Last night Elder Dunford and I were walking
around a pond talking to people trying to reach our OYM goal. We found a ton of
cars in the parking lot and there were actually a lot of people just walking
around. The jackpot for missionaries. We excitedly got out of the car and got
to it. We had only talked to a few people when we ran into an older gentleman
and his dog. The conversation quickly escalated and we found out that he knew
all about the Mormon Church, so he thought. We run into a problem here in Ames
when people claim to know everything about our faith because they have read
books about the Book of Mormon or books about the Joseph Smith. We quickly ask
if they have actually read the Book of Mormon and nine times out of ten the
answer is no. This was the case for this man. He started listing off all of
these things he had heard about the Mormon Church and of course we did our best
to debunk all of the false things he was claiming. Long story short, we would
ask him questions and he would change the subject. At one point I asked the
simplest question I could think of. I said, "Do you think God loves all of
us?" He thought for a second and responded with a question that was
clearly intended to criticize in a mean way some of the sacred doctrine of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I fought the urge to push
him into the pond but walked away instead. It's frustrating that people often
won't take time to learn about the gospel directly from us, the Lord's missionaries.
It's amazing how many tools the adversary uses to distract people from the
truth.
We run into a lot of people
that like to try to prove us wrong. Fortunately, my knowledge of the scriptures
is improving quite a bit so Elder Dunford and I are usually able to back up our
beliefs. Of course in a without debating in an inappropriate way!
I had a pretty cool
experience this week. Because it was my senior comp week, I was able to make a
couple more of the decisions on how we spend our time. That being said, we
spent the whole week taking naps and watching movies. Haha just kidding of
course! On Saturday night we were walking down the street looking for people to
talk to when we walked by some college dorms. These dorms are always locked. As
we walked by, I had this thought that I should try to open one of the doors, I
did so and found it open. Weird. We decided that we had to knock it then. We
were on the second floor when a couple walked by. We talked to them for a
second and they continued up the stairs to their floor. We kept knocking and
the guy came out of his apartment to talk to us for a while. We were able to
talk to him about the Book of Mormon and he wants to read it. Gotta follow
those spiritual promptings that is for sure. Hopefully I will have news about
him next week!
It is our last week of
transfer number two. More importantly I only have one more week of training! It
will be so nice to put the greeny phase behind me! The trainer usually gets
transferred after training so I am going to miss Elder Dunford. He has been
such a great companion and I have learned so much from him. Hopefully my next
companion will be great too. Transfer day falls on Thanksgiving this year so
they decided to bump the transfer day to Monday and move our next P day to
Saturday. So expect another email from me on Saturday. Hopefully by then I will
know some more about next transfer.
Sorry this email was kind
of a dud. I will do my best to have incredible experiences to report on
Saturday! I love you all and I hope you have a killer week.
Elder Obray
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