Matthew 18:22 Seventy times Seven

Thiss week was pretty good. the first half of it was spent out of my area.... sunday night i received a call just before church started that was from the zone leaders... they asked me if my comp and i could go to chilecito with them to help them out a little bit. and we had to leave just after sacrament meeting (we have church at night). so yeah, we spent monday through wednesday in chilecito helping out the other elders.

 I had a blast!

we went to this place called teh river of two colors... it was pretty cool. there is a orange and a blue river. the orange one comes froma  gold mine and so that is why the river is orange.... the blue one is just blue... id ont know if it comes from a special place.

but after we got back to la rioja we had a LOT of work to do. all of the people we ended up having in chruch had not been visited by anyone so we ended up spending a lot of time with them. all of them said that they were going to go to church!

we also stopped by this famliy that we found my first week here calle dthe herrera family. and we finally got to talk tot he mom again!!! it was a way spiritual lesson. we taught why there are so many reliigions nowadays and we taught her the restoration and at the end of the lesson, just after we shared th e joseph smith storya nd the firt vision she stopped and asked me. "how do you know that all of this is true?"... no one has ever stopped, pondered, and then asked me that question in the first visit after the first vision... usualyy it takes them a bit to understand the importance of all of it and then they ask that. she is chosen!!! we told her she needs to pray and then we asked her if she would get baptized and she said yeah!

but.... no one showed up at church... bummer... we´ll just have to start leaving them with stronger compromisos.

this week we have transfers!!! im kinda scraed to see what is going to happen....

sorry, the owner here is closing down the store and so i have to go1!!

Love you all!!

Elder Gray

What's Up?

Wow.... This week was awesomee!! We had a lot of miracles happen here in La Rioja.

One was that we had 2 unexpected baptisms!! Sofia and Agostina got baptized!

Sofia is the daughter of a member here in La Rioja that has always listened to the missionaries and then I got there and I was just like, "hey sofia, why haven´t you ever been baptized....?" she told me her story and said basically that she never felt it. I said, "ok. pray about it and we´ll baptize you on the 20th".... so she did and she got baptized... hha

Agostina is the daughter of Sara, the recent convert that i baptized the first week i got here. we´ve been teachign her a little bit and she was going to get baptized this next week but we just asked her if she wasnted to be batpized with Sofia and she said ok! so yeah... We had two baptisms

This week we are still working with Jessica.... hopefuly she can get in the water this week....

We also had 4 new people come to church yesterday. A family of 4, with two kids that can get baptized and another daughter of a member that we have been teaching for a while. So we´ll be teaching a lot more now than we have ever in La Rioja. Which is legit!! We almost hit 40 lessons this last week. And the members are going crazy to help us. We had 19 lessons with a member present.

Today I am in a pueblo called Chilecito. I came here with thte zone leaders to help out the elders and to find some peopel that they can teach. We went to this cool river today called the river of two colors..... The river starts out orange and blue and then they connect and its super legit. Hopefully i can sne dyou a cool picture.

So yeah. This week has been really really full of blessings!! I lov eyou all and I hope you have a great week!!

Elder Gray

Belief is a precious word

This week was incredible... Just like the rest.
 
We ended up having a baptismal service! Monica finally got baptized. We had been waiting for the papers of Ricardo to come over from Catamarca and we finally got the green light from the bishop and so we ended up having a sweet baptism with about 30 people. A lot of investigators came as well. We had Agostina, Melina, and Eliana... All of them are going to be baptize din the next couple of weeks.

Agostina is doing really well. She is soooo cute! She came to the baptism and she ended up coming to church. She also told me that she wants me to baptized her! What an honor. She should be getting baptize dthe 27th. Yohana couldn't go to church for some family problems... we will have to take care of that.

Eliana and Melina couldnt come to church because they went to visit Eliana's mom. But they are way pumped! Melina is 9 and is the daughter of Eliana. Eliana is reading the book of mormon a ton! She said that if she finds out the book of mormon is true, she will get baptized instantly... so yeah... I'm going to be trusting the promise in Moroni 10.

Jessica didn't end up coming to church yesterday because she was in Catamarca with her friends visiting some other people who came to visit them.... or something like that. But she is still having a little trouble accepting that this is the ONLY true church. We told her about the importance of the Book of Mormon. She knows that book is true and she knows JS was a prophet... so now we have to find out what the real doubt is.

We ended up eating a cow head this week..... it was pretty grosss to tell you the truth... but it ended up being really seasoned so it was pretty good. I ate the tongue, the cheek, the brain, and the eyeball.... The brain was probably the most disgusting. I LOVE THE TONGUE!!! it was soooo good.

We also did some visits witht he home teachers. Tehy invited us along so that we could visit more people and that we could find some part member familys to go and visit. We ended up finding 2 or 3 people that we are going to start teaching.

I just wanted to end this letter by telling you all how much I love you. Thank your so much for all the support you have given me. I love this gospel. I believe and know that it is true. Be strong.

Remember, that anyone can make a covenant, but only the valiant with keep them!

D&C 76:79

79 These are they who are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus; wherefore, they obtain not the crown over the kingdom of our God.
Lots of love,

Elder Gray

PS.... Happy birthday Marci!

Monica's baptism.

Photo of the other elder's baptism; her name is Angelica

"Cabeza Guateada" -it's cooked cow head. . . yummy!!

Eye of the cow... delicious

General Conference!!!

This week was way legit!! Lots of stuff happened.

Today we went to the Dique and chilled up there with the zone. It was way fun... We were literally above all of the eagles and stuff. I had the opportunity to give a devontioal about how to gain trust from God. I used Juan 15 as the scriptural basis.

This week was pretty cool. We ended up having 6 people in church and there are a lot of random baptisms coming our way. One hermana of the church just barely told us that her daughter was talking to the missionaries a long time ago but she never got baptized. But now she wants to talk to us again and she wants to get baptized.

We also found a couple of new families that want to hear from us. Hopefully we can help them get to church to feell the spirit that is there.

Monica didn´t end up getting baptized because we want her to be baptized by her husband. But in order for that to happen, he has to get interviewed by the bishop... who was out of town that week... so we are just waiting until he gets back so that she can be baptized!

Jessica is also waiting to be baptized and we are still working with her to see what we can do to help her feel the need.

Aimogasta, the other area in my district, ended up not baptizing either but they should have 2 or three baptisms this week. La Rioja is awesome!!

I only have 5 months left.... how crazy... thats only 5 fast sundays....

Well, I got to go!

My hour is up.

Love you, you´re all in my prayers!

Elder Gray

Week 2 in Rioja!! I'm loving it but it's really HOT!!!

This week was just amazing!! çLots of stuff is happening here in La Rioja and its hard to keep everything under control!

We ended up having a baptism this week. Her name is Sara Rodriguez. IT was way cool because she told us that she just wanted to get baptised ASAP. We tuaght her everything really quick. She CHANGED A TON!!! and she got baptized. :D SO.... to celebrate a little, elder hill and I went to the golf course to play a couple of holes. Did I play well?? Lets just say I didn´t lose any balls ;D And I parred the last hole. hahah I am a little rusty.

But dad, I learned how to not slice it!! :D WOOHOO!

We also have been finding a lot of new people. We found a family calle dhte Herrera family and they are way legit!! We went up to the house, knocked on it, then started takling to them for about 10 minutes trying to get to know them at the door and then the mom of the family asked us the difference between the catholic church and ours. So, we explain the difference in the baptisms and she accepted it. She told us that she knows that the things we teach are true already and she wants us to teach the family. :D YEAH YEAH!

So we went by this morning to visit them and they were headed out to have a family vacation. She forgot that today is a Holiday and so she couldn´t tell us not to come by becaue they were leaving.

We are also teaching a 22 year old girl from Brasil... who speaks a little bit of spanish. Good thing I learned a little bit from Elder RAmos and Elder Cogo! But yeah, she should be getting baptized this week if she can talk to her dad about it. She just wants to feel accepted by her family if she makes this decision. So we invited her to a FHE at the church that there is topday and we´re going to pass by her house tonight to see what she says!

ALso, we are teaching the Tula family. Well, basically we are activating tyhe dad and teaching the mom. Her name is Monica. They are a way cool family. They´ve been reading the book of mormon every day and they read about 10 pages together.

So yeah! Thats about all thats been going on this week! We´re goign to be passing by a lot by these three families and so we´re going to have our hands full this week!

I also talked with 2 guys from chicago like and hour ago.... so we´ll be teaching them pretty soon :D

Welp!

Love you all,

Elder Gray