Home away from home...

hello family and friends!

As you can guess.. this week FLEW BY! Seems to be how I start every email... but it is the truth. :)

This place is becoming my home away from home! :) I will be here another transfer for sure and probably two more after that... so basically I might die here or get 'trunky transferred' out of here. I will love it though! It is such a great place...

With that being said... Hermana Johnson and I are staying together again! I am really excited! She is a hoot and of course it will be super fun! And we will spend our second Christmas together and all three phone calls.  :) Whoot whoot! And then even crazier.... we are in a TRIO! We will be picking up Hermana Valdez on Wednesday! She is a hoot too! Both of my companions 'die' this transfer (go home).. so I will be around two very hilarious hermanas going through a whole wave of emotions... it could be interesting.. :)

I am excited though! It will be a hoot with the two of them, our house will be so full... five of us there.. it will be nuts! :) Crazy times.... haha.

This week we didn't have too much success number wise but we sure had lots of fun and tried our hardest!

We had two really excellent lessons with Eduardo and Fernando. We are hoping all goes well... we had some complications happen so we had to move one of their interviews to tonight and we might have to push back one of their baptisms depending... we will see though. Heavenly Father has been helping us out a lot but it will all go well in the end. :) The interviews should go pretty good though. :) Hopefully we will have a baptism at the end of the week... if not a couple of weeks. :)

Our lessons with Eduardo and Fernando are going so well though. They are just flourishing! They are soaking up the gospel. It is amazing to see how quickly they are both progressing. . We realized that Fernando has only been taking the lessons for a month.

During our lesson Hermana Johnson asked them both the reason why they would like to be baptized, and Fernando gave the most sincere answer, he was telling us how he wants to be a good father and be a good example to his kids right now. How is oldest is fourteen and he wants to give him a good life and this is the way. Then he was telling us how his wife was softening up to this. Originally his wife was FURIOUS that he was taking the lessons... but her heart is being softened. He told us that she has been thinking of having the missionaries in Mexico teach her because she has seen such a magnificent change for the better in her husband. It was so powerful. That is just another testimony builder to me that the church is true. =)

We had a really neat lesson with one of our less active families here. We were talking and shared a message about testimony and conversion... anyways we finish our thought and then the sister says 'can I ask you an honest question?".... so of course we are thinking... oh no what does this mean... then she asked if because she wasn't attending church if she didn't have faith. It was a really interesting question. We ended up baring testimony of the importance of church attendance and how it really does strengthen us. They both sat down and talked with us, set goals of how to better their church attendance. It was a very wonderful lesson. The spirit was very strong...

We also had a wonderful testimony builder that planning is inspired. We had been trying to visit them for the past month and each time we passed by either they weren't home, or they didn't answer the door. . we visit them once a week. So during this time we had been planning on sharing the talk 'which way do you face?' with them. . . we felt strongly impressed during planning that is what we needed to share... anyways we finally get in and then we had switched our lesson plan to testimony nad conversion... but she told us the reason she had that question is she had read the 'which way do you face' talk in the ensign and felt like they needed to change. WOW!!! It hink they just needed to feel the constant missionary/spirit support leave for a little to realize the difference it does make.

This week we also had the chance to help with Sister Shirley spencer's funeral. It was a beautiful service. It was another testimony builder to me that families are eternal. Heavenly Father has presented the plan of Salvation to us for a reason. We will one day have our families for eternity. I felt such a special presence... it made me think a little of how I didn't have the chance to attend Grandpa's funeral earlier this year... and it made me a little sad. But I also was comforted with the knowledge that we are an eternal family.

This week was also fun because I had a little home away from home! Sister Jackie Clark is out here for the holidays and it was so neat to run into her. Although I don't think she really remembers me in specific but she remembered my parents. I do remember visiting her frequently as a child though, especially around the holidays. So it was fun to see her out here! :) Who would have thought the first person I would run into out here that I know from lehi would be a ninety year old lady?? =) haha.

this morning I was reading the talk in conference about Joseph Smith and it made me realize how truly grateful I am that Jospeh Smith had a question that changed my life forever. I know that he is a prophet of God, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth again. I am truly grateful for him and the sacrifices he made so that we can have the gospel on the earth today, and the guidance of a living day prophet of God. his name will be had for good and evil.. but I hope this day it can be had for a little more good. :)

I love you all, I hope you all have a great turkey day! I am excited to spend it with the Jacobsen family here. . they have a missionary out right now and she sent us the sweetest text about how she feels honored that we can come to her house and how she knows that someone in Colorado will be taking in her son on this day and how grateful she is that she can be that 'someone' for us. :) I am sure she'll send you a picture! :)

I love you all! I hope you have a great week. Remember all those wonderful things in life that you are grateful for!

I am thankful for my family, friends, the chance I have to share the restored gospel, the opportunity I have to be with another representative of Jesus Christ 24/7, and for a new place that I can call home. :)

Just a short little list of things I am grateful for!

Love you,

Hermana Gray

Can you guess which house is the mexican one?

I don't remember if I sent pictures or not last week..but I'll throw in a few from last week too.

The best district the world has ever known