A "Sick" Thanksgiving

Hey Hey Hey! Can you believe it has already been a week since I wrote you guys last? Weeks go by in the blink of an eye here and it makes me feel all kinds of different ways! I am stoked to hear that you guys had a killer Thanksgiving. Ours was a good one here in the Midwest. This email is going to be a giant, we had an awesome week so I have a lot to talk about so I will jump right into it.

We had a killer week with finding this week. Like I talked about last week, we had to drop a couple of our investigators so we hit the streets to find some new ones. This week we found nine new investigators who are all super promising. We are super grateful for these people showing up. This message needs to be heard! Some of the highlights include teaching E's son and his girlfriend. When we taught him though, he had a lit joint and he invited us into his hotboxed apartment. It was pretty crazy, but he told us he is down to get baptized, he will just need to work through a couple things of course. 

I haven't told you about our super solid investigator getting baptized here in the next few weeks. He is a part member family that Elder MIlligan knocked into on exchanges. He is awesome. We have been teaching him for a couple of weeks and he is already up to Alma 20. His wife is a less active member that we are working on reactivating. He is a pretty funny guy. They have both come to church the past two weeks. He announced in Elders quorum that he is getting baptized on the 23rd. Of course we were excited about that! His baptism will be the last week that Elder MIlligan is a missionary so it is going to be real cool.

We had some other miracle people come to church. The sister missionaries that we share a ward with were knocking some apartments on exchanges with the Spanish sisters. Long story short they found this investigator from Ethiopia named B. They told us that he might want to come to church so on Saturday night, we stopped by and met the guy. We got him a ride to church and he came and stayed the whole 3 hours. He is ripe man! He ran track back home so we had plenty to talk about. He ran long distance of course :) but it was still fun to talk to him about it. We had another lady who just showed up to church. Our ward has like 200 hundred immigrant members who aren't really consistent in church attendance so it is always difficult to keep track of the members versus investigators. Basically a woman came to church and during relief society she raised her hand and said, "I want to be baptized in this church, where can I find an application?" The sisters pounced on her and turned her over to us. Her family was baptized a while back and she wasn't ready, but she feels that now is her time. We are stoked for her. She and B are on date to be baptized in January. There is some great stuff going on in our area right now. My guy Big Sean said it best, "I'M WAY UP I FEEL BLESSED"

Thanksgiving day was rad. We spent the first part of the day visiting our favorite member in another ward, who is in the hospital. Our Zone did a Turkey Trot up to the Capital building in the morning so that was an experience. We ate with the senior couples in the mission for lunch. It was fun to hear some of their stories from growing up. It reminded me of listening to Grandpa talk about all of the crazy things he did in high school. It brought back some great memories. We then took off to another dinner where we were supposed to be eating with a RC African family, and another member family. Unfortunately the African family couldn't make it, but it was still a great dinner. We definitely got hooked up this Thanksgiving. I will see you guys next year on Turkey Day! How crazy is that?  

I have been feeling pretty sick these last couple of days, our mission nurse thinks I might have a sinus infection so if it doesn't go away in the next couple of days I will be getting that checked out. Hopefully not though I feel a little better today. The work goes on!

Another cool thing that happened this week. Elder Balderston is now serving in the Cedar Rapids ward that I served in a while ago. Elder Youngstrom and I found this investigator named J that came to church a few times. To make a long story short, Elder Youngstrom and Elder Balderston are now in a trio and J got baptized on Saturday! It was pretty cool to start a teaching process and have it finished by my child. He makes a father proud! 

Some other fun experiences include: finding a new investigator in the hospital, getting invited inside by our new investigator we now call Bathsheba, giving a training at district meeting, speaking in sacrament meeting, talking to a full grown man in only his whitey tighties, and all kinds of other fun things. Mission life is the best life. 

I love you and hope you all are doing swell. Have a great week! 

The Soon to be Twenty,

Elder Obray