Letter #79

This week was pretty good. We ended up having a lot of success and had 2 new people show up to church. :D

We also had a suprise capacitation fromt he assistants and im hoping that the goals they gave us can be put to action. They told us that we need to hvae more lessons with member and that we need to love the members more.... So yeah! Im down with that!

On saturday I ended up going to a baptism in another area jus tto support the other elders in my zone. It was way good! Afterwards, we reeived a cool reference form them so we shoul be passing by her pretty soon!

On the way back from the baptism we ened up just calling every signle one of our investigators to invite them to church. So 2 of them ended up saying ok!

We called Cecilia and she answered and was like, YEAH! I can go this week. What time is it at again? So we ended up picking her up at her house at 1030ish because she had to work in the morning. This was a crucial part of the church shedule because she ended up making it to one o fhte classes and she got to meet a lot of the members and learn a ton in the few minutes taht she could be there. And then she loved the sacrament meeting!! :D

We also called the familia cabanillas and alicica told us that she couldn´t because some of her famliy was visiting her from buenos aires... but then she was like.... HEY! my daughter reallywanted to go last week... can she go this week??? WEll of course!! So we also went to go look for her with one of the jovenes in our ward. It was way cool. She had a great time in all of the classes and she is going to go to the activities that they have for the young womens this week. So im really pumped! It was cool to see the blessings we got forr just calling to see if they could come to church. We are going to put that into practice again this week to see what other miracles can come out of it!

This week we have 2 baptisms! Micaeal and Marianella. I ended up interviewing Marianella for her bapitsm and she passed with flyng colors! :D I should be interviewing Micaela a bit tomorrow so we´ll have 2 baptisms this sunday! Im way pumped!

:D

I hope mom is ok... i didn´t get a letter from her this week!

Thanks to everyone that wrote me!!

Love you all!

elder Gray

WahooOOO!!!!!

Yeah buddy.

This week was pretty good. we received a lot of references form the ward members. I think the final count was 12 (normally we get 2 or 3...) But yeah. The coolest part about the references was that they did all hte work to setup the lessons so all we have to do now is show up :D

the ward is really booming now. The spirit of mission work is making everyone enjoy the church. Its awesome.

Im hoping that by the end of my time here in Alta Gracia, the ward will be baptizing a ton!

This week in the district we had a lot of news. All of the areas in the district are going to baptize this month! way legit! Crucero has 2 people that are getting baptized, and then in Santa Rosa they have a mom and a daughter that are going to be baptized.

I also had the chance to meet a guy from Senegal..... He was the most black guy i have ever met! :D And.... he spoke french... and a little bit of spanish... and a little bit of english. It was hard trying to understand him because he was always mixing the words up.... but by the end we ended up giving him our card and a picture of Christ and he said he´d take it back to Senegal with him.

We also met a cool new family!! it was one of the references that we receivedfrom the ward. It is a family of 5. I dont really know them really well yet, but we have a lesson with them on thursday.

At church we didn´t ahve anyone.....  because it rained really bad.... rosa and mariela didnt come out of their house and the other people we invited stayed inside aswell.... It wasbasically a hail storm. There ended up being like 50 people in church because it was raining sohard. We had to help a couple of members push their cars out the mud so that they could go to church so it was a fun experience.

Congrats for the mission call Alex!! :D Im proud of you! Be safe and serve with all your heart might mind and strength!

Thats about all that happened this week. just a lot of knocking, talking, and walking.

Love,

elder Gray

Alma 32:16

Hola Familia y mis amigos,

This week was really legit. Natali was baptized!!! :D She looked so cute waiting for us on Sunday morning all dressed in white.

Elder Ramírez and I had to wake up at 5 in the morning to go and fill up the baptismal font. Elder Conidaris told me that it took 3 hours atleast to fill up. So at 5:45 we ended up starting to fill up the font after cleaning it out. After that, we went back to bed and woke up at 6:30 to get ready for church. The baptism was supposed to start at 8:45 before church.

We got to the church at 8:30 and needless to say that the church was a little flooded.... :/  Apparently the font only takes 2 hours to fill up and so we spent the next 30 minutes cleaning up all of the water. :D Man we are so smart. But its ok, the baptism was wonderful.

There also were a lot of investigators there. The family of the bishop ended up showing up and there were about 4 girls that are studying in college. They invited Elder Ramírez, Myself, and Maxi (their cousin) to go and visit them one day to give them the lessons. They said that they felt something different as Natali got baptized.

We also had Carmen come to church! She had to leave early (after 30 minutes) because she felt sick...  She works until 7 in the morning at a bar. So she is way cool! Hopefully we can help her out to stop smoking and help her with her family and such.

We also received transfers. I am still here with Elder Ramírez in Alta Gracia. We got 2 new elders in the district. Elder Yazzi and Elder Matheson. they should be some great additions to the team.

We should have another baptism this week. The dad of Marianela was getting back active so that he could be able to baptize her. So now we have to see what the bishop says about it all.

We are still working with Rosa and Mariela and their family. They´ve been out of town for the holidays and so we haven´t been able to talk to them much.

Also, Elder Conidaris is finally in his house. He should be at his house this wednesday and so you might be getting an unexpected visit from him!

This week was really cool with my studies. I tried learning morea bout faith and I LOVE chapter 32 of Alma. It was awesome to start learning about the different ways that i can start putting it into practice.

I love you all and I hope that you are all great!

Elder Gray

Helaman 12:7-8

7 O how great is the a nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are bless than the dust of the earth.

 8 For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God.

WOWOWOWOWOW. this week has been pretty sweet. we had a lot of people in church this week. there were 120ish people... definitely a record for this year.

but really, this week was really cool. a lot of stuff happened.

1. the noche de hogar como barrio.

 This week, us as missionaries held a family home evening. It was in the church and it was really cool. We talked about the profets and acted out some of them from the book of mormon. I was Alma the older, My companion was Nefi, Elder Coria was king benjamin. Elder Conidaris was Abinadi. So we acted out the profets and told the stories of each of them. King Benjamin had to get on top of the basketball hoop to be able to have his tower to preach from. I was dressed in all white because i baptized in the waters of mormon. Abinadi was in his jail just before his trial before king noah, and nefi was the tour guide. but yeah. we had a lot of people show up. and there were wa lot of investigators as well. :D

2. my comp got bit by a dog.

 My beloved comp got attacked by a german shepherd this week... Things get CRAZY in argentina. We were talking outside with a part member family and my comp decided to lean up against the fence. Then out of nowhere came this huge german shepherd and put his mouth through the fence to end up biting my companion in the back.... And my comp didn´t put any excuses to not work... he got out a spare shirt, and put it on, and we went to the next appointment... he´s crazy!! but he´s a trooper :D

3. natali

 Natali is getting baptized this next sunday! im way excited. She had her interview and she passed with flying colors.

4. luis

 Luis told us that he wanted to be baptized... which that doesn´t happen that often. Usually we have to ask the people if they want to do it... but no, he asked us :D so yeah, he´ll be getting baptized next week if he can change a couple of things. we´ll be working a ton with him!

5. elder conidaris

 Elder Conidaris is going home next week and he´s goign to go visit the family! So be looking out for him! :D

6. new families

 We´ve had 4 new families move in to Alta Gracia so it has been really cool to see the new excitement that there is in the ward.

7. family from idaho

 Some random famliy from idaho was visiting here this week. They´re going to be here for the next month visiting their family that lives all around in argentina. So today we might play football with all of them :D

So yeah, these are the highlights of this week! I hope you all have a great week! :D Do your visiting/home teaching visits!!

Love, Elder Gray