Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Birthday to two of the coolest guys on the block. Bob, Trevor, I hope you have marvelous birthdays this week. Your presents are going in the mail today, don't feel obligated to use them. I just thought you guys could use some ISU gear. Yep that was a spoiler. 

Good news! My hair is growing back much faster than I thought! I am starting to look younger and younger every day. God does answer prayers I guess! It has been quite the week over here in good ole Ames. Probably not as good as your week though Mom and Dad. A week in Hawaii sounds like a dream come true. You guys have it rough. If it makes you feel any better, the weather in Ames continues to be Hawaii-like. We had a couple days this week when the weather broke 30 degrees! What a blessing. This email is probably going to be a little long so I will jump into it. Like always feel free to take it in chunks.  

It was a great week. On Wednesday, we had the World Wide missionary broadcast. Basically, the missionary executive committee puts together a presentation/discussion and we all get to tune in. Elders Oaks, Bednar, and Anderson all gave killer speeches as well. They talked a lot about the Doctrine of Christ and it gave me a much-needed boost in Spirits. They also made some pretty intense changes to our Key Indicators (the numbers we report to our leaders) which was pretty intense. We will no longer be reporting OYM's or lessons or anything of the sort. They put a lot of trust in the missionaries which I really like. The Brethren are so inspired it is unreal. 

Friday night was Chinese New Year so of course we rounded up all our Asian friends (aka Q and his friend J) and threw a party. We all went to Q’s apartment and cooked up some mean dumplings. Q's roommate is a way cool guy from Chile. So, picture this two Chinese guys, a Chilean and two Mormon missionaries listening to Chinese dubstep music and making dumplings. In every sense of the word, it was lit! I have a cute picture of Q and I that I will attach. 

I will end this email with some sweet experiences from this weekend. Elder Balderston and I have kind of been on a teaching drought. This isn't that unusual. On Friday, we were leaving a member dinner when a woman walked by. She was walking by herself so I wasn't super pumped on yelling out after her and scaring her. But I had a thought that "What are the odds that she walks by right as we are leaving a dinner?" So I yelled out to her. She turned around and walked back to us, which is crazy because usually people don't even turn around and just wave their hands. She told us that she is moving to Moab, Utah in a couple weeks and that she has been trying to find a religion that suits her. We told her about the Book of Mormon and she said she has always wanted to read it! WHAT! I excitedly told her that I knew a couple of guys that walk around all day that carry free copies of the Book of Mormon. We are excited to see where it goes with her! 

The second experience happened just last night. We were doing some knocking again and before we started we committed ourselves to find a new investigator. We asked the Big guys for some help and got to it. The first door we knocked on was answered by a woman named A, she is from Columbia and recently moved here with her two kids. She also told us that she has been looking for a church and hasn't been able to find one that she likes. She then explained that she has a cousin who is Mormon and that she has always wanted to learn more about it. BAM. The church is true. We got her information, gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and took off. We kept knocking and a couple doors later we ran into a guy named I from Ghana. He was baptized a few years ago and just moved from Ghana to start school here. He lit up when he found out that we were Mormon missionaries. He hasn't been able to look for the ward yet so we gladly told him where it was. He is married so we are going to try to teach his wife here soon. Man, of course we start to find a bunch of solid people right as I am about to leave this place. Hopefully they will be super solid and will get baptized in the next two weeks. Fingers crossed.

All in all, it was a fantastic week. Very frustrating at times and there are also times when going out to knock seems impossible, but this work is the best work, I love it. Sorry this email was so long but I hope you have a fantastic week! I love you guys!

The best dumpling chef in Ames,

Elder Obray