Hello Hello! It's Elder Wray here. 

It's been a good week. I hope you all are doing well. I'd say probably the most fun thing about this week has been our daily walks. Each day we go for a walk in a different location and each time, just for fun, Elder Montoya and I have a sword fight with a stick. Someone will play the theme song from the Pirates of the Carribbean and then Elder Crawford and Elder Froisland will film from two different angles of us having a sword fight. It's pretty hilarious, not gonna lie. Elder Froisland is really good at editing as well, so he added some sound effects to it, and is making it look pretty good! The compilation video is gonna be pretty sweet! We have videos of us in forests, in castles, and on bridges. It's just something we decided to do to make our outside time a bit more fun haha! 

But yeah, other than that, we are just continuing to do our regular online finding and teaching. We've also been making more videos for finding which has been fun! 

I'm really looking forward to this Easter weekend! I'm grateful for the knowledge that I have of Jesus Christ and of His resurrection. It gives me hope that we will all one day live again after we die. I'm also looking forward to general conference this weekend. There will be lots of messages centered on Jesus Christ, so if any of you would like to watch it, I would definitely recommend it! Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Wray

Hello everyone! Another week gone by! Time continues to fly by! This week was quite hectic to be honest! On Wednesday the fire brigade showed up to our apartment complex and started putting fences up everywhere. Apparently the roof to our apartment complex was caving in, so everyone in apartment complex had to evacuate and move out for the time being. We ended up moving to the Forest of Dean area. We live in Monmouth, Wales which is right on the border of England and Wales. The area is really cool! 

We also had a sacrament meeting with our zone and Bristol zone again. It was super uplifting! Elder Crawford and I also gave a training which was fun! Afterwards we had interviews with President Hughes. He is such a good man! I celebrated my birthday on Friday. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! 

We also had an amazing devotional with Elder Baxter, a general authority, this past week! He shared his conversion story about when the missionaries knocked on his door in Scotland when he was just a young boy. He said that the gospel completely changed the direction that his life would have gone. He got pretty emotional as he talked about the missionaries. It was really special to hear! 

As I thought about how much the gospel gave to him and then the sacrifices that he made for the gospel, the lines from a hymn came to my mind. The line was "Because I have been given much, I too must give." I love this line, and I hope it's something that I can try to remember throughout my life! Have a good week everyone! Love you all!

Elder Wray

Pics:

We visiting some Welsh castles today!

Hey everyone! 

I hope you all had a great week! I'm grateful for all of your love and support! This week was pretty good for us! Sometimes the weeks seem like a blur, and it's hard to even remember what we did. But it was good! Elder Crawford and I set a goal to message a certain number of people on Facebook and Instagram each day this week. We were pretty pumped about it, but then after about two days Instagram and Facebook both locked our account which is a bit annoying to be honest. Sadly there is a certain limit of people they allow you to message. But we did find a new community app to message people on, so that was kind of a blessing in disguise. We had a lesson with our good friend, Richard. He really likes to test us with questions, so he asked us about every single one of the most difficult questions that an investigator can ask. So that was pretty fun! It definitely kept us on our toes! He's a really cool guy though! 

I started reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning this week. I really love the Book of Mormon and the power that it can have. I was reading 1 Nephi 4 which talks about when Nephi goes back to get the brass plates from Laban after he and his brothers had failed the first two times. In verse 6 as Nephi is about to enter the house of Laban it says, "I (Nephi) was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do." Then in verse 7 it begins by saying "Nevertheless I went forth..." I love that faith and the trust that Nephi had in the Lord. Even though he didn't know the way before him, he knew that the Lord did, and that was enough for him to move forward. I'm sure we can all definitely liken this principle to our lives as well. We won't always be certain of what exactly we are supposed to do at certain times in our lives, but if we are doing our best to move forward, we can trust that we will be led by the Spirit just like Nephi was. Love you all! Have an amazing week!

Elder Wray

Pics:

- Elder Crawford and I made a stop at the legendary Beefy Boys!

- According to my zone, my spirit animal is a Koala Bear.

Hey everyone! I hope you're all doing well! 

This past week was pretty eventful! We were able to have an in person sacrament/testimony meeting with our zone and the Bristol zone. It was really good to be honest. I loved hearing everyone's testimonies. It was pretty powerful! Transfers were this week. Elder Crawford and I are staying in Cheltenham together, but we had two new missionaries join us. We were sad to leave the French and English elders, but the new ones are pretty cool as well! We also got to go to a baptism on Saturday of someone who the sisters in our zone were teaching. It was great to be there. We also had an awesome lesson with this young chap who was previously taught by missionaries. He seemed to really like the teachings of the gospel, and it all seemed to make sense to him. He was just a bit worried that if he joined the Church he would have a hard time finding a wife here, but we tried to assure him that that wouldn't be a problem haha! 

I'm really grateful for the time that I have left to be a missionary. I'm grateful for Jesus Christ and for the opportunity that I have to learn more about him everyday. I love you all! Take care!

Elder Wray

Pics:

We went to Gloucester Cathedral today for preparation day. Part of Harry Potter was filmed here!

During transfers we also took a quick stroll through Bath! It's been a long time since the last time I was there. I love that city!

Hey everyone!

Things are going pretty well over here! There is now a road map out of lockdown for the U.K. The restrictions will be gradually lifted over the following months and by June 21st, all restrictions will be lifted. So I'll have one or two days here with no restrictions before coming home haha! It is definitely good news though! As for now, we are still just doing our best with online missionary work. 

The weather has also been really nice this week, so we've played a lot of soccer which has been fun! 

I listened to a really good talk today about our callings in life. It helped me realize that our opportunities to serve God and others go far beyond what we sometimes think. In the past I may have thought that I was only serving God if I was serving in church or doing a "church responsibility", and I thought that church, school, work, and other things were all pretty separate from each other. But in all reality, if we are a mother serving our family by cleaning the house or making dinner or a plumber who is fixing a leak in someone's drain, we are still serving and helping others and serving God by doing so. I really liked this perspective that this talk helped me have. 

Love you all! Have a good week! And thank you for all your support!

Elder Wray