Letter #66 John 6:28

Hello family and friends.

Another week has flown by here in Argentina. I´ve been here a week in Alta Gracia and it feels like I´ve been here for 2 days.... I still have noooo idea where I am at. haha

Its way fun having a new area. I like it. You get to meet a lot of people and you dont have any prejudgements about the people.... So that means,,,  A lot of contacts!! haha I think I talked to about 100 people this week randomly at their houses or in the streets. But we didn´t have that much success as I would´ve hoped.

I am hoping that we can have a lot more success this week and Ill be sure to send a bigger letter next week with a lot more updates.

The coolest thing that happened this week was we found an inactive family that has 3 kids that aren´t baptized. So we are working a lot with them. Mostly we have to find out how to work with the dad.... who isn´t a member. He is kinda against us coming over and teaching them and talking to them at all but hey,.... ill get to his heart eventually :D

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving because we didn´t celebrate it at all here!! I forgot it even happened! haha :D

Que estén muy bien!

Elder Gray

Photos

This week was awesome!!

Baptism...

Farewell...

What more can I ask for?

Letter #65 Alma 37:33-35 Goodbye Rio Ceballos! Hello Alta Gracia!!!

Wow.... This week was the best week in my entire mission. We had a lot of miracles happen. And I feel like I received a lot of blessings that I definitely did not deserve. I really know that God loves us and wants us to be happy and successful. And at times, I feel like he blesses us just because of that. Just out of his love.

This week we had a baptism! Natividad was baptized!..... Finally haha. but really, her story is a miracle. These last 4 and a half months I have been working with her so that she can get baptized.... but the only problem was that her mom didn´t ever let her do it. So we decided this week with the bishop that she needs to be baptized asap. So.... we went to work. Elder Goates and Elder Cogo went to the grandma to see if we could baptize her. The grandma wanted her to be baptized and so we told her that we already had all of the baptism prepared and that it would be at 6 on saturday.... She agreed and said she´d plan everything so that they would be there. We ended up changing the time of the baptism to 3 on saturday because at 5 we had an activity for the obra misional. So while we are at lunch we end up getting a call from the bishop saying that the mom went to the house of the grandma, and locked Natividad inside so that she couldn´t get baptized...... So bummer... we didn´t baptize on Saturday.... But hey! We did baptize her on Sunday :D So yeah, she was baptized and confirmed right after so that there wasn´t any problems.

This week we received transfers and we found out that Elder Goates and I are leaving.... I am now here in Alta Gracia (where the parents of the President of the mission live) and Elder Goates went to a place called Leones. We were eating an asado with the bishop when we received the calls.... So the bishop was pretty sad. But on Sunday they let us share our testimonies and how the mission has changed our lives.....

I know that the mission is the best decision I have ever made in my life. I have loved every good and bad experience that has happened to me here. I have grown a TON since i´ve been here. I have learned Spanish. I now have a beard. I learned how to play soccer better.... but most importantly, I have learned more about my Savior and what he has done for me.

At lunch on Sunday, the Hermana Perez asked us if we could go to the choir practice one last time to say goodbye. So at 6 we showed up at the church and after a half hour of waiting and writing each other.... We went to find out what happened with the choir practice. We ended up finding out that half of the ward had prepared us a farewell luncheon dinner thing. It was AWESOME! They had us sit in these chairs in front of everyone and every single one of them ended up sharing their testimony of how their family was changed through us. ALL of the young men have now decided to serve missions.... When I heard that I couldn´t stop crying. I really felt in that moment I had completed the whole mission. If I can help one person to go on a mission, my two years here has been well spent. I encourage EVERYONE, that means for the men 18-25 and the women from 19, and the older couples to please.... consider serving a mission. there are no greater blessings received than here on the mission. I hope that all of you will think about the blessings received from serving and that you will consider receiving them.

The ward ended up giving us a lot of recuerdos.... (i dont know how to say that in english, but its stuff they give you to remind you of Río ceballos). There was a lot of ties, shirts, and a pillow case that has all of the wards signatures on it.

All of the families told me that I have to return and that my family has to come visit them.... So Mom and Dad.... Are you coming to pick me up from the mission? :D The bishop here in Río Ceballos is waiting for the answer. haha

He also wants me to come live with him for the summer.

Man... I love Río Ceballos.

Now I am here in Alta Gracia and I have high expectations for this place. My new companion is Elder Gardner. He has 21 months in the mission and is from minnesota. He is an awesome elder and I am way excited to be here with him.

I hope all of you can share the love of the Savior with someone else. Please do it.

Elder Gray

Letter #64 Matthew 9:10-13

 10 ¶And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.

 11 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, ^aWhy eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

 12 But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

 13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, ^aI ^bwill have ^cmercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to ^dcall the ^erighteous, but sinners to ^frepentance.

Man.... I received some horrible news this week....

Steve Nash has a broken fibula!!!??? It can´t be? Well, it looks like the lakers are going to start losing here for the next couple of games. Im sure they have no idea what to do now that their star player in hurt. I sure hope they play atleast decent without Steve. But I do have to say that I LOVE the shirts that you sent me. "TIME TO GET NASHTY!!" haha

This week was a pretty good week. We taught A LOT OF LESSONS! I just have to say that we taught around 30 lessons this week. And that is pretty good seeing that we worked about 3 full days in this area. We are super excited because of the cool people we have found. One day, we received a reference and so we went looking for the house in the morning. We had the address Aldanato Alvarez "2"..... And i was like.... im pretty sure there isn´t a house number "2"... but hey, we went looking anyways. We got to the street and we found some apartments numbered 1,2,3,and 4.... so im guessing apartment number "2" would be the address we are looking for. we knocked there..... but no one answered. And just how it says in preach my gospel, we knocked on their neighbors houses. All of the doors opened up, and all of them invited us back to share more about the plan of salvation with them.

Then during that night, we went to another reference. She wasn´t there, but her mom was. We talked with her for about 15 minutes and then I invited her to be baptized. she said ok! haha man, I think it is really cool that we can be standing talking to someone at their gate, barely seeing their face, and then after 15 minutes of talking to them about Christ, the Spirit testifies to them that the things we tell them are true, and then they want to get baptized.....

Im actually thinking right now, and i think it is amazing that I can speak in Spanish.... That is a cooolll amazing blessing that I will never be able to return to my heavenly father.

So yeah. we met a lot of cool people this week.

We also had 2 investigators go to the conference and it was awesoem! Sergio and Natividad went. Sergio is the dad from a member family here and he is the only person that is not baptized. His mom is SUPER evangelist and so he has a little fear of being a mormon because he knows taht his mom wont like it at all..... But we are working with that.

We also had our stake conference this week and Elder Spannaus and Elder Ceballos talked during it.

Elder Ceballos told a cool story that I want to share with you all.

Once upon a time there were some small duckling friends. One day they all decided that they would take the whole day to learn how to fly. So they went to the park. In the first 10 minutes, some of them could get off the ground a couple of feet. after 30 minutes most of them were fluttering around. and after an hour, they all were flying brilliantly, doing loops, flips, and showing off their new aquired skill.... at the end of the day..... they all WALKED home....

What is the moral of the story? We as people go to church. we go to a devotional. we go to EFY. we listen to a talk online. we listen to MoTab. We get spiritually uplifted for a couple 10 minutes. After 30 minutes a couple of ideas come to our mind of how we can change and be better. After an hour, we all are feeling like there is nothing bad in the whole wide world and that we can conquer it all. We know that God loves us, and that he wants the best for us. We know that Christ suffered for us and died so that we could live.....

But, after the conference ends, after the video is over, after the music stops, after church, we go back to being our normal duckling selves who dont know how to fly.

I know, with all my heart that God lives and that he loves us. I know that Christ came and suffered so that we wont have to suffer. I know that WE CAN CHANGE. WE CAN PERSEVERE. So be like the duckling who learned how to fly and flew home. not like the duckling who walked.

I love you all and I hope you are all well.

Con muchísimo amor y caridad,

 

Elder Gray

Letter #63 John 8:32 Feliz Cumpleanos Elder Cruz!

Hola Familia y Amigos,

Esta semana fue una buena semana. Tuvimos mucho éxito y recibimos muchas bendiciones del Señor. Quiero que sepan que realmente podemos ser salvos por medio del sacrificio expiatorio de Jesucristo. Recibiremos la exaltación si hacemos caso a los mandamientos. Están ahí para ayudarnos recibir felicidad!

This week was a pretty good week. We found a lot of families that are really willing to be visited by us and receive us in their houses. I know that we will always receive the fruit of our labors. I know that faith is an important principle of the gospel that we all have. The important thing that we all need to do, is help it grow. Everyday we can do something little to help our faith grow a lot. I want to testify to you all that Christ lives. He loves us, he wants us to return to live with our Father in Heaven. He suffered for all things that we might not suffer, if we would repent.

A lot of the families that we visited received us as soon as they saw us and other families said that they didn´t want anything to do with us, but in the end, received us to share a message with them. Really every person that we talked with said that they have faith. Our purpose in the mission is to "invite others to come unto Christ", which means that we invite them to have even MORE faith, repent and make the changes in their lives, be baptized by the holy priesthood of God, receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, and to finally hold true to the covenants that they make here in this life.

We want to help each family receive these saving ordinances so that they can receive everlasting life.

We met one family in particular that was pretty awesome. They are called the Zamora Family. There are 9 people in their family. Marcelo and Rosa. Then the kids are Christian, Fernando, Yanina, Florencia, Antonella, Rodrigo, and Camila. This family was exceptionally awesome because they believed in every word that came out of our mouths. We invited them to strengthen their faith by reading every day, praying as a family, and by going to church. They accepted the first two invitations by said they wanted to learn more before they went to church.

This week in church we had 2 people come. We had Ruth, and Natividad. The bishop was really excited to see Natividad this week and he asked her if she was a member yet. She replied and said that she wasn´t. The bishop was really confused because he thought that she already was a member. So this week she should be getting baptized because the bishop is going to tlak to the grandma to see what we can do with her.

This week was also the birthday of Elder Cruz. He´s pretty old.... He´s 21. haha We celebrated his birhtday by having a lot of cake and I gave him some stuff so that he can mark his scriptures better. He´s an awesome companion and an awesome missionary.

Other than the Zamora family we didn´t have anyone else mentionable. A lot of people are excited to start receiving us and a lot of people are starting to read. We´ll have to see what happens this week!!

I hope you all are well!

Elder Gray