming to her baptism this Saturday which we`re pretty excited about. He even asked us afterward about our ward mission leader, Juan Carlos.  He wondered if Juan Carlos and Maireny were both single. We said "yes", and as they both walked out the door (with Maireny's crazy little kid kicking and screaming), President Corbitt winked at us. It was hands down one of the funniest moments of my mission. But she`s so happy and we`re definitely going to try and have a lot of people there from the ward and her family supporting her.

 The "Boca Chica Boys" reunited, Baby!

We got transfer calls last night and I`m staying here in Villa Agricolas with Elder Maatatia which made me even more happy! I was hoping I could get another month and a half here at least so needless to say I'm super excited to get to work with this awesome branch for a while longer. The members are doing great work and really bringing a lot of their friends to the activities which makes life so much easier and better for us as missionaries.

We also got the privilege to hear from Elder Zivic from the Quorum of the Seventy on Friday. It was a really great experience. Really prepared and made especially for our mission. He had some great advice that we`re definitely going to try and use here in our area. I also got to see a lot of missionaries I hadn`t in a while and if I have time. I'll send a lot of photos with them if I can. 

 

We had the baptism of little Ilan in our ward Sunday and I got the honor to do the confirmation. Super close with their family and he`s gonna be a great missionary someday. 

 

Everything else is pretty normal, teaching great people and trying to get more people to come closer to Christ. But I do have a pretty crazy experience I want to share (I usually don`t share all the dangerous ones out of respect to my mother, haha). But I`m going to share this one...sorry mom:

On Saturday, we were teaching a reference named Jolfan at a "colmado", or really TINY supermarkets that are scattered all over this country. It was our second lesson with him.  Just to set up the scenery, which will be really important in a few seconds, its a place full of vegetables, eggs, and other delicate items that definitely aren`t the best to have around when there`s a fist fight going on. But anyways, two BIG Dominican girls walk in, about 20 years old, and they want to buy something. So Jolfan goes over to help them out and we`re about 5 feet from them. We`re just waiting for him to get done so we can keep teaching him the lesson, when the two girls start arguing about one of them owing the other money. They start getting pretty aggressive and begin to push each other. We both get up to try and get them to stop when they start going at it. One of the girls throws an uppercut and they girl goes flying back onto the table full of vegetables and knocks over a huge pile of eggs. They get up, start grabbing hair and going at it. Elder Maatatia, Jolfan and I are trying to break them up, but if you have ever seen a Dominican chick fight it is NOT pretty. After about 2 minutes of flying fists and super-fast Spanish yelling we finally -with about 7 other guys-get this fight broken up. They both walk out and we think it`s over. We all sit down to resume teaching when we hear SCREAMING outside. We run out to one of the girls has a machete and the other one is swinging around a 4x2. Everyone in the neighborhood by this time is there and people are trying to stop the girl with the machete but she`s swinging it around like a wild man. She`s now running at the other girl with the 4x2 and swings the machete. But her mom steps in and tries to grab the machete. Its not so easy to just grab a machete. She gets her hand pretty messed up and a couple guys finally tackle the woman and get the whole thing settled down. We made sure the mom was getting medical attention, the cops came and we left.

Definitely one of the crazier fight stories I have in this country. But we`re both safe and don`t have machete wounds - so everything's OK:)

 

But I really am loving the mission and happy I get to stay here one more transfer.

Shout out to both of my cousins -- Michael and McKay Graff --who by the time this day is over will both have returned honorably from their missions. I love you guys a lot and hope you don't have too much fun without me!

Until next week,

Elder Graff

D&C 84:88 "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up."

I got a picture finally of the painting I'm in love with.