My Heart is Full!

Date: December 12, 2012

Area: Long Island

Companion - Sister Lewis

Querida Familia!

I looooooooooooooooove this work! The other day I shouted to my companion, I've never been this happy in my life!!!! Seriously the mission brings Sooooo much JOY! Sometimes I can hardly stand it lol. Hermana Lewis and I were talking and we were talking about all of the different types of people that we have met on the mission. I have met happy people, but I have never met anyone as happy....as a Mormon!

Seriously its SO true though. This gospel brings SO much joy! Chelsea and Garrett I just read your mormon.org profiles. You two are such a good example to me! I am incredibly blessed to be in the family that I am in. I love you all with all my heart. I am continually being impressed by your example and love for the gospel and true desire to do what is right. Thank you for all that you do :)

Ok...so this week was well.....simply amazing! The Lord has really blessed my companion and I. It is amazing how when we are obedient the Lord blesses us. Really it is as simple as that. We obey- He blesses. So sometimes I wonder why we as children of God are not always obedient. Well...we are indeed human. And that is where the Savior steps in. He makes up for the rest!

Monday was fun! We made ginger bread houses! Needless to say.....our Ginger Bread house was well....nothing short of AWESOME :) It was a lot of fun and it is so neat to be able to get to know so many missionary's! We have some of the hardest working, dedicated and diligent missionary's that I have ever met! I may be biased...but the NY NY South mission is the best :) Anyways we had a wonderful lesson with Wendy and her family on Tithing, and Wendy is just so willing to do whatever the lord asks of her. She is so humble, really I have learned a lot from our investigators and just people here in NY, there are some incredible people here who are just trying to do what is right. I feel extremely blessed to be serving here in NY at this time in my life.

Alright Tuesday...so on Tuesday I had the wonderful opportunity to go on exchanges with the English Sisters. I had the pleasure to work with Sister Smith. I absolutely love her! I served around her in Jamaica and I just love being around her. She has this happiness about her that is JUST contagious! She has a heart of gold. We were able to attend institute where Elder and Sister Hardy were able to teach and they taught about the work for the dead in the temple, particularly baptisms for the dead. It was really a neat class. Made me miss taking institute classes. I just love love the senior couples here, they remind me of you Grandma and Grandpa Gray and Peck, since you both served/ are serving missions. Both are such wonderful examples to me.

We were able to have a lesson with this man about tithing the next day. He talked to us about some hard things that he had been going through financially and he talked about how he payed his tithing and that is the only thing that saved him. Then I had the privilege of going to go and teach a lesson with one of my EFY girls! You have NO idea how happy that made me! I felt like I was an EFY counselor again. It made me SO happy to see that she is still doing well. You never know what kind of difference you can make on someones life.

On Wednesday we had another sweet opportunity to go on exchanges with the Elders. At first I was a little bit nervous...not sure exactly how this was going to all work out. However it ended up being my favorite part of the day. The Elders are excellent teachers and I really learned a lot. So we recently found this sweet family....bet you can guess where they are from. El Salvador! Ha just like everyone else in this area...and I love it! Anyways we had a really good lesson about the restoration and the proper priesthood authority. In the middle of the lesson the father was not understanding about authority and the wife said, "Don't you get it? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints...is the ONLY church that has the proper authority to perform baptisms!" ha I just love teaching! I never thought that I was a good teacher...or even liked teaching. However on the mission it is something that I have found a passion for. I have been truly humbled as I have seen the lord use me in a way to help build up his Kingdom here on this earth. I have found that as I have humbled myself the Lord has blessed me by showing me my weaknesses and helping me to develop them to become strengths.

Alright so along with this really neat day that we were having we went to go and look up a referral. When she wouldn't answer the door we decided to go upstairs to knock on the door of the family that lived upstairs. ( there are like 4 family's that live together in one house here in NY) well this sweet girl named Liony age 18 let us in. Her and her sister sat down and listened to our lesson. The 18 year old sister told us how she had been in 2 major car accidents and how she was in a coma for 3 weeks, and that she recently just learned how to walk and talk again. Can you talk about MILAGRO?!?! Miracle! She also had brain surgery....It really is a blessing that she is alive. Funny note- The mom popped her head in and said, " Are you guys Mormon?" I said you bet we are :) haha she then told us how she used to meet with the Missionary's in the Dominican Republic and how she went to church all the time. My companion then asked her if she was ever baptized? haha she said YES! say what?!? lol we just are finding these lost members all the time. haha Anyways we were able to teach them the restoration. At the end of the lesson we asked her how she felt about the things that we taught her. She said," I feel that everything that you are teaching me is true!" Then in her closing prayer she thanked Heavenly Father for bringing her the truth that she had always been searching for! We brought her the Book of Mormon the next day and she is so excited to begin reading it with her sister!

Sunday Sunday Sunday :) Let me tell you! It was great!! Wendy and her whole family came again! They are progressing and doing really well. They are the familia Mendoza- they could really use your prayers. SO please pray for the familia Mendoza! Ok so we went to go and pick up the family of Laura ( the new family that we found) We got there and they were all ready for Church! So cute! The little girl Laura LOVED church! Ha it made me so happy!! We had the entire left side of the chapel full of investigators! It is so neat to know that you are doing something to build up the Kingdom of God :) Missionary work is just AWESOME!

Sunday night we had a fireside! It was a Christmas fireside that all of the Missionarys in Long Island put on. There is just something about Music that allows the spirit to testify. The whole room was full of the spirit..also not to mention PACKED! We have some TALENTED missionarys!! Hermana Lewis my comp played the Violin. ELder Hall played the Organ and piano and Elder Kim. We had some awesome solos and duets. Yes I was one of them...I sang a solo ha :) Glad to know that I can still muster up something, but really the lord has blessed me. and I can not do ANYTHING with out him. Felt like I was in L.I.G.H.T again!

Christmas is coming! May we be thinking about what gift we can give Christ this year. What can we do better this up coming year than from the last. How can we be more converted?How can we be more giving? More Charitable? More Loving? How can we be a more devoted disciple of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

I love you all! Thank you for all the love and support! May our thoughts be turned to Christ :)

Love,
Hermana Gray

p.s one of my favorite scriptures for the week.

3rd Nephi 19:25

"And it came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray unto him; and his acountenance did smile upon them, and the light of his bcountenance did cshine upon them, and behold they were asdwhite as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus; and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness, yea, even there could be nothing upon earth so white as the whiteness thereof."


Are we doing what we can, so that we can say that the Lord is Smiling upon us? :)