Grandma & Grandpa - Dec 29

Dear Elder Grandson,

We really enjoyed seeing you on Christmas.  I love the technology of today so that we can talk to each other so easily.  You looked great. It was so much fun to see how Myka would look at you and wave.  She knew who you were and will know you when she sees you in person.

We had a very nice, fun Christmas. It was so nice to have the family home at one time. We missed you but know you are where you are suppose to be. 

The radar shows that the snow is getting pretty close to you. Your temps are just a bit to high.  The only time I want to see snow is Christmas Eve and that time has passed. I have taken all the Christmas decorations and can't wait till 12 months to do it again! Laugh!! 

Grandpa said to enjoy this email cause you won't hear from us till next year. Ha, Ha!

Well, things are hopefully going to slow down now.  I have been taking a family search class at church and today I just got into finding some new stuff and we had to stop. I guess I will go down on Wednesday and someone can help me put some names in.  It has been so long since I have done this and you wouldn't believe how it has changed.  They say it is easier but it is hard for this old dog to learn new tricks.

I hope things will pick up for you with investigators.  We are praying for you and know you will be guided to those ready to hear the gospel.

Keep up the good work and don't get discouraged.

We love and miss you.

Grandpa & Grandma

P.S. I will send some pictures from my Ipad.

Dec 29

Elder Feidler 

We had a great Christmas!  Especially since we got to see/Skype you. I think Myka might have started to get to know you. 

Earlier in the week we went to Grandma and Grandpa's for an early Christmas. We ate Italian food then we opened gifts at their house. Lots of fun and yummy food!

 We even played a game were you try to open a gift with hot mitts on.

Then we also had presents at our house. Chelle got pretty earrings, Zack got a small quad copter, Maddie got a hair dryer and I got a small quad copter too.

We have already taken down the lights and all decorations. See me doing all the work!  Lol

Next time we put up lights you can help!

Today was a good Sunday at church. I got to spend the last hour in nursery with Myka.

We will meet for church at 8am next week the the following week we will have a special Stake Conference where some changes are expected to be made. Two weeks and we will know what's up. 

That's about it here. Keep working hard. You have the experience and we have faith you will make this a great last few months of your mission. 

We love and miss you lots!  Have a great New Year!

Love Dad!!

Graham:

Family,

After we finished skyping we ate some prime rib and played monopoly. I won in monopoly :) The Zucati's, the family we were at, are less active and had some alcohol at the party. They didn't drink while we were there but all of their family that joined them did. Then Friday we planned for the next week and updated our paperwork. We had a great lesson with a guy named David. He's a talker! We introduced the Book of Mormon and he said he would read it. We are going back tonight to follow up and read some with him. Friday our mission also had a car fast so we were on foot that day. We also met up with a former investigator that would like to take lessons again. Right before we walked out he handed us a big slab of prime rib. Last night Br. Grant smoked it for us :) The former investigator, Russ, was in the military and has PTSD from it. He's working to get more disability money too.

Saturday we went on an exchange with the Monroe elders. We also went to the Housing Hope service project and put in 3 more hours. We had to bleach the framing that had grown black mold on it. It was fun until the bleach fumes started getting to me. We tried to contact one of our potentials that night but found out he's in Seattle for a month at an addiction recovery program. That was way exciting to hear. He told us to swing by at the end of January and that he'd love to learn more. We didn't get back to our apartment that night until 10:30p because my companion and another missionary had a 2 hour conversation. Then yesterday we had Bailey the 16 year old kid at church. He is not too talkative to the other kids his age so we are trying to figure out what to do there. He is reading the Book of Mormon though :)

After church we went to a mission fireside with Jessica and our ward mission leader Br. Schwartz. Even though I didn't understand half of what was said because it was in Spanish, it was very spiritual. Jessica really enjoyed it especially since she missed church. Later on last night my companion was on the phone with the zone leaders accounting for our week. He told them that I was having a hard time spiritually and wasn't sure how converted to the gospel I was. After the phone call I asked him about it and we ended up being awake until midnight talking. I told him I felt like I was doing fine and wasn't sure what he was talking about. He told me that at times I'm very excited to do the work but then at other times I don't seem to care. He told me he was having a hard time trusting me because of things he had heard from earlier on in my mission. For weeks I had made it a goal to have more communication in our companionship and it just wasn't happening. I mentioned that I'm way excited to do the work and shared my testimony with him. Then I thought of why I wasn't so excited at times or gave the impression that I didn't care. I felt like I had been leading our conversations and our lessons and that he would just sit there in silence during comp study thinking in his head but not sharing anything. So I had made it a personal goal to not lead us and to let him make the overall decisions as a senior companion. He apparently didn't like that. Also at times I will have something that reminds me of home, of Nana, of high school, and fall into a depression. I'm not really sure what to do to gain his trust or to get along better.

This week we have lots of lessons scheduled and have interviews with president on Friday.

I love and miss ya'll,

Elder Graham Feidler

Dad:

Elder Feidler,

Thanks for the letter!  Just remember to pray and ask for guidance.  Open communication is very important.  If you would like for him to take more of a lead ask him to.  Then watch what he does and ask him what you can do better.  We can all learn from someone.  Be excited to learn what you can from each companion.  Don't think and worry too much about home.  You only have a short period left on your mission so dedicate yourself 100% and make it great! 

I think you are not alone.  Every companionship has struggles. I remember having junior companions that wanted to run the show or work at a faster pace than I was used to. I would just try to work at their pace and we had a lot of success. It won't be easy but it will be worth it. Tell him you want to learn from him. I don't know that you had the most compatible trainer in the beginning. 

I think you are doing a great job!  Remember the Lord will make up for any short comings. I was never a scriptorian and still am not.  But it didn't stop me from being excited about the work and being successful.

We will pray for you and the comp and your investigators!  We love you and are proud of the work you are doing.

Dad,

PS  Bring it up with the Mission President at interviews on Friday.

Graham: Thank you Dad.

Dad: Love you!  You are the man!!  Remember to try new things and smile!  Its hard to be depressed while smiling J.  We are extremely blessed here at home and I'm sure that part of it is because of the work you are doing.  It's a pleasure to support you on your mission.

Grandma & Grandpa - Dec 22

Dear Elder Grandson,

Christmas week is here. We are looking forward to seeing/talking to you on Christmas Day, if we can.  I can't believe Christmas has come so fast. With my back problems this year I have made it not so stressful. I did get the Christmas decorations up and we are going to the Italian place to eat and come back here for desserts.  Presents are all done and I have to make a cake and brownies tomorrow.  I just finished up with all the candy I usually make. Sorry we didn't get any mailed to you.

We hope you had a good week last week and this week will be a good one with the Christmas spirit in the air.  One week until the baptism. It is still on, right?

It was getting down to the wire where the missionaries here were going on Christmas but people signed up today.  I would have stayed home and cooked if they didn't have somewhere to go. Do you have a place to go and eat on Christmas Day? We may go over the your house and be there when you call. We really don't have any plans because we are having our family Christmas this Tuesday. Maybe next year you will be here too. All our grandkids are growing up and wanting to do their own thing.

Grandpa had to put in a new water heater this past week. The old one leaked gas.  It took him and our neighbor two and a half days.  Nothing matched up with the old heater. He made 5 trips to Lowes for pipes and fittings.  It was a mess.

Well, this is going to be short.  All is well here. We hope you have a Merry Christmas and get fed lots of good food and candy. We must all remember the Savior and what he did for us and all the blessing we are receiving because of his love for us.  We love the Savior and are thankful the church was restored so we can have a prophet to lead and guide us in this life.

May you be blessed in all you do.

We love you lots,

Grandpa & Grandma

Dec 22

Hi,

Christmas is near!   This year will soon be over. Please let us know what time you will be calling Christmas Day.  We should be home and Grandma & Grandpa may come over. Are you ready for Christmas?  How has this past week been for you?  Any investigators out to church today?  I hope so!!!  

We got a tag off the giving tree and got pajamas for someone in need. Yesterday a family in our ward was selling empenadas to try and make extra money for Christmas so we bought $10 worth of them. Yummy and super Mexican flavored. 

Spread the Christmas spirit!!

I found out this week that Santa's sleigh (Mini convertible). will fit a 55" TV. It was a good deal and for the whole family. UHDTV 4k resolution.

Monday night Maddie performed in the school Christmas concert. It was really good!

Zack's been playing with the new TV, wirelessly sending signal to it like it's his own screen.

Chelle's been busy making a collage wall with pictures and stuff. Here she is laying it out. Will send pics when it's done. 

One trip to Hobby Lobby and I decided to get in on the fun. Here are my new cinema letters. But I couldn't find a letter "I". So I called around and found out they didn't make that letter!  I had to make one myself out of the metal from some old license plates. 

Then the sickness hit!  Myka was running a high 103.8 fever. We took her to the doctor and she tested positive for the flu. The next day Chelle had a fever too! Now they are both taking Tamiflu medication. No fever today, but they stayed home from church just in case they were contagious.  You need to be fever free for 24 hours to not be contagious.

So it's been a good and a rough week here. But they are on the mend. When is your mission Christmas party?  Have you got a place to eat Christmas day??

Keep spreading the good news and remember to smile!  I was reading a blog of your previous companion Raburn and it was pretty funny.  Like the drunk guy saying you were a beautiful son of God.   

So keep it up and stay beautiful. We are praying for you. 

Love,

Dad

Graham:

Family! I will be skyping / facetiming home around 2:30 my time 4:30 yours. Jessica is sadly not on date any more. Christmas mission get together was today. I was the wiseman in the mission program.

Love and miss yall

Raburn Blog - Dec 16

This is an excerpt from Elder Raburn's blog when Graham was his companion on Whitby Island back in June.

"Well, with the great experiences that I had last week why would I stop? This week I will only tell you about one. Carter. Carter is crazy. We met Carter on the same street that me met those other people last week. That street is just great. Anyway. We were walking by and this guy walks out of the bar and he just starts yelling at us. Elder Feidler starts like booking it down the street! Haha. I just could not stop laughing because when the  guy yelled it was quite loud and a little scary. But it was so funny. Anyway, after Feidler came to his senses Carter yelled back at us to come back and said he wouldn't scare us anymore, so I walked up to him and Feidler slowly followed behind me. I approached this little fence looking that was creating a little back patio for the bar and we were just talking to him over it. He started asking questions with the stench of alcohol present. "What do you guys teach...' he paused for a couple of seconds, so I assumed that this was my queue to start talking, "We teach about the Savior and how he..." "DO NOT FINISH MY SENTENCES!" I jumped like 3 feet, he scared me so badly. Then he would calm down. "I was going to say what do you teach about being drunk and being an alcoholic." So the conversation progressed, Elder Feidler was way quiet for a bit. So then Carter looked at him, pointed and said, "Where did you come from?" Elder Feidler looked all confident and said "We believe we came from God." Carter stared at him blankly and then yelled, "AN ACTUAL LOCATION WOULD BE APPRECIATED AT THIS TIME, THANK YOU." Bless Elder Feidler's heart. He was trying his best. Then later on he asked us to tell him about why we were here. I then started to tell him our purpose as missionaries, he of course interrupted. "You need to shut up. Look at this face" Pointing at Elder Feidler's confused face "This man right here. He. HE. HE IS A BEAUTIFUL SON OF GOD. You. You are not." Haha. Wow. Why do drunk people love Elder Feidler so much? I wish they had those same feelings for me. But I guess I have some time to build that kind of relationship with them."

Pictures from Sister Grant - Dec 15

Hello,

I took these pictures of Elder Egan and Elder Feidler at church after taking pictures for the YW Evening of Excellence.  They asked me to forward them to you.

Best regards,

Donya Grant

Woods Creek Ward

Monroe, WA

Grandma & Grandpa - Dec 15

Dear Elder Grandson,

Wow, less than two weeks 'til Christmas. I am not ready.  I need to work hard this week. Candy to make, shopping to do, decide where we will eat and desserts to make. It wears me out thinking about it.

Well, last week's email got sent back to us.  I resent it during the week so you will have two emails to read this week.

We did go to Houston on Monday and got a letter made up for the USMC to try to get you a grant.  The meeting was Tuesday night and not enough people showed up to hold the meeting so I guess it will have to wait until next month.  I don't think that will be a problem.

All we did this week was partying and going to Houston to doctors. We went Monday and Tuesday they call for me to come over for some more tests. We went on Wednesday and after further testing everything was okay, no cancer.  It was a scare but it all turned out okay.  We had fun with Myka and Zack both days. We did get to see Maddie on Wednesday but we didn't stay long. You can't believe how much they have matured in two years.  I will try to send some pictures from my Ipad.

We are sending a card to you on Monday. Don't open until Christmas! Hah, I bet you won't wait.

Well, not much going on. We are all fine as we can be.

Glad to hear you have some people to teach. We hope and pray they become real investigators.  Keep up the good work.

We love and miss you,

Grandpa & Grandma

Dec 15

Dad:

Elder Feidler,

Hi from Texas!!  It's been a busy week here.  Grandma & Grandpa came over to visit.  Here they are playing outside. (Zack is shy) It's been pretty warm this week.

I had my work Christmas party this week at a Mexican restaurant in Houston.

Saturday we had a ward Christmas breakfast party.  I cooked about 60 pancakes. It was good. 

So a couple of parties made for a fun week. 

Chelle has been getting crafty. Myka likes to watch. 

Here she is trying to figure out a wall collage. 

 Exciting news!  Josh Engle got his mission call to California San Fernando Mission. Speaking Spanish. He leaves on March 11th. You will miss him by less than a month. 

Here he is when he found out. And a map.

Church was good here today. Hope you are having a great week. We sent a Christmas package that was delivered to the mission office this week. There are some baked goods in it too. So Chelle may call the office and see if they can open it and give you those items now. 

I hope you're having good weather and great success. Wish everyone a Merry Christmas! And teach lots. 

I completed your financial aid application for FASFA.  Time is flying by. We miss and love you lots!  Keep working hard. And remember to have fun too. 

Love Dad

Graham:

It's been a happy week! We were able to teach Bailey, the employee that the Mitchell's brought to the Christmas dinner! The lesson went great and he came to church. While at church he introduced himself to the Priesthood by saying his name and that he wanted to be a Mormon and get baptized! GOLDEN CHRISTMAS GIFT! Also this week we met with Rick and Beth who read the Book of Mormon more after our last lesson and were super excited because their atheist daughter was invited to a Mormon dance. Today we have service for a non member family that we have been slowly working with! Jessica is still on for baptism December 27th at 3pm.

That's way exciting to hear about Josh! I can't wait to hear his experiences. Both you and Bishop look like you're doing great! Yummy pancakes! I think church might soon have electric guitars in our hymns. Around 5:35 in this video,

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormon-tabernacle-choir-santino-fontana-headline-pioneer-day-concerts

We are very excited for this week! Love and miss ya'll,

Elder Graham Feidler

Dad: Great!  I got some good pics of you and your companion yesterday from Donya Grant.  Tell her thanks.  Make it a great week!!

Grandma & Grandpa - Dec 7

Dear Elder Grandson,

How was your week? We hope you had a great one and found a lot of investigators to teach. We pray for you and your companion so listen to the Spirit to guide you.  You will find them.

This past week was a busy but an uneventful week.  We went to  three parties and the doctor.  December is our doctor month.  I have one in Houston tomorrow.  I finally heard from the doctor friend in San Antonio Thursday night late and he said he didn't want to do surgery on my back.  He wants me to see a pain doctor.  So I am trying to get into the one that Grandpa goes to.  The pain is not as bad in my back but it is still there and goes down my leg.  I guess I will learn to live with it like I did 23 years ago after a car accident. 

We are going to your house tomorrow and going to work with your dad on some paper work to try to get you a grant for school with the local Marine Corps League.  We'll let you know if we need anything from you.  I have all the paperwork from the grant from the Disabled Vets that you got last time. We can't believe you won't be home long after your mission till you leave for Idaho.  You are an adult now with your own life to live.  It is hard to believe sometimes but all of our grandkids are growing up so fast.

We are going to have the Feidler Christmas here at our house on the 23rd.  It is a Tuesday but wanted it closer to Christmas. What would you like to have this Christmas?  We don't want to send anything that will make it hard to move on your last transfer.  Give us some suggestions.

It looks like you have rain all this week.  So glad you are in a car. Be careful!

We love and miss you. Keep working hard, you will be blessed.  Hope the baptism is still on for the end of the month.

Love,

Grandpa & Grandma

Dec 7

Dad:

Elder Feidler 

I hope you have had a great week!   You are not missing much here. Just another week of work and work. This coming week is my work Christmas lunch at a Mexican food place. I'm looking forward to that. Today was a good day at church. Myka plays at our feet during sacrament and we are just happy.

Zack and Maddie are with your mom this weekend. 

I bought 22 cars yesterday. They were all Minis!  

I don't think we will be driving them.  I bet Zack and Maddie wish we could. The jeep has been having problems. A week ago the starter quit working so they have been push starting it everyday.  Then Friday Zack left the fog lights on all day and the battery was completely dead. We had to jump start and charge it for a while in the school parking lot and then push start it. The new charger should be here on Tuesday. 

Looks like your package finally made it to you after a week and a half!  Was supposed to be a two day delivery. 

Is there anything you need for Christmas?  We have no idea what to get you. You will be home 3 months and a couple of weeks after it. 

I plan to drive out with you to college and fly back home. Does that sound ok?  

Keep working hard and teach with the spirit!  Work with the ward council to get the members involved. We have a ward Christmas breakfast this coming Saturday. Last night we went to President Scott's house for their daughter's mission farewell. They have one leaving for Brazil and in February one is coming home. Crazy how many people are out on missions. 

We love and miss you lots!

Love, 

Dad

Graham:

Family,

What a great past week it has been! We have lessons set up with 4 new potentials this week that we met last week. Jessica is holding strong at 11 days not smoking. We had a ward Christmas dinner / program Saturday night. Jessica invited her parent and they brought her. It was a huge step for them because they aren't too religious. They had a great time and are way proud of Jessica for no longer smoking. One of the members brought one of their employees. He's a Jr in high school. Half way through the show he asked the member how he can become a Mormon. Right after the show the member brought him up to us and we now have a lesson set up with him this week. We taught 2 other new people last week but aren't counting them as investigators until we teach some more lessons to them. It's a new rule our mission president started, to make our lesson-to-baptism ratio look better to the missionary department. Also at the Christmas dinner we had 4 less active families come and one of our recent converts brought her parents who have been anti towards the church. They loved the Christmas dinner and the members of the ward suffocated them with fellowship! :)

The new Wal-Mart in town opened Wednesday. We ran inside for lunch to check it out. When we checked out at the top of our receipt was Br. Albuagh' name because he's the store manager. It's been crazy busy there and every night there are search lights in the sky for the new Wal-Mart.

Tomorrow we are spending most of the day at a conference with a seventy Elder Cardon. Should be good! We also might get our new car tomorrow. 215 Ford Fusion! Spoiled missionaries... I know. haha

Christmas List:

stuff for college?

Give your ward missionaries a gift card to a restaurant?

Ask them who is struggling this year and can't afford presents for their families?

I don't need anything else for my mission. My Shoes are pretty badly worn but they will hold together until April. I don't want to ruin another pair of shoes before I go home.

Hope this list helps.

Love and miss ya'll

Elder Graham Feidler

Grandma & Grandpa - Dec 1

Dear Elder Grandson,
We hope your Thanksgiving was a great one with lots of food and fellowshipping. We missed you and know you will be with us next year.
We went to your house and had a wonderful time with your family (except for Maddie) and Chelle's family and ate lots of good food. It was a nice day with beautiful weather. I didn't take any pictures either, darn it.
We stayed home all week waiting for the doctor in San Antonio to call and he never did. If he doesn't call tomorrow I am checking on doctors in Houston.  I am not any better and don't like taking all this medicine.  Grandpa is now hurting in the same areas of the back, rear end and leg. He had our home teacher and missionaries come today and give us each a blessing.  We need to get better for the holidays. I guess that old saying "getting older isn't fun" is true.
We are praying that things get better there for you in finding new investigators. We must need to pray harder and don't forget to have faith.
Is Tuesday transfer day? Are you ready to be transferred? We pray you will be in a car for the winter months.
All for now. We love you lots. Keep up the good work.
Grandpa & Grandma

Dec 1

Dad:
Elder Feidler,

I hope you had a great P-Day / Thanksgiving day.  We had Chelle's family and Grandma & Grandpa over at our house.  Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures even after Grandpa reminded me to take pictures to show you......sorry.

We had plenty to eat and it was yummy.  I kept trying to get Grandma out of the kitchen because her back was hurting and she couldn't stop helping!

Grandpa made me a present.  He made a heavy steel stand for the anvil he built for me.  It is solid and works great.

Zack had to go to work at 4PM on Thanksgiving day when they opened at Old Navy. Everything was 50% off.

He got a free T Shirt. I went to Old Navy and bought Chelle some clothes.  The weather has been awesome here.  Today its about 75 degrees and sunny.  Yesterday we took Myka to the park and it was fun.

Yesterday was also American Express Small Business Saturday.  We registered both of our cards and got $10 worth of free stuff at 5 places! 

Here is Maddie and me using a $10 credit at a local Italian food place. We had wood fire oven cooked pizza.

We also got the outside Christmas lights installed on the house and Chelle & Myka got our tree up inside the house.

So it has been a great week here.  Wednesday night when Grandma & Grandpa spent the night Myka woke up around midnight and started screaming!  We could not get her to stop crying. We even tried the iPad which she loves and usually distracts her forever. Finally we woke Grandpa and he helped me with a blessing that we gave Myka.  Within a few minutes she calmed down and was able to be put back to bed.  We are certainly blessed by the Priesthood in our home.  Remember to take that blessing and share it with those you come in contact with.

 I hope your investigators made it to church.  Good luck with the ward Christmas party.  Will it happen before or after transfers?  Do you think you will be transferred next time?

Keep drinking milk.  The Eggo waffles here at home all become frost bitten in the freezer because no one was eating them.  I guess we won't need them anymore.

We love and miss you lots!  Any thing you want for Christmas? 

Here is what I looked like at Christmas oh so many years ago when I was a missionary.

Make it a great week!!!!

Love,

Dad

Graham:
Dad and family,

It's been so cold here lately. Woke up today and it was 19 outside. This is what happened...

SNOW! Thankfully it didn't stick to most of the roads.

Later on this same day we had some extra miles so we drove out to a part of our area that we had never been to. It was 12 miles from our house.

Our little red Toyota survived the drive to nowhere and back. We spent all of this day knocking on doors and met some really friendly people and some not so friendly people. Sadly we found no new investigators but hopefully those who took our handouts will have softened heart and want to learn more.

Also this week Jessica, our progressing investigator, stopped smoking on Thanksgiving day! She also is reading through the Book of Mormon and is doing fantastic in her progression.We are all so very excited for her baptismal date coming up Dec. 27th.

Yesterday Elder Egan, Br. Schwartz (Ward Mission Leader) and I were able to give talks in Sacrament. It had been a while since I had given a talk in Sacrament! I found it difficult to hear myself talk for 15 minutes and have no involvement of the audience.

​

Also towards the end of this last week we have had some interesting conversations with people we knocked into. We were knocking doors in the farm (our only real neighborhood in the area). It was getting late, 8pm'ish and we can't go in until 9pm. We decided to knock because we had no other visits to make. Knocking this late when it gets dark at 5pm is iffy sometimes. We make sure to only knock on doors that still have lights on. After knocking on several doors and having some alright contacts, a lady walked up to us and asked us why we were scaring people by knocking on their doors this late. Not giving us a chance to respond she let us know that she was the HOA president and that we were not welcome back in the farm. She asked us for phone numbers of our superiors so she could call and complained to them and threatened to call the cops if she caught us back in the farm after dark again.

I'm kinda hoping she calls our mission president to complain that way he knows I'm out here working until 9pm every night! :)

Just found out I will be here for another 6 weeks.

Driving on icy roads...

​I'm so grateful to have a car! Our's is getting very close to 50k in miles. The car coordinator said he's getting a new Ford Fusion in a couple of weeks that he will trade us with.

Very excited for this week! New Walmart finally opens on Wednesday and the Christmas party is Saturday!

Love and miss ya'll,

Elder Graham Feidler

Dad: Great news to hear Jessica has stopped smoking!  Give her lots of support! HOA presidents are turning you into the cops!  Funny.  Next time ask for her phone number and address and tell her if you see her sidewalk covered with snow your are going to be there shoveling it!

Thanks for the pictures!  It looks awesome there like a forest where the vampires live.  It was in the 70s here yesterday and Zack had the doors off the jeep.  Today it is 69 and sprinkling.

So is your companion staying with you for another 6 weeks?

Have a great P-Day! Stay warm.

Graham: Yes I'm keeping my companion too.