Tripple Companionship

Hi Fam!
I’m sorry I have to be quick this week, we have a pretty busy day and not full time for internet, but we had a good week this week. We had an awesome singing thing at a store where our choir sang Christmas songs and it was awesome! We had a ton of people standing watching. It was a lot of fun, and I tell ya, the spirit was really strong. I know that the spirit works thru music! It is incredible.

So I gave this lesson the other day to a member and his wife, and I talked about prayer, and at first I was just going to read a scripture and that’s it, and just say how it's important to pray cuz they just wanted a quick thought. But then I just kept going and talked about how important prayer is and I felt the spirit come and take me away and I was just teaching things that I had not planned at all! That is always such a great experience and I love it!!

So we have a new companion, we are doing pretty good, he is a cool kid, messy tho, he’s kinda gross, but hopefully I can teach him some things, ha ha. He has only been out about 7 months. So it’s going to be a bit different now there are 3 of us! It’s cool tho and I’m excited for this transfer. Anyway I’m sorry this letter is kind of short, I promise next week will be much better! :)

I love you all so much! Have a great week and remember WHY we celebrate this time of year! LOVE YOU!
LOVE ELDER GRAY

Up's and Downs

Well we have had a week of ups and downs. It started off about as bad as it can possibly get. I got super, super sick, like I thought I was just going to pass out and die! I don’t know what happened to me. On Monday I was fine all day until about bed time, I was reading the Bible and out of no where I got a little nauseous, so I decide to go to bed. Well I couldn’t, and didn’t sleep at all the whole night. I have said that many times before but this time, I really actually did not sleep. I kept thinking I was going to throw my brains up but it just kept not happening, not happening, so 7AM rolls around, and I call the Zone Leaders and tell them we can’t have District Meeting cuz I’m sick and haven’t slept yet...Finally at about 9AM I say a prayer, and man I tell ya, I can testify that God loves me. I have NO doubt that he was looking over me and knew that I needed to get back to health and so he helped me out. I fell asleep and slept till about 3 or 4PM then got up kind of, not being able to walk for more than 12 steps from the bathroom and back without feeling like I’m going to pass out, so I just laid around all day...But I was doing a bit better and not feeling as bad as I was, the next day was a little better, and I got some of my energy back which was good. But it wasn’t till about Friday that I felt 100 percent again. But thank goodness it wasn’t a whole week or longer thing eh?! Flip!

In the midst of me feeling like crawling in a 6 foot hole, we had some really good lessons! We also had a dinner appointment with Helio and Sonia. I tell ya, if I come back to Portugal someday, which I plan on....They are some people I need to bring something. They are the NICEST people I have EVER met. I can’t even believe it! They feed us GOOD food and then Sonia just empties out their whole kitchen into a few sacks and makes us take it home! It is SO nice. She LITERALLY empties her kitchen. We are in the process of writing a Thank You note to them. She also gave us a pan! Ha ha, cuz well, we don’t have jack for cooking, so she helped us out a bit, very nice! They are a huge blessing to us here in Setubal.

We also had dinner with Bishop Santos´ family. They are also AMAZING. They are really nice and very fun! We played some magic games with them which was a blast! I did that "bang, bang, bang, click, click, who died" game. (Thanks Scotty) and they LOVED IT! NO ONE ever figured it out. And I didn’t tell. My comp got mad tho cuz he thinks he is all hot shot and knows everything so it was hilarious! On Saturday we had a lesson with Val again. It was great! We invited her to come to church again, telling her she has failed us not coming in the past. Then we compared going to church like first trying a food. I talked about how I thought I would NEVER ever try Sushi in my life! NEVER! But then I did and now its one of my FAVES! And well, hey she came to church! It was awesome, I was way happy to see her! I don’t know yet what she thought about it, we haven’t talked to her, but at least she came. A good start!

We had our lesson also with Iris again. She is studying also with the Jehovah Witness people, Urrgh. But don’t worry we slammed everything they had to say. Ha, ha, just playin, we did it all in a very nice way. But still let her know the TRUTH, and showed it to her, and proved it to her! We were with her for almost 2 hours and every minute was great cuz she is so into all we say and teach, it was just great!

So, that’s about our week! Pretty interesting I would say! And now, tonight here in a couple hours we are going to dinner with our investigators Manuel and Cristina! It is Christina’s B-day and they invited us to dinner with them!! How flipping cool are they!? I know! So I’m pretty stoked I tell ya! We are also going to some place to have a pizza buffet with Bishops family! Woop, Woop!! I hope you all have a great week and remember who you are!

I just finished reading the book My Heritage, and there was a part talking about remembering who you are, and I just loved it because my pops always said that, and he couldn’t be more right. We need to always keep that thought in mind. Who we are and why we are here and what it is we are DOING. What are YOU doing? What are YOU doing to bring others to Christ?? Hmmmm? The most important work in Missionary work is, the work, also it is the MEMBERS! So do your part. And remember to pray and stick close to your Heavenly Father! He is waiting to bestow his blessings upon each and every one of US! I LOVE YOU ALL and I hope you have a great week!
LOVE Elder Gray

Sort of a slow week, but a good one

This week was really good, we had quite an interesting experience. (But don’t worry it’s not April Fools anymore) We were teaching our little Chinese people again and we were teaching them the 2nd lesson and when we got to the spirit world part, the guy just stopped us and was like, “whoa, no, no when we die, we are dead. That’s it!” It hit me like a ton of bricks! How would you like to live your life thinking that once you die you are dead. And that is it. It was just so weird to me. He wouldn’t budge on it either. But he listened to us and we extended some reading for him to do. I just really hope he reads then prays with a soft heart and with real intent so he can come to find the truths.

Oh so this week and the next, well like 3 weeks, we are doing service week in our district and came up with point system for all our stuff we do and one of them is clean someone’s dog. Well, we did it! We cleaned a dog! He was not very happy about it though, that was for sure. It was really funny. He just whined the whole time! BUT he was so clean after and actually smelled good! That’s not common here for a dog to smell even half-way decent. It was pretty awesome!

We also taught the 2nd lesson to Elizabete and her boyfriend with a little story example thing we came up with and they really liked it a lot. Her boyfriend usually doesn’t listen to us but he really liked it and now we have a return appt with him! I’m so stoked! Elizabete wants to be baptized but can’t because she lives with him. So we need to get them married!! But marriage here to these people is like pointless. Their attitude is, “Why get married when you can just live together?” Arrgh! So frustrating!

So last week we went to Sintra, very beautiful place, try looking it up on the Internet, see what you can see if there is much, it is just amazing! There is so much cool stuff there. I took tons and tons of pics there, so it will be fun for you to get my next picture card. I take lots of videos too.

Conference was this week as you all know. It was SO good! We watched only the Saturday morning session on Saturday night here, then watched ALL the rest on Sunday. LONG DAY, but a good one for sure. The talks were all so good! I love conference; you can get so, so much out of it if you just try! Don’t sleep! I wish I could go back in time and watch all the past conferences they are so awesome! If you slept, shame on you! But I’m not one to talk too much because I wasn’t real good before my mission. But you are all adults now so listen carefully: Take notes! I know it’s over by now, but if you slept I would invite you to go back and read them when they come out in the Ensign and pay attention this time.

Well that’s about it for now. Was a good week, not a real ton happened though. I hope you all have a wonderful week! LOVE YOU!!

Elder Gray

Seven new investigators in two days!

This week was another great week! The top story of the week is we got 7 new investigators in 2 days! It was so awesome! Cuz I dunno much about other places in the world, but here normally we only get 2 or so new investigators a week. So it was so, so cool!

We contacted a Chinese woman on the side of the street and we ended up teaching her and her husband! Then we went to this kid’s house we have been teaching a couple times and he had 3 friends over and all his friends seemed more interested than him. It was really cool so I hope that will all keep going good. We have some good potentials for this week too, so hopefully the numbers will continue to climb.

Well, transfers are here. This Tuesday we find out if we are getting transferred, so I will let you know next week if I get transferred or not. I think I will be...but I’m not sure. It could go either way you just never know. I would like to stay, but also going would just be another new experience for me!

This week I studied really hard in the Book of Mormon. I love the Book of Mormon! I study it every day for at least 45 minutes. I love every single second of it! I write down everything I learn and feel. It is so beneficial. If you are not reading in the Book of Mormon, please do. It is so amazing! I learn so, so much every day; new stuff all the time.

Couple funny stories… One of our investigators went to our chapel like 3 times he said on Monday trying to get a hold of us...we were like, “Why did you go there?” Well he thought we lived there! haha! I guess that is pretty common here.

Also this week we had interviews with President Terry and we were all sitting in the chapel waiting for our turn, when a cell phone goes off right by Elder Peterson and he looks at it and says out loud, “Who’s crappy phone is this?” just as Sister Terry stands up! Ha! It was SO funny! We all just started laughing so hard! I was like, “well you sure aren’t going to be zone leader Elder Peterson!” It was way funny.

Scotty, wanna know how to say party foul? It’s ‘falta de festa’, but be sure to say the s in festa like shh. It doesn’t actually translate perfectly, but ya, I still say it all the time. Haha!

I got a letter in the actual mail yesterday! It was a good day! Thanks Dad!! Feel free to send more mail mail. Actual real mail is fun cuz we check the box everyday, but there is nothing ever in it. So when there is, it’s like a big party!

Well, I gotta go but I am so grateful for my opportunity to serve our Lord. How blessed are we to have the opportunity to spread the word of God every day. Please pray for the people here to have soft and open hearts, so they can hear the wonderful message we have to share with them about the wonderful gospel.

I am so grateful for all of you! I’m sorry I don’t get to write more personal mail, but only having one hour each week is tough as I’m sure you understand. But thank you so much for continuing to write even if I don’t have the time to write you back personally so much. Thank you all so much for all you do for me. I feel your prayers in our work every day. Continue to live the gospel and pray always! I Love you all so much. Thank you for the support. I appreciate it more than you could know!

I LOVE YOU!

Love,

Elder Gray

A baptismal challenge! How cool is that?

Well, it’s already been another week! Sometimes I feel like the time just goes pretty slow, but then I look back and I just think wow I feel like I was just sitting at this computer yesterday! The time warp on the mission is pretty crazy! Days feel like weeks, but weeks feel like days!

This week was pretty good. There were for sure a lot of ups and downs throughout the week though. The beginning of the week was really tough actually because all of our appointments and people we had scheduled to teach bailed on us! It was so frustrating! Then to make things worse, our favorite family, the Ages Familia, they got their car stolen. And when that happens here, well you are pretty much out of luck. They found it two days later completely ripped apart and totaled. I felt so bad! They are such an awesome family they did not deserve that at all! I just hate it! I wish there was something I could do to help. But there is just nothing we can do. It’s really sad.

But...on a good note, even though they have gone through this hard time, last night we marked Ineida (the wife) and their son, Yuri, for baptism!!! How cool is that? We are so happy for them. We are really hoping they keep working hard and pray with all their hearts. That and reading the Book of Mormon is so vitally important! They are scheduled for baptism on Feb 14th. So I really hope they continue to progress so we can get them baptized.

It is still really cold here. I want it to warm up soon! My fingers are numb right now. And we are inside. I find it so weird that they don’t believe in heaters. It’s crazy! My companion says you just get used to it, but we’ll have to see about that!

Have a wonderful week and do not ever forget to read and pray! Every Single Day! I have come to find so much how very important that is in our daily lives. Praying is such an unbelievable gift that we get to have to be able to communicate with our Father in Heaven. Do NOT take this for granted! Sad to say before my mission I didn’t pray nearly as much as I should have. But I have repented for that! And the blessings come much more as you pray day and night! I know this is so, so important!

I love this gospel! It’s such a comfort to me knowing that I will live with my family in eternal happiness! IF we endure to the end. So work hard! ... As will I!! I love you all. Have a wonderful week.

Love,

Elder Gray