Called to Serve

I am going to go ahead and copy Robert's subject heading for my email today. I guess that great minds think alike? Wasn't conference the best? Conference is always such a great time to be a missionary. On a mission, I have literally become giddy whenever conference rolls around. It is such a privilege to be part of the Lord's true church and to be able to listen to his apostles and prophets address us. WE ARE SO LUCKY. I will talk more about the conference near the end of this email.

I am glad that things back home are going so well. I always feel relieved when I log on and find that all is well back home. Please keep it that way! Mom I am glad that the birthday was a party! From what I hear there were parades and all the fourth graders in the state of Utah had the day off to celebrate! You make such an impact on those kids mom. Hopefully someday I will be as cool as you are.

We had a wild week this week, so I will dive right into it. The highlights include transfers. Elder Blau headed over to Ankeny. I was sad to see him go, but at the same time it is nice to have a change of pace. I learned a lot from serving with him. The Lord puts specific people in our paths that will help us grow into what he wants us to be. He did exactly that with Elder Blau. On Thursday, I traveled to Iowa City with my favorite member, Sister Hirst. My new companion is Elder Anderson from Salem, Utah. He is cool guy. I think that this next transfer will be a good one. He actually plays basketball too. Hopefully our Tuesday night ward ball will provide some good games. 

When we got back from Iowa City, we got right to work. Unfortunately, the investigators that we have aren’t progressing as quickly as we would like. Our most promising investigator B is waiting for doctor's clearance to be baptized. He had to have his toes on his right foot removed due to some complications with a fish hook. Long story short, he can't dunk his foot for a while. We are bummed because he is very ready to be baptized so hopefully he will continue to have a rapid healing process.

I have also learned that it is always a good idea to knock one more door. Last night we ran into a family who we are excited about. We were about ready to head back to the apartment for the night when we decided to knock one more door. We knocked and a very foreign woman told us that she was not interested and closed the door. Bummer, as we walked back to the car, we decided to hit up one more. The next door we knocked was an awesome family. We were knocking in a really nice area so we were surprised when she actually came outside to talk to us. We are going to go back this week! I will let you know how it goes!

That is about it as far as awesome missionary experiences this week. I really enjoyed conference this weekend. There were a few talks that really stuck out to me. Of course, I am a little biased to the talks about missionary work, so of course I really loved Elder Bednar's talk during the priesthood session. He seemed to say the exact words that I needed to hear. Lately on my mission it has been kind of a struggle. I haven't really felt like East Moline is where I am supposed to be. The ward and the work is very different than it was in Ames. I honestly was missing serving in good ole Ames. Elder Bednar talked about how we are first "called to serve" then we are "assigned to labor." The call to serve is not dependent or restricted to a specific location. Whether it be East Moline, Ames, California or South Africa, all missionaries are called to do the same thing, serve. I wish I would have heard that talk one year ago when President Stevenson submitted my papers to the Church Office. I learn more and more every day that Iowa/Illinois is where I am supposed to be. I don't always like it and I still often get jealous of missionaries in other countries, but at the end of the day, the experiences that I am having on my mission are priceless. 

I also loved Elder Gary B. Sabin's talk in the Saturday afternoon session. He talked about being "all in" in our personal discipleship. The gray area of discipleship is growing thinner and thinner so it becomes more important every day to make sure that we are always on the Lord's side. Make sure to go back and review the talks as well. It is great to hear them once, but reading them again will bring much more understanding and spiritual strength and will help us catch the things we missed. 

I love you guys and I hope that you all have a great week. Make it a great one. 

Elder Obray