Bury Your Weapons

Hola Familia! It was another great week here in the promised land. This week wasn't quite as good as the past few weeks, but it was awesome none the less. Definitely super pumped that Elder Gibb is no longer Elder. Make sure to give him a hug for me. I love that guy.

As far as the work goes this week, let’s get to it.  The ZL's in Des Moines are self-proclaimed assistants to the assistants. Basically, whatever chores the Assistants don't want to do, they just dump it on us. So, we spend a lot of time doing a lot of tedious chores to help out. Including but not limited to, moving mission cars to and from church buildings all of the time, running errands for the mission office like getting a new set of keys for Heather (our transfer van), apartment shopping for missionaries in the zone, blessings on blessings on blessings for other missionaries, move out apartments, suggestions for transfers, etc. Pretty crazy stuff.  It is fun though because we get to interact with a lot of the missionaries.

We had some pretty cool lessons with some of our favorite investigators this week. The first was on the Monday night. We have a great investigator named J. He is such a good, humble guy. We were talking with him about Ether 12:27 and we could tell there was something deeper that he was struggling with. Elder Robley asked him if he could change one thing about himself, what would it be? With tears in his eyes he told us that he would change his ability to read. It was a tender moment when a grown man told us that he only wanted to learn how to read. With tears in our eyes, we promised him that we would help him learn how to read. He is such a good guy and he is progressing towards a baptismal date in October. We are stoked for him.

We spent a good part of the day at the hospital on Saturday. Elder Robley has been having some pretty crazy problems with his eye lately. Sister Badger forced us to get it checked out. He has an infection in his eye which is pretty intense. He got some meds and he should be in top shape here in the next couple of days. 

We had another sweet lesson with our Investigator E. He is such a funny guy. He has a pretty rough past and he holds on to a lot of guilt because of his actions years ago. We taught him about the Anti-Nephi Lehi's and how they "buried their weapons of war". We told him that we must too, bury our weapons of war. So, we all took a piece of paper and wrote down our weapons of war or things that we aren't proud of that we had done in the past. Then because we are all still immature boys we all lit them on fire in his front yard. We got some pretty weird looks from his family, but it was a super powerful lesson. He told us that he felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He is also progressing towards a date in October. He is keeping the Word of Wisdom and law of chastity like a champ. We are stoked for him. 

This is a great lesson for all of us. Sometimes we hold on way too long to sins that may have taken place in the past. If we have done the proper steps, our Heavenly Father has already forgiven us. We are a lot harder on ourselves than we should be sometimes. C.S. Lewis said once that "We cannot take even the smallest of souvenirs from Hell with us into Heaven." In order for us to reach our ultimate potential, we need to bury our weapons of war and never dig them back up. True happiness follows when we align our wills with our Heavenly Father's.  

Transfers are this week. This has been the fastest transfer of my life. I am pretty sure that Elder Robley and I are sticking around for round two, but you never know these days. 

Have a great week. Love you.

The Assistant to the Assistants,

Elder Obray 

Shout out to the 801!

Some of our investigator's kids. Super cute little girls.