One more marked for Baptism

Well I would have to say the highlight of the week is that we have someone marked for baptism! It’s a bit iffy and hard to say what may happen. But we are praying and hoping for the best! It’s this lady that is like 50 something years old. She is super nice but she can talk you ear off. We had a lesson with her and we were teaching her the importance of Baptism and how she can be completely clean of all her sins and of everything she has done. It was a great lesson and the spirit sure was strong. And I also just know that she was feeling it too, its just she is really nervous because she doesn’t know enough. And we were just like ummm well we are here to change that! And we just kept telling her that we would like to set a date for baptism and she is like "oh I dunno. I don’t know enough, I need to know EVERYTHING first." I was like "Lady, I don’t even know everything." Then we just explained how she can be baptized and continue to learn, she just has to have a good feeling about it and know what we are teaching is true, then she can continue learning from there. So finally she is like "Well Okay." It’s going to be a bit hard, she is marked for the 16th of May, which is a little while away, but its for a good reason cuz she is getting surgery this week and will be in Lisbon all this week and next week so we cant even get to her. So after she gets back we will continue to teach her and I just hope that everything goes awesome and she gains a testimony of the Savior! :)

So a little about our investigator Adilson, the one from Brazil. He seems to be progressing very much and very well, it’s just that he is nervous about the commitment and about knowing for sure what he needs to do; even tho we and he know what he needs to do. Its just tough cuz he is also visiting lots of other churches and talking to lots of other people so it’s just kind of hard cuz he has so many different things going thru his head. The last time we met with him we invited him to read 2 Ne. 31 and he did and he liked it, but the only thing was verse 14...He said that verse 14 makes him scared. Which makes sense! It should! So we talked about that then he had some other really good questions about the reading and what not. One of which was pretty tough for us to answer. BUT, the Spirit was there helping and guiding.

His question was about "Speaking in a new tongue" I think that’s how it is in English..."New Language"...I dunno..But about that and what does it mean. I know that some churches actually do something like that where someone stands up front and blabbers on trying to speak Chinese or something, and some other guy is translating what he is saying. So we had to explain that it wasn’t that and then we just gave him our vision of what it means. And at first I was just stunned, like I have no idea what to say....But then I just was thinking for a second and just started talking and came up with like 3 different great explanations! It was awesome! I have never been asked about that before so it was a good opportunity to rely on the Spirit to guide me. It was really neat and a great experience for me. And by the end I was like "Does that help? You have more questions?" And he says "Nope I don’t, that all makes sense." So it was just awesome! Now also remember I had to come up with all this in a new language ha ha! Pretty intense moment I would say. But yeah, it was really cool and we had a great lesson with him. I really want to get him baptized, but its just he has so many doubts and so many things that make him feel NOT worthy or something. So we just need some time with him. But we will just keep on going day by day! :)

The downside of this week is that we didn’t get anyone in church. Well any investigators. Its so frustrating. I hate when I give our numbers at night and I have to say zero for investigators in church. It just makes me feel bad and like we didn’t do a good enough job that week. But I guess on the other hand it’s a booster to make us have a BETTER week the next week. So we are hoping for a better one this week. Its just tough cuz on Saturday and during the week our investigators all said that they would go and we can go pick them up and stuff, then Sunday comes and it’s like they died. Its lame! But its also life and we just have to keep going and keep trying with a SMILE. :)

I hope all is going good for you all back home. I want you all to know that I am so grateful for the Savior in my life. We all know how UN-perfect I am, but through the Savior and his Sacrifice for me. I can be free. I can be Happy from all the wicked things in life. And that right there brings us true happiness. This world that we are living in sure does try to get to us, make us think that this and that is better and just things of the world will bring us happiness. Well I know cuz I have seen both sides of the river. And I know that when we do what is right and keep ourselves disciplined and do what is right, we really do find happiness, and NO ONE can ever take that away from us. I am grateful for my family and for my friends. I know that I have been SO blessed with an AMAZING family and UNBELIEVEABLE friends, all of them. Thru good and bad you have ALL been there for me and I’m SO grateful for that! I love you all so very much! I hope you all have a great week and I hope you guys are getting some sun over there, cuz we sure are!! Miss you and LOVE YOU!!

Elder Gray

Plans for the US Estoril Tennis Open!

Dad! Get this!! Guess who I am going to see in person here in about a month.....FEDERER! Ha ha, Yup! We are planning on going to the US Estoril Open here in Portugal! It lands on a P-day and we wanna go so I’m pretty sure we will! Pretty awesome huh! There are some other guys that will be here too that are pretty big so I think it should be pretty awesome. I just hope it all works out and we get to go. :)

I got the Easter package, thank you very much! My companion and I are lovin it! :)

Jeff told me about that stuff he is using for his face and cankers, that Omega3 Fish Oil whatever it is....I want some! I am going to see if I can find some here this week but if I cant, I don’t even know where to start to try to translate it right and all that but I would like you to send it to me cuz Jeff says its working for him. I would LOVE to not have a canker....ha! But I will try to find it here first.

So NASCAR? In North Carolina? Flippin cool!!! Give me the details dad!

Mom I LOVED the stories you told me about Scotty and Gracee with the exercise ball! That was just way too funny! Ha ha I love it! "No its GRAMMAS BALL!" ha-ha I just love it! I can’t wait to see all that in person jeez! So awesome!

Anyways, I love you mom and dad! Have a great week!! :) Thank you for everything!!

Love Elder Gray

Happy Easter

First of all I hope you all had a great Easter weekend and I hope you all got a lot out of conference and enjoyed it like I did! I really enjoyed what we were able to watch, but we actually only watched 2 sessions because of the transmission difficulties. But the mission is going to hand out DVDs with some sessions on it. I’m not sure how many or which ones but I’m stoked to get it. I also hope that it is in English. It is pretty cool being able to watch it in a different language, but its a lot harder to focus and pay attention and get what I normally would out of it because it’s hard to understand it all in Portuguese. It’s a cool experience, but I hope I can watch it in English to understand it all the way I should. :) I hope you all don’t take it for granted how easy it is for you guys to see it there. It is much more difficult here, and I think how I only have to listen to or see conference just one more time here, but they are here every single time and they don’t even get to see ALL the sessions. It’s sad really. But hopefully when the country grows in the Gospel more, they will have better transmissions and satellite access.

So this week we had our interviews with President Torgan, and as usual they were really good. It was pretty awesome because lately I have been thinking and praying about how to figure out how I can be a better missionary and how we can have more success here with our investigators and things...well the training that Pres. Torgan gave us that day totally helped and answered my questions, prayers, and my doubts! It was for sure way cool! I am really grateful for the Spirit in my life. I feel so lucky to have the Spirit with me all the time to guide me. My personal interview went really well. Pres always helps me want to be better every day. There are always things that we can do better. And he helps me figure those things out and fix them. It’s always a special opportunity to hear from President Torgan and hear his talks and trainings.

This week we found a new family that was pretty awesome! The dads name is Fabio, and he has 4 kids. Two of them sat in and listened to our lesson, the others are really young. But this family was really nice and we had a really good lesson and it went really well. The only problem is that we don’t get to go back till this Friday, so I really just hope that when we do go back it will go really well!

We also have those 2 other investigators, Robert and Kate. They are Brazilian and they are way cool. The kid is the son of the member that has been married since he was about 17 ha ha. But they seem to be progressing so much I love it! They are such nice people, and they literally live in like a shack. Their house is NO bigger than our SHED. It’s just crazy how small their house is. It’s sad, but it’s amazing that they are still happy. And they will be even MORE happy if they keep going and accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am hoping for the best for them. They just moved here and are trying to make things work out. And I know that our Heavenly Father is helping and them and will of course continue to help. I just hope they realize that fact. They are very nice people and our lessons with them are always spiritual and very good. We just had a lesson with them on Saturday and it was just awesome! I loved it. We talked about Baptism with them too. But they need time, or so they think ha ha, but we will just keep going with them and hope that they pray and read and gain a testimony! :)

So remember that crazy nasty stuff we ate last week? Well we almost had to AGAIN this week! But, luckily we got to SELF SERVE ourselves and it was just really casual so we just took everything AROUND the feet. Ugghhh Grody. Everything else was okay tho. ;) Ha ha!

It has been a good week. We are coming up on transfers ALREADY I can’t even believe it! It’s pretty crazy how fast time goes by when you are with a companion that you like. It almost goes TOO fast. But we love it and we hope to see some baptisms here soon! Things are going good here, I hope all is well back home. I hope you are all healthy and safe! And be smart! I Love you all!

Love Elder Gray

Me? Eat A Chicken Gizzard? A Foot? NNOOOOO!

This week we had some good experiences, some weird or funny, and some down experiences. I think that’s about how it is every week actually. Anyway, we had family night with this family, and we gave a spiritual lesson that went pretty good, we taught about Abinadi and the extremely awesome faith that he had and that he was willing to die and give up his life to teach the Gospel. Then we also talked about Alma, and how he baptized 204 people in secret, which is pretty amazing! We are out here trying to baptize and do the Lords work and we are NOT doing it in secret. We are trying to talk to every single person possible to bring the Light of Christ to their lives. But Alma had to do it in secret and he did a great job of it! It’s a great story and I love it, so we wanted to teach it and some of its principles.

Afterwards, they fed us, and my goodness it was NOT normal! I mean the food here that we eat at member’s houses is usually pretty interesting at times, but then there are sometimes, you get something just whacked! So get this, we ate chicken, but not like the parts YOU would eat, NO....I think they kill the chickens, send all the good and normal stuff to the states then keep all the nasty crazy weird stuff here, ha ha ha, just kiddin, but really its weird. We ate chicken liver, heart, feet, neck, gizzard...of which I’m not even sure what that is, but that’s just what I found when I translated the word they told me...ha ha, yup, crazy stuff if you ask me...chicken neck?? Chicken feet!!? And the HEART?? Yeah crazy weird stuff! So I was eating, then I moved some rice and saw a piece of meat and picked it up and it was a heart! Straight up heart! I don’t even know how to explain it, and then I see a literal FOOT on my plate, with the little claws on it and everything! I just thought about how that foot was probably walking around in that pen with all the other chickens and walking in its own poo and who knows what else.....I lost my appetite. I didn’t eat the foot...I couldn’t…....

On Saturday we had this activity at the church and the young kids sang and we had this little meeting and people spoke, it was good and we had 2 investigators there and the spirit was strong. I just hope that they felt it and will follow their hearts! But get this, right before the activity, a little kid that is like oh maybe 2 or 3 I’m not sure, was outside and all of a sudden someone said, "Oh my gosh look!!" And the little boy had his pants down to his ankles and he was just peein right there in the middle of the sidewalk right in front of the church! Ha ha, it was so funny! And people start laughing then he starts laughing, but then mommy spanked him ha ha! Man it was way funny! On a sad note, we have pretty much just lost a progressing investigator Maria do Carmo. We went over there and she was so, so different! It really made me sad cuz she just kept disagreeing with anything we said. We tried to teach her the importance of going to church and WHY she needs to go, but she just kept saying, I can stay home and do my own thing…..and I was just like we are not here to do OUR OWN THING! We are to serve and follow the Lords path! But yeah, it was just really sad and she didn’t really want to talk or anything. I was sooo bummed cuz she has a family of 3 daughters and a son, so I was hoping to be able to teach the whole family, but now it’s going to be very hard to do. We did get 8 new investigators this week tho, 3 of which are really good and I’m excited to teach them. Two of them have gone to church 2 times now and I’m loving it! A boy and girl, the boy is the son of a member Nilzete, and his wife. He is 26 and she 20, and they have been married 9 years. DO THE MATH!! Yup! That’s right. I couldn’t believe it! When I asked him, I said, "So how old are you two? And how long have you been married?" And he says, "I’m 26 and she is 20 and we have been married 9 years." I was like "oh yeah, 9 months?" And he says, "No, no, 9 years" I just sat there. I was nearly speechless. I couldn’t believe it! I said, “dude I am 20 and I can’t imagine being married right now, I’m way too immature!” Ha ha, it was pretty funny, I couldn’t believe that!! The last few weeks, we have made some choco chip cookies for people, and man they are a huge, huge hit! We have now gone to 2 different members houses to teach them how to do it. It was funny but pretty cool they just love them! They don’t have these things here!

Well I hope you all have a good week and that things are going great for you. Don’t forget to SMILE. A smile to someone can just change their day! So if you just see someone not smiling or a little unhappy, go out of your way to make them smile. I have learned here that lots of people seem to be cold and don’t talk much, but even just a smile, can go a long way. You don’t even have to say a word, just show the happiness that you have in your life, because it’s thru that that people start wondering why you are happy all the time. People notice, I know that for sure! So just smile, smile, smile and be happy! Life is too short to not be happy. So smile, and see what happens. :)

The Church is TRUE! I know it with all my heart! I am so happy to be out here and serve, yes there are LONG days and HARD days, but if we just keep going everyday, we will be blessed. I am grateful for the opportunity to be out here and serve the Lord. I love you all and I wish you all a great week!

Love,

Elder Gray

We are Making a Difference!

We had a pretty good week! I was actually pretty impressed with our numbers because we lost a FULL day because of Zone Conference which usually brings our weekly numbers down a bit. But we still had OVER 20 lessons this week! That is our weekly goal to get at least 20 lessons, which was NOT happening at all in this area before I got here so it feels pretty good and I’m just loving it! Zone Conference was really good, as usual. It’s always great to hear and be inspired by President Torgan. Even though, at times things seem to be a little weird that he does, but I try to just keep in mind that he IS our President and he has the keys for this Mission so I just need to keep that in mind and follow and do what he asks.

Anyway, the Conference was really good; I have always enjoyed Zone Conferences. They are always a good time for a bit of uplifting advice and ways to better ourselves out here. Its pretty crazy, me and others have been out here for a year, some over a year, some almost 2 years, and we are still learning new things every day, all the time! Man, you would think that the learning would slow down a bit on HOW to do this work! But it’s the Lords work and the Lord works in mysterious ways so we just got to keep going, growing, learning and LOVE it the whole way!

One thing that we heard at Zone Conf, which made me OPEN my eyes wide in a way, was when President Torgan told us how many Baptisms we had in the month of February, THEN....he told us how many baptisms the Porto mission had in February. First, the Portugal, Porto Mission in the month of February had 6 baptisms. WE....Portugal, Lisbon Mission, had in February, 47 baptisms. How AWESOME is that! By the way, that is MORE than one per dupla. (Per companionship.) Crazy awesome! So we are kickin butt and takin names! (And using lots of water.) :) Ha ha ha! It’s pretty awesome! President talked a lot on those numbers and how Portugal is all the same. Porto, Lisbon, it’s all the same. Same peeps, same culture and all that, but we had 47. They had 6. What does that tell us? Is it because the people here are nicer? No.....actually it is commonly known that the people in Porto are generally more open and nice....HA! He was telling us how we had 47 baptisms because of US, because of the missionaries. US!! The work that WE do. It was really cool to hear that!

Now, about my “Ensign story" I started last week. Sadly there isn’t too much to say about that one anymore. It’s actually kind of a long sad story. But he is already dropped. We most likely will not be talking to him again. He has a lot of problems. He turns out to be more like a "can’t work because of being unstable" rather than "kind of retired." He told us that he is a "kind of retired doctor" but now we have come to find it’s more complicated. He has big issues mentally and lots of things. I won’t go way into it, it’s not really worth it, because there were 2 things he said, “I will be honest, I won’t read. I hate reading, I can’t and I won’t do it,” so that was kind of bad but then I was telling him it can be just ONE verse a day and I opened up and read a scripture and said, "See, that’s how fast!" Ha-ha so then he said, “oh....yeah, maybe then he said, "ummm there is something else...well I should not tell you.....but uh, I will, I smoke joints." And I just look at my comp like uhhhhhh great......this dude is like over 50 years old! Man it’s so sad! His life is so, so, so messed up. So yeah, we were WAY confused about why on earth he came into the church asking for a Book in the first place if he hates reading, yeah....weird. But that is about half of the story. Not worth wasting time over, sadly...but that’s life right there.

The good news lately, is just the fact that people are showing up ON TIME to church!! Ahh, it makes me SOO happy! Even our branch President has been on time the last 2 weeks in a row, which is way good! The last Elders that served here could tell you they don’t even know if he or many other people have been on time EVER! Ha ha, but it looks like to me someone just needed to OPEN their mouth!! So I’m SO, SO glad that I did! I am seeing a difference and that makes me so happy. Something small, like being on time is pretty important, seems pretty small but yet I’m so happy to see that I have made even just a little bit of a difference with my time here. I just hope that I can continue to do so and see and work more and more miracles!!

The not so great news of the week is that it was pretty hard to teach all our investigators because of the Conference. We didn’t even get to teach 3 of our main ones, which bothers me, but we are determined to MAKE UP for the lost lessons this week! Our investigators are all progressing but they all just need that burning to grow a little more so they can be baptized! I have high hopes. So hopefully this next week will be better and we will have lessons with all of them. And maybe even mark someone! I sure hope so! :)

On Saturday, we went with a member to deliver some food to a couple of families that are struggling with money right now, one of which being Brenda’s family. (She is 15, and has a little brother 10). She is the girl that is ALWAYS is willing to help us! They are an awesome, awesome family. Their mom is single and trying to provide for the two kids and things aren’t going all that well so we took over a whole bunch of basic food to them, without an appointment, and when we showed up, I went up first to the door alone to make sure someone was home, and I get there and I knock the door and Brenda says, "Quem é?" "Who is it?" And I say, "O Elder" and she says, "What!?!?!? I don’t believe it!" Ha ha, then she opens the door and sees me and is like what the…!? OH!! By the way they live kind of far away so we would NOT be there at night time ever, so she says, "What on earth?? Are you alone????" And I say, "Yes I’m alone and I ran all the way here!! I got in a fight with my companion!!" Ha ha! She says, uhhh....and, well I’m not too good at keeping straight faces really, so she says, "Ah you liar!" Ha, ha, it was way funny. But then we brought all the food up and went in to the house with it and the mom walks in and it was just so cool. I could tell that they, the mom especially was SO, SO grateful for the food we had brought. She said, "Oh my goodness, kids we have food!" That kind of hit me hard. I would never have guessed that they didn’t really have any food because they are such humble people and so happy all the time no matter what.

So this, everyone is my lesson for this week. :) Don’t take the little tiny things that you have for granted! This poor single mother had to sell her car so she could provide for her family, so, if you think your life is tough....Stop Complaining!!

I want you all to know that I KNOW that the Church is true! It’s such an amazing blessing in our lives! I gave a talk on Sunday and in the end I was talking a bit about families and how unbelievably AWESOME my family is (trying not to brag too much) and I just realized, that even if I don’t know much about the Church, I know that I will be with my family forever. And that is enough for me to be out here on the other side of the world preaching that fact. If that is the only knowledge I have, it would be enough. I always testify of families because I am SO eternally grateful for the fact that I will live with and love my family for ever! Not to mention my very OWN future family, I’m already grateful for the knowledge that the family I will have, will be mine FOREVER, and we will ALL live in a state of never ending HAPPINESS!! Isn’t that what we all want, happiness? Well just imagine eternity for a second.....Is living the way YOU want here on earth worth living in misery forever? If not, read, pray, and go to church! If you want to live in HAPPINESS then get your butt up and DO SOMETHING! I LOVE YOU ALL and I care about every single one of you that is reading this. I miss you all, but there is work to be done!! The field is here, now, and ready to harvest! I Love You!
Elder Robby Gray!

My Ensign Story

First of all this week, we marked then had to unmark a kid for baptism. He was marked on Tuesday for Sunday. But then they had to talk to their dad about it and he won’t let him be baptized cuz he says he is not old enough to make decisions for himself. He is 10 yrs old. A great kid ready to be baptized for sure, but now a bit of a hold up. So we are working on the other family members. They are ALL so ready and just need to take the steps to baptism! The other problem is the mom, Regina is not married. I guess they have just never thought about getting married. That’s crazy to me, they have 3 kids! Like why not just get hitched? But they have never even talked about it. Crazy! So that is a bit of a problem because in order for her to be baptized they have to get married. But as of now we are focusing on the oldest one Adilson. He is 18 yrs. old so he CAN be baptized, he just isn’t sure yet. He has doubts like everyone does, so we are continuing to go over there and meet with them about twice a week. I really want him to get baptized and I think that he will, I believe that he will, he just needs a bit more time, which is hard to have with President Torgan. He is all about baptizing YESTERDAY, so it’s hard when we have our Zone Leaders breathing down our backs all the time about WHEN is our next baptism and stuff like that. It makes things kind of stressful and at times questionable, but we are trying and doing our best to get some baptisms here.

We also have our other Adilson, the one from Brazil. He is doing way good and progressing. He had to work yesterday so he couldn’t come to church which was a bummer, but we still had 4 investigators in church! :) Whoop!! That is still way good, but we are WANTING like 8! So we still have some work to do no doubt!

I made "Ensign Story" my heading because I am in the middle of what could be one of those stories that you read about the missionaries in the Ensign ha ha, it’s quite awesome. In a way I just want to wait till next week to tell you ALL about it cuz that would give me more time to see how its going to unfold. But, I will tell you what I know from what has happened so far. Yesterday I was sitting in church just about 5 minutes before our meeting was about to start, and the Branch President walks up to me and says, "Elder Gray, there is someone outside wanting a Book of Mormon!" Now that right there is crazy enough! So I run out there and greet this Portuguese guy named Rui. Awesome fella, older man about 6 feet tall I would say, so I start speaking Portuguese (of course) and he says, "Do you speak English?" So I said, "Yes I do" and so he speaks English....kind of...haha, but he loves to speak English, he prefers it over Portuguese. Anyways, so he asks me if he can have a "Bible" and I said, "Well, actually we don’t have a Bible right now but I can get you one later on if you would like, but we have this book called The Book of Mormon." and he says, ”Umm what is the difference?" So I explained a little about the difference and where the Book of Mormon came from and all that stuff and he said, “Yeah sure I’ll take this one.” So I give him the book and I say, “Hey our meeting is about to start right now if you would like to come in.” He couldn’t...sadly, BUT he gave me all his info and was like "I would like it if you would come to my house and talk with me." So of course I said that we would love to! So he told me to call him sometime this week. So my plan was to call today later on after P-Day. But get this, so I’m sitting here writing an email to someone, (our internet store is right next to our church) and I look out the window and see him walking with someone towards our church and I watch him to see what he is doing and he goes, looks around the corner sees that the door is shut and turns back around. So I KNEW that he was looking for US!! So the guy he was with was almost looking at me in the window so I pounded on the window and the other guy saw me and I pointed to Rui so, his friend pointed to me....and he looks up and I wave and he makes a gesture like "I need to talk to you!" So I jump up! And I run outside and talked to him. He says, "Hey, listen I would like you to come to my house? I want you to talk to me and my wife. But she is not prepared, so call her today and talk to her, you speak Portuguese right?" and I say, "Sim" ha ha and he says, “Okay call my wife and tell her you talked to me and you want to come over." So I say, "Okay I will call her today!" And he says, "Yeah, I would like you guys to come over tomorrow." Awesome! Then he says, "I want YOU to come, because you are cool. And we need more cool people like you in Portugal." Ha ha ha!! Funny huh! So I say, "Yeah me and my companion can came over." He says, "Sounds great!" Pretty cool, right?! I know! I am stoked! So we will go over there most likely tomorrow and see how things go. This guy is really nice and cool. I guess he is a retired Doctor. So maybe we will be going to a mansion!! (Which in this country means a house.) Ha ha!! So, I will give you the updates next week and let you know how things went! But man I tell ya.....speaking to someone like I was doing in ENGLISH was SO, SO, SO weird!! I don’t know why. I had a serious problem. I wanted to speak in Portuguese to him and I would keep saying stuff on accident in Portuguese and he would just laugh and I’d be like "Oh! Duh I mean....." So it was really funny. But cool too, ha ha!

Guess what? For those of you who know of course how being CLEAN is important to me, my companion is the CLEANEST comp I have had yet!!! I love the kid! And not just cuz he is clean, he is awesome! We are having a great time together, I think he is my favorite companion so far, AND he is super clean. I love it! Man it just takes so much pointless stress off my chest! Ha ha, I only had to do the dishes twice this week and it was only cuz I had to like RACE him to the sink to do them. But I think it has a lot to do with the fact that my STUPID fingers and this skin thing I have going on here is STILL irritating me. (Yes mom and dad I still have it.) But I have an appointment with a doc in a week or so. But it’s worse....... AHH! But yeah, he respects that fact and how it royally sucks having to use gloves to do dishes. He is legit and we are having a great time and doing great work!! :)

That is about it for the week! I hope you all have a great week and everything goes well and you are all HAPPY! Don’t forget to smile! I love you all so much and miss you tonz. This is the Lords work I am doing and its great! I am loving it and I am trying to live up to every minute I have out here serving the Lord! There are souls to be saved!
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!
Love Elder Gray

Twelve New Investigators!

This week was really good! We are even impressed with our own numbers and how everything went. It was just awesome! For the most part everything went through and worked out as planned! Of course there were a few things....but can’t complain. One thing that was just awesome was that we had 12 new investigators this week! We felt like we were just rolling them in! And it’s also crazy because this week was transfer week and I got a new companion! So because of transfers we lost a whole bunch of working time, but yet we still had a great week, with over 20 lessons! (Here that is not very common.) So it was way sweet!

Since I have been here we haven’t really been able to get any investigators to go to church. Well I just changed a little about the way I go about inviting people to come to church and basically poured out my heart about how important it is to go and if we do, we will be SO blessed! That goes for all of us, members, and non-members everyone! SO, we had 5 investigators in church! I was just so thrilled! Then, better yet, our testimony meeting was just AWESOME! I loved it so much! Not to be boastful, but 3 different people talked about me and something that I had taught them earlier this week and how it has just changed something about them. It was really cool for me to see that I AM making a difference. It really made me feel good!

Remember how I said a few weeks ago, when our branch was having a HUGE problem getting to church at 10:00, that I talked about it and basically told them it’s not good to be late? Well this one guy, Fernando, gets it and now the last 2 weeks he and his family have been at the church on time, so it was awesome! We have this in-active member that we went and visited last week on Sunday. We had a great little lesson with him and I just started asking him "why" he isn’t going to church, "what" is the excuse and things like that. And he was saying how its just hard cuz he gets home from work as a bouncer, (this guy is HUGE,) at like 9 in the morning and said going to church is just hard and he has a hard time staying awake in the meeting so he just goes home. So I taught him about sacrifice. I taught him about blessings and I told him that it’s a sacrifice to go to church. Of course it’s just EASIER to go to bed. But we need to give our all and give just 3 hours of our WHOLE week to the Lord. I also told him how I am out here for 2 years! Imagine that! Away from my family and friends that I LOVE, for 2 years dedicated to the Lord and bringing the Word of God to as many as I possibly can! As I was telling him these things I just felt the spirit so strongly testifying how important this work really is, and I could tell HE knew too. He was just kind of quiet and not saying too much. I was basically just testifying to him and telling him how I know that he needs to go to church and do HIS part in this world so he can be saved and inherit Gods kingdom. The funny part of this, well this guy like I said is a BIG man! His arm is like, bigger than my head ha ha, but....he came to church yesterday, AND he bore his testimony! Then last night we passed by his house and I just said how great his testimony was and how strong the spirit was in the chapel today, and he said, "yeah it was, I couldn’t not stand up even tho I haven’t been to church in a long time and I thought it would be weird." It was so neat to feel his spirit; he’s like a big Teddy Bear. (But just don’t anger the Teddy Bear cuz this cuddly lookin teddy bear could snap me into like 7 pieces with one quick judo chop! Ha-ha, but yeah, it was incredible!) There were also others that bore testimonies that were amazing too! It was just a GREAT testimony meeting. A girl 15 years old, bore her testimony and this girl is just always happy and smiling. She is so fun to be around. She is just one of those people that are always smiling. Someone said that to her at school once, and she said to them, "Well we are here to be happy!" It’s so true, so be HAPPY!

One last thing that I have started teaching our investigators that I really enjoy. We know that God has SO many blessings for us but he is waiting for US! He cannot bestow his blessings upon us without US first doing OUR part! I know that that is so true! If we will just do our part which is tough at times, but we can get thru it, we will be SO blessed! I wish I could say this in Portuguese; it seems to make more sense to me ha ha. Like "God has so many blessings for us, but he has to WAIT for us." Get it? I dunno that’s kind of how it sounds translated. But I love to teach it in this language cuz it sounds much better. Okay so a quick bit about 2 of our new investigators, they are just awesome! Two of the 5 that came to church, they are not related, but two separate investigators. Maria do Carmo, and Adilson. They are so awesome! We only taught Maria do Carmo once, on Friday, and on Sunday she came to church! It was really awesome. I was so happy! I will give more details later after we have taught her more. :) But Adilson is from Brazil and we have taught him a few times and we are also teaching him English. He has been doing for the most part, all that we ask him to do, so it’s awesome and he is progressing like crazy. On Sunday morning I called him to make sure he was coming to church, and he didn’t answer so I was all bummed but I called one more time like 10 minutes later and he said, "Yeah I’m on my way! I was in the shower when you called the first time!" Ha ha ha! AWESOME!!!

Well to end off the email, I got a new companion this week like I was saying. His name is Elder Bradshaw, also from Utah. He is kind of shy...but he is way cool! He is 6 foot 3 tho so he makes me feel tiny. :( Lame ha ha, but so far we are working really well together, having success, and we are having a really fun time! And it’s only the beginning! :) So I’m really excited for our time to serve together, it’s going great!! :) Have a great week!! I love and miss you all so much! Hey Good news!!! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!
Love Elder Gray

Ups and Downs This Week

This week was good, but not quite as good as I wished. We had lots of ups and even more downs. But its okay, its just life and that’s how things go on the mission. You just have to hit it in the face and try to keep going!! That’s really hard tho. Saturday was a really hard day for me for some reason, anything that could have gone bad did. Anything that could have fallen thru did. Anything that could have been just the opposite of what we want was. It was just a hard, hard day. It felt like a week. The story of the day that just started it all off bad tho, was when we had a lesson marked for noon. And we were excited for it because it was with the family of 3 brothers, and their cousin, all from Africa. We had taught them a couple times and we had Saturday marked to go back. So we did, and we get there and go inside and right as we sat down with one of the brothers, Jonatas, his dad walked in, and I didn’t think too much of it so I was nice and I greeted him and asked him his name and all that. But before I could even explain why we were there and what we do, he just went off on me and told me how ANYTHING we have to say is NOT worth it. They will not accept us in their house any longer. I tried and tried many times to explain what we have. The importance of what we HAVE! But he would just shake his head and say nope, nope, it’s not welcome here, and he just went on and on about how they have their religion and they have the Bible and that is enough. He wouldn’t even really let me talk. I got SO annoyed, but more than anything sad. It was just devastating that those 4 boys will not hear what we have anymore because of him. They loved everything we taught too, and we loved them. It just really broke my heart as we walked out that door on Saturday morning.

Saturday night, we passed by a few of our investigators homes and told them, "We will be here tomorrow morning to take you to church at 9:40," and they say, "okay we will be ready." Well, Sunday came, 9:45 came....nothing, from all of them. They all stood us up. Ahhhh it was so annoying, SO frustrating! I hate how flaky people are in this country. It just happens SO much. They are so lazy, lazy!! DONT BE LAZY!! Especially if you have made a promise to do something, like go to church. If you are baptized, you have MADE the promise that you will continue to GO, SO GO!!!! Don’t be lazy!! Procrastination is a killer!!

I heard a story once. Every year, Satan holds a meeting with ALL his angels. And they talk about what they can do, and how they can better their work so they can bring more and more souls to hell. And every year there is an award given to who gets the most souls taken. Well, every year Satan wins! And the angels are saying, "How does he do it?" So finally after Satan had just won AGAIN in the year 2009, an angel got up the guts to ask him, "Satan? How do you do it? How do you win over SO many souls?" And Satan said, "Well it’s easy, I tell everyone to read their scriptures, go to church, and pray." And the angel had a crazy look on his face like what?? No, that can’t be, then Satan continued, "I tell them to read their scriptures, go to church, and pray.......Tomorrow." Procrastination!! Don’t let Satan get a hold of you! If you are NOT going to church, GO. Because that just means that Satan is winning! Like I said last week (I think it was) we are in a battle! And we cannot win with our warriors procrastinating. Procrastination is a BIG and EASY gateway to Hell. DON’T let it GET you!

Anyway on a bit of a better note, last night we did find a good new investigator that is very cool and very nice. His name is Adilson and he is from Brazil. We invited him to go to church on Sunday next week and he said that he would so I really hope that he will! (Unlike all our other investigators) So we will see how that goes and I will be sure to keep you updated. :) This week we also had our interviews with President Torgan. Man, I tell you, that man is a marvelous speaker! It is such a pleasure every single transfer, twice a transfer to hear him speak to us. He does such a great job and we love it. He really is such a great President! My interview was really good....he knows how to hit me in the heart too. He just makes me want to be a better missionary for ME. Not for him, not for my family, my friends, my girlfriend, anyone!! Just ME! And it’s really cool how he put it all into perspective for me too. He compared it to sports. He said, "Elder Gray, I can see that you seem to be an athlete, you love sports and you DON’T like to lose, am I right?" I say, "Yes that’s exactly right," And he says, "If I recall correctly you like to play Tennis right?" I say, "Yes" and he says, "And will you not do ANYTHING you can do to win? Will you not GIVE YOUR ALL to win that match?" And I smile and say, "Yes, that is true," Then he says, "Well PUT THAT INTO THE WORK!!!" Ha-ha it was just awesome! I loved it! It just made me laugh and I was like wow, how TRUE is that! If we want to WIN this battle against Satan that he just keeps on winning EVERY YEAR....we need to put our ALL into the work! :)

Now a bit of a funny story, I have officially doorbell ditched here in Portugal. Ha ha ha! I know, I know its bad but I got scared so I RAN! Ha-ha, but its for a good reason, well kind of, but in the end it wasn’t. But we had knocked this building in the morning at about 11 or so, and we didn’t get hardly ANYONE to open the door except about 3 or 4 doors out of like 24. So we decided to go back later that day, well, one that just so happened to answer was a mean old man, and he was like NO! So we were trying to remember where it was and we knew that it was on the 3rd floor, but when we got to the 3rd floor, just out of habit I hit the doorbell thing, and I wasn’t really thinking, then I realized we were on the 3rd floor, then I couldn’t remember WHICH door it was, so I was like "oh crap! This is the 3rd floor!" and I just hit the stairs! Ha ha and of course my comp comes running behind me giggling cuz I’m just kind of random and do random things often....ha ha, and we get to the bottom and I’m just like "oh man, I don’t wanna go outside, the person is probably lookin out the window or something ha ha! And well sure enough....SHE was! Yeah that’s right I look up when we start walking away and it was some OLD Lady!!! OOOOppss!! Man I felt like an idiot! Ha ha ha, but it was way funny and it got a big rise out of my companion so it was fun. Afterwards I kind of felt bad tho cuz it was just the wrong door! But it was funny!

Anyway, that is about it for the week. Not a whole lot went down, but we had a decent week. I hope you all have a good week and have fun! But don’t procrastinate the day of your repentance!!! :) 2 Nephi 31:12-16 Also, transfer calls are today. ALREADY!!! I feel like I just got here. So it’s possible I will get a new companion tomorrow, but I don’t know. I feel like we are probably staying another together, we’ll see! Keep your heads up and SMILE! Têm Bom Ânimo!
I LOVE YOU!
Love Elder Gray

District Conference

We had an interesting week this week. We had District Conference this weekend so it feels like we lost a LOT of time to teach. The District Conference was really good. We had President Torgan speak a couple times. I LOVE hearing him speak. It is truly amazing; he is such a good speaker. I really wish I could record one of his talks and send it to you all! But then again, it wouldn’t do any good unless you speak Portuguese...ha ha!

A couple of my favorite parts were just a couple of simple stories that he shared with all of us on Sunday. One was about a little girl. This little girl was asked, "Why do you pray to our Heavenly Father?" and you know what her answer was? "Because I think God misses me." Ahh! SOOOO TRUE! Then, going with that he told one more story, about another little girl that he saw in the airport RUNNING to her dad, and her dad was kneeling down with his arms stretched out and she jumped into his arms and both having just the biggest SMILES ever! That is what it’s going to be like when we move on and we see Heavenly Father with his arms STREATCHED out ready to give us a big huge hug. It’s so wonderful that if we fall short of who we are, that because of our Savior Jesus Christ we can still run to our Heavenly Father and his arms will be stretched out! I just really LOVED that story. Another story, of which I’m sure most of you have already heard, at least I think so, I have heard it a couple times, is about a little 9 year old boy, and he was asked to give blood for his little sister, he said, "if I give her my blood will she be better?" and the doctor said, “yes she will.” So, willingly he did so. After he had given blood, he asked the doctor, "When will I die?" Is that not the PURE LOVE OF CHRIST!? And of course it happened with a little 9 year old boy, WILLING to give ALL his blood. He was ready to give every drop of his blood and die for his little sister so she could get better. When President Torgan told that story it just hit me, and I got a little choked up, which doesn’t happen too often, but that story I will never forget. Our Savior Jesus Christ DID give ALL his blood for us, for all of us! If YOU don’t feel like going to Church on Sunday, think about that. YOU have the knowledge! Therefore, you KNOW that you need to go to church. Quit being SELFISH!!! If we don’t go to church and re-new our covenants with the Savior, especially when we KNOW that it is right, that makes the death of Jesus Christ in VAIN. To me, that is so sad to think about, because there are many people that know what’s right, and they KNOW they need to go to church but they don’t. How do you think the Savior feels when he sees you rather SLEEP or something rather than go to Church?

Our life here on earth is like a big battle. WE, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, are the Warriors, US! We are the ones at the front of that line! And what are you doing? Are you just chillin up there watching the others fight? Cuz if you are you will DIE. I have never heard of a soldier that stood up there on the front lines and just hung out took some vacation time and didn’t get killed. No way, WE are the warriors. WE need to do our part and fight the battle against worldly things. In these "Last Days" we cannot, CANNOT afford sleepers. We cannot afford to lose our Warriors of the Savior to worldly things. We all know our capacity and what we are capable of. So don’t let your guard down!! GO to church, do your part to be a true Warrior! Think about your future, think about eternity! Think most of all about your family, whether that be your family now or your future family. Keep your head up and your guard up or you are going to get a sword right through your "spiritual" heart. Read, Mosiah 2:41. I LOVE to share that scripture with people. It is my favorite scripture. I just love how CLEAR it is and so SIMPLE to understand! Read it, and then act!

On to a pretty funny story this week. We were knocking doors on Wednesday, when I knock this door that has a sticker on the side that says "God is All Mighty" right away we knew it had to be an Evangelical person. The guy opens the door and I say, "Good Afternoon! I am Elder Gray and this is my companion so and so, and we are Disciples of Jesus Christ" and he says "me too!" I said, “oh yeah?” And he just went OFF on how thru Jesus we are saved and he would keep saying "amen" and "hallelujah!" and stuff like that and then, he put his hand on my shoulder. I was like uhhhhhh dude.....what are you doing. And he was like "Thru Jesus, we are saved! Hallelujah!" And I was like "yeah.....because he died for us and..... bam!” He puts his hand on my neck. I just stopped and I didn’t know what to do! I wanted to be like YO DUDE!! That is not necessary! Hand off! And my comp the whole time I could just see he was snickering and trying not to laugh. So FINALLY we got him to stop and we left him at that and he shut the door. And I was like a deer in the head lights. I couldn’t believe what just happened, so I turned around ready the knock the next door (we’re in an apartment complex) and my comp just starts gigglin like crazy and I’m trying to be mature about the situation and keep my cool and tell him to shut up cuz the guy could be looking out his little peep hole and it would be mean if he saw us laughing and what not, so I’m trying to just keep my cool, and as soon as I knock the next door my companion looses it and can’t stop laughing and the lady opens the door and my comps got his back turned and you can just see his back like bouncing and I start making the next contact and the lady looks at my comp like what the?? And I look at him and then I just lost it. It took like 3 minutes to just say a little sentence. It was so funny! But the lady was really nice and fun about it cuz some people here would be like "I don’t have time for GAMES!!" (Yes, that has happened to me) But it turned out good and because of us being all jolly she was happy and nice so we got the contact! Ha, ha it was way funny! Pretty good memory that one. :)

So, back to normal stuff, we had a lesson with our investigator Deborah, she is super nice and loves to hear about what we have to say, but she has SO many doubts and she is SO strong in her church that its super hard to teach her. We keep trying and trying, but she just interprets things we try to teach in other ways and stuff. So it’s pretty hard. But it’s great because it helps me have things to study and learn to respond. But it’s hard, because she is so awesome and I KNOW that she would be such a great faithful member if we could just get her to come around.

On the other hand, we had an awesome lesson with our fairly new investigator Regina. She had been taught by the Elders about a year ago but for some reason we aren’t sure of stopped. I have the feeling it was one of those, the Elders that taught got transferred and over time they just lost contact or something, but that is why we have area books!! So we have taught her a few times and it has always gone great. So, last night we were teaching her about the 3rd lesson. About the 5 steps, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Endure till the end. As I was talking about Baptism, I opened up to 2 Nephi 31 and I left this chapter with her to read until our next appointment with her, and I just talked a little about the importance of baptism and ALL the many blessings that come from it. Now, we hadn’t planned AT ALL on marking her or even extending the commitment, but I did. I extended the invite to her to PRAY and READ about baptism. It was awesome! Afterwards my companion said, "Man, I didn’t think we were going to try to mark her tonight." And I said "Neither did I." That is where you KNOW that it was the spirit guiding me! It was really cool, and our hopes are high for her and her family. We will be going back on Tuesday night to see how it went and hopefully we can mark a date with her. Which would be amazing, because get this, she has NOT even been to church yet. But President Torgan has said that if we pray about it, and we get the answer that the person is ready, we can baptize them even if they have not been to church yet. So we will see how things go. If things go well, by the time she is baptized, she will only have gone to church once or twice. That would just be awesome!! So our hopes and prayers are with her right now.

Anyway, that is about it for this week. I want to thank you all for everything you do for me, for your little comments, e-mails, anything. I appreciate it. I want to say how much I love my Savior. I am nowhere close to perfect, I know it, and I know that I can admit it, But I also KNOW that thru the Savior he can and WILL help me, IF I do my part. I know that I have to do my part and ACT. I’m so thankful for the Gospel in my life. I’m so grateful for the Savior and that he died for my sins and my imperfections. I am doing my best so that his death was not in vain. And I invite you all to do the same. Mosiah 2:41. I LOVE YOU!! Have a great Week and don’t forget to Pray! God Misses You.

Love, Elder Gray

Happy Valentines Day!

It has been so cold this week!! Goodness! I would kill for a warm house right now!! (No heat in the houses here). But in the mixture of all the cold, and all the LOVE in the air, we had a pretty good week, a bit slower than the past couple of awesome weeks, but good. We still had a great number of lessons this week! So I’m happy about that.

I don’t remember if I told you how many people we had in church last week at 10 o clock when church was supposed to start, but it was 5, and this week was 7. That is so, so, so bad! We have a pretty decent branch too is the thing, but they are ALL always late! So, yesterday after church we had a meeting, and at the end when the branch President asked if anyone had any more to say, I said, "I do...and I got up and I basically said how it’s REALLY sad how no one can seem to get to church on time." I asked them "who knows how many people we had at 10 o clock last week here in the chapel?" and they were like uhhhh uhhhh dunno....And I was like exactly! No one here knows because no one here was HERE! And when I said we had 5 people I saw some eyes widen...and I was like yup 5 people. I just bore my testimony how it’s very important that we get to church ON TIME so we can start on time. Its good we have about 30 or so people in church by the END of the meeting. But I don’t even know the last time our Branch President even partook of the sacrament. I didn’t say that, but he knows. And so does everyone else. So I just told them how if they want their branch to grow, which we know they do, they need to get to church ON TIME! I really, really hope to see a difference next week. It went good, I think they all just needed a little push to realize the true importance of church!!

Happy Valentines Day (yesterday) ! I hope you all had a great one! I ended up being the DJ at a Valentines Dance Party thing, ha ha! It was fun for sure!! Kind of homey feeling when they wanted me to play a slow song, I tried to avoid those ones, ha!!

This week we went out to Alenquer. That place is pretty awesome. We were with our member helper Brenda, and we were knocking doors when this little old lady opened the door...First of all, I learned a lesson, DON’T judge even just on little things. Out of ALL the old people I have contacted on my mission, I think she was the first to actually let us talk. Right when she opened the door I was thinking "ah man she is just going to say I’m catholic and shut the door," well she didn’t. She turned out to be one of the nicest little sweetest old people I have ever met. It was really sad, cuz we started talking to her, and she started to say how the world is so bad these days, she is afraid to even leave her house, then worse, she started talking about how she lost her husband a while ago and just broke down and started crying! Ahhhh, I felt my heart just rip in two! I wanted so badly to just give her a hug, it was sad. I could tell in that moment that her husband was really important to her, so I asked her about him, and she said, "Yes, yes he was." Then I asked her, "Do you believe you will see him again?" and she says, "Well I hope so," Then I just bore my testimony to her. It was such a great feeling too. I felt so happy to know what I know, and share that with this stranger I just barely met and still don’t even know her name! It was awesome and very humbling for me. By the end, we had her looking happy and laughing with us. I just went out of my way as much as I could to change the day of this little old lady. I am confident we made her day. And most importantly we left her happy with the thoughts of my testimony letting her know that I KNOW that we will live together with our loved ones again after this life. It was a great, humbling little experience for me.

Remember those 4 new investigators we found? Well we taught 2 of them on Saturday and invited them to come to church, and it was all good and went well and the older guy named Ageu, that is about 22 asked a whole bunch of questions about the book of Mormon and how it came to be and stuff and we had a great lesson. Then again I asked him if he will come to church and he said he would, but then yesterday, at first he didn’t show and I was upset about that, but then about half way thru our meeting I saw him outside walking kind of slow looking at the building like, "is this it?" so I ran outside and got him and brought him in. It was awesome! So I was happy to have him come, he said that next week he will bring his brothers. :) They are really great people! :)

Anyway, that’s about it for this week! I hope everything is going great for you all!! And just a reminder, make sure that IF you write me/email me, make sure you are addressing it to elderrobbygray@gmail.com . I LOVE YOU ALL, have a great week!!! Most importantly remember who you are and take advantage of the GREAT knowledge of this Gospel! If you are lacking a little something, like getting to church every singe week, or being on time, FIX IT NOW! I LOVE YOU!

Love Elder Gray

A couple of New Investigators

Okay so this week was another good week! Our numbers weren’t quite as good as last week, but they were good considering we had zone conference. They are way better than they were in the past from the other Elders here, so I’m happy about our work right now. We have TONZ of lessons that are planned fall thru, but its still going great!

One of our golden investigators that was SO ready to be baptized had to leave to go to Brazil. So that is a big bummer for sure. But its okay, I think she will for sure be baptized, just a matter of time. I hope things go well for her cuz she deserves it, she is awesome and very nice.

Last week, we found a new investigator named Deborah, she is just awesome! She lives basically everything already that we teach her and she likes everything that we teach. The only problem is that she believes that the Sabbath Day is on Saturday cuz that’s how it’s explained in the Bible. So it’s a bit of a stepping stone. We just had a lesson with her on Friday, and we were teaching her, and she just said out of nowhere, "hey look, I’m not going to change my religion, but I really like to hear about your religion and stuff too." So that kind of ripped my heart in two. I was sad, but we will continue to teach her and we will continue to pray for her and we will see what happens. Only God knows. But I know that I will do ALL I can to be sure what is supposed to happen, happens.

We have this other investigator named Didi, she is nice, but she is very, very stubborn. She just also likes to just hear our views on things, but we had a really cool lesson with her the other day that was a good experience for me. We were talking to her and she would just kind of shake her head and laugh sometimes and I was just getting frustrated cuz I was like ummm, that is not cool. I am BEARING my testimony to her and she laughs cuz she is like not agreeing with what I say, so I said, "wait, stop, let me finish." And I just bore a big long testimony of what I KNOW, and that I KNOW these things to be true. She just sat there and thought, quiet, so then we finished with a prayer right when I was done so we could leave her with her thoughts.

This week, guess what we got!!! We got a MICROWAVE!! Whoop! Whoop!! Yeah, I haven’t had a microwave in a long time, like over 6 to 8 months, so I love it!

On Saturday, we had a GREAT day! We found, get this, SEVEN new investigators!! In ONE day! It was so awesome! We were knocking at about noon, and I was all discouraged cuz mornings knocking here are so hard cuz everyone is ALWAYS asleep! But we just continued to keep going, and we knock this door and this kid about 15 opens it and lets us in to talk with him and his brothers! So bam, we got 4 new investigators! And it was an awesome lesson! My favorite part was when I got to start talking about the Book of Mormon, one of them, that is 22 yrs old, was like how can I get a copy of one of those? (as I had one in my hands) and I just reached out and put the book in front of him, and he got this look like what?? And I just said here, it’s yours! And he was like Wow...thank you! So it was great, I really hope they read and pray about what we taught them. We have our next lesson on Saturday same time, so we will see!

My new companion is funny, we are getting along just fine. I guess he thinks I’m pretty funny cuz he is Mr.Giggles, so we are having a pretty good time. Oh! Also on Saturday, we traveled out to Alanquer, it’s an area kind of far from us but its part of our area so we take the bus. But we have a member that lives out there named Brenda and she is awesome! She is 15 and she has the biggest desire to serve a mission, so she is always willing to walk with us and help us out, so we went out there and did some work with her and found this lady, man she was so sweet. She was hanging up her clothes outside on her line as we walked by, and SHE talked first to us. Not us to HER! It was crazy, that usually just doesn’t happen! And we started talking to her about what we do and why we are here and how we are Disciples of Jesus Christ, and once we said that she started talking about the Savior and how she says that she has visions about him and how he is crying everyday because of the iniquity in the world. It hit me, wow, She is so right. You know that the Savior cries because of the horrible things we do in this world. Think about it, we are all his brothers and sisters! Imagine if your brothers and sisters were at war and killing and all that worldly stuff. It truly is sad, and as she was talking about all this she began crying too and it got me choked up too. It was a great spiritual experience. I gave her a Book of Mormon and told her we will pass by again soon. She was so sweet. I have 100 percent confidence that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can and WILL bless her life so much. After that great experience, well we kind of got lost, not literally but we had walked into this foresty place that was just really awesome and beautiful so we just kept following the trail to see where it lead, well it went nowhere and we ended up at the top of this hill by a house. So we jumped the wall and snuck around trying to find our way out and some guy saw us and said, "Hey!! Where did you guys come from!! What are you doing here on my property?!" And sweet little Brenda was like ummm, we are lost and trying to find the way out.” He said, “oh, okay,” ha ha! It was funny how that worked out, and it made me think, how often do we get upset at someone or something before knowing WHY or WHAT? Think about that next time you see someone "Lost".

It was a great week for us last week. We’re praying for one just as great this week. I miss you all. Keep your head in the right place. GO TO CHURCH. Feel the spirit there testifying of its truthfulness. I love you all so much. If I love the people here, that I barely know, and want the best for them and their salvation....Imagine what its like for those of you even CLOSER to me. I LOVE YOU!!! Have a great week and SMILE!!
MUCH LOVE, Elder Gray

Huge, Wonderful E-mail ERASED!

I am so, so, sosossoso mad right now!! I just wrote a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE, e-mail to alllllllll!! To everyone, seriously a huge email, and when I finished and pushed SEND right then I got kicked off the site for some reason. OH MY GOODNESS!! I can’t even believe it. I don’t even know what to do now. It was SUCH A GOOD LETTER TOO!!! This week, we had SO much happen. I explained EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING in that letter. NOW........GONE, AHHHHHHHHH!!!! I don’t even know what to do. There is no way I can re-write it all now, and I can’t re-write it all as good either! I’m so mad!!!

Well...we really had a great week! But now I don’t know even where to start cuz I don’t have time to tell ALL of it again. I’m so frustrated you won’t get that email. It was SO good!! Well, first off, bad news, our mission home got robbed. They took Presidents laptop, a missionary’s camera and all his pen drives which had ALL his pictures from his whole mission, (poor kid) and they found the cash box of 1300 EUROS CASH. That is A LOT, so that is sad news.

We had a lot of really good lessons this week! (uugggghhh I can’t believe I’m writing this AGAIN) Anyway, we had a great lesson with this investigator and his friend, they are Evangelicals tho which is hard to teach, but long story short, we pretty much were bible bashing which I don’t like nor am I good at, so I just started bearing my testimony harshly so to say. But it was way cool! I seriously felt something so different. I felt like Jeffrey R. Holland hitting the table and what not, cuz I was trying to get something thru this dudes head, but it was really cool for me cuz I had a very interesting experience because of it. (Which I explained WAY better in my last letter but can’t now..) no time...and we got a new investigator named Deborah, she is way awesome! I will tell you about her next week.

Last night we had to burn devil books....ha ha, that was interesting, that’s for sure! But it was pretty fun too.

SO the best part of my week. In the past, here in Carregado the Elders haven’t been able to get more than about 13 to 15 lessons a week. My first half a week here we only had like 9 or so, but then this week, my first FULL week and knowing some people and the area better, we got 22 LESSONS!! It was so awesome!! It makes me so happy! I also found out that we are the WEAKEST zone in the whole mission, and one of the very weakest Branches in the mission. So, in a way I feel kind of special because President sent me out here where the work needs to be REAL WORK. There has to be REAL hard workers out here so its kind of cool cuz it shows me that my President trusts that I am a good hard worker, and this week, my 1st weeks number showed it, so I’m way happy about that! Anyway, maybe next week I will tell all the stories again. I can’t type anymore now tho my hands and arms are dead. Lol, but that HUGE e-mail getting erased has just put a HUGE party foul on the day. Next week I will update everything that happened THIS week...I will be a bit behind, but oh well. I LOVE YOU!
Love Elder Gray

A New Area and 2nd Councilor in the Branch Presidency

I’m in a new area! First and most importantly here’s my new apartment address...(not that hardly any of you write) ha ha, just playin.
Praceta João Alveres Fagunds
Lote 2 11 Dto
2580, Carregado
Portugal

Well so far, this area seems pretty good. It is for sure VERY different from Setubal. No question! Much smaller and basically pretty boring with nothing around, but its okay, it’s a cool place. There are a couple of cities that are part of our area, one that is called Alanquer or something like that, it is about a 45 or 50 min walk that I hear is quite beautiful and then another area called Azambuja, that is not in walking distance so we have to take a bus out there, but I’m excited to see those places cuz they look way sweet. My area here just in Carregado is nothing special; it’s just mostly buildings, that’s it. The people here seem very cool and are very nice. We are in a little Branch of about 30 or so people. I’m really hoping to see this place grow while I’m here.

I’m really excited to work here because its a very different place from my last area and I will be doing more finding of new investigators than I did before in Setubal. I’m excited for it cuz that’s where new members come from! There have been about 2 baptisms in the recent past but sadly they are both pretty much inactive. THAT is why it’s SO important to make sure that the person is for sure READY and you aren’t just getting the baptism for the number. I think lots of missionaries don’t quite pay attention to that. I know that it’s extremely important for that person to be READY and know that they are the elect. One girl that was just baptized I hear just doesn’t even really talk to the missionaries anymore. It’s sad really. And the other guy that was baptized just comes to church once in a while but doesn’t really have "time" anymore. Ughhh...TIME?? Gimme a break! That’s what they all say. There is no way people don’t have ANY time for the Lord. NO WAY. It’s not the fact that they don’t have time. It’s the fact that they don’t WANT to GIVE the time. I am excited to be here tho. Even tho it may be really small and not nearly as many people as there were in Setubal, I just need to keep my head up and work hard!

I am the 2nd councilor in the Branch Presidency. Weird ha ha, but I think it will be a cool and a new experience! I’m not exactly sure how it works so far and what I will exactly be doing yet, but my companion is the Secretary and he seems to like it so it’ll be pretty sweet! Its cool we get this opportunity to have a little variation and a little more to do to help out the Branch.

I had to give a talk yesterday in church for about 15 minutes. My comp said I spoke for MORE than 15 minutes. Ha ha, and I was thinking 15 minutes?? Ahhhhh, but it went really good I think, other than some tripping on the language once in a while, but that’s normal. I talked about the Book of Mormon and the importance there of and that we all need to be READING it every day. I also found lots of real good scriptures to go with it so it was good. :)

My new companion is Elder Jacques, he is a nice kid. He is very respectful to the people and stuff so that is nice unlike my last comp, I just did NOT understand that. Also, he is a CLEAN person, unlike my last 3 comps, so I’m stoked. He is from California; I don’t remember what city...not a big one. So far things are going good with us! He is kind of funny, a bit of a goober, but thats okay. ;) He is also younger, he is at about 7 or so months in the mission. He is a good hard worker too so it’s awesome! :)

So during this week, we only had 7 lessons. In Setubal I was averaging about 20 to 25 lessons a week. So it’s a small number this week. We had about 23 or so hours of finding. (tracting) Crazy! It’s good for me tho, I am enjoying it so far. There are a few things that I really want to get going better here. The Elders in the past haven’t really done a lot of marking for lessons. I have learned that marking an HOUR on the DAY is much more sufficient, so I’m hoping that I can get that going here so the things we mark will go good and we won’t have so many planned lessons fall thru. Anyway, I hope all is going great for you at home! I miss you and LOVE you all!! Have a great week!!

Love Elder Gray

A Lot Happening This Week!

The week just flew by again, just like I thought it would...it was really good tho! I will find out today if I get transferred, and if I do, I will be gone tomorrow, which is sad to think about cuz I really do love my area here. But I have had my share that is true. We DID have our Baptism of Ines on Saturday! Whoop! It was AWESOME, and it went SO good too, also the confirmation. I will start with the start....of the week. :)

We taught Ines on Tuesday, and we had to be just straight up with her to be SURE 100 percent that she is ready. And it went really, really well and I could tell she was for sure ready! We taught her about how important it is for her to STAY on the right path and do what’s right. I loved it. We taught her at our 1st counselor’s house with Pedro too, so it was good cuz we had two other people to help testify the importance of STAYING in the church and NOT drifting away. Sometimes it can get hard and sometimes, people start to doubt their testimonies. Its THEN, when they need to get on their knees and get back in line and ask for help. I have already seen many people who were baptized fall away from the church, whether it be 1 year later, 6 months later, or 15 yrs. later, who knows, but the fact is, NO ONE is perfect. Everyone has doubts, but it’s what we do THEN that counts. It’s the way we ACT when we are feeling doubtful. If we do NOTHING....Nothing will happen. But if you TRY and you ACT, things will happen for the better and life will be happy, happy, happy! I have NO doubt about that! I have taught many times about the importance of ACTING. And it’s just SO true. We wont get anywhere without acting. Things don’t just happen for us. We don’t become FIRM in the gospel, in the church without ACTING and making our way THERE!!! So ACT and pray! That is basically what I told her, and what I’m telling YOU. We can all improve and be better. And there is no feeling greater than when we are doing our very best. Then we had one more lesson with Ines on Thursday. We had just a couple other things to teach her like fasting and obeying the law, and just a couple things like that and it ALSO went just perfect. She was an awesome investigator, she also asked a LOT of questions, which shows me that she cares and that she really wants to know! Then, of course we had the baptism on Saturday. Right before her baptism, she still had in her nose piercing, and so I said, “hey you ought to take that out now,” and she said, “OKAY, no problem,” and she took it right out. No questions, no complaints, nadda! It was cool! I have seen lots of people all sad about taking out their piercings and stuff but she was just like “OKAY” done! It was awesome. Her friend, a member, Gerson baptized her and he did a GREAT job. It was really spiritual, and it was his first time baptizing someone and he afterward was telling me, (he is 16) how grateful he is for us teaching her and giving HIM this opportunity to baptize her. He told me how strong the spirit was after he baptized her and he was shaking cuz he felt so good. NOW THAT is what I’m talking about!! Yeah, I kind of wish I could have baptized her, its always awesome getting IN the water too, but I tell ya, that hug that he gave me afterward and those feelings that HE felt too...well it just doesn’t get much better!
So I got to see TWO people have just AMAZING experiences! I was very, very grateful for the opportunity I had to be the one to teach her and see her baptized. It was incredible. That’s what missionary work is all about. :)

So get this, funny little story...We were at dinner with Pedro’s family, and we are sitting at the dinner table eating, when the little girl, Miriam said, “I am going to marry Elder Gray!” ha ha! Everyone was like huh? That was random! She loves me, but she doesn’t like my comp now or my last one, so its funny. She is always calling me a DOLL too. She is 6 years old, so I guess I’m going to have to wait a little while, ha ha! (Jenn, it’s the little girl you talked to on Christmas.)

OH!! I almost forgot! YOU ALL WILL NOT believe THIS! I still don’t really. I, ROBBY, SANG at the baptism. WHAT!? Yeah, it was so weird! I guess I did pretty well, I know I don’t sing but Ines wanted me to sing so bad for some reason with Gerson. So Gerson and I sang "Love at Home" for the closing song. It was crazy. One thing that was pretty interesting tho, is like...I wasn’t nervous. I mean, I kind of was but not really. I thought I would choke and die cuz I NEVER sing in front of people, so it was quite the interesting experience, and it went okay I guess.

Sorry I’m going kind of out of order here, but hey I’m keeping things interesting...So on Sunday! The Confirmation of Ines was great! Pedro did it and he was super nervous, but he got thru the first part just fine and gave a GREAT blessing! It was an awesome opportunity for him. He will be leaving on his mission here in February to Belgium. He did a very good job, and we got to stand in the circle.

Also at church, it was really funny, there was a little family sitting right in front of us, and a little girl saw a little spider, and I figured she would freak out like most people do, but instead she says, "MOM! LOOK! Awww...Mom he is going to starve to death!" Ha ha ha ha!! It was so FUNNY! She said it like 5 times, she was so worried that this little spider was going to starve to death! Ha ha, I loved it. Normally people just kill em! But no, she wanted to feed the poor little guy. HA HA! So anyway, we had a great, great week! :) A great week for me to end all my time here in Setubal. At least I’m pretty sure...I will know later today. I love YOU!! Have a GREAT WEEK EVERYONE!! Miss you!
Love Elder Gray

ANOTHER BAPTISM!

This week was really good, it went by super fast! That seems to happen on occasion. I have a feeling this week will go even faster! I have pretty much planned on the fact that I will be transfered this transfer, which is next Tuesday. So I have one more week in this area. And I'm just going to try to love every single minute of it! Most of the people here know that I am probably leaving soon so our week is way, way full of stuff to do. We don't hardly have anywhere to squeeze in any thing else, so I'm excited for this week!

We have our baptism on Saturday! I dont think I have ever been so excited for a baptism in my mission. I am way stoked for this one! I think it's cuz I am the one that started teaching her, I have taught her everything, so its way cool. There are still some things we have to go over and figure out and make sure that she is FOR sure 100 percent ready. But I personally think she is very ready. We are going to have a little lesson on Tuesday with her and I am just going to have to be 100 percent straight forward with her and make sure she knows the concequences of going BACK to the "old" life. When I was getting ready for my mission, my Bishop told me something that I have never forgotten. Very simple but so true, that is to look FORWARD. To continue FORWARD and to not look back on the things of the past, only learn from them and realize what it is you will NOT go back to. So I pretty much told her that too and it just went really well. It is truly amazing to teach the Gospel. But its even more amazing to teach the Gospel with the Spirit. Without the Spirit this work would be SO much harder! I am so grateful for the Spirit that is constantly with us out here as we teach. It's especially amazing when you FEEL the Spirit and you RECOGNIZE it, that is spectacular! I feel that she is for sure ready and will be baptized, but I dont want to just baptize her for the number. I want to baptize her because she is READY and she now knows the truth and she has the true desire to be a faithful member. I see at times people that missionaries baptize just because it was easy and BAM! They are inactive. I don't want that. I want the people that I see get baptized, that are because of ME, stay. I can control the fact that I know a person is truly changed and READY for baptism. I think at times, some missionaries forget the real importance of baptism and just do it to have that NUMBER for President. It is hard not to tho, he is always breathing down our backs so to say, but its good too cuz it makes us work hard and find those ELECT!!

This last week, for P-day, we went to the Castle in Palmela that is kind of close to our house. Before the fact I just figured it would be kind of cool. But it was awesome! It rained on us like crazy! It seriously downpoured on us so so hard I couldn't believe it! In like 3 seconds there were rivers of water just going everywhere! But I think that made part of the experience. So it was really cool and lots of fun. Serving in Portugal is for sure cool when it comes to all the awesome Castles! I love em!!

Random question....Why do SO many people NOT brush their teeth at night? I have only had ONE companion that I have noticed brushes his teeth at night. I swear all my comps only brush in the morning. I dont get it! I think its gross. Eeewwww, I cant sleep without brushing...haha! Random, but it was just a thought....haha! Well I hope you all have a great week!

LOVE AND MISS YOU!
Love Elder Gray

It's a NEW YEAR!

I hope you all had a great New Years! Ours was pretty good. Our ward had a huge party with music and dancing and we hung out till midnight then went home, and right as we left we saw a whole bunch of fireworks going off in the distance so it was pretty cool! But yeah that’s basically it, nothing too special, but we had fun.

This week we got a new investigator! His name is Otavio, and we taught him on Saturday night and he said that he would come to church the next day, but on Sunday, it was raining WAY hard. So he didn’t come. There were a TON of people that didn’t come to church cuz of the rain. It's pretty crazy, but they don’t have cars here like we do in the states so not every single person and their dog has their own car, so they walk everywhere they go, but when it's raining they don’t leave the house. So there were quite a few people home from church on Sunday. But, we still had 2 investigators there so I was happy to see that!! One of which is the girl Ines that we are trying to get baptized but her mom doesn’t want to allow it but we are trying! I know that if she really puts her heart to it, and really wants to be baptized she will. :) I have no doubt. It just might take a little more time than normal.

We had a lesson with our recent convert Andre that was baptized not too long ago, and we taught his mom too, she is not a member, yet. So we had dinner with them and then we left a message, and right after I get done talking, Andre was like "hey wait I have a message too!" He ran out of the room and came back with his Bible and opened up and read in Genesis and left us a little message too! It was AWESOME! I loved it! He is 11 yrs old and to see that was just awesome because he is so young but yet he is reading and loving the Bible and the book of Mormon! Talk about a great example for his mom! Way awesome! His mom, Sonia, said she would give us a date for her baptism on the 13th. The 13th is her Birthday, for some reason she has to wait till then to give us a date. hmm....ha ha, I dunno why, but when we try to mark a date for her she is like no, no I will pick the date. So we are waiting (im)patiently, haha! I hope she plans on this month….but we will see. She is totally ready she just needs to commit!!

I think I will be getting transferred here in about 2 weeks, well about 3, and I’m a bit nervous for where I will go. I would like to stay here one more, but I’m just not sure that will happen. I have been here for a long time! And I’m lucky for it! It’s a great place and the members here are awesome. But we will see. So, if you were planning on sending me mail, don’t, not to my apartment at least, unless you send it like tomorrow, in other words, Jenn and Amber...(cuz they are the only ones who write!!) Send it within this week. :) Hopefully I stay one more transfer, but I am not really counting on it. I have had my share of this awesome area, it’s probably someone else’s turn.

Things are going pretty good. Me and my comp have been sick but are feeling a bit better. I am doing better...my comp is getting worse tho. It always seems to be that way; one person gets sick for about a week and then when one starts to feel better the other gets sick. I tell ya, it’s horrible for the work!! Ahhhh...... It’s Life! Well I hope you all had a great New Years!! And I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Make 2010 the best yet!! I love you! Miss ya!!
Love Elder Gray