The Pursuit of Happiness

Hello hello! What a week here in the promised land. I am really having a hard time thinking of ways that I can keep these emails exciting. I feel like after about 94 of these emails, I am running out of creativity. It was a wild week though, so hopefully it will be a good one. Oh I'm about to dive in!

We had zone conference this week... It is always a pretty stressful week filled with long car rides and long days in meetings. It was successful though. We had great conferences and I felt the spirit for sure. I had a lot of those Walter Mitty moments driving to Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Iowa City. The next time I make that trip to all of our zone conferences, I will only have a couple weeks left as a full time missionary. Ahh can't think about that too much or it gets me in the feels. I have really been impressed with how pretty Iowa is lately. Man I am so excited for you guys to see it someday. Something about the hills of corn and the sunset. It is definitely a different kind of beautiful, but I sure like it. 

We spent Wednesday on exchanges with some stud missionaries in Manchester, Iowa. Yep that place is booming with life. My companion for the day, Elder Broby, and I knocked a couple towns. One called Coggin and the other called Ryan. I am pretty sure they had the population of our cul-de-sac, but it was a fun experience. 

Update on the coolest investigators on the planet. The Bw are all set for their baptism this weekend. Their baptism is this Saturday and we couldn't be more stoked for them. M (the eight year old) gave us "tickets" this week for being the best missionaries in the world. She is the cutest. We went over the baptism interview questions with them this week and she knows her doctrine too. We are so pumped for them. Definitely feeling real grateful for the privilege that it has been to teach them. 

Today at church, I saw my girl E in the hallway. She is doing really good as well. She is so much happier than she was when we first started teaching her. Whenever I see her she always tell me how blessed she is. She is the greatest. I love that family as well. Man I am getting all sentimental already.. This is no good. 

Elder Wood and I trained on finding happiness in the work. There are a lot of missionaries in the mission who I feel are just going through the motions until their time is up. We really stressed that the time of missionary service is a time to enjoy. My big one liner for the training was "Called to Serve not Called to Survive." I know that I have had some of the happiest times on my mission. The Lord's work is a happy work that is for sure. 

On a super happy note. I found my camera this week! Someone turned it into the Stake Offices after the last zone conferences and it has just been chilling there. How about that? 

Have a great week! I love you!

You can still call me Walter,

Elder Obray

Yep.

Matching at zone conference. We planned it.

This little man got lost today at church. Elder Wood captured this super candid picture.