Miracles

Hello family and friends!

Wow, I know I probably say this EVERY week but still it is true, this week FLEW by! I can't believe it is already Monday yet again. . where does time go?!? =)

This week was full of so many miracles, I am so grateful to have the chance to see the hands of Heavenly Father working in others lives and also my own! It is incredible to see all the blessings we receive each and every day!

This week we started off with exchanges with the sister training leaders, which personally is one of my favorite days! For some reason those days just seem to bring so many miracles.

I had the chance to go with Sister Anderson (this was my third exchange with her! She is so incredible, I just love her to pieces!). But I went and spent the day in Norfolk. It was so much fun! Even though we didn't have any of our plans work out we had the chance to talk to some really interesting people and get return appointments. My favorite part of the exchange is when Heavenly father taught me a lesson on prayer.

We went to contact a lady and see if we could on the off chance teach her right then. She was busy but we talked to her for a minute. Afterwards we asked if we could leave her with a prayer. She asked if I would say it. As I offered this prayer I just could feel the spirit so strong. It wasn't anything too extravagant. .  just simple words. I just asked for a few things in her life to work out, her daughter was starting school, etc. The prayer to me was just a simple prayer. But as I opened my eyes, I opened them to the lady crying. I was a little in shock. She just looked at me and said thank you so much, and gave me a huge hug. She said that she really needed that prayer in her life. I was taught a great lesson on how even the simplest of prayers can make a difference in the life of another.

Overall I had a BLAST with Sister Anderson, we caught up on life. She was my sister training leader in the News. So we had lots of things to catch up on! I was so excited to talk to her for a whole day! haha. We had fun! =)

We came back to Hermana Sahleen and Sister Barnes also experiencing many miracles! They had FOUR lessons that day. haha. Which is basically unspeakable. haha. They visited with two less actives and had two lessons with random people. It was incredible! We saw so many miracles from the exchange.

This week we had the chance to teach Luis Cortez. We met him about two weeks before but on the exchange I guess they were outside and he left his apartment and came running over to them. Then they taught him about the book of Mormon. He is super nice and has so much potential! We had a lesson with him Saturday and he had lots of good questions. Apparently on the exchange he asked Hermana Sahleen if we wanted to baptize him and she just nodded her head and smiled. And he laughed. But this next time he had lots of questions about baptism. Especially infant baptism (he is catholic). But overall it was super great! And we will be teaching him again this week.

We also had lots of fun this week. We had a 'noche de hogar' with the branch in support of missionary work. We planned activities and just had lots of fun!

We watched a Mormon message on obedience then played lots of different games as a branch. WE had a competition between two teams and just had fun! =)

We played many games. . chopsticks with tic tacs, doughnut passing, mummy building, and lots more! The branch has a lot of fun! We even had a few investigators there which made it all worth it! There was about 4 investigators overall. So it was neat. They enjoyed it too. Overall I think the best game that they enjoyed the most was a good ole girls camp favorite of 'Electricity'. haha. I suggested it to Jose a while back and he was like, that is actually a pretty genius game, (so basically I am a genius). The branch loved it though. And it was even more hilarious when the husbands and wives happened to match up at the end to grab the spoon. I didn't realize how competitive some of them get. It was great though.

We had a few pretty incredible miracles occur yesterday!

So we were at church, not expecting anyone because they all said they couldn't come. As we are sitting in relief society an old investigator of ours walks in with her two kids!!! She was super excited to be at church. It was weird to see her again, especially because she is now pregnant and looks HUGE! haha. But it was a complete miracle.

Then during relief society we had the neatest thing occur. We missed two phone calls from a number we didn't recognize, so we decided to step out and call it back and listen to the messages. So we call it back and it is a guy, asking us when church starts. He says he is Gustavo. . haha. We both don't recognize the name. . but we tell him. Then he shows up! haha. We still don't remember how we met him exactly, but we both recognized him. He was telling us that we were walking by and stopped to talk to him and gave him a card with our information on it. This happened about a MONTH ago! That is such a miracle! He kept our card and he came to church. He said we could visit him this week and talk more about our beliefs. =)

We haven't seen Juan and maria. . they had to cancel their appointments with us. We are going to stop in on them this week though!

We had the chance to have a lesson with Vanessa. She is a member referral from Nicole. A 14 year old in the branch. She has been working with her for a while now. She had Nicole over when we were supposed to eat dinner with them. It was hilarious, no she didn't "plan" it. haha. But it was good. Vanessa said that she liked us a lot! She thought we were really funny and had lots of fun with us. Nicole said she had met the elders before and thought they were really weird so she didn't want to meet us. But apparently we are still "cool". ;) She said they will really have to do a taco bell lunch with us one day. =)

Overall we saw so many incredible miracles this week! The life of a missionary! Sometimes it is just a day in the clouds! =)

I can't believe how quickly time is flying, transfers are winding down to an end and we will be receiving transfer calls this week. So we will see where the next six weeks will take me, here, somewhere new. Who knows!?! =)

Time is flying though, I can't believe we are basically reaching fall soon. Once we are done with September time will just go even quicker!

Conference, my birthday, Halloween, thanksgiving, Christmas, then new years! All happens so quick! =)

I love you all! Thanks so much for the packages and for the letters! They mean the world! I love you, have a wonderful week!

Congratulations to my wonderful parents for reaching 33 years together! =) and Happy (late) Birthday to my nephew Thomas! =) Can't believe you are 2!

I love you all, hope your week is incredible and that you see many blessings. Know I miss you, I'll see you sooner than we think!

Lots of Love from Virginia,

Hermana Gray

elders doing a pre practice with the donuts

fhe

Our district: hansen, McDonald, me, Sahleen, Valdez, Novak, Smith

thanks for the package!