Letter Dated March 26, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Well sounds like you guys had a pretty good week.  My week was interesting, ha ha.

So I look tall in some pictures cause lots of people are really short, ha ha.  And my companion is as well. Really I think I am the same height.

Gaby and Natalia get baptized this week.

So I'm pretty much going to go through my week with you since it was a bit crazy.

Monday, was a normal P-Day till after we emailed, because we got on bus and went to the city Santa Rosa, so that at 10:30 the same night I could get on a bus to Bahia Blanca.  So that's pretty much what happened there.  My Companion stayed in Santa Rosa with the Zone Leaders and I was on the bus sleeping alone, kinda weird.

Tuesday, I did a bunch of Visa stuff.  Don't ask what, cause I don't know.  I probably signed my life into slavery.  Who knows.  Just sign here, and I signed.  Wait an hour, sign here, get a picture, wait a long time again. So yea, fun stuff.  I did get to talk to Elder Howard (who was my companion for a week) so that was cool. Then I took a bus back to Santa Rosa from Bahia.

Wednesday, well I slept in the zone leader house with my companion.  We then all went to Zone Conference.  Which was good.  President always says some really good stuff.  He talked a lot about not getting comfortable in the mission.  There is always a way we could improve.  Then we talked about how to work with the members.  We also broke a record this month.  We have 106 baptisms this month in the mission, which is the highest we've had in like 15 years.  Which is awesome.  After Zone Conference we went to the Doctors office cause my companion was having a foot problem.  But it seems to be fine.  Then we came home to Castex.

Thursday.  We went to district meeting in General Pico.  Whew.  More traveling.  I was tired of traveling at this point.  Then we came home.  And finally started working, kinda.  We had the interviews with Gaby and Natalia (which were crazy) just cause they want to get baptized but, well Gaby at least (the mom) doesn't remember anything.  She passed though, whew.  Anyways then we had  meetings with the ward, like ward mission leader and with the ward council.  We had a good lesson with Yessid, we pretty much ¨dropped cane¨or told him how it was, since all he lacks is the actual ordinance of baptism.

Friday, we did weekly planning, then we seriously knocked doors for the rest of the day, whew.  We had no visible success, ha ha.  We did chat with Antonia for a few minutes, she is still doing great.

Saturday, the same as Friday.  We knocked a million doors with no visible success. So yea. Then we had a lesson with a Menos Activo family called BarrioNuevo.  They pretty much are ridiculous.  Since they went to the temple, know the church is true, and they tell us they want to go to church but they just never go......they understand everything well to... o well.

Sunday, well Gaby and Natalia went to church so they are to be baptized on Friday HURRAY! We had a lesson with Yessid.  He fixed a baptismal date for himself on the 13 of April.  We hope it goes through! Then we knocked lots of doors. And Visited another menos activo, Nerina.  Who like Barrionuevo is a bit ridiculous, ha ha.  Some days I just want to force them to go to church, ha ha.  But I realize that forcing people isn't a part of the plan.  We just give them every reason to obey and give a little big nudge or better said large push in the right direction.

So that's the week pretty much.  Kinda a mixed week since we have few investigators that are doing well, but we have been struggling to find anyone new. So we are going to continue working hard and get some more success, cause that's what we like to do here.

Anyhow, enjoy your week.

Life is good.

Love ya

Elder Obray

Letter Dated March 19, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad; 

Well glad things seem to be going pretty good back home. Sounds like kind of a dull week for you guys. Not a lot happened over there. But sometimes its just like that I guess.

The pictures on the box were...great catholic pictures, ha ha.  We see those a lot over here.

Yea so, Melina got baptized on Friday. Went really well. We shall see if I can get the picture on the computer today or not, cause I am going to Bahia Blanca again to finish my visa stuff. Yeaa.... so I leave here in a few minutes, ha ha.  Always something going on.

This week we are planning on having two more baptisms.  Natalia and Gaby, they both should be baptized.  Which is really exciting. That would mean we had 4 baptisms in a month.  Which is really rare.  Just cause the Average amount of baptisms in the mission is 8 in two years. So we should have 4 in this month. We are pretty stoked. Some hard work is finally paying off in some baptisms eh.

Yessid is still a bit of a problem child.  We had a really good lesson yesterday with him.  And he said he would think about baptism.  He really does know the church is true he just needs to decide to go ahead and decide... But I guess for him it's more complicated then it is for me.  We hope to get him baptized in the next couple of weeks.  Guess we shall see huh.

So we had 45 people at church.  Which is great.  We have to have 50 for 3 months to get a church building instead of renting a house. So we are pretty close.  We are just going to keep working and I think we can get it.

I got bit by a dog this week. :(  on my finger.  It bled for a bit.  But don't worry the dog doesn't have rabies or anything.  Just a mean dog.  I hope it wasn't wrong for me to kick it, ha ha.  I wasn't very happy with that dog.

Anyway so I wont be in Castex again to Wednesday night at like 6 or 7ish cause Wednesday we have zone conference.  We were going to have it this week, but President was sick.  A lot of people and Missionaries were sick this last week.  So wasn't just me.  Whew.  But being sick on the mission is the worst, cause you just have to got out and work, ha ha.  Can't sit still.

So the 1st is a picture of the baptismal font we use.  It's a big swimming pool.  Water is nice though.

The 2nd is Melina and Her dad.  Her dad baptized her.  It went super well. So we are pretty happy.

Have a good week this week.

Love ya 

Elder Obray

Letter Dated March 12, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Well sounds like you guys had a pretty decent week. I am glad Mitt Romney won, ha ha.

Well I did get my shoes.  I am very content, ha ha.  Some good Reeses and some new socks.  Kinda nice, ha ha. Thanks.

So we just kept on working this week.  Huge Surprise.  We are going to baptism Melina this week so that's pretty cool.  We are pretty excited for that.

We didn't have any awesome things happen this week.  Actually we didn't have a whole lot happen. We didn't find many newbies or anything in that sense it was a hard week.  But we will get some more this week.  With Gaby and Natalia, they are progressing well they should both get baptized not this week but the next.  So that's good.  After that the only other great investigator is Yessib, but he still isn't sure about baptism.

Other then those people hmm... oh Gustavo and Alberto.  We are trying to get them to go to church. Once they go they will be Great.

I'm actually sick right now, ha ha.  Just a nasty little cold....but uh.  I don't like being sick. Weird huh.

Umm.  What else.  Oh yea.  We saw an AWESOME electrical storm.  Actually that's probably why I'm sick.  We had a cita at 8 Wednesday with Melina. So we went.  When we finished we were surrounded by a huge wind rain and lightning storm.  So we have to run through the rain and lighting home.  We were soaked!  100%.  And lightning stuck like 100 meters in front of us.  Pretty crazy.  The storm was cool.  The sky was always bright cause there was always at least one lighting bolt.  Pretty crazy.  We don't get those in Idaho.

Then we met a talking parrot named Coco. That was cool.  He could talk well.  Then we actually talked to the owner, ha ha. Who said we could come by some other day to teach her, ha ha.

And the photos I sent are actually really cool, so you should see one of me and Elder Stutz. Then me and my tie, then more of the tie.  Well come to find out that for P-Day today, I went to the fabric store and bought some material and made a tie.  I'm wearing it right now.  Cool huh? I thought so. That's how bored I was.  I'll probably do it again.  Costs me 2 dollars to make it instead of 20.  So yea.  Not a high quality tie though ha ha.  If you only knew how I did it you would probably laugh.

Bueno.

I really don't have much else to say.  I'm sorry if its short. But I don't feel good (lame excuse i know).  We do have zone conference this week to.  That will be good. anyway.

Love ya,

Elder Obray

Letter Dated March 5, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Hey well sounds like a few interesting things are going on back home.  That's good. Makes me happy.

Sounds like everyone is pretty much out or going out on the mission by now that's good. Hope Sam is doing well. We have a senior couple here that were in Madagascar as mission presidents. They say they eat rice.  Always. rice, rice, rice, rice, rice... makes me count my blessings, ha ha.

I hope Romney wins. That would be cool ha ha.  Sounds like he's doing good.

Yea I wouldn't worry to much about the kids going to mutual. A lot of them are probably like me, don't really like to go just cause they would rather be out with friends or playing soccer, ha ha.  I liked my leaders, really good people just like you guys are.

Well out here in Castex we just continue to work as hard as we can. We had the baptism of Antonia this week. I'm going to try to send you a picture here, but my companion is using my USB converter right now.  Antonia is great. She is really happy right now. She has felt the difference.  So we are really happy for her.  So Yessid, Natalia, and Gaby went to the baptism, which was great. Also All three went to church as well.  Woot!!  Antonia had a lot of trials before her baptism almost her whole family and all her friends are against her and the church. But she went ahead anyway. A great example of faith.

We still are struggling to get Yessid to get baptized.   He is ready but just doesn't feel like its the  right choice yet. I know he has felt and can identify the spirit. Maybe its just a matter of time.  But we are doing what we can.  I think he will get baptized shortly.

Natalia actually bore her testimony (shes the 11 year old) in sacrament meeting which was great. Gaby no, ha ha, but not a huge surprise.  We have a baptism date for the the 24th.  We are just trying to prep them for it. I think they both will get baptized.

With Melina we actually changed the baptism to next week cause they didn't go to church this week :( so we can't baptize her...

We are having a lot of success.  We only had 3 go to church. But that's still really good. Especially since they all should get baptized.  We are excited.

Anyway that's the biggest news of things that happened this week.

We started to teach the mom of Nerina. Her name is Susana. We are going to keep passing by to see what happens.

We did divisions this week as well.  I went with Elder Sterling from California.  Really good Elder, he has like 8 months out, but he is a superstar.  I learned a lot from him. He was hear as well to do the interveiw with Antonia. Which went well.

Oh, almost forgot the baptismal pila is small swimming pool thing.  That they put inside the church. ha ha. We went to the church a bit early for the baptism and someone left the hose on on and it was overflowing!  So we had to hurry and clean up all the water. Fortunately, in Argentina, carpet doesn't exist.  And that's how they clean floors here, with lots of water. So we really just cleaned the floor.

We did service this week as well.  We used a saw and cut down some small trees. It was pretty fun. We did if for Hermano Rico. Super good Hermano. He helps us out a ton and made friends with Yessid and always invites him over for pizza and such. Its great.

So when I went to Bahia, my comp stayed in Santa Rosa and I was on the bus alone (its not against the rules to travel alone).  Then in Bahia, the secretary picked me up and did the visa, and I came back. Great fun ha ha.

Anyway that's like all I got. Well I'll just stay around the South pole and baptize people in cold water (actually the waters pretty good, just deadly to drink) You guys can stay up north in the snow.  I'm good right here for now. Maybe when it gets cold here we could switch. I don't like the cold to much here.

So I will talk to you next week. Have fun.

Love,

 Elder Obray