A full sprint these last 7 weeks

Hey,
Greetings from the great country of Texas. As you might have heard, we seceded from the Union and have started the Republic of Texas. Very epic............
Well....maybe I just lied. But anyways, we have had a great week here. Teresa got confirmed. It was intense. It was my first one in spanish. She is way excited for this new step in her life. It brings me a lot of joy to watch people change their lives. I wish everyone had the fire that she does.

William Noll, a convert of about fifteen months, went through the temple with his family a couple of weeks ago. Elder Smith and I helped teach him back in my 2nd area last year. About two months ago he changed wards and started coming here. It was really awesome that he moved here. I hadn't seen him in about a year. He is the ward mission leader now. He has changed a lot in the last couple of years. I know that only the Lord could help someone that much. It strengthens my testimony even more to see him and his family happy.

So something funny happened this morning. I was trying to do leg curls on my bed with a backpack full of weights strapped to my legs. I kept slipping of the bed so I told Elder Kelepi to sit on me. When I tried it again we where both too heavy so it broke the corner of my boxspring. We all laughed pretty hard.

This area has been a great area. I will be sad to leave it. But I am going to love my next area and I'm going to sprint this last 7 weeks as hard as I can. Thanks for the rice crispy pizza. I had a slice this morning. It tasted great. Thanks for all your love and support. Stay awesome.

Love,
Elder Gray

p.s.
I am getting transferred. I don't know where but I'll let you know next monday

New and Clean

Hey,

So I did receive last weeks email but I just read it today. I guess sometimes it just takes a little longer when there's pics (maybe they filter it and check it out or something, i dunno). But anyways great pics. Congratulations to everyone for callings, XC, percussion, homecoming stuff and whatever else yall are doing.

We had a baptism yesterday. It was really awesome. Teresa has changed a lot in just the past couple of weeks. There are some really neat people in our wards here. Sadly we do have a lot of inactive people but the ones that do come are just amazing. So anyways we had some great talks and Elder Alas had his first baptism. He even got to do it twice cuz her feet popped up. Teresa said that she felt new and clean and just had a feeling that she couldn't describe. It really is one of the best things in the world to see the ones that truly change their lives. We have a lot of people around that don't want to change, in the church and out. We see alcohol and immorality everywhere. But then we find a person that wants to change their life for the better, they want to get out of the crazy life they're in. Finding those people makes it all worth it.

Our trainings were really awesome this week. The first day was pretty much all about tightening up some loose bolts as far as the rules go. President defined the key indicators and how we count them in a way that will help us focus more on the people than on just getting numbers. He also defined the rule on music. That is something that I really appreciated. Its a lot easier now to know what we should and shouldn't listen to. He made the line between the black and the white a lot more definitive. Two sister missionaries gave a really good lesson about teaching people and not lessons. They really helped me bridge the gap between the mission world and the real world. We did some role plays where we were helping a real friend from back at home to come closer in the gospel. It really hit home for me as I practiced helping one of my buddies from back home. There was a lot of other great stuff we learned throughout the week.

We also had the opportunity to go to the temple on Saturday. It was a really good session. One of the temple workers told us to look for some specific symbolism in the designs of the rooms. It really opened up my eyes and helped me to understand some principles of the Plan of Salvation better.

I really enjoy hearing from you all and am also grateful for all the things you're helping me with. Keep up the good work and I love you all.

Love,

Elder Gray

Effectively

Hey,

This week was a really good week. The other Elders in our ward had a baptism. His name is Carlos and he is very committed. He has really bad back problems and could barely even get to church. He woke up three and a half hours early to get ready and he still just barely made it to sacrament meeting towards the end. I got to interview him for baptism earlier this week. He has a really awesome life story. His life has been spared more than once. He even died once for 4 minutes and 22 seconds during surgery. The elders that taught him really helped him to have a very spiritual conversion.

The weather here has cooled down a lot. Its in the 60's in the mornings and the 80's during the day usually. Its so nice.

The next four days we have meetings from 9am to 4pm. They are showing us how to use PMG more effectively through the new program they have implemented. Also president is going to clarify how we count our key indicators. It should be an awesome week, full of lots of new things to learn.

We are helping a member of the ward get on a mission. It is really fun to be able to help him because he doesn't come from the strongest member family. He is the only active one. He has a real strong testimony.

I know that the church is true. I love yall. Keep on lovin' life and living it to the fullest. I will do the same.

Love,

Elder Gray

This is what truly taught me...

Hey,

This week was really awesome. We have an investigator, Teresa, that is getting ready for baptism this coming Sunday. She is really awesome. She is very willing to sacrifice to do what is right. She gave up coffee with no problem and she is changing so much already. We are gonna meet with her most of the days this week to finish up teaching her. She really enjoyed conference too. She came to the Sunday morning session.

I really enjoyed conference. Down here people can get it on the internet of course, cable, or BYUTV if they have satellite. We just went to the church to watch it. During Elder McConkie's talk, the signal started going crazy and we couldn't watch it in English or Spanish. Luckily someone had it on the internet in the family history library. We crammed in there and then one of the members had a great idea. She plugged in the microphone into the gym and then brought it right next to the computer speakers. We were able to have audio in the gym. Then about 20 minutes later the regular broadcast started working again. It was a fun. My favorite talks were probably President Monson's on gratefulness and Uchtdorf's talk when he talked about Vince Lombardi. I thought it was funny that a guy from Germany mentioned an American sport. But that's not what I liked about it most. I liked how he talked about how Vince Lombardi would go down to the very basics. "Men, this is a football." I had a question going into conference about how I could achieve my bigger goals. He answered it clearly in his talk. Master the basics. Line upon line, precept on precept. There were so many other great talks. I clearly saw what I need to improve and how I can do it. I love the spirit. That is what truly taught me.

Remember, write down your goals and then go out and achieve them. Remember what you learned in conference. I love you all and hope and pray for the best.

Love,

Elder Gray
Notes of Interest:
A Postcard in last Friday's mail says:
Hey I forgot to tell you all that my release date has been set. It was supposed to be the 28th of December and I forgot to write it in my email. Then, just after emailing, we got a call saying that all of us that were going home on the 28th of December have been changed to the 15th of December. So my release date now is December 15. I love you all and I appreciate ya'll.
Love,
Elder Gray


A letter received from the TSAM mission office today (Monday) tells us his flight schedule... Departs San Antonio on 12/15 in the morning and arrives in SLC and has a 4 hour layover in the afternoon before he flies into Cedar City arriving at 5:52pm.