Adventurous Week

This last week seriously flew by! I can’t believe I am already sitting here writing this e-mail again! It was very eventful, very good, but also very sad. A young kid in our ward, 17 years old, awesome, kid, one of those that you just know will be at church and he is just always smiling and happy and what not, well he got in a car accident on Friday night and died. He was with his older sister, the driver, and his 2 other brothers and his girlfriend. The car that they got in the accident with hit their car right at his door. The back left door. He didn’t have a chance. I heard that he broke every bone in his body. So, so sad, I couldn’t believe it. He was really an awesome kid. But, I know its life, things happen quickly and very unexpectedly and sometimes very tragic and super hard to deal with. I felt so bad for the family. His sister was driving and is still in the hospital. She broke a few bones and her hip. One other brother is in the hospital but will be fine, and the other is fine. He walked away without a scratch. The family is still having a hard time. I couldn’t help but feel the most for the girlfriend though. I left my “best friend” back home to serve my mission for these two years, but I know I will return and see her again. This tragic accident has left his girlfriend barely able to walk. She is so torn up, I just felt so bad. I felt so helpless.

Sacrament meeting this week was the best sacrament meeting I think I have ever attended. The spirit was SO strong it was really incredible. The chapel was chuck full of people and the meeting was about an hour and 45 minutes long. Our choir sang, (which I’m in) uuhhhhummm, thank you, thank you, (doesn’t mean I’m good by any means...) haha, but the spirit there was incredible. We sang a song about Trust in God. It was awesome! It was pretty hard to sing though cuz me and everyone else was choked up or crying. It was tough but truly amazing.

The funeral was on Tuesday. We only got to see about 30 minutes though because we had to go to Lisbon for me, I had a doctor appt. that couldn’t be changed. Lame! But the half hour we saw was awesome! There were 2 great speakers and some amazing hymns and what not. It was great. I heard by the end of the funeral like at the cemetery there were over 400 people there! WOW! It’s like in this place everyone is just one big family. It was incredible to see the love and support from so many people.
Okay, so on a happier note, we may have lost one, but we are gaining 3 on Saturday! (Members, that is.) We have 3 baptisms on Saturday which I’m SUPER stoked for! They are 3 young guys, 17, 14, and 9. They are such cool kids and I have seen so much progression out of them it’s incredible. It’s mostly incredible to see what they are willing to give up to be a member of Christ’s church. It’s truly a miracle being able to see peoples lives change for the best here. I love it. I can’t imagine being on one of those missions where they baptize like 10 people a week. Wow! I’m just grateful for what I have. Chega. ;) We talked to the 3 boys last night about who will do what and stuff and they said they wanted both of us to baptize them, well one of them, and we were like uhh it can only be one of us, haha. The 2 oldest kids will be baptized by members here, and the young one, my comp will baptize. It’s his last transfer so it is an awesome way to go out I’d say!! Anyway, that’s about it for the week! It was quite the adventurous week. And it was good. Thank you all for everything. I LOVE YOU!
Love Elder Gray
Oh and also, next week we have one more marked for baptism. We really hope it will go, but his desire is a bit lacking. So we have more work to do. :)