Monday, July 17, 2017

Five Times the Blessings!

Hola! It was yet another fantastic week here in Cedar Rapids. Man, it seems like the weeks are getting better and better. A ton of super frustrating stuff still happens, but looking back I am content and happy with the week. All is well here in Iowa. It is crazy that the wedding is only a couple weeks away! You better be sending an invitation my way! I already know that they are going to be super adorable. It has been quite the week this week so I will get right into it. 

First thing I will talk about this week is that our investigator D GOT BAPTIZED! Holy Cow it was such a miracle. Man, it was kind of out of nowhere but she came to church last week for the first time in a while. We were finally able to connect a ride for her. When we went by later that night she told us that she was ready to be baptized on Saturday! We were so stoked for her. But we had to plan the entire baptism in just a couple of days. It was pretty wild. As every missionary can testify, the day of the baptism it seemed like everything was going wrong. The day before, I spent a while making a nice program for the service. When we got to the church the morning of the baptism the file that I saved was nowhere to be found. I quickly got the church computer and drafted another one, but found out that there was no way to print from the laptop I was using. Man! So, we ran over to the library to make the third program of the day. To make it all better, our Zone Leaders decided that it would be a great day to go on exchanges. So, we were cruising around in their area all morning. When we finally were making our way to the church we ran out of gas... Holy Cow it was so stressful. Luckily, we were pretty close to a gas station so we had just enough gas to get there. By the time we got there, the car told me that we had 0 miles left in our tank. Barely made it! Some other things that went wrong that day included the church printer was running low on ink so the programs came out pretty bad anyway and Elder Youngstrom and another one of the zone leaders didn't start filling the font early enough so it was pretty shallow. 

Elder Cline made the trip out to Cedar Rapids to perform the baptism. It was his first time in the water so he was pretty nervous. It took him five times to finally immerse D completely in the water. When I gave the okay, everyone at the baptism started clapping. Haha it was quite the scene. But the important thing is that D was baptized and no matter how many times it took, she is now a member of the church. We are grateful for her decision. On Sunday, I was able to confirm her and help her receive the Holy Ghost. That is always such a special experience. Gotta love exercising the priesthood! D is so awesome and she will make a great member of the church. She has been taught by a lot of missionaries and I am grateful that I was a part of her baptism. Blessings on blessings!

Remember that guy I talked about last week who had literally read all the Book of Mormon in a couple of days? He is turning out to be quite the project. He has a pretty hard heart to the Book of Mormon and to the Prophet Joseph Smith. There are so many people here that make the argument that the Bible is the only source of truth and it is all we will ever need. It is crazy that Nephi saw this day in 2 Nephi 29. If only we could force people to feel the spirit. We are going to keep trying though. We have a bunch of other investigators we are excited to work with as well. This place is the promised land. 

Well this email is getting a little lengthy so I will shut it down. I love you guys and I am so happy that things are peachy back home. You are always in my prayers. Keep smiling and keep being examples of Jesus Christ. People notice! Have a great week!

Elder Obray  



No comments:

Post a Comment