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