EM: Life Is Good!

Hey family!

How's life? I can't believe that the summer is almost over! You'll never believe it but I've almost made it through my first Texas summer! It's really hasn't been too bad this year though.

I can't believe Josh is turning 7! Tell him Happy Birthday from Aunty Em and that I love him to pieces!

Oh and yes I got the package thank you lots!

I can't believe how many miracles we've seen lately...

This week was incredible! Emili and Tony are doing so well! They are still planning to be baptized on Aug. 24th. This past week they came to a baptism we had at the ward and they loved it. They recognized the spirit. They are so sensitive to the spirit and it has really helped them through their process of conversion.

We talked to them a lot about Temples this week and the work we do for the dead. Emili lost her mother a few years back and it really caused her a lot of pain in her life. When we told her that someday she can be baptized for her mother and be sealed to her she got really excited and said "That's what my mother wants." They are incredible and I love them so much! I am so grateful to have been able to come to this area and have the chance to meet with them every week.

We also had exchanges this week and some amazing things happened! We went to visit Mary - one of our less actives in the ward. The last time we went to see her she was very stubborn about coming to church. Sister Hutchings and I pretty much felt like there was no way we could get her back, but Mary has a grandson living with her whose name is Charles. Now Charles is a really cool guy, he has had a very hard life (drugs, alcohol, jail, you name it) but a few years back he decided to turn it all around. He was the one who originally let the missionaries in the door, but it was his grandmother Mary that joined. Charles doesn't believe in the Mormon faith. He has taken the lessons plenty of times, but he doesn't believe it's true. Since we started visiting Mary we knew that part of the reason we were there was for Charles. Well this past week we went to visit and I've been thinking long and hard about how we could get Mary to church. As we sat there talking to her it hit me "we need to talk to her about family history work" So I asked her if she'd ever done her families work. She said no. I asked her if she had ever wanted to... She said "well I don't know" We explained how she had family waiting for her to do their work and all the sudden her heart completely softened.

Charles was sitting with us as we talked to Mary about this so we turned to him and asked him what his thoughts were on temple work. He said he didn't believe it. Well we decided to teach him the plan of salvation. He's been taught it before so he knew pretty much the whole Plan. After we finished we asked him "what about the plan seems wrong to you?" He didn't have an answer. We asked him if he'd ever prayed to know if the things he'd been taught were true and his response was no. So we committed him to pray and he accepted.

I hope he will! We're going to go see him again this week.

It was so incredible. I wish I could explain what a miracle it was that Mary and Charles opened up to us like this.

Our other investigator is Jaelynn. She is amazing. She is 14 years old and she has had a very hard life. Right now she lives with her Grandmother who is less-active. This past week we had the chance to teach her the Plan of Salvation as well. She has such great faith and everything we've taught her so far has made so much sense to her. One of my favorite things to talk about when teaching about the Plan of Salvation (especially to youth) is that they are sons and daughters of God. To have the chance to tell them that God is their Father and that He loves them is such an incredible opportunity. I often think about the Young Women theme that says "We are daughters of our Heavenly Father who loves us, and we love Him" There are a lot of people (Jaelynn included) who don't feel loved. What a wonderful thing it is to know that God loves us. What a wonderful thing it is to know that Christ thought we were worth giving His life for. And what a wonderful thing it is to share that with the children of God who don't know it.

Life is so good.

I love it. I know I say this every time but I love being a missionary. There's nowhere else I'd rather be right now than right here in the heat of Bryan, Texas. It's hard, but it's worth it.

I love you all so much and I hope all is well at home!

The Kingdom of God or nothing!

Love, Sister Gregson

Look where I tracted!!