Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!

We had a good Christmas! Elder Tang and I spent it with two other elders in Cardiff, Elder Larsen and Elder Aresgado. It was pretty fun! We played a good game of darts and Mexican dominos. Our mission president also allowed us to watch Disney movies, so that was fun!

I'm really looking forward to the new year! Each new year seems to always bring a bit of hope and excitement, especially this year! I'm looking forward to making some new year's goals and resolutions. I was reading a good talk from Elder Ballard the other day called "Return and Recieve". He teaches some great principles about setting goals and creating plans to achieve those goals. One of his quotes from the talk says, "Over the years, I have observed that those who accomplish the most in this world are those with a vision for their lives, with goals to keep them focused on their vision and tactical plans for how to achieve them. Knowing where you are going and how you expect to get there can bring meaning, purpose, and accomplishment to life." He mentions that Heavenly Father's goal is to have us RETURN to him and RECIEVE all that he has, and his plan to accomplish that is the plan of salvation.

I love you all and am grateful for the support that you give to me. I know that our Father in Heaven is watching over us and loves us. Keep pushing along and good luck in the new year!

Elder Wray

Merry Christmas!!! 

Wow! This year has flown by! I'm excited for Christmas though! Christmas is always a good time! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

This past week was pretty hectic to be honest, but it was good! The mission was closing down a flat in our zone, so we spent all of Thursday cleaning the flat out. Then on Saturday we drove around all of South Wales delivering Christmas packages to missionaries in the zone. It was crazy! We did about 8 hours of driving. We drove from Cardiff to Swansea, to Llannelli, to Milford Haven, to Newcastle Emlyn, to Merthyr Tydfil, and then back to Cardiff. We didn't have time to finish all the deliveries, so the next day we drove to Newport then Cwmbran. It was a fun road trip though, haha!

Christmas is such a special time to reflect on the birth of Jesus Christ. One thing that my mission president has said frequently is "We celebrate His birth because of the way He lived His life." That is so true! He was the light that came to the Earth to lead others out of darkness, and we too can be that light for others as we follow Him. 

Love you all!

Elder Wray

What's up everyone?! I hope you've all had a great week!

We had zone conference this past week! It was amazing! It was our first one that we had in person for quite awhile. It was so awesome to see everyone in person. President and Sister Hughes shared great Christmas messages as well. They are the best! On Saturday we got invited by some of our friends to go to this Christmas carol service in the backyard of a Baptist minister's house. We ended up going, and it was really good! They played some classic Christmas songs and read about the birth of Christ as well. We got to talk to the Baptist minister afterwards as well. He is a really cool guy! We also recieved transfer information on Sunday. Elder Tang and I are staying in Cardiff for the 4th transfer! We are glad to stay! We love Cardiff.

I saw a cool little miracle this past week! So I posted on social media about one of my ancestors who is from Leigh, England. And someone I taught in one of my past areas messaged me and told me that that is where she is from and where her ancestors are from as well. Leigh is a fairly small town/city for England, so we were thinking that maybe our ancestors could have known each other in the past. One funny but also interesting thing that she said was that maybe my ancestors tried to share the gospel with her ancestors in the past, and they didn't accept it, but now she is going to accept. I thought it was pretty interesting, and it's awesome to see people's hearts turn to thier ancestors. I bet they are more involved with our lives than we sometimes think!

I hope you are all having a great holiday season so far! I love the Christmas spirit. I hope you are all finding upliftment during this time. One thing that's really given me the Christmas spirit is the "Christ Child" video. If you haven't seen it yet, I would highly reccommend it. It is such a good video that will help you remember the birth of Christ. 

Love you all! Have an amazing week!

Elder Wray

Hello everyone!

This past week was great! On Tuesday this lady who one my previous companions and I started teaching in one of my past areas said that she had accepted a baptismal date for January. That really made my whole week! I knew when we started teaching her that she was really prepared to accept the gospel. I have been able to stay in touch with her after I moved areas as well, so that's been really cool! She has been a great example of faith to me! I hope everything with her baptism will go smoothly.

The members here in Cardiff have been spoiling us lately. We got taken to Toby Carvery twice this past week for Thanksgiving meals, and we are going again tonight with the young adults in the ward. Toby Carvery is super good! I'm really excited!

I'm really excited for Christmas and for the church's "Light the World" initiative to start. I think we can really end 2020 on a positive note by coming closer to Christ this Christmas season and by serving others. I know that we can really be God's hands and help him light the world. And light will always conquer darkness. Hope you all have a great week! 

Love you all!

Elder Wray

Hello everyone! 

I hope you're all well! This past week has been pretty good! We're still just finding and teaching people online which is going well. I think the highlight of the week for me was watching President Nelson's address about gratitude. It was pretty amazing! I love that man! It was really cool to hear about his life as well. And now social media is filled with positivity which is awesome to see! I'm super grateful for all of you! I'm grateful for my family and friends. I'm grateful for Jesus Christ and his love. There really is so much to be grateful for! I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! Don't forget to count your blessings! 

Love you all!

Elder Wray

Hi everyone! 

It's Elder Wray here! How are you all doing?

This past week has been pretty good! Our mission is preparing for a big musical event that will be on January 8th. It will be a Facebook live event called "A Brightness of Hope". We are hoping to get a lot of people to watch it. So Elder Tang and I have spent some time working with the Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff Stakes here in Wales to find youth and young adults who want to participate in the event and just spreading the word. It has been pretty good so far!

We got to play some basketball today which was really fun! We are considered in a "bubble" with the other Cardiff elders. So we got to play with them as well. We played a few games of 21 which was really fun!

We also watched a missionary devotional with Elder and Sister Bednar. I really liked it! They had some great advice for us. One thing that Elder Bednar said that I really liked is that we should never just "wing it". We should always try to be as prepared as possible, but change our plans in the moment if we feel that we need to. I feel like it's really easy to just "wing it" with many things in life. I know I have been guilty of that before. But things definitely go a lot smoother when we are prepared, even if things don't go exactly how we planned it would. I'm loving my time as a missionary! I've really come to know my Saviour, Jesus Christ, better. He really is the best healer, comforter, and example. 

Love you all!

Elder Wray

Caerphilly Castle!

Pen Y Fan and Cardiff Bay

What's up, everyone? 

I hope you all had a happy Halloween! We carved some mini pumpkins on Saturday evening which was pretty fun, haha! It's been awhile since I've done that. Lockdown has been going okay so far. We are allowed more time to exercise and do meditation exercises to help keep up sane, so that's good! We also have the Calm app on our phones which is super helpful! I would definitely recommend it if you want to start doing meditation, haha! Some members in our ward also held two Zoom workouts for us this past week. It was super fun! The father of the family used to do karate competitions, so he taught us some karate moves. It was so fun, haha! Then a few days later, his son, Finn, ran us through another exercise. He's only 17, but he is so ripped! He's a beast!

We've been teaching our friend, Casey, nearly everyday this past week. He's progressing quite well. He said that he believes that the Book of Mormon contains the words of Christ, so that's been awesome to see him develop his testimony of the Book of Mormon. We talked to him about baptism. He said he was baptised when he lived in Africa, but he is willing to consider being baptised into our church. He is a cool guy!

We watched a missionary devotional this past week. The speaker talked about a few things that Jesus Christ said in His life that we can try to implement into our lives. The sayings were "Here am I. Send me.", "Thy will be done.", and "It is finished." In summary he basically said that we can always do our best to be willing to step up to the plate and be willing to serve, submit to God's will and not our own, and work until the work is finished. I really liked it! I thought it was good!

Elder Wray

Hey everybody! I hope you're all doing well! This past week went by really fast! Time is flying! We are in full lockdown again here in Wales now. We are teaching over Zoom quite a bit which is nice. We aren't teaching anyone who is close to baptism yet other than the Li children. Once their Father gets the priesthood he can baptize them. The only way that baptisms can happen in Wales right now is if the baptism is performed by someone in your own household, so we are hoping that can happen sometime soon!

Elder Tang and I have been playing a lot of basketball for our exercise time which has been quite fun! We also had one last dinner appointment with the Rasmussens before lockdown happened on Friday. That was really fun! The Rasmussens are awesome! They made us sweet pork burritos like the ones at Cafe Rio. I miss that place!

I was reading in Mormon chapter 1 this morning and a few versus, 14 and 15 I thought were interesting. The whole land was struggling at the time, but Mormon at a young age was able to remain strong. The versus say "And there were no gifts from the Lord, and the Holy Ghost did not come upon any, because of their wickedness and unbelief. And I, being fifteen years of age and being somewhat of a sober mind, therefore I was visited of the Lord, and tasted and knew of the goodness of Jesus." So no matter what's going on around us, we can still look to Christ and feel of his goodness. I find that pretty comforting!

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Wray

Dear friends and family,

These past couple of weeks have been good! We have had quite a few meetings, but they were all over Zoom since the borders in Wales are all closed. I had my interview with President Hughes. I sure do love that man. He is such an amazing guy, and he has really had a huge impact on me. We have taught a few lessons to our friends and people who we have found who were previously taught by missionaries. We are also trying to develop stronger relationships with the members in the wards we are covering. Another thing that we did was we played basketball with one of our friends. He is a uni student in Cardiff. We started playing a game, and then some other kids at the park joined in with us, so we had a full street ball game going on. It was so fun! And then we played some football (soccer) afterwards which was fun as well. We also played this game called "rounders" with some members in our ward. Rounders is basically a British version of baseball. Anyways, it was the family against us missionaries, and there was a bit of some trash talking going on not gonna lie, lol. But we took the W. They said it was because we are American and we have baseball in our blood haha! I love that family. They are so fun!

A girl who was in my mtc group, Sister Nielson, passed away in a hiking accident in her mission in Switzerland last week. It is super sad! I feel really bad for her family. keep them in your thoughts and prayers! God really is there though. He is the Father of us all, and his love is always there. Bad things happen to good people, but the Atonement of Jesus Christ can make anything right. 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Wray

Hello everybody!

I hope you all had a good week! Our week has been pretty good! We enjoyed watching general conference! I feel like I have a lot more hope for the future after watching it!

It's starting to cool off quite a bit in the U.K. and it's starting to rain more. Winter is approaching! The work is going good though! We're doing a lot with technology and finding new things to do, so that's good! We've been meeting and teaching new people which has been exciting!

I loved how President Nelson gave us an eye opener about the word "Israel" which has the meaning of "Let God Prevail". I really like that quote, and I hope that I can let God prevail in my own life, because I know that it will be much better if I do. I hope you all are doing well! Love and miss you all!

Elder Wray

Pics:

Cardiff football stadium and a cool building

Hiya everybody! 

This past week has been good! Early on in the week we took a train up to Wolverhampton. One of our stops was in Shrewsbury which is outside of our mission boundaries. It was the first time I had been outside of the mission since my time being here which was kind of weird. Shrewsbury is also a place where my last companion lived as a kid, so it was cool to be able to see it a little bit! We stayed the night with Elder Fellows and Elder Hemi. They are legends! Then I took my driving test the next morning and thankfully passed! So I finally have my U.K. license! Not a whole lot happened this week other than that. We had some good lessons. We're still doing social media finding. Transfers are this upcoming week, but Elder Tang and I will be staying in Cardiff. General conference is coming up this next weekend. As a missionary, general conference feels like going to a movie premier or something like that, so I am pretty excited! If anybody is looking for some spiritual upliftment, I would definitely encourage you to watch it! It will be great! I hope you all are doing well! Love you all and have a good week!

Elder Wray

Pictures:

- Some pictures that I took while we were in Shrewsbury!