Hey Hey Hey! Before I get
into this great week, I have to admit that when I logged on today to find out
that you all went to Lake Powell this week a little part of me died. Elder
Milligan's family has a nice boat so he is constantly torturing me with sick memories
of his boat. I am not trunky, but the thought of boating almost brings tears to
my eyes. I sure am excited to show off my marshmallow shaped and colored body
on the boat when I get home! You guys are in for a treat! :) If you guys have
any cool pictures or videos, I would definitely be down to see them!
It was a fantastic week
here in Des Moines. It seems like the number of bad weeks have dramatically
decreased, the bad days still come, but it seems that they don't get to me like
they used to. Missions are pretty cool. The first exciting event that happened
was that my guy E got baptized!! It was awesome, he puts off the tough guy
persona, but you could tell that he was so happy. It was great to see. It has
been awesome to see the changes that he has made in his life. When we first
starting teaching him, he barely believed in God and he was a huge fan of the
boos, he was in a gang in high school but these days he excitedly tells us that
he is looking forward to church that weekend. He is the only one in his family
that is religious so he has definitely overcome a lot of opposition to be where
he is. Elder Robley came back to baptize him on Saturday and I got to confirm
him on Sunday. It was a great weekend.
E and I have become pretty
good friends so whenever he sees me, he stops and says, "Are you good
bro?" then he gives me a hug. It is cool because the relationships we make
on missions are eternal. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to teach
him. I told him that I want him to come to my wedding, so he is going to
be working for the temple here in about a year. We are stoked for him.
I have some bad news... My
hot streak of no traffic tickets has finally ended... Des Moines does this
thing where they set up cameras in super random places so if you are speeding
anywhere you are bound to get a picture and a ticket a couple days later. I
don't really have a quality excuse, Heather (our van) just has so much horse
power that it is almost impossible to drive below the average speed limits of
Iowa roads. Plus, we were running late for the priesthood session, I don't know
where the divine intervention was but I guess I needed to be humbled.
We had a pretty cool
finding experience this week. We conducted some exchanges in the Hermana's area
this week to help them find some new investigators. We exchanged with a couple
of the Spanish elders in our district, so I got some great practice telling
people that we were missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints in Spanish. I am pretty much fluent now. But Elder McConnel and I were
driving around looking for people to teach when I felt prompted to knock on a
specific street. The first door we knocked on, a woman came to the door and
when she saw us at her door she started to cry. She told us that she has been
feeling that there is more for her to do. She has cancer and was expected to
pass away months ago. As we taught her, she was glued to the idea of baptism
and excitedly accepted our invitation at the end of the discussion. We are
super pumped to go back and teach her some more.
Elder Milligan and I are
training tomorrow at Zone Conference, we came up with a cool formula for
resolving common concerns with investigators. Just like usual math equations,
there are specific formulas and steps we need to take to fill in the missing
variables. Everybody has these unsolved variables in their testimonies. Our job
as missionaries and members is to apply the proper steps to help these people
identify and solve their missing variables. We are calling it "Solve for
Baptism." It is going to be pretty epic, we are pumped to give the
training. I will let you know how it goes next week.
Besides the baptism, the
week was pretty standard. I love you guys, have a great week.
The Marshmallow,
Elder Obray
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