"This church is a way that Heavenly Father can put a little piece of heaven here on earth"

Hey,
Everything is going awesome here. We have had another awesome week. Another Baptism! It was hot again this week but it wasn't too bad. A lot of times we will be soaked with sweat and dripping when we are on bikes but the Lord is helping a lot. Its' still way fun. We are on bikes half of the week and we have the car the other half. My companion and I get along really good. As far as personalities go, we are way different. But it still works out. The key thing is to forget about the things that just don't matter. It was real hard at first but throughout the month it has gotten a lot easier. It still is hard sometimes but all those little things are forgotten pretty quick when I don't make a big deal out of them. It has made all the difference.

We had a nice 4th of July. We went to a couple different barbecues and had a pretty relaxed day. Lots of food. They were shooting off fireworks at the base so we got to watch a little bit of fireworks on our way home. I don't know if I mentioned this in previous letters but the base is just about a stones throw away from our apartment. So we got a good view of the show.

On Sunday we baptized Sister Meyer. She has one of the strongest testimonies that I have ever seen in a recent convert. She is awesome. She will also keep her husband on track, as all women do, I'm sure;) In her baptismal interview, she said that she feels like this church is a way that Heavenly Father can put a little piece of heaven here on the earth. She has a very sweet spirit. She was beaming the whole time at her baptism. Her husband is pretty funny. When we invited the kids to come up close to the font for the baptism, he hopped right up there to watch. They are an awesome family.

I got teach The Restoration all by myself to two airmen the other day. Elder Smith was teaching the gospel principles class. I was nervous but as soon as I started talking all the nervousness went away. It went really well. The spirit was strong and they had plenty of questions. The spirit does amazing things and helps so much. I couldn't have done the lesson without it.

The Lord has really us with so much. I can fee all your prayers. I pray for you guys too. I am the happiest I have ever been when I'm out doing the Lord's work. It's hard sometimes but at the end of the day it is awesome to look back and see what we did. Have fun and stay out of trouble. Love you all.

Love,
Elder Gray

P.S. Thanks for the letters and everything. That would be nice to use that camelback so that would be great if you could send that.

P.S.S. Hey one more thing I forgot to mention in my letter. I have been thinking that I need to start writing in my journal again but I never took the time. Then I got your letter dad, and it really motivated me to start doing it again. I wrote in it yesterday. Thanks :)

Cockroaches from Outer Space

Hey everyone,

So another week has gone by already.  As time goes on it goes by faster and

faster.  I can't believe I've almost been out for 6 months.  We had a fun week.  

We baptized Jette Warnick and Aaron Hoffman from the AFB on Saturday.

Both their families were there because they also wanted to watch the

graduation on Friday.  Jette is the girl that I was talking about in the last

letter and Aaron is the guy that had the answer to his prayer at the latrine.  

Elder Smith baptized and I confirmed Aaron.  Jette was baptized and

confirmed by her Grandpa.  We went to lunch at a really good Chinese buffet

after the baptisms.  Elder and Sister Reynolds (military relations missionary

couple) said they would treat us to lunch every time we baptized someone

from the base.

I forgot to mention this in my previous letter but Elder Ronan Dennis, the

other guy from Cedar that left the same time as me, is in my district.  He

and Elder Solano, who is from a little town by Tijuana called Tecate, serve

together.  I don't know if I mentioned it in previous letters but  Elder Smith and

I cover a Spanish ward, English ward, and the ward on base.  Elder Solano

and Dennis cover the northern half of the same English and Spanish ward.  

Its fun to teach in both English and Spanish.  I like practicing both. We can't

proselyte on the base so the only interaction we get from the base is when

people that live on base feed us dinner and when we teach our Sunday

school there.

We have one investigator with a baptismal date.  Her husband is a

member in the Marines and they live in a house on base.  Sister Meyer

has been going to church for a couple years and now wants to be baptized

into it.  The other day we were teaching them a lesson, Elder Smith was

talking and as I was sitting and listening. Then the cats ran into the room.  

They were chasing a big black bug.  Well, actually huge might be a better

adjective.  It was the size of a jeep!  Well maybe not quite that big, but it

was huge ;)  But I ignored it because we were having a nice, spiritual

lesson.  But the cats kept trying to get it out from behind the shelf.  Soon

enough Brother Meyer noticed and went over to investigate.  Then he

saw the big, huge cockroach and got mad.  I think he might be scared

of bugs :)  It crawled onto his PS3 so he picked up the cat and said, "I'll

just aim you at it."  He pushed the cat's face into it a couple times and it

still wouldn't budge.  It fell into a basket a couple seconds later so he

hurried and put that outside his front door.  After that little incident we

continued teaching about the plan of salvation and it ended quite nicely.  

One of the things we talked about in our lesson with them was about the

3 degrees of glory.  

The terrestrial and telestial are like a circle.  Eventually you fill up, you

can't progress anymore.  As you can see in my beautiful illustration

below, the bottom two have a limit.    But the Celestial Kingdom is like

a bowl.  There are no limits of how much you can progress, how high

you can go.  The possibilities are limitless.  So keep remembering

that and aim for eternal progression.

    U

Celestial

              O

Terrestrial and Telestial

We had zone conference on Wednesday.  The big focus this time was

on prayer and teaching with the spirit.  They really emphasized the fact

that we need to get our investigators to pray.  I really liked this conference,

just like all the other ones.  We were combined with one of the other 

San Antonio zones.  I got to see three elders from my old district.  It was

fun talking to them again.

Elder Solano was wondering if it would be possible for him to get one

of those mini PMG's.  From the email you sent me it sounds like we can't

get them anymore but I thought I might as well ask.

Everyone keep working hard in all that you do.  You can achieve anything

you want to through small and simple means.  One step at a time.  I love you

all and stay close to the Lord.

Love,

Elder Gray

Miracles still can happen

Hey,
How is everyone doing? Everything is going good here. It is pretty hot and humid here, but I am used to it now. And with the zip code, it was the wrong one on the envelope but it still got to me on Wednesday. I guess someone at the post office was being nice and knew where to send it.

Sounds like everyone is having fun at home. The work is going well. We baptized another lady named Mary Williams on Saturday (weird coincidence huh?) It seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We finally started the services about an hour late and everything went well after that. Oh, and to answer your question mom, we only ended up baptizing one 9 year old while I was in Austin.

That is awesome that I get all that money back in taxes. Tell Brooke thanks! I guess you can just put it in my savings. That's awesome about the Longhorns making it to the college world series. Their football stadium, football practice field, and baseball stadium were all just about 100-200 yards outside of my area in Austin. I am not sure if Kerrville is in our mission or not. The map of my mission area is in my call packet. With exchanges, we go on exchanges with each companionship in the district once a transfer. Since I've been companions with district leaders my whole mission, we also go on exchanges with the zone leaders once a transfer. It is a lot of fun to see how other missionaries work and sometimes its just nice to break away from your companion for the day, even though I have loved both of them so far.

Oh and I forgot to tell you last week. Last P-day 10 missionaries got to sing the National Anthem at a baseball game. I didn't sing but my companion did. We gave him a hard time because his is originally from England :) It was Mormon night for the San Antonio Missions. They are a AA team for the San Diego Padres. It was a lot of fun. We had to leave after the 3rd inning though so we could be home on time.

Yesterday we had a couple of miracles happen. First of all, Carlos didn't show up in time to be confirmed, so we went ahead and did Mary's confirmation. Carlos showed up right in the middle of hers so we were stoked and he got confirmed.

Then we went to the Base to teach our Gospel Essentials class. One of the guys wanted to get baptized. He had an awesome story. He was reading his BOM on the latrine on Saturday night (that's what everyone does because they don't have time during basic training to do much of anything that they want). He was reading a scripture passage that he didn't understand. He prayed real hard for understand. Meanwhile, one of the Mormon airmen got a prompting to go and fill his canteen at the latrine area. He then got a prompting to go to the guy that had just prayed for help. They ended up talking for almost an hour about the gospel. That really goes to show that miracles are still happening all the time.

So while I taught the plan of salvation for Gospel Essentials, Elder Smith went and taught him and made sure he was ready for baptism. I stumbled through the lesson but I thought it went pretty good. A couple of the airmen were returned missionaries so they helped a bunch. After the lesson we were sitting there talking and one the girls in the group approached me and said she wanted to become a member of the church. She grew up in Utah and half of her family are members. She attended church sporadically through her life. Both of these people that want to get baptized are graduating from basic training on Friday. So we have the time frame of Saturday and Sunday to baptize them before they leave to Tech school. We are doing it on Saturday morning.

Well, I hope you all are having an excellent summer so far. Stay close to the Lord and keep reading your scriptures every day.

Love,
Elder Gray

Refiners Fire

Hola!
How is everyone? Sorry I didn't send a letter with my new address on it. I figured it would get there today or tomorrow anyways. So I will just tell you in my email.

I am excited to be in south zone in San Antonio. It is one of the more coveted zones in the mission. We cover the Heritage B area which includes an English war, a Spanish ward, and then the Lackland Air Force Base Branch. It is a really fun area so far. My companion, Elder Smith, knows the members real well so that is always a plus. There are a couple member that always want to give us food and they are happy to do our laundry too.

So my new companion, Elder Smith, is from Birmingham, England. He is really smart and tall (probably 6'6"). When he lived in England he did Judo competitions all around Europe. His dad works for the church so he moved to Utah for his senior year of high school. He went to Bingham High School. Before this, I couldn't really imagine a Brit speaking Spanish, so its pretty awesome being with him. We have a nice big apartment.

On Sunday, we were at the church all day. I really liked the Spanish sacrament meeting because I could understand most of it. I have been studying a lot harder in my Spanish lately and it has paid off. The Lord has really blessed me. It was awesome to go to the Branch on the Air Force Base. This is one of the bases that they do basic training so its big. President Cutler and his wife spoke in Sacrament Meeting. That is a pretty rare thing so we were lucky to get to attend that. He talked about being put in the refiners fire. A silversmith will put his silver in the hottest part of the fire just long enough to burn the impurities away. He knows that the silver is done when he can see his reflection in it. That is what we need to remember. The Lord will put us through all that we can stand and then when he sees his countenance in us, we are good to go. Pres. Cutler likened that to what the airmen are going through during their basic training. We can all apply it to our lives too. I'm sure you've heard that story before because I have heard it a couple of times.

We also had a baptism on Sunday night. Carlos Arrocha was the man of the hour. He is 19 years old and has been investigating for a month or two. It was a good, fun baptism. When Elder Smith went to baptize Carlos, the water was only about 2 feet deep in the font. For some reason the plug wasn't in all the way. So Elder Smith tried to baptize him but his knee wouldn't go under. So we all stood around for about five minutes while the font got filled a little more. The second time was a success. Carlos will be joining the Navy in a couple weeks. He takes his physical test today.

I hope you all continue to do well. I hope I answered all your questions in your letters. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Gray

"TSAM shoe"

Howdy,
So I am getting transferred. I don't know where to yet, but I know its not the border because I would have been leaving tomorrow morning instead of Thursday. Elder Kleinman is staying. Every companionship in our district is changing so its an exciting time.

Our zone won the "TSAM shoe" for May. It is an old shoe in a case given to the zone with the most baptisms each month. We had 13.

Today we went paintballing. Those really rich people that we went to a month or two ago have about twenty Tippman A5's and two Angels (really good guns). They also supplied us with the paintballs and air. I am real tired from that.

I don't have very much time on email today so sorry this one is short. I will send a letter with some pics and my new address on Thursday. I love you all and deeply appreciate your letters and support. Stay close to the Lord and I love you all.

Love,
Elder Gray

P.S. Tell Dave congrats on his mission call.

"This is my life and I choose to make it a success"

♪♪chileeeeeeeeeeeee's baby back ribs (and barbeque sauce)♪

Hola ustedes,

This week was really good.  I went on exchanges with Elder Orme and Elder

Law this week.  We had a lot of success.  We found some new investigators.  

And it was nice to have a little change for a bit.  Also Mary got confirmed this

week.  She wanted Elder Law to do it because she loves his "strawberry

red" hair :)  She is really sweet.  She was truly converted by the spirit so she

will be staying in the church.  We talked to her about baptisms for the dead

and temple work yesterday.  She is really excited to do that.  Also we are

gonna get her in touch with the family history consultant in our ward. That is

another thing she really wants to get in to.

Bailey, our little 9 yr old, got baptized and confirmed by her grandpa on

Saturday.  Her and her little brothers are a lot of fun.

This morning we had a district breakfast at our apartment.  We had

crepes with homemade whipped cream and a bunch of fruit.  It was really

good.

So here's the deal with transfers.  They are going to be happening on

Thursday June 11.  I don't know if I'm going or staying.  More than likely,

either Elder Kleinman or I will be transferred.  I will let you know next

Tuesday what is happening.  Transfers happen every six weeks 

and the p day before transfers is on a Tuesday (I think y'all already knew

that but just in case you didn't.....)

The mud from that incident came out of my tie and my pants and belt and

shoes.  But everything white is wasted pretty much.

Thanks for sending my iPod and pants and everything else.  I really

appreciate all of it.  I bet that took a while to put all those songs on the

ipod so thanks even more for all the effort :)

So for my little spiritual thought this week I am gonna share something

that is a little more motivational than spiritual.  I found it in a Sports

Illustrated article last summer and have kept it in my wallet 

ever since.  It is called the Pledge of Success:

"Today is a new day, a new beginning

It has been given to me as a new gift

I can either use it or throw it away

What I do today will affect me tomorrow

I cannot blame anyone but myself if I do not succeed

I promise to use this day to the fullest by giving my best, realizing it 

can never come back again.

This is my life and I choose to make it a success"

I really like this one.  I am trying the best I can to remember it.  I hope

I answered all your questions.  I forgot to bring my letters here to the

library so sorry I couldn't answer the questions in the last letter.  Stay

close to the Lord and I love you all.

Love,

Elder Gray

"We said another prayer, this one a prayer of gratitude"

May 25, 2009

Hey Everyone,
This last week was pretty sweet. Mary got baptized yesterday. We were worrying that she wouldn't just because things weren't going through like we planned. But one of our great zoned leaders, Elder Lameroux, did her baptismal interview and resolved a lot of concerns she had. She wanted me to baptize her so I did. Everything went well. Her friend, who is a woman minister, came to watch. She was very nice. She took a bunch of pictures. Actually, I'm pretty sure that she took a picture of everyone in attendance at least once or twice each. We gave her a Book of Mormon because she is curious to know more about the church. It has been awesome getting people baptized and following in Jesus' footsteps. Mary has got some good friends in the ward. She is going on a Relief Society camp out with the sister in the ward pretty soon here.
On Saturday, we were driving on the highway and we saw a truck stuck on the side of the road. We decided to stop and help. Apparently they hydro-planed and they had to swerve off the road to avoid hitting the cars in front of them. They were stuck in some mud and grass. We were pushing for a long time and slowly inching towards more solid ground. After almost an hour we decided to gather around and pray. It only took another ten minutes after that. When the truck was out, we said another prayer, this one a prayer of gratitude. The dad of the two teenage sons, (the teens were driving) tried to pay us, but we didn't accept his money. He gave us his card and wants us to stay in contact with him. He is a minister, but I'm sure he'll listen when we send the missionaries in his area to him. As you've probably already seen, I included some pics from that experience. We got pretty muddy.
This week was pretty fun. Time is going by faster now that I am used to all the missionary stuff. One of the scriptures I memorized this week is Helaman 5:12. I know that by following this scripture and having Christ as our foundation, we will never fall. We might slip or stumble sometimes, but Christ will always be there to out-do the devil. But only if we allow him, Thanks for the quotes Dad. I can tell that you put a lot of consideration into picking the best ones for me. Thank you everyone for sharing your gospel experiences with me. I'm glad we can all be in this together. Stay close to the Lord.
Much Love,
Elder Christopher Gray