Letter #35

Hola familia mía!

Como están?

It sounds like you are all having fiestas up the Wazoo!

I heard that there were a couple of huge tornados in OK.... Is marci ok? I havent heard from her in a while.... haha

Its fun hearing about all of Cassie´s softball games. I really miss high school and playing for the team there. What grade is Cassie in? I cant remember a things ever since Ive been here in Argentina. I feel like I have a hard time remembering the simplest of things.... Like all the music i have ever listened to. This could be a blessing in disguise though.

We just had another transfer here and i am still here with Elder Holtby!! Woohoo! We are a really good companionship and we work really good together. The elders in my pension were changed around. Elder Marchant from missouri is still in the pension, but Elder Bryant went to La Rioja, and Elder Vilchis is here now! Elder Vilchis is from Mexico, and he arrived here in argentina with me. I remember the first time i talked to him in the airport and i could not understand him at all.... and he could not understand me at all. but now we are like best friends and we can talk all we want to each other. its super fun:)  The transfer is looking good. we have a couple of people who are ready to be baptized, we basically just need to go and make sure that they understand everything. Elder Holtby and i seem to go through cycles. One week we are contacting a ton and have a ton of new people, the next week we are contacting a little and we dont ahve any new people but we are teaching a lot of people who will progress. The best way we figured out is when we find the balance of all of this and then the people will just start flowing through the process and they will be baptized.

I know that this will work. Its just like when we find balance in our lives. At times it may seem like we are always with our family. other times we are always working and dont have time for the family, or friends, or just time for ourselves. One huge thing that i have learned while i hvea been here is that we really need to order our days and make sure taht we are well balanced in all things. DC 89:119 "119 Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;"

Organize yourselves.... Prepare every NEEDful thing. I like how it says that we need to prepare every needful thing. not everything we want, but every thing that we need. We need to include all the things that God says in the scripture each day. Prayer, Fasting, Faith, Learning, Glory, and Order.

Prayer: We should pray every morning when we rise and every night before we go to bed atleast. every time that we feel down, or we need anything, pray.

Fasting: We need to have an atitude of spiritual cleaning. If we are continually cleaning ourselves spiritually, we will be the best person that we will ever be.

Faith: If we dont believe, we wont achieve.

Learning: President Hinkley couseled us to learn every day!

Glory: Like mom always says. "Remember who you are." if we really remember who we are, a son or daughter of god, then we wont have any troubles with anything.

Order: The more ordered we are, the easier the spirit will be able to come into our lives.

Will all of these things, we can become "A house of God", a Temple that will really be able to dwell with the spirit and do the things that God really wants.

I am really going to start this process. I cant wait to see the type of results that will come from it and I know that god will help us along the way.

This week we focused a lot on the 5-5-5 plan that we have as a branch. We went and visited all of the less active and inactive members and found out what the problems were. It was fun to see all of the stories taht they have with the elders and we had the opportunity to teach a lot of them the lessons again. And as a result, we had 4 inactives come to church.

God does bless us for our efforts.

I love you all and hope you are all working to better yourselves, but most importantly, to better others.

With much love,

Elder Gray

P.S. The cold winter season is coming up here and I realized i dont have any sweaters to wear over my white shirts. So if you could send me one or two, that would be great. :) And some beef jerky included.