The First Day Of School

Oh boy! It was another great week here in the capital. I am going to apologize in advance for this email, this week was pretty standard so nothing super exciting happened so this email will probably be pretty lame. You win some and you lose some. Like usual, please know that I won't be offended if you decide to better use your time than reading this. I am stoked that things are going well back home. I am still waiting on an invitation to my brother's wedding that happened a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I wasn't even invited... Also, if any of you have any sweet videos of my nephew I would love an update on the little guy. Alright let’s get to it. 

We had some sad news this week. Remember my man W who is pretty much the most prepared person on the planet that I talked a lot about last week? We talked with him this week and he told us that he would be much more comfortable learning the gospel in Spanish... There is a Spanish Branch here so we had to pass him off to the Hermanas. Pretty sad that we won't be teaching him, but he is doing so good. He went to the branch yesterday and he had a jolly ole time. I was worried about him, I felt like a parent on the first day of school. We called the Hermanas after their church was over to make sure he had friends to sit by and people to talk to. Fortunately, he fit right in. He makes me proud. He is getting baptized here in the next couple of weeks so we are stoked for him.

Just to give you an idea of what our teaching pool looks like right now. Des Moines is a hot spot for African immigrants especially immigrants from Liberia. We probably have like 15 investigators we are working with right now. It is so crazy. I never knew that I would get to meet so many awesome people from Africa on my mission here in Iowa. We have so much work to do, but there is so little time. 

The Zone Leader responsibilities are going just swimmingly. We have to deal with a lot of drama in the zone. The cool thing is I feel like missions are like a marriage preparation class too.  We got to conduct some more exchanges this week. I got to exchange with a Greenie Spanish Elder named Elder Matthews and it was awesome. It was cool because his trainer is a great missionary but is pretty straight laced. I was able to help him make the work fun. Missionary work is super tough, but it is meant to be enjoyed not just endured. We had a great exchange and found some awesome people to teach. We also spend a lot of time with the assistants, we have such a good time. One of them, Elder Mauldin and I are singing a song tomorrow at Zone Conference, so be excited for a report. I have to sing a pretty intense harmony so it is going to be an adventure.  They are such good guys, they are stellar missionaries and I am learning so much. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to spend too much time with President Badger yet, that guy is so busy it is unreal. He travels so much. Hopefully we will get to go running here soon. 

I will close this email with a spiritual thought, in D&C 130 it talks about how there is a law decreed in Heaven that from which all blessings are predicated. It is such a comforting thing to know that if I am keeping the commandments that our Heavenly Father has given, he is bound to bless us for it. It makes so much more sense when in Mosiah 2:41 it talks about how happy and blessed those are who keep the commandments. They are happy because they are reaping the blessings of righteous living. Righteousness is truly the only way to lasting joy. Sometimes the blessings of righteous living will not come immediately, but our Heavenly Father promises us that they will always come. It just might take a little bit more humility to recognize where the blessings are. We don't have to look very far to find out how much our Heavenly Father loves us. 

Thank you for all that you do. I love you guys, I miss you like crazy but I hope it's cool with you if I keep doing this for a little while. Have a great week.

Elder Obray