Blood, Tears and Butter

Hello everyone,

This was the final week of the transfer, and the results are...

*drumroll*

WE'RE STAYING! Elder Harris and I will be in Corpus Christie together for another two weeks!

I'm glad I'm staying; there's too much good stuff happening. I can't leave now! 

Speaking of Elder Harris, he was picking a blister on his hand when his hand exploded. 

It was bleeding pretty bad, so we went over to a members house to get it patched up. See the bright blood? We were told he hit an artery. 

We are currently teaching a super cool family with a crazy little 2-year old. As we were teaching the parents, we noticed it got too quiet. They found their daughter just eating fistfuls of butter, and I just had to take a picture. I hear it's a good moisturizer. 

Today, for our final p-day, we are going to the aquarium and having an inter-zone volleyball tournament at the beach. Should be fun!

paz,

Elder Gray

The Storm

My camera is being weird, so no pictures, unfortunately. 

I'll be descriptive. 

This week we had a few Gulf storms, the kind of storm that dumps millions of gallons, flood streets and then disappears. A storm hit so hard yesterday it was raining sideways, and our leaders told us to run inside for cover. The day after the storm is still 90 degrees, but 80% humidity. The mosquitos breed in large numbers in the leftover standing water. A certain type of mosquito is very prone to carry Zika, not sure what it's called but it has white, stripey legs. I remember a few days ago I was looking at my arm and upon seeing one, thought "I've seen that in a slideshow before."

There's a 100% chance I'll have Zika before my mission ends.

Sunday was a storm of another kind. We had some great success, and many people came to Church for the first time. unfortunately, it was fast and testimony meeting. Any returned missionary will understand what happens next. The first person gets up to bear... something, and after talking about their grandma's toenails curling under her feet and how to add her on Facebook, our eyes met with the returned missionaries in the ward. They understood. They joined us and all got up and bore testimonies to help the investigators feel the Spirit again. Incredible.

I've been trying to work out again and it's a lot of fun. If anyone has creatine or protein left over from their last New Year's resolutions that they don't need, feel free to send it my way!

Love, ya'll

Elder Gray

Está Hot

Hola familia,

What can I say? The Texas summer is coming. There was a huge thunderstorm which woke me up at 3 am this week, making the following days really humid. 

We had Zone Conferences this past Thursday. The theme was letting the Lord fight our battles and not being sad. I guess a lot of missionaries struggle coming from the Valley up north to Corpus and Sinton because it's a lot harder comparatively to find people to teach. President gave a great feel-good training. He said if we think the mission is hard, we're going to have a problem because life is harder. I guess it helped... 

The Spanish branch had a baptism of and 8-year-old last Sunday, probably one of the best baptismal services I'd been to. Super emotional and very well done. Lots of people bore testimony and there was tons of food.

I've been doing pretty well, though. The areas good, we're teaching people, the Ward is growing and I still have time to tailor other missionaries ties.

paz,

Elder Gray

Lexington

The Blue Ghost, the USS Lexington

Last P-Day, we went to the USS Lexington, a museum and tourist attraction in our area. It's an aircraft carrier that served during WW2 and now has a permanent home in Corpus Christi. Probably the coolest military museum I've been to since we got to sit in a bunch of airplanes and guns. 

We've been focusing a lot on working with people who were baptized in the past year or two. In the past, people went to Church a few times, got baptized and never came back. We're reaching out to try to bring them back and active and with great success. Sometimes people just need a push to get back in it. Last Sunday we saw people at Church we never thought would come, and they brought their families no less.

Our happy place.

Some awesome things are happening here in Corpus.

Elder Gray