THE TEMPLE IS OPEN!

Hello!

So the temple is back open! I made it through the month. The temple is back open, but with working on the grounds yesterday and my P-day today, I'll get to go inside the temple again for the first time in a month tomorrow!!! Yes, a month is a long time for a temple service-missionary. :)

What a month it has been. It's no coincidence that everything has worked out the way it has. I'm feeling great after the surgery I had, I think it's been literally perfect timing to start back up at the temple again. From babysitting Camo, Easton and Daisy... they say that as a missionary you learn things that prepare you for "real life," but I never thought that the thing I learned would be how to take care of children for more than just a few hours. Ha ha!

I'm still trying to adjust my rules and goals for myself as a missionary, especially where the temple's back open and I'm not recovering. It's both good and difficult that I mostly get to set my own rules. Good because I can set goals and because no one else's mission is exactly like mine, I get to define rules and goals. But the difficult thing is that it would almost be easier to say, "Okay, President. Tell me how to act." I guess it gives me a chance to really work with the Lord and receive some personal revelation about it.

I just got called as a Gospel Doctrine teacher in my ward! Yay, an incentive to study the Old Testament (which is written on a whiteboard in my room as one of my mission goals)!

I'm grateful for the chance to serve in temple and grateful for the testimony I have. I know that the Church is true and that what is taught at the temple is true! When I went to the Manti Temple during the break, the live session was really neat. And solidifying to me that the ordinances in temples are true no matter what temple you are in. I've been to enough sessions to recognize that the live session was the exact same words! I'm grateful to focus so much on the temple. It's a really great thing to center my life on the temple, because it means that I am pointed in the right direction; my knowledge/beliefs of the doctrine of the gospel, my testimony, my willingness to obey the commandments, and my feelings on the Savior and His atonement. 

Have a good one!!

Elder Gray

My YSA ward is SO AWESOME!

Hey family/friends!

Well, it has been a while since I sent an email out. Whoops! Haha. I'd feel worse if email was the only way you'd hear from me. Guess there's another blessing of being a service missionary. Hahaha. :)

I had surgery last Monday. It went really well. I think it was the fastest recovery yet. I felt like I could do things a lot faster, and compared to the other things I've had, a one-hour surgery is pretty easy! Here a week later, I'm feeling pretty good. Not quite 100% but I'd say about 75-80%. It's a good thing the temple is closed the rest of this week. (By the way... the temple opens back up on Monday!!! I've almost made it through the month closure! I"M SO EXCITED!) Also, my YSA ward is SO AWESOME! Guess what they did? They had a "fast and feast" the day of my surgery. They fasted throughout the day, then met at Family Home Evening to break their fast and eat dinner. For me! How great are they? I seriously love my ward!

I get adjusted to my temple schedule, and then I'm on a month break. And now I'm pretty much adjusted to the break schedule. I've been working for Dad in the office for a little bit. Hopefully that's not bad that I'm making a little money? :) It's not interfering with the temple, so I'm assuming it's okay.

You know, sometimes I thought that it would be easy to be a missionary, and as I grew up, I realized that being a missionary doesn't give you a break from temptations and from the world so to speak, but- at least being a service missionary- has really helped me sort out my priorities. I talked with an RM friend once, and he said that the hard thing about coming home (and it doesn't speak for all you RMs, it's just what he told me) is that it's hard to stay with the good habits you want to, like studying and all that. As we talked, we realized that the good thing about my mission is that once I'm done, yeah I might "slack down" a little bit, but it will be easy to keep living like this because I never left home and will just change, say having a job, going to class, rather than the many hours of the temple. I hope that makes sense!

Elder Gray