The Last Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Grannis and Gray

This past week we had a Christmas conference. It was really good to see all my old companion friends. We watched a recap of videos and pictures the mission had taken that year and opened a couple presents. Since it was also his anniversary, Presidente gave a training about how great his wife is and how amazing marriage is. Basically what I took away from it was that I need to get married as soon as possible.

All the sisters that have ever been in my district!

After being a district leader over sisters for 7 dang transfers quite a few have passed through my district, including three who have already finished their missions. Seeing all of them in one place brought back like a year and a half of memories. 

Papa Anderson and I, one year ago.

Speaking of memories, this is what I was going a year ago. Zapata seems so far away. So much has happened since then that the person is that picture is different from the person I am today. 

Today I'm going to call my family!

Love you all,

Elder Gray

Christmas Eve

We asked him for people that would listen to us.

This week we had our ward Christmas party! So much posole, menudo, tamales, and tostadas were eaten. Santa Clause came and gave all the little kids presents and then posed for some pictures. I've always wanted to meet the guy but he's pretty busy this time of year.

Just chillin

This past week my companion and I did a switch, with him becoming the senior companion and making the final decision, starting lessons etc. It was pretty fun and went pretty well. He's going to stay in charge until I leave in January. 

Cant' wait to call my family.

Love you all,

Elder Gray

Signs of the Times and Apostles

Last Monday the weather was really nice, so as a Zone we played volleyball at a Sonic. A few days later it snowed.

South Texan Blasphemy

I guess the East Coast was hit by a snowstorm, so we were lucky to get a little bit. Man, the people down here were freaking out, taking selfies and making little snowmen. For a lot of them, it was the first time ever seeing snow in their life. The last time it snowed down here was 2004 I think. I've been in South Texas the past three winters and I kinda missed snow... 

Proselyting in sleet

Elder Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came to our mission accompanied by Elder Uceda of the Presidency of the Seventy. Their talks were literally perfect. They mostly talked about missionary work and gave us tips. My favorite part by far was when Elder Cook testified of Christ. We were all spiritually numb immediately after the talks, and I barely spoke for a few hours. It was awesome.

Love ya'll.

Elder Gray 

Bureaucracy

Hello!

So a quick update:

About a year ago, I started to get some back pain. I wasn't sure what it was but it became unbearable in Corpus, causing me to see the chiropractor. It helped a little bit, but continued until recently when I went to see a family doctor about it. He ordered x-rays (which got lost for 20 days) and the radiologist deemed my back to be normal and recommended physical therapy.

Well, I knew he was wrong because 'nothing' doesn't cause this much pain.

On my own, I found a member who is also a radiologist and got an MRI, and he found a lot more than 'nothing'.

My spine is degenerating and my disks are bulging in multiple levels, messing with the nerve and causing numbness and weakness in my legs. He recommended I do a therapy to decompress my spine so we sent a request to Salt Lake City.

Which was promptly denied. 

So now we're going BACK to the original doctor (who said I was fine) to get a referral to a back specialist and I start the process over again. I've been waiting for the referral for five days.

In the meantime, since they can't/won't treat the actual problem, they keep giving me drugs to help the pain. One makes me depressed and high, the other does nothing, and the last one prevents me from sleeping. I slept 3 hours last night.

I'm a LITTLE frustrated this is taking so long. God give me patience with these people (and my back). It hurts to sit or stand too long, so I occasionally have to lay down in the car for like 10 minutes to ease my back.

The All-New Hidalgo District

In other news, they completely moved out all my sisters and replaced them. The two on the outside are brand new, straight from the MTC! Everyone in this district is straight fire, and I'm excited for this month.

The city of Hidalgo does a lights festival every year for Christmas in which the entire main street is absolutely covered in festive lights and decorations. Our chapel which sits on the main street couldn't be left out, and lights were put on our roof! I didn't know we could decorate our churches like that, but I'm happy they did.

Overall, things are going really well. I'm excited about this week, we have a Seventy and an Apostle coming to visit us, and we don't know why. Mysterious right?

Love you all,

Elder Gray