Hello everyone! 

It was a great week here in the Washford Branch of England! I hope you all are doing great! I would love to hear from you all! 

I went on an exchange with Elder Morales this past week in Bristol. Bristol is a cool place! One of my new favorite sayings is "Ship-shape and Bristol fashion"! If you have any questions about what that means, read the talk given by Elder Cook that has that title. 

We had mid-trainers meeting this past week! I've already been in the field for a whole transfer! We're still teaching Vicki and Jools. We talked to them this past week about having faith in Jesus Christ. We showed them a video, and they thought it was very moving. Vicki said that learning about these things gives her a peaceful feeling. It's been really amazing feeling the spirit while we've taught her. 

We taught a lady named Albena and her daughter, Dorothy. They are from Bulgaria. We talked about their lives and the gospel for awhile. And then I asked Albena if she was married, and she then explained the trials that her and Dorothy have gone through this past year. It broke my heart, and I almost started crying. Learning about people's struggles makes me realize how blessed I've been. And I know that since I've been given much, I too must give. But we were able to share with them the Plan of Salvation and how families can live together forever. They also believed that. It was so amazing! They were some of the best and strongest people I've ever met! 

Have a great week everyone! Don't forget to pray! Love you all!

Elder Wray

Hello everyone! 

I hope you all had a wonderful week! I had an exchange with Elder Allen this week in Bath which was great! Elder Allen is awesome! He is from San Diego and loves to surf. He is hilarious as well! We talked to a lot of people in Bath. Bath is such a cool place as well! We had a funny incident when we came back to our flat though. Elder Allen realized that he had left the keys in the flat, so we were locked out. So we went to the flat right above ours and asked the lady who lived there if we could crawl down her balcony and then crawl in through our window. So that's what I did. It was quite an adrenaline rush to say the least! It was fun though! 

Elder Cribbs and I met this man named Claodio on Saturday. He is from Romania. There are a lot of Romanians in England who come here looking for a better life. But they are all so humble and extremely kind. They are all so pure! I love it! But we invited Claodio to come to church and he actually showed up! It was so awesome! And he brought his 7 year old daughter, Nadia, with him. She was adorable! And we asked him if he would want to come next week and he said "absolutely!" So that's definitely exciting! 

It's been a good week! Love you all!

Elder Wray

Hello everyone! This week has been good! 

On Tuesday, we did some service for a lady we met. Her name is Lynda. She lives on the top of a hill in Minehead. The view from her house was pretty amazing! We laid down wood chips in a garden path for her. It felt really good to do some manual labor. I've actually really missed that. We also mowed a couple lawns this week which was also surprisingly fun! I had my first actual lesson with someone this week. We are teaching this lady named Vicky and her boyfriend, Jewels. Jewels isn't really interested, but Vicky has loved learning more about the gospel. She has been through a lot in her life. But we were able to share with her that she has loving heavenly father. It was so amazing to see how happy she looked when she felt that she was loved by God. 

I want to share some great quotes from a talk I read by Elder Uchtdorf.

 “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

"I pray that we will not wait until we are ready to die before we truly learn to live."

"We cannot take for granted one single day."

Don't take a single day for granted! This life is a gift! Don't wait to be happy. Just be happy now. I know that's easier said than done. But waiting for your new job, new car, marriage, or college, to be happy isn't worth it. Just be happy now. When you look back on your life, you're going to either be glad or wish that you would have just let yourself be happy. Just enjoy the ride! 

Anyways, love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Wray

Hello everyone! 

Wow! What a week! This might be a long email so just be aware... Anyways we had Zone Conference this past week which was great! President Hughes is so amazing! One thing that he told us that I think we can all benefit from is how important hugs are. He kind of when off on a tangent about how when we hug someone it releases dopamine into our brains and just makes us a lot happier. They actually did a study with two babies where one was hugged everyday and the other one wasn't, and the baby that wasn't hugged everyday actually ended up dying. And when I first got to the mission field, I remember thinking to myself "why do the Elders hug each other so much?" But now I know that it is essential to my well-being. So just make sure to hug your loved ones! 

On Thursday we had a pretty spiritual experience. So during personal study Elder Cribbs and I both studied the section in Preach My Gospel about understanding and recognizing the spiritual promptings. But neither of us knew that we studied that section until we talked about it afterwards. And then when we were planning out our day, we decided that we would go to a town called Bossington to do some tracting later in the day. And then after our planning session we said a prayer to make sure everything felt right. And Elder Cribbs said that the town Washford immediately popped into his mind at the end of the prayer. So he said that we should go tracting in Washford instead of Bossington. So we changed our plans a little bit. Anyways, later that night we went tracting in Washford like we had planned, and we knocked on many doors. And it was just constant rejection after rejection. But right before we were about to leave we knocked on this one house. This man answered and said he would be willing to listen to what we had to say. We asked him if he was very religious, and he said no. But he said he believes there might be something, and he likes to think that his deceased loved ones are in a good place. Then we asked him if he had ever prayed before, and he said not until recently. He told us that we had incredible timing to knock on his door because he just found out earlier that morning that he was free from cancer. He said this past year has been so hard for him because he's been battling cancer, and so many of his family members have passed away. So him and his wife had been praying like crazy. I don't know how interested he is, but he wants us to teach him more. So we are going to his house later tonight.

Elder Cribbs and I have noticed that whenever we have a super spiritual experience, the next couple of days are just super hard. And that's how it was for me the next couple of days. I was so homesick and depressed. And I was just angry for some reason even though I had no reason to be. There were so many times when I just wanted to quit and throw in the towel. And I kept praying to God to receive an answer that this is really what I'm supposed to be doing. And on Saturday night I had an interesting dream... I had a dream that I quit my basketball team during the middle of the season. And in my dream I remember seeing the disappointment in Coach Foster, Coach Stewart, and Coach Wilson. And my teammates were also so disappointed that I quit and betrayed them. And when I woke up I didn't really think anything of it. But I just thought it was weird and sad that I would quit my basketball team. Because I knew I would never do that (even though it might have been tempting considering how bad our team was this past year). But I wondered if that could have been an answer to my prayer. But I was still bitter for some reason, and as the scriptures would say I "hardened my heart". But last night I was thinking more about that dream and how it could have been an answer to my prayer. God knows how important sports were and are to me. He knows that I would never quit. So I think in a way God was showing me that he is my coach along with Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. And the fellow missionaries are my teammates. And he doesn't want me to quit on them. So that was pretty interesting I thought.

Also just remember that you know someone loves you by how much they sacrifice for you. We know God loves us because he sacrificed his son for us. Let's try to sacrifice a little bit for the savior, for our family, for the world.

Love you all! Cheers!

Elder Wray