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.

Sweet Referral

Hey,

This week was really awesome. We had a zone council on Thursday with the assistants to the president. It was really awesome. The biggest thing I learned was how to really study and get the most out of it. It made a night and day difference in my studies right away. I applied this quote: "Knowledge carefully recorded is knowledge available at time of need." I had not been keeping a very good study journal. I learned so much more as I wrote down the really cool things I learned. I was amazed how much better my study went. I thought I was learning a lot when I just kept the things in my head and didn't write them down.

Also this week we received a sweet referral from a former TSAMer. There was a lady that he had taught. She text-ed him and told him that she wanted to be baptized. So he gave us a call and let us know. We came over to her house and taught her. She accepted to be baptized on October 10th. She has given up a bunch of things and is really willing to give up all she needs to for the Lord. She is in hair-dressing school and was planning to take a trip up to Austin for a conference yesterday. But, she decided not to go so that she could be baptized on the 10th. Sacrifice does really bring forth blessings. She had a great time at church.

I am excited for conference. I have learned so much each time. I wish I would have realized how big a blessing it is before my mission.

Jalapenos..... Awesome! I have definitely been eating a bunch of hot stuff here. I remember before my mission I didn't even like the fire sauce at Taco Bell. Now, it isn't even good because its so weak sauce (ha no pun intended). There's some really good hot sauce called Valentinas here. Do they have that back in Utah? When I first got to the mission I ate at a Spanish lady's house. I was on exchanges with a Mexican elder and he told me that the food wasn't spicy. I took a couple bites of the meat and my eyes started watering and my nose started running. It was super hot. And then I looked at everyone else and they weren't even fazed. Man, it was torture. But now I'm a little more accustomed.

Your garden looks awesome. I have really grown to love healthy food out here so I'm excited to have some vegetables next summer. That tithing story is funny. In my last area there was a lady that told us when she first joined the church and paid the first time, she paid $90ish in change for tithing. She didn't realize someone had to sit there and count it. Oh by the way, kind of off topic, this lady's husband tied the 60m sprint world record back in the day. I think he got like 6.1 seconds. And he's white! Ha so anyways for my responsibilities..... I give a nightly call to make sure the Elders are home safe and also talk about how their day went. I give trainings once a week unless we have zone conference or something else. And I just try to set the best example that I can.

Thanks for everything. I really appreciate all your help, love, support, advice....... I love you all and hope and pray for the best. Thanks for the package. The cookies are gone already and I really appreciated the quotes, bookmarks, Toy story candies and the other things.

Love,

Elder Gray

The atonement

Hey,

Greetings from Texas. I am doing very well. This last week went pretty well. I went to a training meeting on Wednesday. The big thing I got from it was being an example and being 100% obedient. Now with some leadership responsibility, its a lot easier to do the right thing; because I know that if I don't, then someone else might not do the right thing. It truly is a blessing to have this opportunity.

We have a new missionary in our apartment. The zone leaders are training him. His name is Elder Kelepi and he is from Florida. He is also Tongan. He is a fun missionary. He always has something funny to say and keeps us laughing.

The work here is great. We are working with this one family and the husband finally told us some stuff that is bothering him and holding him back. We could tell there was something that he was holding back for a while. He is a member and sometimes feels down because of his weaknesses. But I know through the atonement that he can change. That's the wonderful thing that we have. Never take it for granted, because most of the world doesn't know about the awesome power of the atonement.

I love you all and am glad that you all are still thriving. I'm glad that Dad has been able to receive sufficient work in these challenging times. I see so many people out here that have been hit hard by the economy or they weren't raised in a good environment or a number of other things. Count your blessings.

Con Amor,

Elder Gray

Member Trust

Hey,

So this week was a great week. I am staying in this area and so is my companion. I'm gonna be a district leader. A lot of our investigators have fallen through but that Samoan Family is still going strong. They are such a great family. You can feel their love for everyone. They always feed us when we come over. Its great :) Our English class is doing great. We have only done it once but we had a great turnout. We had about 8 people there. It should just skyrocket from there. They were all members but soon enough they will bring their non-member friends and hopefully we can teach them.

We also went to the flea market last week. I bought a full sized Texas flag (it was only $5), some Mexican sunglasses, some rope, and a Texas license plate. It was awesome because everything was cheap and you could talk em down a bit too.

Member trust in the area is going up. That is one of our big objectives right now. A couple years ago there was a lot of missionaries just trying to get baptisms. You can see it in this ward because there are a lot of in-actives. I really enjoy helping people out and bringing them back. When we work we generally try to visit less actives and then knock around them looking for new investigators. The ward members are semi-helpful. We are doing our best to strengthen the wards from the very core. The bishops are very willing to work with us. Especially Bishop Alonzo from Las Palmas ward. He is a great man. We know exactly what we need to do to help the people. So remember, sacrifice builds the Lord's kingdom. Lift where you stand y haga tu parte.

Thanks for all that yall have helped me with as far as school and stuff. I do have a couple questions about SUU. I will sign up for the classes cuz I can just do that on some pday.

We didn't do too much out of the ordinary last pday for the holiday. We played volleyball with a bunch of ward members and chilled. As far as I know, transfers are still working the same way. Every six weeks. I guess every once in a while they do an emergency transfer if a problem arises. But thats pretty rare.

Oh by the way, I lost my scriptures a week or two ago. I cannot find them anywhere. So tomorrow when we are at some training meetings up north I might go and buy some. Just fyi. Well, I love you all and I hope this scrambled letter makes sense. Keep the faith and love everyone.

Love,

Elder Gray