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