Sorry this picture is from a week ago. He sent it later in the day so I forgot to put it up. This is Collin and Natalia the girl he baptized.

Letter #23

Mom!!! and family. crazy stuff happened this week.

1. My dear friend Zachary Buttie Rasmussen is now home because he has to get knee surgery. be sure to tell him Te qiuero mucho and that i can´t wait to seem him back with his plack on. this really is the best place to be.

2. I was transferred to my second area. I am here in Barrio Jardín with elder Maltaban. He is from Chile and we haven´t gotten to talk much because today has been crazy!! (this is why the letter is so late).

3. It rained like crazy today! I got to this new area and I guess god was a little sad that I left 20 de Junio/La Madrid, because it poured like a mad-man! It was fun to be knee deep in water walking down the street after playing a good game of soccer. but all the day we couldn´t leave the pension because of the other elders that were there.

4. Like i said, im here in Barrio Jardín. which means garden... and the people here are sooooo rich!!! and there is a soccer stadium 6 cuadras (dont know how to say it in english) from our pension.... and of course it has to be of the ugliest team in Córdoba.... freaking Talleres! I am from the team called Belgrano and we hate the Talleres!! God is funny. first he puts me in the zone that has the stadium of Belgrano... and i learn to love the celeste shirts and such.... then he sends me to the heart of Talleres, their rivals.....

5. My second counselor gave me a Argentina jersey before i left!! legit... speaking of which, do you still have all my jerseys? if you could send them in my next package, that would be AMAZING!!! everyone makes fun of me because i only wear my germany jersey.... but whatever! Gotta Represent!!

6. Les pido que pueda enviar mis cd´s. the one that has all the talks of that one guy... cant remember his name.... but its the talks with garbage digger.... and the mission i missed... life is a rollercoaster etc.

7. I can actually talk pretty good! I can hold on to a conversation for about 15-20 minutes now.... and if its about the gospel, then more! The only thing i lack is the slang here in Córdoba... there is a lot!! and "thats not the language they taught me at the MTC" -The best two years. so yeah, im just starting to learn all the slang with my new comp!

8. I am on day.... 13 of my fast!! I am close to completing my second week and its crazy how much more is happening in 20 de Junio right now.

9. We live with 3 old ladies... so it is kinda like what that website said. you have a lady who lives with you.... but she doesn´t cook or clean for us.... PUCHA!

10. I can feel a big ol chest cold/cough coming on.... boozer.

11. I complete 6 months in March!! not february. I think the fumes from the maté were getting to me last week....

Moroni 9:6..... and Mosiah 28:3...? i think. These are some scriptures that really impacted me this week. I still need to learn how to be good with the scrips though...

I hope everyone is amazing! I know that there will be hard times... but if you just work and work and work, you will get through it.

Tell the ward i said hi and that i miss them! Thanks for all their love and their prayers!

And cassie, Cuidate con este chango. Vos sos mi mejor amiga!

ps... what is the address for Shayla?

 

Moroni 9:6  

       And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor ^adiligently; for if we should cease to ^blabor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God.

 

Mosiah 28:3

      Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not ^abear that any human ^bsoul should ^cperish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure ^dendless torment did cause them to quake and ^etremble.

Letter #22

So mom.... how much do you love me? is there any way i can get a new camera? :) just a little cheap one that takes pictures. I think elder Larson is getting mad at me for asking to borrow his all the time... but whatever!! :) Here is what happened this week:

1. I was in a fight (sort of):

I was in the fight, not in the fight. We were playing soccer at hte church this last week with a bunch of investigators and kids we always play with. Then they didn´t play anymore because they were so tired. So i just said that we were going to play basketball. Then the kids formt he villa decided that they were going to play soccer on the whole court, even though we were already playing on one half of the court. So then one of our investigators got pissed and stole their ball and told them to start playing on the other side. then the villa kid got mad and hit him in the arm. Then our investigator hit him in the face... then a brawl... blah blah blah.... we split them up... then this huge 40 year old dude came out of nowhere and hit our investigator in the face and gave hima bloody nose.... so we called the cops.... etc.... and so on and so forth. now we aren´t playing soccer anymore!! haha

2. I had a baptism

We baptized natalia this week! she has two brothers on missions right now. one of them is in Mesa, Arizona (where elder larson lives) and he visited his family and sent elder larson a picture of him and his mom. So natalia received a letter from her brother. then there was a part of the letter that was in english and her brother said that she needed to go to the missionaries sot aht they could translate it. so she was on the street and elder larson, and elder ferreira passed by. elder larson read it and it basically said, " this is my sister. these are her needs. please teach her." it was really funny. so elder larson just said that the letter said that he loves her and that they were goint o start coming by more often. long story short, she is now baptized!! haha :) i wish i could send you pictures, but the computers here dont work that good. so next week hopefully.

3. I started a 40 day fast

I started a 40 fast of things that keep me from having the spirit! its going pretty good right now.

4. Elder Richter got sick. next week

5. Adrian and Veronica are freaking out at us. next week

I hope you are all good! ill talk to you next week!

Pictures Promised

Letter #21

I MISS STEVE NASH!!! Mauro always is talking about Kobe, and its really annoying... boozer.

but anyways

1. Yes!! I got robbed by a guy with a freaking huge revolver. it was probably a .45.... but whatever. So really what happened it that i was on intercambios, which is when I switch companions for a day and i go to a different area to work. So i was in Uriturco, and we went to pass by a member family that is inactive. so we were going to go visit them and it was raining really bad so NOONE was outside. we were walking to this house and we passed by a guy. being the normal missionary that i am, i said HOLA! and we kept walking. then we stopped in front of the member´s house and my comp was telling me a little about the family. but then i heard some distant spanish behind me, my comp turned around, and so i was like huh? so i turned around, and it was the guy that i said hi to!! I was about to say como le va, when i looked down and saw that he had a huge revolver pointed at me..... UHHHH..... so, my mind started joggling a bit. I was thinking, oh crap, what is he saying... all i heard was that he wanted my watch, and my bag... so i was like ok, if you want my watch, you´re going to have to take it off of me. soo... he did. haha then I told him that all i had in my bag were books, but I didn´t come to my mind that i should just show him that there we only books.... Dummy me. So yeah, he stole my bad and my watch. but not my ring, or my wallet... haha idk...

All this time when i could´ve died, i wasn´t scared for my life, because i knew where i was going. I love having the knowledge of the plan of salvation. It was kinda cool too. I was reading my patriarchal blessing just before that happened and I read a little part that says, "I bless you with a testimony as you consider the plan of salvation and what it means in my life.".... so at this moment, i really did know what it meant to me. but hopefully i wont have to be reminded again but gun point... haha

2. Recently, with the 5 baptisms, we´ve been finding a lot of new people to teach. its way amazing to see all the people who randomly talk to us and then start crying three sentences into the conversation. But i know that they see us as representatives of jesus christ. And its always sad to see the people say that they dont feel worthy to talk to us or to go to church. but then the spirit tells me to tell them that that is the type of peopel the jesus preached to. he only preached to the sinners and the ones who needed to repent.

3. I went on splits with Elder Cardenas so that i could get to know some of his investigators that he is teaching. All the day we were talking about how we are going to plant some deep doctrine on one o fhte investigators that we have. So before that appointment , we passed by a inactive member and he dropped some DEEP DOCTRINE on us.... it was intense. haha

Its amazing to me when a man studies so hard in the deep doctrine, that he forgets the doctrine on the surface, the doctrine that will bring him eternal life.

4. other than those two that is about it here in Córdoba.

5. Good luck to Zack, Jeff, Shayla, and everyone else that is leaving soon!! :) Im a little mad that Shayla will get home before me... :P ahah but then again, i get more time here in the best place in the world.

I love you all, and i hope you have a great week!

Elder Gray

Sorry it's later than normal! (=

Hola Familia!

Tuvimos un bautismo!!! Boo yeah. The work here is booming right now. but we did only have 2 investigators at church again. A lot of the people who promise us that they are going to come, end up going to the river that morning to play.... :P

1. But yeah, Daniel Tissera was baptized!! He is awesome. He reminds me a lot of dad. Big, Strong, Good with words, has a funny chuckle, and is always giving advice to his kids.

2. And I had that opportunity to talk to his mom about the gospel as well last night. We went over to her house and talked to her about the baptism and why she didn´t go. she said that she would cry to much......... And? haha but yeah, she said that likes the changes that she is seeing in the life of her son and his wife. so we invited her to be baptized. She ate it up! I love when I can see the gospel touch an investigator´s heart and tell them that they need to be baptized.

3. I saw a wicked dog fight. yeah, it was legit. Max would´ve live a minute out here.

4. Haha, one of our investigators had a baby! and guess what they named it? Ian Collin Trevor Gonzalez!!!!.....

Totally kidding, his name is Ian Gonzalez.

5. Thrice this week we have been invited over to investigator´s houses to make an american breakfeast. so yeah, us elders (mainly elder richter), cooked pancakes and french toast. Except they don´t have syrup here so we put dulce de leche on them.... not as good. :P

6. I received two packages!! One from the fam. and one from the other fam in Colorado! Thanks a lot guys. Now elder Cardenas knows what beef jerkey is like.. SOOOOO delicious.

7. We had a fútbol friday these last two fridays and a lot of kids showed up. And Mauro, one of our recent baptisms, got robbed! so he had to track them down on his moto and get his phone and stuff back.  But yeah, its fun playing fútbol here, and even more fun playing basketball because all they ever do is pass it to me! I feel like an allstar here.

8. An elder returned from his mission in Chile here. he came with us today to one of our members home to have an american breakfast. Graciela is my mom here in argentina. I love her, without her, i think i would die from starvation. I am not excited to leave this area to go to a different because I know that i won´t have here with me whenever I want. :(

9. Elder richter and I had about 18 contacts at one time! it was pretty legit.

10.  We started teaching an english class!! It made me feel a lot better about my spanish when i heard them try to say the alphabet. haha and by them, I mean Mauro, because he was the only one who showed up.

But other than that, the life here in Córdoba is the same! I hope you all have a great week! Remember the Importance and Significance of your baptism, because there are some people in the world searching for the true church but they just don´t know where to find it!

Love you,

Elder Gray

Happy New Year!

Hello family!! Happy new years!! Its going to be a fun year this year. A lot of people have been telling us there they are going to do a lot of crazy stuff since the world ends this year....

haha actually, a guy yesterday stopped us in the street and was like, what do the mormons think of the end of the world? and we just said that only god knows when that is. and so then we started teaching him about the plan of salvation and he said that we could stop by his house later today. so we´ll see where that takes us.

The new years here is freakin crazy. lots of fireworks.... alot more than at christmas. it sounded like world war 4 started!!

Here are ten things that happened this week:

1. OMG. Daniel, one of our investigators, had a revelation that he needed to be baptized. it was definitely a miracle. we went to his house to see his family and visit and elder larson´s new comp barely arrived the day before (elder cardenas de mexico). so we walked in and said hi to everyone and Daniel points to elder cardenas and says, "you are going to baptize me". we are like.... wahhhhht? he said that this morning he woke up to read the restauracion pamphlet. but he couldn´t concentrate. so he said a prayer to help him concentrate. immediately when he said amen, he was sent into a dream of elder cardenas baptizing him..... when he woke up he realized that he has had that dream before and he´s had many dreams with elder cardenas in it. So before he was waiting for something that he didn´t know. he said he was waiting for his son to accept the gospel too. but really, he was jsut waiting for elder cardenas to come!! it was freaking sweet!

2. I killed voldemort. I bought some roman candles for the new years, (since they sell here for 10 for 10 pesos, which is like 10 for 2.50), and the whole time they were going off i was pretending that i was harry potter and i was trying to kill voldemort with my wand.... call me weird.... but the only reason i was doing it was because it was sending elder cardenas into a laughing fit every time i´d do it.

3. We had two investigators at church because of the new years. the people here are fair weather church go-ers. if there is not fair weather, they will not go. and since the new years was just the night before, we had only 2 investigators there. Daniel showed up for priesthood which was amazing!!

4. So one of the members that i can actually understand almost perfectly now, micaela, invited her friend to church yesterday. she is taller than me and is only 13 years old.... :P haha

5. We taught about temple marriage and baptisms for the dead on sunday for gospel priciples. i taught my first lesson in spanish!! with only a few pauses for translations.

6. I owned my ankle three times trying to go down the stairs in our pension... so yeah, its pretty black and blue right now.

7. I almost threw up 3 times this week!

8. My knee has been killing me lately, and i can barely bend it to a 90 degree angle right now.

9. Im going to get my first hair cut tomorrow!! :) boo yeah.

10. he estado hablando español durante este semana mas que todo mi mision!! sinceramente es un milagro. con solamente dos meses aca, yo puedo hablar bastante español para que los argentinos puedan entender de que estoy hablando!!

11. oh, and us elders created a new type of empenada. its a dessert empenada! and it was a big hit. it has bananas, peanut butter, and dulce de leche in it!

12. I figured out a whole new way to teach the commandments! and its pretty legit. Ive used it three times this week and the people seemed to understand the importance of the commandments!

I hope all is well over there! have fun in the brand new truck! Im thinking I want a stick shift when i get home. and maybe some type of moto since they get so good gas mileage! ;)

I miss you all and i hope all is well!

Love,

Ëldër Çóllín Gráy