This week, my first story is about when I had to go renew my Visa. It was horrible. A big wasted day. But when it was time to go back home, I was going to the train and right as I got there, it left, I was pushing the button to get on, but the door wouldn’t open! How lame! So I missed it. I was literally like 2 seconds too late. So I went and sat on the next train leaving in 20 minutes. Oh also, I was alone for the first time in quite a while...ha ha. We go alone to do our visas. But anyway, so I go get on the other train, and I’m sitting there when I have this thought, maybe I should go sit more up front, which made NO sense cuz when I get to my stop I want to be near the back so I’m close to the stairs when I get off the train, but I just had the feeling to walk up a few cars, so I did, I grabbed my backpack and went up about 4 cars and sat down. How random, pointless? So I thought! About 1 minute later, our old investigator that we used to teach who moved, walks up! I and he just got this big smile!! He moved and his phone broke so we lost contact with him. So the elders in the other area couldn’t teach him. So I talked to him, in pretty bad Portuguese I’m sure...ha ha, but it was amazing! I got his address and his phone number and everything and passed it on to the other Elders and they taught him that night! Ah! It was so, so cool! He is such a cool guy. I loved teaching him! I really grew a testimony that day about listening to the little tiny voice inside of you. It may seem really stupid and pointless, something very small, such as just sitting in a different train car. But that lead me to Dias. And he was so excited to see me too. It was amazing, a really cool experience for me.

On more of a sad note, Jose Carlos, the husband of the woman we baptized just recently and the boy I baptized Yuri, are going a big inactive. I think Jose is having some problems with the word of wisdom. It is really sad. I think it has to do with the new people he is around at his new job. So I ask please, for all of you to keep Jose Carlos in your prayers. He and his wife had planned to be going to the temple sometime in the next year or so to be married for time and all eternity, but now he is falling off the right path. It really devastates me but he says the hard times will pass. He really needs our prayers I know that. It is really sad, because I have seen a change in him for the worse, he is not as happy, so please keep him in mind, but overall their family is doing good. They are all really, really amazing people. I really have grown to love them so much.

Next week, we are having a fast with our investigator Elizabete. I am really excited for her. I know it’s quite the struggle with her and the problem of living with her boyfriend, but she has the desire to do what is right. So we are going to fast with her on the 8th. I’m really happy she is willing to fast because it really shows her faith and shows that she really does care,so we are continuing to pray for her and work with her. We are really hoping for the best. She is an amazing person and has such a strong desire. She loves church and everything, so it’s really awesome having this opportunity to teach her.

Thank you all so much for everything. I Love You! Miss you! I hope you have a good week! Keep going strong and do what’s right!! Life isn’t real long, eternity is! Think about it.....LOVE YOU!

LOVE ELDER GRAY

Today we are going to the beach! I’m so stoked to see the ocean! Of course we can’t go swimming or anything like that sadly, but, we can go to the beach, not for too much longer tho cuz as soon as it gets warm, we are not allowed anywhere NEAR the beach. Cuz everyone is....can you guess it? It’s Europe, yup...they are all naked so we have to stay away. I’m glad we are going today while we still can so I can see the beach!

This week just flew by! I really feel like it was 2 days ago that I was just writing a letter. I think that’s a good thing right? But we had a really good week. Not much success, but it was still good. We are still teaching Elizabete and her son. Last night we talked about her testimony and how she feels about baptism, well she is still pretty hesitant so we have to keep working with her. She is only so skeptical about it tho cuz of living with her boyfriend. That is a big problem and I am sure it would be way hard. But we told her to keep praying about it and we also told her we would like to fast with her, if she wants. I was really suprised that she was pretty open to the fast idea, when before a few weeks ago we taught about fasting and she was like WHAT! Are you crazy? I have to eat! So it was really cool last night when I got too see a bit of an attitude change in her showing me that she does care and we are not just wasting time. When I talked to her about fasting I feel like the spirit just took me away. I know that I said just exactly what it is that she needs to hear. Not anything we had planned.

I know that the spirit works thru us. We didn’t even plan on talking to her about fasting at all. But the spirit told me the time was now to talk to her about it. So I did and I am so glad I recognized the spirit and followed the spirit. Sometimes it’s hard to follow the exact promptings of the spirit, but when you do and recognize it, it’s an amazing experience that I love!

This week I just realized for the first time how hard it is for some people to pray. It struck me strange, cuz its never been hard for me. I went on divisions this week to another area and we taught a new lady and we asked her to pray and she said “what? I can’t pray!” Then we explained the process of prayer and how you just speak from your heart. Speak from your heart. Speak from your heart. Is that really hard to do? It just amazes me when someone has never really prayed. But she did pray and it turned out just great. The only challenge is to get her to do it on her own now!

Well, thank you all for all you do for me! I appreciate even just those little tiny letters! I love them! I am so grateful for the wonderful friends and family I have. I am blessed beyond belief! So that’s why I’m here giving some back to who gave me ALL.I love you all so much. Thank You!

Love Elder Gray

The Work Goes On

You aren’t the only ones with bad weather I promise! It’s been really gross here. Really windy and rainy. We were going to go to the zoo today, but not now because of the rain. So we are going to go bowling. But everything is going good. We got a new investigator named Wallace. He is from Brazil. We taught the 1st lesson and he loved it! The spirit was seriously so strong in the room that day I loved it. I didn’t want to leave. We made a time to go back on Saturday so I’m really excited to go back. I’m praying that he will open his heart and hear our wonderful message we have for him.

On the down slope, we lost our friendly Chinese investigators. They started talking to the Jehovah’s Witnesses again and they told them to stay away from us. Really, really sad. They were such great people, but we will continue to pray for them always.

We had a street meeting on Easter Sunday. It was really good. I really enjoyed it. I think that is a really good way to help my Portuguese, too. And it’s fun working with all the members and getting them to do some missionary work. At first I went off with a non-active member named Sergio. He is awesome! But he is just really lazy. But we went off and I said hi to this guy and shook his hand, but he kept walking. Then Sergio grabbed his hand and I started talking to the guy and he was like, “No, no thanks,” but Sergio wouldn’t let go of his hand! It was so funny! Sergio was like, “No sir, this message is really important for you.” It was awesome! What a good missionary he was that day. We didn’t actually get any info from the guy, BUT we at least were able to plant a little seed and give him a pass along card.

Everything with Elizabete is going pretty good. She is such an amazing person; we have family night with her, so we are really excited to teach her and her boyfriend. Hopefully we can get the spirit to be really strong this week for them. But we will always continue to keep praying for them.

Well that is about all for this week. I love you all so much! Keep working hard and keep praying! Remember who you are and why you are here. Make everyday count to get you going to the temple.

Love you,

Elder Gray

Sort of a slow week, but a good one

This week was really good, we had quite an interesting experience. (But don’t worry it’s not April Fools anymore) We were teaching our little Chinese people again and we were teaching them the 2nd lesson and when we got to the spirit world part, the guy just stopped us and was like, “whoa, no, no when we die, we are dead. That’s it!” It hit me like a ton of bricks! How would you like to live your life thinking that once you die you are dead. And that is it. It was just so weird to me. He wouldn’t budge on it either. But he listened to us and we extended some reading for him to do. I just really hope he reads then prays with a soft heart and with real intent so he can come to find the truths.

Oh so this week and the next, well like 3 weeks, we are doing service week in our district and came up with point system for all our stuff we do and one of them is clean someone’s dog. Well, we did it! We cleaned a dog! He was not very happy about it though, that was for sure. It was really funny. He just whined the whole time! BUT he was so clean after and actually smelled good! That’s not common here for a dog to smell even half-way decent. It was pretty awesome!

We also taught the 2nd lesson to Elizabete and her boyfriend with a little story example thing we came up with and they really liked it a lot. Her boyfriend usually doesn’t listen to us but he really liked it and now we have a return appt with him! I’m so stoked! Elizabete wants to be baptized but can’t because she lives with him. So we need to get them married!! But marriage here to these people is like pointless. Their attitude is, “Why get married when you can just live together?” Arrgh! So frustrating!

So last week we went to Sintra, very beautiful place, try looking it up on the Internet, see what you can see if there is much, it is just amazing! There is so much cool stuff there. I took tons and tons of pics there, so it will be fun for you to get my next picture card. I take lots of videos too.

Conference was this week as you all know. It was SO good! We watched only the Saturday morning session on Saturday night here, then watched ALL the rest on Sunday. LONG DAY, but a good one for sure. The talks were all so good! I love conference; you can get so, so much out of it if you just try! Don’t sleep! I wish I could go back in time and watch all the past conferences they are so awesome! If you slept, shame on you! But I’m not one to talk too much because I wasn’t real good before my mission. But you are all adults now so listen carefully: Take notes! I know it’s over by now, but if you slept I would invite you to go back and read them when they come out in the Ensign and pay attention this time.

Well that’s about it for now. Was a good week, not a real ton happened though. I hope you all have a wonderful week! LOVE YOU!!

Elder Gray

Some Random Pictures from Portugal

Sister Terry, Elder Gray, Elder Croshaw, President Terry

One of the first cool things I saw after arriving in Lisbon.  Don't know what it's called though.

One of the first families I taught. They were way cool, but they moved to Holland right after I got there.

This was the cutest little girl!

Torre de Belém

http://www.archiplanet.org/wiki/Belém_Tower

Inside Torre de Belém (This place was really cool)

On top of Torre de Belém

Torre de Belém

My first big rain storm...and no umbrellas. We were soaked!

This is a really cool place called Quinta da Regaleira. The missionaries go here often on P-Day.

http://www.pbase.com/lmrp/quinta_da_regaleira 

In the dog house at Quinta da Regaleira

Hangin' out at Quinta da Regaleira

Missionary Weights (there are water jugs in the bags)

I finally found a caffeine-free Coke! I called it the "Glorious Burn!"

No transfer, but a crazy week!

Well first of all, I did not get transferred. So I have some more time here in Cacém. So feel free to send mail to my apartment! :)

Anyways, crazy story about last night!! So we are walking home and it’s a little past the time we are supposed to be out, but we were walking home from an appointment, so it’s okay. We are walking and all of a sudden we see these two kids beating up on this kid! I couldn’t believe my eyes! They were probably about 17 or so and the other kid was probably 15 or 16. But the kid was on the ground and these kids are just beating him like nothing I have ever seen! So Elder Hildebrandt and I yell at the kids to stop and leave the kid alone! They looked up at us and just started yelling and swearing at us then came running up to us, and we were just like, “uh oh, what have we just done?” But they weren’t real big so I wasn’t too scared. We could take em if we had to. (haha Just playin.) But so they walk up to us and just start yelling at us. Of course I couldn’t understand it, but they were swearin and just yelling at us. They were pretty drunk I’m sure. I could smell the alcohol on their breath. But then the one kid gets right in my comps face and is just yelling and yelling and I’m like that is enough. So I go over and push the kid and just said stop! That is enough! Go home! The kid did NOT like that very much and he pushed me back and when I stepped forward he swung at me!! But I kinda saw it coming and so I dodged it in time and then I lost control not thinking, just totally like reaction to this and dodged this kid’s fist then just took a big swing right to his nose. I know I shouldn’t have but it just happened SO fast! He fell back onto his butt then stood up with a bloody nose, looked at his friend and said, “Let’s go.” I think that sobered him up a bit. So they left. Then we went to the kid that was getting beat up and called the ambulance and had to wait for like 20 minutes. Ridiculous! And they hauled him off and then we had to give descriptions of the other kids. Then we finally got to go home. Crazy, crazy, crazy night. I could not believe it!

Anyways back to normal life. Our Chinese friends that we found a couple weeks ago are doing really well. They are such great people! We had so much fun teaching with them. They really pay good attention and are very attentive. We got them a Book of Mormon in Chinese and they were really excited for that and they said they would read it and ponder it and then pray about it! I am so excited to go back and see them. We also got to set up seeing them two times a week which is really good for them and for us. We are also going to invite them to General Conference. I hope they come because they have such great potential!

We also have this lady we teach that is very new. We have been there one time. Her name is Afra and she is a single mom with three kids. She is very interested and she is really nice. And she loves to help me with my speaking the language, which is really good for me!

One of the Elders named Elder Gasser is going home in two days. That is just crazy to me. I feel like my day for that is FOREVER away. haha Well it is. But he was an awesome kid. He was really fun and I got along really well with him. I hope to see him in the future.

So today we are going to play soccer again. I’m pretty stoked. It’s really fun and it’s a good workout, but the bad news is this morning we also went running, and I rolled my ankle twice!! I hate cobblestone! Argh! It made me so mad! It hurts! But I took some ibuprofen and I am hoping I will be able to play! I will just have to warm it up. (I hope.)

But everything is going really well. I am excited for our investigators and their progression. I will let you know about them more next week. This week was really windy which is pretty sad after the amazing, amazing weather we were having a couple weeks ago. But I hope it will shape up soon! Especially today for soccer. But I hope you all have a wonderful week! Keep strong in the gospel. It’s such an amazing thing that many people take it for granted. Love and LIVE the gospel in your everyday life! It’s amazing to see the change in the people here. I love the gospel; it’s so amazing! We are absolutely blessed to have a living prophet who we get to hear from this week. I am really looking forward to conference. I hope all of you are too. Listen hard! Take notes! Ponder it. Then pray!!!

I Love you all so, so much! Have a great week; can’t wait to hear from you in the future. Keep up the great work and remember to pray always.

LOVE YOU ALL!

ELDER GRAY!!

P.S. Oh ya...about the drunk kids beating up the kid and us fighting them, well...APRIL FOOLS!  :-) haha!

P.P.S. Dad, you got me good! I was sad about the Sami. I’m glad its not totaled. Good story. Well written. Haha!