Even though it is a little cool here, there are some very beautiful scenes in the nsighborhood that we call home. Some of the leaves are falling but most of these trees are evergreen. The one tree across the lake in the middle, is the closest I can come to any fall color. There are lakes like this and canals running in every direction. You can't go 1/2 mile without seeing some type of water pocket or canal. There are ducks and water birds everywhere.

We are missing our grandchildren. Even more so at this time of year. These cute little girls were at another party that we were invited to in the Coral Springs Ward. We had the opportunity to visit with President Current and his wife at the party. He is the one that started Project Elijah that is spreading around this mission. The goal is to teach the new members about family history and get them to the temple within the first three months to do baptizms for their deceased family members.

This Menorah has been standing in the office building foyer for several weeks. During the period of time that the Jewish people celebrate Hanakkah, one lamp is turned on each day. This is in remebrance of the Children of Isreal. Then, the wells that now hold candles were filled with oil and burned around the clock for the nine days.

One of our missionaries not knowing about the tradition saw that some of the lights were not burning and went out and purchased new globes, thinking that they had burned out. This created a chance to "talk" about religion. These missionaries are so neat!

This is the most important thing that we display at Christmas. After seeing the Tony Orlando show "Santa and Me", we made sure all of the married kids have a nativity in their homes. We hope all that read this know of our love for them and pray that the Lord will have a place in their homes and hearts now and in the coming year. Merry Christmas from the Graffs in Florida.

This is part of the beach that we found. Elder Graff is pointing the way to Nicaragua and wishing Elder Yates a Merry Christmas. We just got a call from the Key West Elders and we have been invited to teach a new member from Eastern Europe tomorrow night. So I am really glad we brought the computer and the printer. We also have another appointment back in Homestead Sunday evening. We got a call from Ann Boyd in Homestead and after she returns from spending the holidays in New York we will go back to Homestead to show her how Roots Magic works with New Family Search. These appointments are what we hope will take these people to the temple.

We dedicate this picture to our freind Nancy in Cedar City. There are three dogs going for a ride in the cart. They are about the size of Tinker Bell. After we passed him, he stopped so we couldn't take another picture. So we wished hm a Merry Christmas and went on our way. There is only about a mile of beach with sand. The rest of the island is reinforced with a cement wall and/or boat docks. the boats belong to the owners of the houses or condo that come right out to the water or dock. I'm not sure what the price tag of these homes would be, but I'm guessing it is in the millions. The old town of Key West reminds us of Santa Catalina. The houses and foliage are about the same. The small streets and the tourists driving around on scooters, bikes and golf cart things just like on Catalina.

We are in Key West as I write this. We passed this sand scuplture and went around the corner just to see if we could get a picture of it. It is the grinch that stole christmas.

We have the whole day off, so after sleeping in we ate a breakfast lunch at IHOP and drove around the island to see if we could find a beach. This is the place to be if you are over 60 and over weight. Elder Graff andI fit right in, but we aren't about the bare it all on the beach like some of the tourist. We signed up to serve at a Soup Kitchen tomorrow morning with the Elders. That shoukld be a great experience for us. We both brought an extra pair of shoes to change into if we can't stand up any longer.

This is Sister Zitting and Sister Ramey. We had just given them their christmas sack, and explained about the travel jewelry bags that Susan D Alessandro makes for us in Branson. They were joking around and put them on their heads and then we got them to pose for a picture. These young ladies have gone the extra mile and then some with their dedication to serving the Lord. They are now training a ward member in the art of American Sing Language so the ASL members will have that continue on for them after these young ladies go home. We will be very sad at the next three finishers dinner that we serve at. It will be hard to have them leave and go back into the big wide world.

Yes, we did decorate for Christmas. Thanks to Jiffy for the the socks and ornaments, Stephanie for the candy canes and the Porters for the snowman. Most of the young missionaries had small christmas trees in their apartments. We took the missionaries double AA batteries in their christmas sacks. Then we found out that the fire alarms take 9 volt. So our intend was valid, but what can I say? Our house was build over tweny years ago and the fire alarm still works and takes AA batteries. Elder Graff told them to put the batteries in any toys that they got for Christmas or they could put them under their pillows and recharge at night.

At the Hollywood Ward Christmas Party, all six of the young missionaries sang "Joy to the world" to the ward. Elder Frederick is to your left, then Elder Munns, Elder Larsen, Elder Cook and

Sister Ramey. Sister Zitting is playing the piano. They asked me to play for them ten minutes before they sang, so Sister Zitting could sing with them. But, even after practicing, I could not see well enough to find the keys and the notes. It takes me all week to get one hymn ready for Relief Society. My young friend Kelita is sitting facing the missionaries. We have had the opportunity to teach her Roots Magic and started her on New Family Search. We sent out 34 Christmas Cards to the people that we have taught since getting here in October.

This is Sister Guzman on the right and is Spanish Speaking, she is from Honduras. Sister Ramey is from Idaho and is American Sign Language. Sister Osmeni is from Albania and just new here in Florida. These young ladies are amazing in their efforts and dedication to the missionary effort. They are trying so hard to keep us filled with appointments. Our trip to the Orlando Temple next month is happening because of all the young missionaries efforts.

I hope you can read this sign. I had to take a picture of it. We were at a marina looking at the yachts and saw this sign. Not a place you would want your little kids at run around at. We didn't see any crocodiles, but we didn't get out of the car and venture around the piers. Now that the weather is a lot cooler, we are being told the aligators will surface and try to warm up in the sun.

On our way to an appointment in Homestead we passed many palm tree farms. They go for many miles of row after row of palm trees from 1 foot to these giants. I can't even begin to imagine how much money they would bring in at one time if they were all harvested. This farm is about three miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

There is a canal just in front of these trees. We passed several men fishing in it. We're not sure just what kind of fish they were catching.

Elder Barrington and Elder Burros set up an appointment for us to
teach Alexandra at the Miami Beach Chapel. We gave her a disk
with Roots Magic Installer on it and then exported her pedigree
chart onto the disk. When she gets home, she will install Roots
Magic and import her file into the program.

The Blue folder is her "starter kit" that we give out to the people that we teach. It has a basic pedigree chart, a cheat sheet for Roots Magic, the cd and two plastic sheet holders. We also give them a copy of the "Members Family History and Temple Work" booklet.
It has been very rewarding to watch these peoples faces when they see their names in print on the pedigree chart.

This is an iquana that has just fallen out of the tree at the Miami Chapel. When the temperature gets as low as it did this day, the iquanas drop from the trees. Elder Graff and Elders Barrington and Burrows pulled it out into the sun and after about 15 minutes it ran off into the bushes. Some little geckos were not so lucky. They were upside down and stiff. I'm sorry that the little critters can't take the cold, but it feels good to me. Today I am wearing a jacket in the office. But the cooler is still working.

These are three of our very favorite people here in the Ft Lauderdale mission. They are telling President Hale that Elder Graff won't tell them who will be speaking tomorrow at the Coral Springs Chapel. The buzz around the room was all about "who do you think will speak?", "who do you think is here to see us?", "I think it will be someone from the First Presidency!" How right they were. Elder Graff almost got in trouble again, because he tricked Sister hogge into telling us who it was. In thinking about the week-end, I'm sure that keeping it a secret was not only important for the safety of President and Sister Uchtdorf, but to add to the thrill of the moment. These young people are so on fire with life and their purpose here, that they need to have moments like this to refire and refuel and rethink about their own life after this mission. "Go Forth with Faith" has new meaning to all of us. What a blessing to experience these moments with these young people.

Elder and Sister Porter are the couple in the front left of this picture. They are from Snowflake, Arizona and are the ones that made the "German Babies" dessert for us. We have made them twice since we had them. Needless to say, the food in Flordia is way too good and both of us are increasing in size. The lady in blue is Sister Martin. She and her husband are here from Seattle,
Washington. They handle the cars and the mail and baptism reports. Both full time jobs, especially now with the holidays upon us. They reported 187 pieces of mail just this Monday. We are going into the office before our afternoon appoinments to help sort and record the mail. Then next week, we start delivering packages and letters. We have twelve apartments that we will be visiting. Then we head for Key West again to deliver and spend the Christmas week-end.

This is our very special Elder Perry! He works part time in the mission office and helps me with all my computer questions. He has helped me learn how to burn a cd to give to the people that we are teaching and how to transfer the install program to that same cd. He is going home at the end of December and we are really going to miss him. He is going back to college and studying computer tech, which is no surprise. Some company is really going to be getting a very sharp young man some day.

Christmas Conference

This past Saturday and Sunday, all of the Ft Lauderdale missionaries gather at the Plantation Chapel for a Christmas Buffet and Devotional. Then sunday, we went to the coral Springs chapel and were treated to a visit from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf and his wife. The mission choir sang the prelude for us. All the choir seats were full and they had to bring in four more chairs. These young people have great voices and we have some very talented musicians.

President and Sister Hale spoke to us first. Sister Hale spoke about memories and President Hale spoke about shaking the hand of a prophet. He had all the congregation come forward and shake hands with President and Sister Uchtdorf. What a privilege.

Sister Uchtdorf talked about the blessings of Christmas cards and President Uchtdorf talked about the joy of service and doing the best you can and asking for forgiveness at the end of each day. He said not be a character, but to have character. They then gave everyone a Christmas Card signed by the first presidency.

Today, we are going out to buy more Christmas Cards and send them to these people we have been teaching. We had seven more people go to the Orlando Temple this last Saturday.

This is Margleth and her family. They are our adopted family for the season. It is her family that we hope our grandson Taylor will find in Nicaragua. She is going on the Temple Bus this week end. That makes three more starfish success stories for us. Slowly but surely we might make a dent in the scope of things. I hope that the church will be able to release more indexes from South America soon. The records for Cuba, Haiti and South America are sparse. The good news is that the Ft Lauderdale Temple will be started soon and we think that will have an impact on the records that we need to thelp these people.

These are three of the ladies we taught this past week. Kelita and Julie are from Haiti and Szilvia is from Hungry. We hope all three will be on the bus with us next month. They are so much fun. They joke around with Elder Graff and I have a hard time getting on with our sessions. He is always teasing them and making them laugh. Our little friend peeking around Julie wouldn't talk to me.
We had to hurry after taking this picture. The bishop has all the missionaries in his office for a ten minute "huddle" after the block. We share our upcoming week and who we are teaching. It really is an important fact sharing meeting. He keeps us (Spud) on track and sends us home within time. Quite a feat with us!

This is Elder Graff with our Hollywood Ward Librarian, Auntie Lee and our newest missionary ready to do to the Caribbean!

She made all the missionaries pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. Elder Cook was to pick ours up for us and bring it to the Mission Office, bit it never made it. She says she will bake us something else for Christmas. We are realy enjoying this ward. We have been given permissoin to go on the next Temple Bus in January with the new converts. I am so excited! It is a loing trip both directions, but Elder Graff will keep them entertained with his stories. He has to be very careful about what movies he choses for them to watch.

Oh my! What a week! Dr Leonard says I need to have my glasses changed again. This I am not going to do. I think I will see what the neurologist says this Wednesday before I spend anymore money on glasses.

We met at the cockroach capital of Florida for a teaching session. When we left, we went straight to Walmart and bought as much roach spray and traps that they had. Even had a tiny one crawl across my computer. ICK!!! As soon as we got home we stripped and threw our clothes in the washing machine and then dried them twice just to make sure everything was dead! It makes me itch just to write about it. We will meet somewhere else if there is a next time.

Our next three meeting went very well and we have found some amazing pieces of history and documents for some of these people that we are teaching. We found a marriage record for one ladies' mother and she was so surprised. She said, "My mama never told me she got married! She must have married him so he didn't have to go back to Haiti!"

The temperature got down to 72 on Thursday and we watched one lady jump out of her car and put on a long heavy coat and wrap a scarf around her neck, then run into a restaurant. We think the weather is wonderful. The only indication that it might be fall is that some of the leaves are falling off some of the trees.