Monday, November 14, 2016

If They'd Just Listen to the Truth!

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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