Understanding Heart

Hey,

This week went fairly well. Its getting colder here. The other night it got down to 31 degrees and we've had a couple of other nights just as cold. I like it. I got my "trunky papers" in the mail last Wednesday. It was my flight plans, info about baggage, stuff about sending my bike home, and a couple other things. I think the only thing I will need from you all is a bit of money in my account. I am really grateful for all that you have helped me with so far. Thanks! I will send a memory card home in the mail today. Since I forgot to bring my papers into the library I will also include anything else I need to tell you.

We had exchanges this last week with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Howell and spent a day in his area. It was actually the area that the Ellingsons live in. Didn't see them though. I enjoyed working with him. He came to the MTC the same time as me. He is really a bold but nice person so it was nice to get an honest opinion of what I needed to improve on.

We have an investigator who is in the hospital right now with pneumonia. We went with a recently ordained elder in the ward and gave her a blessing. As soon as she recovers she will be ready for baptism. She just moved from Colorado and her daughter is a member. She called the bishop a little over a week ago and asked to be taught by the missionaries. We are excited to teach her soon. Also in her neighborhood we found this Mexican guy who is pretty interested. The spirit was really there and I was able to talk a lot better, in Spanish, than I ever could have done on my own. We are gonna teach him again on Wednesday.

We had a great lesson in elders quorum yesterday. The big thing I learned is to ask our Heavenly Father for an "understanding heart"(just like king Solomon asked for). Oh and also in sacrament meeting we had some great talks on being grateful. I learned about how the most likable people are the ones that express gratitude the most often. Also a lady by the name of Sister Graham shared a story about Rulon Gardner, the greco-roman wrestler (greco roman is a style of wrestling). Because of a miss-communication he missed the weigh-in for the Olympics by about 20 seconds and was disqualified. He didn't get bitter. He worked hard for four more years and came back and beat that huge Russian guy. This Russian hadn't been beaten ever and hadn't even had a point scored against him in the last decade. Rulon beat him. I don't remember what the story had to do with gratefulness but I liked it nonetheless.

That is awesome you went to that Jazz game. The night they played the spurs we went to a dinner and the member had a jazz shirt on. I don't know if they won or not. I really enjoyed that talk by Justin. I will have to remember that story. Thanks for the HS football updates. Too bad for Hurricane. I dunno if I told you already but we have a member from Hurricane in the ward.

Well that is all I can think of. I love you all and hope for the best. Keep on being awesome and I love you all.

Con Amor,

Elder Gray

Only Scratched the Surface.....

Hey!

How are you all? I'm doing great. We had to take Elder Bertoch to the doctor earlier this week. He has had the flu and it wouldn't go away. So when he went to the doctor they give him 3 different prescriptions. After that he has been kinda out of it. We are still working hard though. We were able to find a great family to teach last Monday. They live in a complex that is full of Mexicans so we were surprised when we found someone that spoke English and even more surprised when they let us in to teach them. We are going to teach them again tonight.

Also some of the recent converts that we are working with are doing awesome. Andy is awesome. She always wants to help us with stuff like Christmas shopping and other things. She has a great heart. Her kids, Bryce and Logan, are really cool too. Logan is 2 or 3 and is the cutest little kid. I'll have to take some pics of their family before I leave so I can send them to you. Speaking of pictures, I need to send another memory card home. I'm sorry I haven't for a while. I will soon.

For Thanksgiving we are going to visit a couple of members. The Johnstone family is going to give us our main meal. They are a cool family. Blake is going to turn in his mission papers in the next couple of weeks.

I read a scripture the other day at the end of Jacob or one of those other short books. He talks about how his life has passed away as if it had been a dream. I feel like my mission has been similar. Looking back, two years is a long time. Its a whole tenth of the life that I have lived so far. But then it feels like it was only yesterday that I left. It has been a great experience. I have learned so much and made friends that I will never lose. I feel like I have learned to be a better friend as well. The greatest thing by far that I have learned is the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. I have gained so much from his sacrifice. I understand him so much better and I'm sure I have only scratched the surface of what he has to offer. My mission means everything to me.

As the weeks wind down I am excited to start another chapter. But this chapter is going to end with a bang. Don't worry, I will work until the moment you see me. I'm pretty stoked to talk to all the people in the airports. It'll be fun. I love you all and hope for the best.

Love ya,

Elder Gray

P.S. D&C 10:5

( Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work.)

Honest Truth Seeker

Hey,

We met an awesome investigator this week. He is an honest truth seeker. We went into a gated community and hurried to the first house before we got kicked out. The first door we knocked on he let us right in. He was on the phone but we waited until he was done. He only had about ten minutes so we did a quick restoration lesson. He was really intrigued and wanted to know more about us and was willing to pray and ask.

We also had a really awesome fireside on Sunday about member missionary work. I sent the attachments of it so I won't go too in depth in the email. But it was an awesome fireside. The members that came learned a lot. So did I, for right now and when I get home.

Our area is probably 20X40 miles. Most of it is pretty concentrated in Boerne, Fair Oaks, or the Dominion. But, rich people (like George Strait and half the spurs team) live in the Dominion so it is heavily guarded and they won't let us in the community without an appointment. We have a car. I don't think I will ride my bike the rest of my mission. With my bike, the mission will help me send it home. I just have to pay them some money. My clothes are holding up good enough. I will be fine the rest of my mission. I don't know how much I have on my debit card but if I have $100-200 that should be plenty in case there is some fee or something that unexpectedly comes up. That's cool if you look at my planners and letters. I guess you already have but go ahead and dig through whatever you want.

Sorry this isn't too long. The library is really busy today and they aren't being very patient with us. Plus, we are burning cds of the fireside for the ward members. So anyways I hope everything goes well and that you all have a great week.

Love,

Elder Gray

Team

Hey everyone,

This week went great. We are continually building up the ward trust and building up our teaching pool. This week was a little hard to find new investigators. But we are re-evaluating and gearing up for another week. We had a couple service opportunities this week. We went to go help someone cut wood. I got to use a really dull log splitter to split a bunch of cedar. It was a lot of fun. It was a really good workout because I was sore all over the next day.

I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting yesterday. It had been a little while since I'd done that in sacrament meeting. It is always a nice feeling to get up and do that.

I'm sorry that I really don't have much to say. This week was full of a lot of knocking on doors without too much success. But, hopefully we got some good seeds planted.

I love you all and hope for the best. Keep on keepin' on and remember what team you're on.

Love,

Elder Gray

New Area and New Companion

Hey,

So I just got transferred into a really awesome area. Its called Boerne (pronounced Burn-e). Its a lot different than my last area. There are a lot of rich people here. Its always exciting to have a little change-up. Each area has its own unique challenges and strengths. It reminds me a lot of what we had in Buda. Also, there's lots of deer here. We always see them outside our apartment. We are trying to devise a plan to catch one. No luck so far ;) But anyways this area has a lot of potential. I just hope I can make a difference the short time I'm here. We have a speaker coming on Nov. 14 for a fireside. Apparently she is really good at getting wards fired up about missionary work. I'm excited. On Saturday night we got to be taste testers for the ward trunk or treat party. We tried a bunch of different kinds of chili and a bunch of desserts. It was a lot of fun and it all tasted great. I got to meet a bunch of awesome ward members. One of them grew up in Hurricane so he updated me on all the region 9 football stuff. He told me about that safety that pulled Cedar to a win against Desert Hills and then said Cedar was gonna play Juan Diego or someone like that on Saturday. Who won?

My companion's name is Elder Bertoch. He is from Prescott, Arizona. He was in my district when he first came into the mission in Pflugerville. I'm glad I got a companion that I already know. In our district we have two elders that live with us, sisters in Kerrville and sisters in Fredricksburg. They are all great missionaries. I got to interview an investigator for baptism in Kerrville. He was a big football player type guy with a huge heart. He was very ready to be baptized and did so on Saturday.

As I was leaving my last area I realized how much I really loved that area. Honestly most of the time that I was there I was a little frustrated with what I thought was a lack of progress. But as I was saying goodbye to everyone I realized how much we had really done. The Samoan family, the Taala's, were hard to leave just because we had been with them through a lot. I really enjoyed that area, just like the others.

Yesterday on Halloween we worked like normal. The only thing we were advised to do was to not knock on doors later on. So we just visited members. Theres a great family, the Johnstones, that we had dinner at and then watched the Prophet of the Restoration movie. Their son is getting ready to go on a mission soon.

It sounds like you all had a fun Halloween. Is it cold there yet? It got down to 43 degrees the other night here. I had a great experience on Sunday. We didn't have any investigators at church so we went to the gospel doctrines class. Through a scripture, I recieved a renewed witness of the cleansing power of the atonement. I wish I could remember which one it was but its written down in my other planner. Thanks for sharing all your experiences. I know the Book of Mormon is true and so is the church. I love you all and hope for the best upcoming week.

Con Amor,

Elder Gray

New Address:
125 Cross Point Apt. #6204

Boerne, TX 78006