Semana 7!!! Puerto Rico - Fajardo

HELLO WORLD!!! I made it to Puerto Rico!! and holy cow I LOVE IT!! 

So I left the DR on tuesday and traveled to PR! It was a super short flight and to be honest I slept the whole time, but I doubt anyones surprised by that! so then when we got off the plane and got all our luggage we got out of the terminal and met the smarts! The puerto rico mission president and his wife! theyre so amazing and I barely know them but I love them already!! so we went to their house and had orientation! then we headed to the nearby chapel to go meet out trainers! so when we got there we met our trainers and mine is Hermana Cordova! she served her 1st 10 months in LA cause of the hurricane! she just came over to PR 4 weeks ago! so were both kinda new! so we are serving in an area on the tippy south east corner of PR called Fajardo! so there is one set of sisters in our area and one set of elders! so we got to our apartment and we live in a cute apartment right across the street from the church! and we have alot on our plates! We teach a book of mormon class on Tuesday night and are in charge of sports night on Friday and we just help out a lot to keep the members active! Its super fun and I love it! So we have taught alot of awesome people this week and I just feel so blessed to be here! The members are amazing!!

SO! the spanish.... well I can understand quite a bit... but speaking is hard cause I havent gotten a hold of the way they phrase their sentances! so I honestly just listen alot.. (I know thats a shocker right??) but no seriously I listen ALOT... like people think im a quiet person its kinda weird! so anyway I know itll come with time!! Its just hard cause I wanna talk to EVERYONE BUT I CANT!! 

ALSO!! there are SO MANY IGUANAS HERE!! and its so sad cause roadkill here isnt like roadkill in AZ... its usually iguanas which is so sad! I think theyre the coolest thing ever! Ill try to send a pic! so yeah thats life here! just serving and teaching and trying to comprehend spanish! its super fun I love it!

xoxox your fav boricua Hermana Gray!! 

Puerto Rico Missionaries with President and Mrs. Smart

Semana 6!!! Dominican Republic MTC

SO WOW! I leave for puerto rico in like 8 hours!! I am so excited to get out into the field and to serve the people pf puerto rico!!

so I only have like 5 minutes so im just going to send a couple pics and hopefully Ill be able to email when I get to Puerto Rico! so in my first pic,

Hermana espinose (the dominican) isnt our companioon, just our roomate cause shes in a different district and is only here for 3 weeks, so she doesnt have a comp cause there are no other latinos,so were kinda comps but kinda not so when we were at the store for the last time we got her a bunch of stuff then I was like lets get her something for her hair cause she always compliments our hair stuff, so we saw a orange bow headband thing and were like LETS GET IT, but then the prompting came to me, get matching ones, so we did and when we gave her all the stuff we just put it on her bed, and she was so happy, and when she was looking at all the stuff we put on our matching headbands and she looks over and screamed and was jumping up and down and was SO happy! I cried.. It was so cute! she got to match with the americans and she was so happy! 

I got to go into the field with the dominican republic west mission on friday and ill send some pictures it was amazing!! 

Also our district sang come thou fount and oh mi padre mixed together on sunday and I felt the spirit so strong that I was bawling the entire time hahah! the spirit hits you hard and holy cow I love this church and gospel!!! I am sad to leave the DR and my district but I know Im needed in Puerto Rico!  I gotta go but I love you all! thanks for all your support and love!

sorry for jumping around so much theres just so much to tell!

Love Hermana Gray

Matching headbands

Our Amazing Scripture covers with our Country flags

Children of the Dominican Republic

Streets of the DR

Semana 5!!! Dominican Republic MTC

OKAY wow only 1 more week in the CCM and in the Dominican Republic! TIME FLIES!!!!! I cannot wait to get to puerto rico and start serving! So this week was basically the same as the last ones except that on friday we were able to go on exchanges with people serving int he santodomingo West mission! So I went out into the field on friday and wow how humbling that was!!!! 

So I got my companion, and she spoke basically NO english so holy cow I was scared.  So we started walking to her area where she was serving and in order to get there we had to take a cab thingy they call them carros (they fit 8 people in a 5 person car and youre literally sitting on the person next to you) hahah!!!  and there driving sucks here and we got rammed into by a ford truck ahhahahahhah and they just hit and drive off here! no insurance! crazy! dont worry it wasnt bad and were all okay! thats normal here! just interesting! so we get to her area and get out of the car and holy cow... I cant even describe it, there were so many people and so many allies and soooo many houses.. theyre so small and they dont have doors or windows and their lucky if they had a nice roof.... there were chickens roaming everywhere and little kids running up to me and tryiong to play with my hair!! such a humbling expirence.  Well anyway we had an appointment so we went to teach this girl named anne! she has the cutest baby and she lived in one of these sad houses, and right off the bat when the lesson started the spirit was SO strong! and I could see her face light up and it just made me so happy!

Also they talk super duper fast here... like me hahaha... but in SPANISH so I wasnt able to understand much, but I actually picked up on alot and I was able to feel the holy ghost even though I didnt understand everything! and I was able to bear my testimony in the small amount of spanish I know.. such a cool expirence!

so that was my week and one super funny expirence was when we were teaching a person interested in the church in the CCM, I was teaching her how to pray...

 so I say (in spanish) "Fold your arms, bow your head, and close your eyes" and in spanish the word for eyes in ojos! but for some reason i said hijos..... WHICH MEANS KIDS... So I taught her to fold her arms, bow her head and close her kids... im an amazing missionary!! hahah!! and also sorry for all the hahahah's because thats the only way I can express myself on this email hahahahh...

Love Courtney

DR Temple

Hermana Olsen and Hermana Gray

Dominican Republic Temple 

Semana 4!!! Dominican Republic MTC

OKAY IF YOU NEVER READ MY EMAILS IM BEGGING YOU TO READ THIS ONE!!!!

This has hands down been the best weekend of my life!!!!

So to start off I got a new latina roomate! and shes from the DR and speaks alot of spanish so im getting alot of practice which is nice!!! I only have 2 more weeks in the CCM before I head out to puerto rico and i am SO EXCITED!!!! 

One things she asked me the other day was super cute!!! she asked "where are you from?" "arizona!!" "hmm does everyone in arizona speak super fast???" hahahah so true I talk so fast they even niotice it here!!

SO I GOT TO MEET THE PROPHET ON SATURDAY!!! okay lets start from the top.  So saturday morning at 7 am we had to be on the buses to head out to the stake center down the road.  So it was about a 10 minute drive (I thought I was going to die, theyre insane here!!) and we got to the stake center.  Which was way smaller than any church building id ever seen ha! so we went inside and sat down and waited for the President Nelson to come. We were told that he wanted to take pictures with each mission and the CCM and then meet each of us individually! so when the prophet got to the building, we all lined up and took a picture with him! theres only about 60 missionaries at the CCM with me so it was a fairly small group! and I dont have the picture, but Im super close to the prophet!!! so when I get it ill send it! 

 after we took the picture we all lines up to shake his hand and I walked up to him and he looked at me and I got to talk to him!! then I got to shake elder renlunds hand and elder alanso and elder gonzales!!! theyre all in the quorum of the 12 or 70!!! so it was super cool to meet them face to face!!

then the meeting started and It was so amazing!!! the prophet gave us alot of advice and talked about the mission and learning languages!! it was super awesome! he talked to us about how amazing it is that this day and age was propohecied about in 1st nephi 15 vs 18, 600 YEARS before. christ. and how amazing it is that we get to participate in the gathering of isreal!! he talked about so much that I cant put it into words so Im just going to share some key quotes with you!!! 

"elevate your thoughts"

"SERVCE SERVE SERVE"

"lead with your faith not your doubts"

"some of you might be worried about your famlies but I can guarentee that the lord is takin g better care of your family than you could."

Theres so so much more that I cant include cause Im so short on time but I did like this one~! i dont remember who said it

"jesus can turn a MESS into a MESSAGE, your TRIALS into TRIUMPHS and he will take your TEST and turn it into your TESTIMONY!!!" ahhhh I love this gospel so much and I am so grateful for everyone and what they went through to restore it!!!!! Have a good week I love you all!!!

1. my latino roomate hermana espinosa

and i cant attach more.. cause that file is too large so ill send more next week! love you all!

Pictures

1. My latino roommate hermana espinosa

2. Hermana Vasquez, Hermana Olsen and Me
3. Hermana Olsen and Me exploring the DR
4. The DR MTC with President Nelson

Hermana Espinosa

recess with Hermana Vasquez, Hermana Olsen and Me

Me and Hermana Olsen exploring on PDAY

President Nelson with the Dominican Republic MTC - Courtney in on the first row :)

I got this text from a mother of one of Courtney's friends Hermana Clegg - Courtney sighting! I just screen shotted these, don't you LOVE that they are the CHATTY Girls... LOL! The CCM is such a fun place.

You have to read the caption that is above the pictures in this message lol!!

Semana 3!!! Dominican Republic MTC

Okay soooo many things happened this week!!!

SO the other day we were told that the prophet of our church (President Nelson) woke up and had a prompting to come to the Caribbean islands, so of course he made arrangements and he is coming to the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC on Friday!!! so he is meeting with the missionaries on saturday morning!!! im super super excited!!!! andddd I'LL BE SHAKING HIS HANDDDDDD!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHHAH IM GONNA DIE!!!

SO I only have 3 more weeks here in the ccm and its crazy cause all the older hermana and elders left today and were getting 50 newbies tommorow! so im now considered "an old hermana" even though i look like im 12.... ahhyahahha it should be fun! 

The other day for our spanish class we were told to go outside to talk to the Dominicans so we went out of our ccm and went to chat with people (IN SPANISH AHHHH) and everyone is talking to older people and trying to have conversations... and you wanna know what I was doing?? I was hanging out with the little niños!! hahahah there were like 9 little girls all surrounding me and talking to me!!! theyre so CUTE! one of them kept tapping me on the shoulder and I was like "Que?" and she grabs my face and pulls it close to hers and says... "tu ojos es AZULLLL" and all the little kids were like "AZULLLL?!" and they just kept telling me how "muy bonita" my eyes are it was the cutest thing!!! so yeah I didnt end up talking to any grown ups... just little dominican kiddos... but i mean thats not really a surprise hahah.. Im always with the children hahah! 

But then the next day we went to the universidad to go teach.... and holy cow it was so nerveracking!!!! but the people are so understanding and patient with mine and my companions bad spanish!! but It gave us a good idea of what we learned and how much more we need to learn!!!  it was a great expirence!

Oh and!!! we basically have our own tower of terror here at the CCM (where I live), whenever you take the elevator to our floor (the 4th floor) it is the highest floor and for some reason every. single. time. It goes too fast or something and smashes the ceiling! so youll just be riding it and its all quiet then you get to your floor and theres a huge crashing sound hahahah its really scary.  Some elders got stuck on it for like 20 minutes the other day. so yeah we ummmm... we take the stairs hahahh! 

Funny storiesssss: SO hahahhah we like to scare each other here at the CCN and Im the master!! I have scared my comps so may times and my roommates its realy funny.. so my companion decided she was going to get me back... haha I cant even tell this without laughing so hard! So last night when my companion turned out the lights she decided that she was going to scare me and since Im on the bottom bunk im really easy to reach so she shuts out the lights and comes near my bed, and she can't see anything and she GRABS me out of no where!! so of course I screamed super loud (into my pillow cause I didnt want to wake anyone up in the other apartments) and she just starts laughing sooo soooo soooo hard and we all do and she runs into the bathroom and me and my other companion are like why the heck did she run in there? Is she scared Im gonna get her back or something??? So we hear her from the bathroom.... "YOU GUYS I PEED MY PANTS" HAHAHAHA WE DIED!! she was laughing so hard because she finally scared me that she Literally couldnt controll herself!! ahahhah she decided that she's Never going to scare, me again hahahah~!!!

I love love love being a missionary!!! okay I gotta go! love you all!!

Hermana Gray 

Happy in the Dominican Republic MTC

Hermana Vasquez, Hermana Feliz, Hermana Olsen and Courtney

Mission President Gulbrandsen's (they are from Mesa Arizona)

LOVE!!!

Courtney Pointing to a picture of her Friend Hermana Amber Clegg that was at the same MTC

Semana DOS!!! Dominican Republic MTC

Hola amigos!!! 

Holy cow this week flew by it seems like I was just writing you about my first week! well So much has happened this week I dont even know where to start!!! let me start by telling you that GOD LOVES YOU!!! he really does love each and every one of us and if you dont think so ask him!!! 

So this week was crazy!! every day still is full of 11 hours of spanish classes and my spanish is coming along!! (kinda) (.. i hope it is hahah) but anyway on wednesday we got to go to the stores!! we usually dont go till our third week but i guess our teachers really like us hahahah! so anyway the store is about a 15 minute walk from the CCM (where we live) and holy cow.... i am so grateful I am from the US.  They have a trash problem here so theres just bags of trash laying everywhere and the houses arent what you would expect theyre like small shacks and theyre lucky if they dont have holes in the roof cause it rains basically every day.  But anyway the store was really nice! kinda like a little dominican walmart and it was just so exciting to be out and about!!1 everyone was staring at us and anywhere I go im the center of attention cause of my blonde hair and blue eyes... so we got some creepy stares and im sure some interesting comments hahah (good thing I couldnt understand them right?!?!) theres a bright side to everything ahhahahah! well anyway getting out of the classroom was nice.

Then on wednesday we went to the nearby park and did a service project which was super fun! we raked up leaves and trash and filled up literally 40 huge black trash bags... the portion of the park we cleaned looked alot better after we left!!! it was super fun working together with everyone! and occasionally when you would grab a huge pile of leaves a huge poisonesss centepede would crawl out and start coming at you!!1 scary! but I killed about 4.. I was the only Hermama who would kill them so everyone was either screaming for the elders or me when one popped up... hahahah speaking of bugs! there was a lizard in our room the other day and Hermana Olsen was screaming bloody murder so we ran in to see what was wrong and it was the cutest little lizard! hahah I picked it up and brought it outside... Hermana Olsens a whimp;) but I love her!!! 

hmm a quote I really liked this week was "pray like everything depends on god, work like everything depends on you!!!!" and that HIT ME!!! we cant just pray and expect god to do everything!!! another one was "God doesnt answer unaksed prayers"  YOU NEED TO ASK HIM!!! yes god knows all our thoughts but hes not just going to read your mind and every thought you have.  He wants you to talk to him!!!

Someone told me this week  "YOURE GOING TO PUERTO RICO?!?!? puerto ricos too small to hold all of your energy!!!" hahah that made me laugh!!! its so true!

LOVE YOU ALL HAVE A GREAT WEEK

PICS!!! 

Service Project

Hermana Trio

Companions!!!

My day schedule

Hermana Olsen and Elder trio

FOOD

Semana 1!!! Dominican Republic MTC

Okay okay I dont have alot of time.... BUT let me first off tell you all that THE CHURCH IS SO TRUE!!

Well anyway, I made it to the DR MTC safely and I am in a trio with THE BEST companeras ever!! Hermana olsen and hermana vasquez!!! and we got room 401 which IS THE BEST cause I get to wake up and look out the window right at the temple!!! its AMAZING!!!

So life in the DR MTC consists of 1 hours of spanish being shoved down your throat with a little bit of meal time and physical activity time and NO time for sleep. as if the 11 hours of spanish werent enough, we have so much studying and memorizing to do its insane. Well a lot of studying especially for me.... because as all of you know I know |ZERO SPANISH!! and well, here they dont exactly take your background of espanol into consideration and instead pray about where you should be!!! which is amazing!! I love that they go off of the lords inspiration! BUT!!! I got put in the HIGHER level spanish class with all the people who have had 3+ years of spanish anddddddd...... well lets just say im working REALLY REALLY hard!! Im actually keeping up surprisingly well. But I'm not keeping up because "in smart" or "I just pick up really fast..." NOPE!!! the only reason I am learning as fast as I am is becuase of THE GIFT OF TOUNGES!!! and i believe that with ALL of my heart!!! ALSO side note... my class loves me because i make a fool of myself basically anytime I try to say something.... BUT mistakes are progress right?!? and I have gottten to the point where I dont mess up every thing I say!! And let me tell you that is progress!!!

So anyway, our MTC president is from MESA ARIZONA the gulbrandsens!! theyre amazing! (especially his wife)!!!! She is the best!! she actually reminds me so much of my mom so its like a little piece of home is here with me in the DR!! She gave a talk in our sunday school class on sunday!! which was a day that I was feeling particularry overwhelmed and something she said really stuck with me!!! "You guys, all you need to do is DO YOUR BEST!!! and the Lord will do the rest!!" I am pretty sure she was quoting hinkley!! but anyway! its so true, we cant do it all, but we dont have to! we just need to do our BEST with everything!! including Repenting, going to church, going to mutual even if we dont have "time" etc.

But anyway I am a living testimony that the lord lives and loves us and gives us what we need!!1 (aka THE GIFT OF TOUNGES) cause I would be nowhere without it!!!

I love you all and I love the gospel!! and im sorry if this makes no sense.... I only have an hour and i cant think straight! my mind is a big jumbled mess of english and spanish right now!!!

But I love you all and I hope youre all having a good week!!! ALSO!! yesterday we went running around the temple... and ended up taking a shower in the POURING RAIN lol!! the rain drops are so big here!!

 PICTURES!!!
1. My companeras and I matching!! (companions!)
2. Me and Hermana olsen, pointing to our missions!
3. Me and Hermana FELIZ!!
4. The view from my window
5. Our room!!! (were so proud lol)
6. FOOD!
7. We like mirror selfies apparently :)

My Companeras and I matching!! (Companions!)

Hermana Olsen and I pointing to our Missions

Me and Hermana FELIZ!!!

The view from my window

Our room!!! ( we are so proud lol)

FOOD!!!

We like mirror selfies apparently :)