Tell the extended family this weekend that I said hi.

Hey,
So I know you were expecting an email from me tomorrow and honestly I 
thought it was going be tomorrow.  But it turns out that because of 
Thanksgiving, transfers this week are on Tuesday instead of Thursday.  
Anyways, Elder Best and I are staying here in Buda for another transfer.  
We are excited to keep the work going here.  The members are still 
awesome.  They keep giving us referrals.  Not all the referrals want to 
learn but at least the people of the ward are trying to help.

We went to a great fireside last night.  It was put on by the High 
Priests group in our ward.  The focus was on missionary work.  They had 
a couple members share their conversion stories.  They all had great 
stories but one member, Brother Ragu, had a real awesome and unique 
story.  He is from Malaysia.  He had a really hard life.  He worked on a 
plantation when he was young and didn’t have any parents to look up to 
so he had to just watch people and learn from them.  He couldn’t afford 
to eat very well so coconuts were a big staple in his diet.  Through 
some good fortune he got to go to a technical school in his later 
teenage years and ended up working for an electronics company.  He 
worked hard at that job and sometime around then was when the church 
came into his life.  His wife was a staunch catholic (her dad is a 
priest and her aunt a nun).  His background was mixed with Catholicism, 
Hinduism, and some Chinese customs.  One interesting thing he said about 
Hinduism is that a lot of the things they do correspond with the Mosaic 
Law.  Especially with the way they did sacrifices in their temples.  He 
thinks that Hindus are one of the lost tribes of Israel.  So anyways he 
was on a business trip on the island of Oahu, Hawaii and they were 
driving around and saw the Temple.  He really wanted to go in the big 
white building so he went in by himself (he was with two Muslims that 
did not want to go inside).  He signed the guest book and then two weeks 
later, back in Malaysia, some missionaries stopped by his house.  He 
usually didn’t let missionaries in past the gate but he let them in 
because he felt that he needed to hear the message.  Eventually his 
family was baptized.  Then a couple years later some extended family was 
baptized.  There was one family member that was 104 years old that got 
baptized.  Through the next couple of years his job was getting too 
dangerous because some people were out to kill him.  He got offered a 
job here and accepted.  He is one of the strongest members of the ward.  
He borrowed the PMG dvds from us and is just loving them.  He is always 
a missionary.  He is a really awesome person with an awesome testimony.

Here is a story I heard the other week in church:
There was a man getting his hair cut at the barbers.  Eventually the 
conversation turned towards God and the barber stated, “I don’t believe 
in God because there is a lot of suffering in the world.  Children 
dying.  Murders.  Horrible things.  Why would God allow such a thing to 
happen?”  The man getting his haircut pondered the comment for a moment 
and then said very simply, “I don’t believe in barbers.  See that 
homeless man over there?  He has hair halfway down his back and his 
beard isn’t trimmed.  Why would a barber allow that to happen?”  
Baffled, the barber exclaimed, “That is ridiculous!  I am a barber.  
They have to come to me if they want a haircut.”  And that is how God 
works too.  We have to come to him for help.

I love you all.  Have a great thanksgiving and break from school.  Tell 
the extended family this weekend that I said hi.  Stay close to the 
Lord.

Love,
Elder Gray