Elder Chandler Obray: It's Heating Up!

Hola! It has been a pretty great week here in CR. I am beginning to love Africans so much. Man, they are the coolest. There is a little Liberian kid in our ward and we are best buds. Whenever we go to visit his family, we have to do our special handshake, which includes a jump shot and a dab. I will try to get a video of it the next time we go over there. Man, this week was pretty wild. There are a couple of pretty fun stories that I am sure that you will enjoy.

The first story happened on Saturday night. When we got back to our house, we were just sitting around talking in the living room when we heard some gun shots from right across the street. Have I mentioned that we live right across the street from a super sketchy bar? We looked out the window and pretty soon like five cops rolled up and an ambulance as well. A few minutes later, we watched this guy get arrested and pushed into a cop car and then we watched a gurney roll into the ambulance from inside the bar. Yep we are pretty sure somebody was killed right across the street from our apartment. Gotta love living in Cedar Rapids. Pretty sketchy. But never fear we park our car in the back and are rarely in our front yard so don't worry mom! I feel completely safe!

The second story was a finding miracle from yesterday. In the early afternoon, we went to try by one of our investigators. When we stopped by, she came to the door with the Book of Mormon in her hand and said that we could have our bible back and that she is too busy to meet with us again. We did our best to turn it around, but she awkwardly stood in the door trying to close it. We let her keep the BofM and took off. I was pretty frustrated because we were pretty excited to teach her. I angrily started to knock on the next few doors and nobody was down. As we were about to finish up, we knocked on the last door of the complex (coincidence? I think not). Two girls came to the door. About an hour later, we gave them a Book of Mormon and set a return appointment for this Tuesday. We are pretty excited to go back and teach them some more. They were super open and actually knew the Bible really well. You don't see that too much here. So, it was fun to talk to them.

Cedar Rapids is very different from any other place that I have served so far. Out of our investigators we are working with we have six from all different countries. Sudan, Togo, Kenya, Ghana, and Pohnpei. It is super diverse here so we run into people from all kinds of different walks of life. Who knew that when we went knocking, I would have to carry around pamphlets in French, Arabic and Swahili in Iowa. It is a pretty awesome experience to meet these humble people.

I know this email is getting a little lengthy, but I will close with my testimony that our Heavenly Father loves all of His children. He has a plan for each and every one of us. It is not fair for us to decide which ones hear the gospel or not based off of their outward appearance or surroundings. It is simply up to us to share the gospel with everyone. All of His children deserve to hear the message of the restored gospel. I love this work.

Have a great week this week! I love you!

Elder Obray

p.s. If any of you know any virtuous young ladies who are cute and willing to email a missionary please give them my email. The struggle!