My MTC Christmas

Christmas was pretty awesome! Thank you for the package, I loved it! We had Elder David A. Bednar on Christmas Eve and Elder Holland on Christmas day. It was so awesome! When Elder Bednar walked in we were singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and when we saw him everyone started singing louder and the spirit filled the room like nothing I've ever felt before. I got the chills for what felt like 2 minutes! I just stood there singing full of joy and happiness and just really felt the spirit. After his amazing talk, we all got to shake his hand! How cool is that?! When I shook his hand I was just like...WOW, that's one powerful dude! Seriously, it was so awesome! Elder Holland was really good too, and I felt very good and I'd say we were really lucky to have them both come. I liked the Christmas card you sent, it was funny! I'm glad you had a good Christmas. I thought about you all a lot but I got thru it, and thank you for so much support. It really helped me to keep going.

Today we are going to the temple to clean. It's closed for cleaning till January 2nd so this will be our last time to be in the temple before we leave. We are supposed to get our flight plans today, so I will send you that info soon, and then I'll get to call home from the airport and hopefully get to chat with a few of you!

I'm glad Christmas was good and in 2 christmases I'll be back there with ya again. I miss you, and I love you!

Elder Gray

We did Temple Sealings!

I got some nice cards and treats from some of the ward members and Mike and Amy. Please tell them thank you so much. I wish I had time to write everyone, but time in here is short. So Please express my thanks.

The speaking "no English" is going ok for me but this week was actually really tough, and I did not do very well when I taught the first lesson. I was really frustrated yesterday.

We got to go to the temple today though, and I felt much better after that. We did a sealing session for the first time and it was awesome! Elder Bell and I were very lucky to sit with a family, a mom, dad and son, and his new wife of about 3 months, and the dads mom. It was so cool and they were such awesome people. Then we found out the son went to Brazil and speaks Portuguese! So that was awesome to talk to him. He gave us some good tips and pointers. The temple sealing is so awesome! I seriously just felt at ease and happy the whole time we were there. :) It made me way excited to get married! I can't wait to be able to take my wife to the temple someday! I just know thats going to be the best day of my life!

I know now more than ever before how important that little picture is (in my room that mom gave me) that says: "I will make the choices today that will take me to the temple tomorrow." HOW TRUE! I just loved today!

SEND ME PICTURES!! I want to see my family!
Love you all!

Elder Gray

Getting Letters is The Best!

Hey Dad,

I got your letter today! Now I know what everyone meant when they say how nice it is to get mail. I love it! It's like a big day brightener!

Anyways, everything is going pretty good. We taught our first lesson without notes to "investigators." They weren't really investigators, they were volunteers, but we still had to do our best and we actually did really well with the lesson. But I struggled with introducing ourselves in Portuguese. Learning a language is hard!

Today was our first full P-Day, so we got to go to the temple which was really awesome. I'm glad we get to go once a week. I wish there was a temple in Portugal.

I love you and miss you!

Love, Elder Gray