A New Year! - Christmas Hike Along Pacifica Cliffs - Christmas Visit From Elder Ronald A Rasband - Juan's Baptism - Individual Fridge Magnet Gifts To Zone

Christmas already?!?! Wow! 2020 is finally at the end. This week has been full of fun things for us! Sorry for not sending an email last week. We had a short pday on Monday and then we had the entire day on Christmas as a pday too. But we were so busy having fun with the Elders so we didn't have time to write an entire email. 

Let's hop right into it shall we? So when I was serving in South San Francisco I was serving with this one elder who's grandpa happens to be Elder Ronald A Rasband. Elder Rasband decided that for the Christmas gift for his grandson he would visit his mission. So we were lucky enough to have Elder Rasband talk to us for about 2 hours. It was unfortunate because if it wasn't for the virus he said he would have been come in person. But a zoom call was more than enough :) He talked mostly about the process of calling missionaries and reassigning missionaries. He said this "Take this as my testimony. The Oakland/San Francisco mission is exactly where you need to be." That got me so good. Sister Westenskow and I both got emotional. We are both reassigned but it was so comforting hearing that from an apostle specifically to me and my mission. It was so special. I'm really thankful to be on the receiving end of his grandson's Christmas gift. 

In other news, we were trying to find a way to spread some Christmas cheer to our whole zone. It's a long story on how we got the inspiration for the gifts we gave each of them but we made each person in our zone into a little clay person and made it a fridge magnet. We also made them all homemade cinnamon rolls because we know that their moms would have made them some on Christmas morning so we were going to be their moms for the day. We drove around the entire peninsula on Christmas eve delivering our gifts. I'll attach photos so you can all enjoy :)

Christmas day was probably one of the most fun days of my life. We woke up and called our families and opened presents with them. After we opened presents we got together with the Spanish and Portuguese elders and went on a little hike along the cliffs in Pacifica. It was BEAUTIFUL. Then we got lunch after at an Indian place. 100% recommend Indian pizza. We went home after that and were bored for about 2 hours before we called the elders and told them that we would be going to play some soccer and volleyball if they happened to be there too we could just play together hahaha! SO FUN!! Another thing I recommend. Christmas just full of laughs, being outside, and good food. Nothing better. 

One more thing! We had a baptism! My first baptism of my mission!! Juanito was originally going to be baptized at Crissy Fields in the ocean by the golden gate bridge. But then he changed his mind the night before and wanted to get baptized in the chapel because it was too cold. These latinos really be thinking 60° is cold. Hilarious. That caused multiple problems for us but we wont get into that :) The baptism was awesome and special for all of us. We are so happy to see Juan make these changes in his life. We are so proud of him. The book is blue and the church is true!!! 

Thank you all for reaching out to me on Christmas. I hope you all had the best Christmas of your life. I'm sure it was one for each of us to remember. :)

See yall next week! 

Hermana Graves

1- the Rasbands <3

2- we made Christmas jeopardy for a zoom district activity haha

3- we literally made 42 cinnamon rolls on Christmas eve. 

4- at service on Christmas eve:))

5-elder Andersen got me superrrrr good chocolate milk for Christmas. A quality human. 

6-for example of what the clay magnets looked like hahaha!

7-christmas eve!!!

8-christmas morning!!

9-hike on Christmas day

10- Brazilian volleyball 

11-a member bought us 3 matching robes...? Elder England loves his. 

12-the baptism:)))

Half Way! - Unforgettable, 0% What I Expected, I Wouldn't Change Anything!

Okay but I just hit 9 months. Half way some with my mission?! Wow! I've only been in the field for about 4 and a half months but I'm half way done! So many things have happened. And I've learned so much! About the gospel, about missionary life, about myself, and a lot of other things too. My mission is exactly 0% what I expected it to be but I wouldn't change it. It has been an unforgettable experience to say the least. I cant wait to see how the rest of my mission experience goes :)

So. I had a traumatic experience the other day. We were picking up dinner from a member and when I was get into the car....I stepped in poop. And what makes it worse is that we are pretty sure it was human poop. Not just one of my shoes. BOTH of them. Kinda sucked. My brand new doc martens. Our car has smelled bad every since. Moral of the story...look where you're stepping. 

We have had a few little miracles this week with finding people. We had 2 people randomly text us asking us to teach them! I don't know how common that is in other places but that has not happened to me very many times where people were trying to find US. We have started to teach them and they are eating it up :) We love teaching people!!

Me and Sister Westenskow bought matching pajamas last pday at goodwill and we wore them during a mission wide kahoot game via zoom. (we didn't win the gift card this time...oof). We got lotssssss of comments about them. Comp unity. 

Yes, we are still in stay at home order. We are just chill at home alllllllll day. But we've come up with something. We go on walks to bakeries. Then we buy pastries and donuts. The goal is to find the best bakery on mission street. If anyone has any suggestions for good bakeries please send them my way so we can try them!!

Okay before I end really fast I have a scripture to share. My girl Sister Lau shared this scripture during a call with a few sisters in the mission. Alma 50:16, "And thus ended the twentieth year". Just a little hope for us all that the twentieth year is almost over ;). We are about to get a fresh start! BUT although this year has been so hard for all of us we should be trying so hard to find the good in 2020. I know that (as weird as it sounds) the pandemic brought blessings to my life.

Love you all :))

Hermana Graves 

 we bought the pjs after we did laundry so...we had to wash them in the shower with shampoo 

the pjs on 

celebrating my 9 months at my FAVORITE san fran restaurant 

the spike in the covid cases in the bay area....yikes. 

I'll Be Home For Christmas - Lockdown

(Special thanks to Shannon for my inspiration for the subject of my email) Hahaha all yall thought I meant I was going back to the bury huh?? Nope. We have just been told that the Bay area (so my entire mission) is going to be on full lockdown until January 4. Stay at home order. So yeah, I'll be home for Christmas...I'll be staying in my home here in San Francisco for at least the next 4 weeks. 

Luckily we had been warned that the stay at home order was going to potentially be put in place. So we've spent the last week trying to get in contact with as many new people as possible before we weren't allowed to go outside again. So we had an idea to make TONS of hot chocolate. We spent a while boiling water and mixing in the powder. We went downtown when it was cold out in the middle of a huge group of people and we put up a sign that said we had free hot chocolate. Turns out everyone wants to talk to you when you are giving away something for free. We got lots of numbers and we met lots of really fun people! It was so successful Saturday night that we did it again on Sunday night!

Nothing really out of the ordinary has happened other than the news of the stay at home order. We have been busy with teaching our friends. It's such a blessing to see the growth of a person and the growth of their faith in God. 

It's going to be interesting seeing how the missionary work moves along here for the next month. 

I'm hoping everyone is taking part in #LightTheWorld! Such a great opportunity to remember the true meaning of Christmas. I've had so much fun finding ways to do service and share my thoughts about the savior during the unique Christmas season. I'm really thankful that the church sends out the little prompts every year to remind me to think of the Savior during Christmas. So everyone should try to participate in the Light the World program this year!! Honestly it can be super fun if you make it fun!! :)

Love you all.

Hermana Graves

1- We happened to buy toilet paper 4 days before the city shut down and all the toilet paper disappeared #Blessings. 

2- here is a picture of me relaxing in a pile of leaves at service

3- Elder Brown. What a guy. We have the best elders here. Constantly making all of us laugh. 

4- us while we boiled pots of hot chocolate for what felt like forever!

5- a cute Polaroid of us at the hot chocolate stand

6- us the first night doing hot chocolate

7- "ran into" SISTER BURCH today in SF!!! Sheesh. I love her. But she's doing so good in Hayward!!

8- got some super burritos. a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. ya know?