May 26, 2011

Place - MTC Week 2

Dear Family,

      Well I am on week two! It has been quite the week. I do not even know where to start. It seems as if it all blends together. Although Tuesday night was absolutely INCREDIBLE!! We had the wonderful opportunity to hear from an apostle Elder Russel M. Nelson and his sweet wife Wendy Watson Nelson. She talked about the importance of obedience but not only that, being EXACTLY obedienct. One of the quotes that she said is that " Obedience brings blessings, and EXACT obedience brings miracles!" I love that. I know as missionarys we have to be EXACTLY obedient and we have many rules that we need to follow. Even those small and simple rules like not wearing a watch in the gym while exercising.  We may think that they are simple but we have those rules for a reason! They are to help us and I have a strong testimony that if we obey those rules we will see and begin to see many blessings, more than we could have ever imagined.

      Something that has been emphasized over and over again is that we teach people NOT discussions. Everyone has a different story and we need to take the chance to get to know eveyrones background and story. Everyone has different beliefs and we have to understand that. Something else that stuck out to me that Elder Nelson said was,    

" We follow Christ". We do everything that Christ did. We as missionarys follow Christs example. We teach

Faith -

Repentance- Doctrine and Covenants 20:37- they humbled themselves before God with Broken Hearts and Contrite Spirits

Baptism- John 3:5 "...Except a man be born of water and of the spirit he CAN not enter into the kingdom of God."

                                  1. 2 Nephi 31:13

                                  2. 2 Nephi 31:15 He that endureth to the end shall be saved...these highest blessings in the church is his temple.

       He also talked about how important first impressions and how we always need to carry a smile on our faces. I think that is something that is so important. That is something that people and investigators are going to notice about us is the fact that we are smiling and happy! We want people to notice that there is something different about us, which will hopefully help them notice us and want to know more.

       I am in a district of mostly hispanics minus us 3 missionarys who are what we call "Gringos". Anyways one of the Elders who is named Elder Rojas is from Peru. This is his first time being in the United States. His aunt said that someday he would learn at the feet of an apostle. Tuesday night was the First time that he had ever seen an apostle in real life. After this fireside we had a meeting with our Branch President. We all bore testimony of the fireside and our testimonys in general. When Elder Rojas bore his testimony and began to tell us about what his aunt had said and that tonight was the fist time that he had ever seen an apostle, the spirit hit us all like a ton of bricks. There was not a dry eye in the room. This really brought us together as a district. It is amazing to me how strong it it when someone bears a simple pure testimony, there is nothing like it.

     For those of you who do not know I transfered to a new district. Becaus of this I leave and report to the field in a little less than 12 days! I report June 7th! I can not believe it! There is a part of me that wants to stay at the MTC longer but another part of me that is ready to go out into the field. I just want to make sure that I do EVERYTHING that I can to be ready for the field. While biking the other day in GYM Hermana Fernandez y yo memorized the first vision in Spanish. I have truly been humbled and blessed to have been here in the Advanced Group. I have really seen the hand of the lord in my life daily. He has really helped me and given me a better understanding and confidence in not only Spanish but in my ability and confidence in teaching discussions and being able to fully understand the needs of our investigators.

      Today we had the chance to go to the temple. It felt really good to be in the Provo Temple again. It is kind of strange that not only a little bit less than a month ago I was at BYU going to the temple as a student, always envying the missionarys that I saw there, and now I am one of them. I love the sweet spirit and feeling that I get when I go to the temple. It seems that all of my worries and questions are always resolved when I go to the temple. I love that I am able to focus on what really matters. I am so thankful for the scriptures and the fact that we can pray to our Heavenly Father ANYtime and that he can answer us.

    One of my favorite quotes is "When you want to talk to Heavenly Father Pray, When you want him to talk to you, Read your Scriptures". I have the STRONGEST testimony of this. I have seen this happen MANY times in my life. I was in the temple today praying about how I can be a better missionary. I opened my scriptures and read Doctrine and Covenants section 44 and 45! I love the scripture in Section 45:28 I believe. It talks about missionary work. Anyways my answer was Obedience with EXACTNESS! I can not stress how important that is.

    I want you to know that I have NO doubt that THIS is where I am supposed to be and WHAT I am to be doing right now. I have NEVER seen this much joy in my life. For I know that when we serve others we can ultimately be happy. I love the scripture Mosiah 2:19 for when we serve others we ultimately serve him!

    Yo amo a esta inglesia. Yo se que es la unica inglesia que es verdadera. Yo se que nuestro padre Celestial nos aman a todos. Yo se que Jose Smith era una profeta Verdada y si traduzco el Libro de Mormon y que es el Libro MAS verdadera del mundo. Se si nosotros leyemos el libro del Mormon y pregunta a Dios si es verdad vamos a recibir una respuesta. Porque YO recibi mi respuesta que es verdadera. Yo se que podemos ser juntos por siempre con nuestra familia. Quiero compartir esas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo. AMen.

I love you family!

Keep being awesome :)

Love,

Hermana Gray

1st MCT letter

Date: May 21, 2011
Area: MTC Provo

May 21, 2011


Querido Familia,
Well I am happy and well! The MTC is seriously the best place ever! The spirit is so strong here I love it! It feels like EFY on steriods. It is so neat to be in a place where everyone has the same standards and same goal. I have learned so much already and grown a ton. When I first got here I met my companion que se llama Hermana Benson. She is the cutest,little,sweetest, hermana. Come to find out we have so much in common. She actually was born three and a half months early, had heart surgery as well. It is so neat how well the lord knows us. For he truly knows us better than we know ourselves and he knows who we need in our lives, and when we need them. I have been truly humbled these past two days because I was placed in the beggining spanish group. Funny story, so the first day of classes our teacher did not show up. The class knowing that I spoke quite a bit of spanish asked me to teach the class. So for 3 and a half hours I taught my districto espanol. I started off by teaching the first article of faith. Then we did simple present tense conjugations, I had them read out of their scriptures the first vision in English and Spanish. I continued by teaching them whatever it was that they wanted to learn. I taught them colors, days of the week,months. Etc.. I also taught them head shoulders knees and toes. Ha they liked that one. That night being Thursday we met our Branch President. President Estes, along with the entire branch presidency. Our Branch President interviewed each of us. When I had my interview, President said, Hermana Gray we see that you know quite a bit of Spanish. He then said that as much as he would love to have me in the Branch, the likely hood of me being bumped up was pretty high. The second day we taught as a companionship a fake investigador. That being one of our teachers. It went really well, and I am really impressed at how well my companions spanish is coming along. She has a great accent and I can see so much potential in her. She is such a sweet Hermana. Friday we did a service project at 6am, which was taking out over 60 trash cans. Then I went to go and get tested. After speaking with a coordinator in Spanish, without hestitation he said we are going to move you up to the Advanced Group. You leave in less than 3 weeks. Man I can not tell you how many emotions that I felt. I felt an overwhelming feeling of peace, because I was going to not be bored in class anymore and actually learning. Although the other side of me was a little bit sad to leave my companion whom I have already grown to love along with my district. But it is for the best. Something that was really neat was when I was introduced to my new district and met the new sisters along with my two new companions the 4 Hermanas said, Hermana we knew that you were coming! I said really. They said yes we knew that our district was not complete and we had a feeling that you were coming. Wow, I can not tell you how happy that made me feel. I am SO happy to be with these new Hermanas. Each and everyone of them have so much to give. I feel truly blessed. That day mis hermanas were helping me move my books to the new classroom when we were stopped by a coordinator. He asked us if we were doing anything and when we responded no, he asked us if we would be willing to teach a REAL investigator. We willingly accepted with joy along with fear. I could not believe this. Here we are only have been there less than 2 days and here we were getting ready to teach.

We began with a prayer getting ready to teach. We then knocked on the door as he let us in. His name was Alexander from Haiti. He let us sit down. As we began to ask him questions about his life and his background we soon learned that he was a presidential canidate and after having lost he fled to the United States. That being Provo, Utah. Hmmm It is always interesting to me where people end up. Out of all places. He said that he went to Law School here at BYU. He had a GREAT knowledge of the Bible so this discussion was a little harder than one normally would be. He had SO many questions. He did not believe that God was an actual human being, but a big power rather, he compared it to Electricity. We then testified that he was a being of flesh and bone. And that he was a loving Heavenly Father. We also taught him how to pray and that our Heavenly Father loves and wants to hear from us. We also taught him that the Atonement was the greatest thing that our Savior Jesus Christ had ever done for us. We testified of repentance and that through Jesus we might be able to return to live with Heavenly Father once again. He did not think that he had ANY purpose on this life. We testified that we all chose to come down here by following Christ plan and that we all are here to be tried and tested. The discussion went on for 50 minutes, and the spirit was so strong. It was so neat to see how the spirit really directed and led our lesson. I found myself talking about things that normally I would not have planned to go that way. I know that the spirit can lead us and guide us in life to make choices and so much for if we but let it. We also taught him of the Book of Mormon and the truthfulness of it. For he believed in the Bible so strongly. He said that he woud like to read it sometime and also said that he would like to meet with us next time. What a neat experience that was. Made me MORE than excited to get out into the field. My departure date is June 7th.

P.s. my p.o box has changed to 145 and my preparation day is Thursday!


This church is real. This gospel is true. I know that Christ lives and that he died for EACH and everyone of us. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, because I have read this for myself!


3 nephi 5.13 .... MY PURPOSE as a missionary!


Till Next week.

Les Aman

Hermana Gray

Updating Kaitlin's Blog!!!

Yes, sad to say she is on her last stretch of her mission and I am finally getting her blog up and running :)  Hopefully it will be current by the weekend.

Love Sister/Hermama Gray's Mom

Missionary Pictures and Some Thoughts...

Thanks to Cathy Jones I was able to get some missionary pictures :) 

We had so much fun doing this. 

Feelings about the mission...

I am SO excited! 

Ready to get out there and help people and change their lives for the better.

I am excited to learn Spanish better than I ever have before.

I am excited to have companions.

I am excited to be immersed in the Spanish Culture

I am excited to write my family and friends letters.

I am excited to see people come unto Christ :)

I hope that I can do all of these things and more on the mission! 

2 more days in Counting! 

I get set apart tomorrow at 8:30pm!!