ANOTHER BAPTISM!

This week was really good, it went by super fast! That seems to happen on occasion. I have a feeling this week will go even faster! I have pretty much planned on the fact that I will be transfered this transfer, which is next Tuesday. So I have one more week in this area. And I'm just going to try to love every single minute of it! Most of the people here know that I am probably leaving soon so our week is way, way full of stuff to do. We don't hardly have anywhere to squeeze in any thing else, so I'm excited for this week!

We have our baptism on Saturday! I dont think I have ever been so excited for a baptism in my mission. I am way stoked for this one! I think it's cuz I am the one that started teaching her, I have taught her everything, so its way cool. There are still some things we have to go over and figure out and make sure that she is FOR sure 100 percent ready. But I personally think she is very ready. We are going to have a little lesson on Tuesday with her and I am just going to have to be 100 percent straight forward with her and make sure she knows the concequences of going BACK to the "old" life. When I was getting ready for my mission, my Bishop told me something that I have never forgotten. Very simple but so true, that is to look FORWARD. To continue FORWARD and to not look back on the things of the past, only learn from them and realize what it is you will NOT go back to. So I pretty much told her that too and it just went really well. It is truly amazing to teach the Gospel. But its even more amazing to teach the Gospel with the Spirit. Without the Spirit this work would be SO much harder! I am so grateful for the Spirit that is constantly with us out here as we teach. It's especially amazing when you FEEL the Spirit and you RECOGNIZE it, that is spectacular! I feel that she is for sure ready and will be baptized, but I dont want to just baptize her for the number. I want to baptize her because she is READY and she now knows the truth and she has the true desire to be a faithful member. I see at times people that missionaries baptize just because it was easy and BAM! They are inactive. I don't want that. I want the people that I see get baptized, that are because of ME, stay. I can control the fact that I know a person is truly changed and READY for baptism. I think at times, some missionaries forget the real importance of baptism and just do it to have that NUMBER for President. It is hard not to tho, he is always breathing down our backs so to say, but its good too cuz it makes us work hard and find those ELECT!!

This last week, for P-day, we went to the Castle in Palmela that is kind of close to our house. Before the fact I just figured it would be kind of cool. But it was awesome! It rained on us like crazy! It seriously downpoured on us so so hard I couldn't believe it! In like 3 seconds there were rivers of water just going everywhere! But I think that made part of the experience. So it was really cool and lots of fun. Serving in Portugal is for sure cool when it comes to all the awesome Castles! I love em!!

Random question....Why do SO many people NOT brush their teeth at night? I have only had ONE companion that I have noticed brushes his teeth at night. I swear all my comps only brush in the morning. I dont get it! I think its gross. Eeewwww, I cant sleep without brushing...haha! Random, but it was just a thought....haha! Well I hope you all have a great week!

LOVE AND MISS YOU!
Love Elder Gray

A DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS

Christmas was great! It sure was nice talking to the fam, that’s always exciting! Here, they celebrate Christmas different...Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve, which seemed really strange to me at first, but it turned out to be really cool and lots of fun. We went to a member’s house at about 5PM or so and hung out, and waited for the rest of the people to get there, played games whatever, then we had dinner which was alright. Dinner at home is always amazing, so I guess I’m spoiled...ha ha, but it was fine. So we had dinner, then at midnight they all opened all their gifts. They did a secret Santa kind of thing tho which was really funny cuz every time someone would go up and get their gift for whoever they had and then they would describe that person. Then they would all guess finally who it was and everyone would jump up and say Paparazzi, Paparazzi! And they would take tons of pictures! It was really funny every time, and lots of fun to watch the madness! Ha ha! After dinner and presents and all that good stuff we just hung out talked and played some games, so it was a good night and lots of fun. :)

Then the next day Christmas! We went to our friend Pedro’s house! He and his family are just awesome! They let us just hang out with them and have lunch and just chill. Christmas day here they just hang out and relax. So that’s what we did! And we talked to our families! It was a good time. :)

I have a feeling I am going to get transferred here in a few weeks, and I’m kind of scared cuz this area and this Ward is just amazing! That’s it, they are just amazing here! I could stay here another 6 months! Sheesh! I would like to stay one more I think, but it’s not up to me obviously, but we will see. I’m just kind of nervous that next I’m going to go to some little branch of 20 people, ha-ha. But no matter where I go I know it’s where the Lord wants me so I will go with a smile with a bunch of GREAT MEMORIES of good ole Setúbal! :)

So this week is going to be a new year! Wow pretty nuts eh!? 2009 is gone! It’s really weird to think that I have been here in Portugal this whole year! That my friends, is a pretty strange feeling! But it’s good too!

Well this week was pretty much one of the fastest weeks ever, I can’t believe it’s gone already, I feel like it was all just one big day! I feel like I’m out of stuff to talk about cuz Christmas was the highlight of the week! Anyway, things are going good, the Holidays were great, but now its time to get back to work! I’m excited for it! This transfer we are focusing on finding new people, so pray that Setúbal will open their hearts for us! I know there are people ready for the Gospel! We just need to find them. :) Thank you all for everything you do for me, thank you for you support and love. I love you!
Happy Holidays! LOVE ELDER GRAY

Love This Area!

I realized today is my dogs b-day, haha! How old is he? I don’t remember. ANYWAY, this week has been fantastic! Time is just flying by here in Setubal. I am LOVING it here, I don’t EVER wanna leave! These people are like a huge blessing to me I love it! We are always busy with lessons too, and we get fed so much lately its insane! We have been fed TEN times in the last TEN days!!! What? Its nuts! Way cool tho! I have come to LOVE rice! haha! Its weird, I have come to love some things here that I didn’t love quite as much before. Like onions, I know weird, but I love onions. Okay, okay, enough pointless talk.

SO our baptism on Saturday went great! The water was cold tho! We had a problem with the font. But the kid was a champ about it. It was cold, but everything went as planned and just great! It was awesome to see another baptism here! We have a few more people that are "potentials" that are probably headed right in that direction. We found this new investigator named Odete. She is incredible! She is pretty much already ready to be dunked and we have only taught her two times! She came to the baptism, then the next day came to church and cried and cried. She just LOVED it. And every time we talk with her she is just ALL smiles and LOVES everything we teach! It’s incredible! So I really hope within the next 2 weeks or so we can mark a date for her! She is 51. She is really awesome. I love teaching her.

We had this lesson with a less active member, and we were talking about the after life and how we will all have perfect bodies again, and she at first was like I don’t want my body back...(cuz she is really big), haha. We were talking about the spirit world and stuff and she said, “but I have a fat spirit too.” haha! It was just hilarious. She is really funny.

So one of those 10 dinner/lunch appointments we had was with Helio and Sonia. They are incredible! Helio is a recent convert just waiting patiently for the time to pass to where he can take his family to the temple. It’s awesome! They fed us, then after Sonia grabbed this big bag and just chucked SO much food in it! So we didn’t even have to do our shopping this week. All we had to get was Mayo. Awesome! Oh, then he drove us home and stopped by a store and bought us this amazing Portuguese bread and TONS of juice! They are so, so nice! I am in the process of writing them a thank you letter.

My new companion is going to be Elder Davis. I have heard really good things. AND MOST OF ALL....I hear he is a CLEAN person!!!! YAYAYAAYAYAYAY! What a relief! Ahhhh! I am way stoked. I hear that he is funny and just a cool kid. He is from Florida. YAY an American! Haha. I am already about out of time...Goodness! But I love you all! And most of all I love this work and I love this church! And I know that it is true! And I’m very lucky to be apart of this wonderful work to bring souls unto Christ!!I LOVE YOU!
Love Elder Gray

Wow. Talk about a pretty crazy week. It feels like not a whole ton really happened, but it was just really busy, we didnt hardly do any street contacting or anything like that because we were just constantly busy busy doing stuff. It was a really great week. I loved it. The weather is absolutely beautiful right now! We are always wearing short sleeves and its so so nice! Except for when we have Church and wear our suits, it is way hot, ha ha. And its only going to get more and more hot! But its way better than the cold!

So we had a really sad experience this week. We were over at a less active member’s home giving a lesson, and only had being there for about 10 minutes, when we start hearing like some screaming and crying and just loudness outside. We were wondering what on earth is going on!? Is that a cry? Or someone that just sounds like a cry but its not...So we go to the window to look out and we can’t really see much other than just a lot of people gathered around and some crying, so Elder Hildebrant and I decided to go check it out so we go out side and walk up to where everyone is..... there was a little boy, probably about 4 years old on the ground. He fell out of the window of his appt. on the fourth floor. So that’s about 40 or 50 feet or so. A pretty big drop, it was so, so sad. I could not believe it. A woman saw it happen that lives below the window the boy fell from. She went to her window to have a smoke and saw the boy fall right in front of her. Wow...I can’t imagine seeing that. It was such a sad, sad thing. The family was just absolutely distraught. When the medics arrived they did all they could for about 30 minutes or so, but I’m pretty sure he died right on impact. When the medics pulled out a cover thing to cover the body, the family went crazy. I mean crazy! It was amazing to see how everyone reacted so differently. We kind of figured out who was who just by listening to them and telling the cops who they are. But the mom was just like in shock. Crying a little, but she could not talk, she could not walk, it was so sad. Then we saw who was the uncle, and crying very loudly, the brother I think...not sure tho, then he got violent. Then the sister was just screaming and screaming, and there were two other girls just hugging and crying, and one other girl just sitting at the wall crying. It was just amazing. It really made me so, so grateful for the knowledge I have about The Plan of Salvation. The plan God has for each and every one of us. It’s hard to explain more of that night. It’s sad to talk about and frankly I don’t like to. It was pretty hard for everyone, but we put in a few words with the grandpa about that this isn’t the end and they will have the boy again. He was the only one we could talk to cuz he was pretty much the only sane one. But I think we are going to try to go pass by the home in a few days. Sad, sad.

Okay but now, on a happier note, we got some new investigators that are friends of some members that just moved into our ward. They are the elect! Or so I like to think, ha ha, they are so awesome! We have only taught them once but it went so, so well! They loved all of it and they are coming to church this week! And it’s a big family. And they have a HOUSE! My first people to teach that live in a normal house! Ha ha. Well, kind of normal. They don’t have any doors yet, but it’s cool.

So today, we decided to do internet after the p-day stuff, cuz we went again...to the beach. It was so, so nice! Probably the last time I will get to go, not sure, but for this summer at least, cuz when it gets warm, the ladies bikinis dissappear somehow ha ha! No, but seriously, we have to be cautious! It was a gorgeous day, we played some ultimate football, yes, my team won. :) But the bad news of the day, my flip flops got stolen! What the freak! I was so mad! I don’t know how we didn’t see it happen, but I’m really mad about it cuz they were nice! So now I just have 5 dollar crappy ones. Who would steal my flip flops!? Europe.... ha ha!!

On Friday, we are having our fast with Elizabete. I am really excited about it and she is too. I hope so much that she finds an answer. She is so awesome! I would love to get her baptized, but unless she does it soon, I don’t think I will be here for it. I am pretty sure I am getting transferred. If I don’t, it would be very crazy cuz it will mean I will be here for TWO more transfers! Long time, but we will see. Anyway, I hope you all are doing awesome! I miss you all so much.

To all you Mommies...HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!
Love Elder Gray :)