December

Zapata missionaries waiting for the Christmas parade

Happy December!

Almost as soon as December hit, it began to be cloudy, dark and rainy. I love this weather because I don't get sunburned, but all the native Texans really, really hate the cold. Now it's actually pretty cold and I don't have a jacket. I think I might get one at Burlington today.

We've been feeling the Christmas spirit lately. We make hot chocolate every day, I wear my Santa hat almost everywhere, and we put on Christmas music in the house when we are not studying. Taylor Swift is a favorite. We also had a Christmas devotional yesterday, broadcasted from Salt Lake. It was pretty nice, the choir sang some Christmas songs and they gave talks on the birth of Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas. 

The Crew and our gear

So this member in the area went on a trip, and we took care of his animals while he was gone. As a thank you, he got us all slingshots. I've never really used a slingshot before but I think I'm in love. I've been shooting at stuff like cacti, telephone poles and signs as we drive by. We have bottle shooting competitions and personal bets. I'm basically a sniper with this thing. It's also very useful for all the stray dogs. I've never really hit one directly, but if you hit a stop sign it makes a loud noise and they scatter.  

Can't wait for Christmas and my one Skype call! I hope you all have a great week.

Elder Gray

Dia de Gracias

Wow! It's almost December! I feel like I've been on a mission for years but I also feel like I got here yesterday. It's exhausting so it feels like a long time but so repetitive that the mind just blurs it into one long day. I'm having a blast though, I really enjoy the challenge of learning a new language and getting over my fear of talking to people. After this last week I feel like I can understand most of what people are saying and I'm slowly talking more in lessons and when we knock doors. Learning is cool.

The Field is White and Ready to Harvest

We had quite a few new investigators this week. A lot of families. They are all really good people and I enjoy watching them grow and learn. Not one of them showed up to church though. We had very few people at church yesterday, but I'm hoping it was because of Thanksgiving weekend. 

Speaking of which, was Thanksgiving was great. We spent most of the day eating. We had three different Thanksgiving meals, and we ended that day with 6 plates of leftover. I checked myself at the end of the day and I weighed more at that time than any other point in my entire life. It was awesome. Basically this whole week I've been eating leftovers, and I'm a little tired of stuffing and turkey, but at least I'm not starving. People love to feed us. I'm told nearly every other area has way more meal appointments, and in some areas we eat once or twice a day with members. I'm worried I'm going to gain weight since I lack self-control.

A week later and half my foot is still purple

I also sprained my ankle my first P-day. We were playing soccer but I didn't even do anything cool to injure it, I was just walking and rolled my ankle.I tell people I did it while scoring two goals at once. Because of my injury, we had to take the car every day this week and a week later it's still messed up. I think we are going to start biking again though since we are using too many miles on the car. I enjoyed not getting chased by dogs this week but nothing lasts forever. 

Again, I cannot write even a hundredth part of the things that have happened, but these are the big things.

I love you all, 

Elder Gray

Zapata

The Missionaries of Zapata

Sorry I haven't been able to talk much lately. I've been too busy IN TEXAS!!

We left the Mexico City MTC at 5:30 in the morning and got to the McAllen mission home at about 3 pm. After sleeping over at the Zone Leader's house and several presentations and safety briefings, I was assigned an area and a trainer. My trainer is Elder Anderson. He's very good at basically everything, fluent in both Spanish and Tex-Mex. He was a District Leader and a Zone Leader for several transfers, and he has twelve weeks left on his mission. I will likely be his last companion. He helps me alot, and I think we will get along great.

I was assigned to the City of Zapata, to work in the North area. Zapata is a pretty small town of one main street, and about 50/50 between suburban houses and trailer parks. We have a car that we share with the South area, it's a big area but we don't bike too much. It's also split 50/50 with English and Spanish speakers. A few of our investigators only speak Spanish, which is when a fluent trainer comes in handy. We have a small building which serves out Branch. This building used to be a funeral home, and the viewing area is not our chapel. I love it. Branches hold a special place in my heart. There isn't a baptismal font though, so we have to go down to Falcon Lake! This is super special, we are the only area in the whole mission that does laketisms. We are part of the Laredo District, and it's called a District because it isn't big enough to be a Stake yet. In the entire United States there are only two Districts, and I was assigned to work in one of them. Our goal right now is to make Laredo a Stake, making a total of five Stakes in the mission. This would be enough for a Temple. Many members down here cannot cross the northers checkpoint to go to the San Antonio Temple because they don't have papers. So that's our goal right now.

Falcon Lake, our baptismal font.

Most houses down here have fences and dogs. So many dogs. Zapata has a dog problem. There are packs of feral dogs that will chase us as we bike through. People just kind of adopt these dogs when they come around. we can usually out-bike the little chihuahuas but the pitbulls and dobermans we usually have to stop and slowly pass them as they bark at us. I'm sure I'll have lots of dog stories. My most intense one so far was watching three dogs tear apart a little kitten. I'm slowly starting to not like dogs anymore.

The Spanish down here is weird. People will switch between English and Spanish almost every sentence. If the Tex-Mex is super strong, they will switch languages between words. "Oh si, I went a la tienda y got frijoles y eggs hacer desayuno el la morning" Man. One Mexican missionary told me his Spanish has degraded since being here. It's still super fun to try and figure out what the heck they are saying. It's like a puzzle.

I better get going. I cannot write even a hundredth part of the things that have happened so far, but I will write more in the future. Plus like 13 of you wrote me and I only have an hour. 

Love you all, 

Elder Gray

Everything Gets Injured

Hello everyone!

The MTC this morning. It´s a sweater day

This past week was excellent, and I expect my final week in the MTC to surpass the last in excellence. We´ve been receiving classes and packets about leaving and our flight to our missions. I received another calling, this time as a travel leader. This means I am in charge of about 15 people, all of whom are leaving the MTC to the airport. We are all going to the Houston airport and from there we split off. 10 people in our group are going to McAllen with me, so most of us will be sticking together.

Most of the past couple of days has been getting ready to leave such as, weighing our luggage and attending classes. I´m super ready to go.  I´ve learned a lot and I´ve had a lot of fun but I'm excited for some real work. Apparently, Mission Presidents select trainers for new missionaries a week or two before they arrive, meaning I´ve already been assigned a companion.

Last week an entire Stake came to the MTC and volunteered to be taught by missionaries in training. They had too many people so they pulled us out and my companion and I got to teach some teenagers. The last pair we taught were 16 and 17. They were members, but they told us they had not read the entire Book of Mormon nor prayed to know if it was true. We taught them about reading and revelation, and they told us they would read it more and pray to know if it was true. It went pretty well for being entirely in Spanish.

Photogenic Companions 

As the title suggests, I kinda got hurt this week. I wasn't even doing anything strenuous besides exercise. I hurt my lower back, which pain radiated down my leg. I also hurt both my knees, my calf, the arch of my foot and my wrist. I was walking like a zombie on Monday. I was fine after a blessing but it was still super strange. They wouldn't have sent me out into the field with a back injury like that.

My next blog post will be from Texas. See you next week! 

Elder Gray