No transfer, but a crazy week!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LOVE YOU ALL!

ELDER GRAY!!

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

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