Letter Dated October 29, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Well it sounds like you  guys had a pretty good week.  I hope things continue to go pretty well for you.  Sounds like Tennessee is going pretty well.

Well I had a pretty interesting week out here down south.

We had another good week, with 6 investigators in church and 70 people in total.  Whew.  Pretty good.

Oswaldo went to church this week.  That was good.  I think he liked it and felt pretty comfortable.  We were pretty excited.  I think with a bit more work he will be getting baptized.  :)

Alejanda and her family went to church this week.  They are progressing really well and I think they will get baptized in a little bit.  Should be good.  We haven't had much of a chance to teach them.  Just one lesson.  But the lesson went well.

Juan and Alberto, they dropped us.  They never recovered from the shock that tithing is a commandment.  They didn't like that to much and decided it wasn't worth it anymore.

Julia is still working on getting married.  Pretty much the same.  She is doing great.  Has a great testimony and everything. Just has to sign a paper, ha ha.

We also had transfers.  Elder Pino went to Santa Rosa.  Elder Parkes is training a  newbie.  I am in Bahia Blanca in barrio Terradas with Elder Fernandez from Santiago Chile.  Elder Cuadras is training and is going to be the new District leader in Tres Arroyos.

I am district leader here, its me and my companion and 4 companionships of sister missionaries.

So I pretty much have a huge district.  Should be... interesting, ha ha.  But I'm sure it will be fun.

I am assuming I will end my mission here.  There are only 2 transfers left and I don't think the President will change me again. But who knows, ha ha.

I don't really know much of my area or anything.  But it sounds like a good area.  I'm sure we will see lots of success.

I was pretty sad to leave Tres Arroyos after such a long time.  That and we have had a lot of good things happen. But I cant stay.  President said I had to leave.  So I left.  The bags were a bit full.  We had a few people there to baptize.  But Elder Cuadras will do it and let me know.

Fransisco was doing great by the way.  He is progressing well and is surprisingly interesting in Genealogy work.

Hey the camera you gave me. I still have it just so you know, it hasn't been robbed or broken yet.  Kind of a surprise since most the missionaries have to replace there cameras. 

Well I don't have much else to say.

Have a good week.  Have fun.

Love ya 

Elder Obray

Letter Dated October 22, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Well thanks for the email, good to hear that all is going pretty well over there.  That's always good news.  Thanks for the information you gave me.   I guess just give me the house address when you can.

We had a really good week this week.  Actually it was the best week I think I've had in my whole mission.  We had lots of good things happen.  A few bad things.  But overall, it went super well.

First Fransisco got baptized on Saturday, went really well.  He didn't want very many people to go, just his family.  So that's what we did.  His mom and sister went and they really liked it.  The spirit was there.  We were pretty excited.  Now he just has to go out and serve a mission.  The next step, he is pretty excited.

Julia, is doing ok, still struggling with the whole marriage thing, ha ha.  We will see what happens this week.  We hope it goes pretty well.

Oswaldo, he promised to go to church next week.  He couldn't this week cause it was mothers day in Argentina.  So next week will be great.

Sol, she is doing good, but didn't go to church.  That's all we lack there, is she has to go to church.

Oscar, the guy we baptized in July, he is learning how to read now, which is fantastic.  He has a really good testimony, ha ha,  He is always helping us with investigators.

A lady named Marta we used to visit, but she never could go to church cause her husband is bed ridden went this Sunday. She went cause her husband died.  Sad, but she is taking it really well, so we will see what we can do there to help her.

This Sunday we had 8 investigators go to church.  That was really good.  We were excited.  I haven't ever had that many in church before.  We also had 63 members.  Some pretty good numbers.  The branch is doing really good right now.  That makes us pretty happy, ha ha.

The two older guys, Juan and Alberto and doing ok . Maybe a bit less. The problem we have is tithing. They don't want to have anything to do with tithing.  Whew!  Juan just doesn't want to believe that God would command us to give ten percent to a church, ha ha.  So for now we are struggling a bit with the whole tithing situation. We hope that the spirit can help him to understand. 

Our weekly stats were super good this week.  We had over 30 lessons with 8 new investigators and 8 in church.  Usually we have around 25 max in lessons.  But we destroyed that this week.  We are just teaching aloooot of people right now.  Its better that way.  Time just flies by.

So this week is transfer week.  I hope to stay in Tres Arroyos.  After a few months of good work we are seeing some really good results.  But who knows I've already been here for 6 months, ha ha.  I'm not sure that President will let me stay another one.  It would be great to see some of these people get baptized though...

Fransisco forgot about his baptismal interview... ha ha.  We went to his house and he wasn't home.  He went to work out in the country a bit on a small farm.  So we called him and he booked it back on his bike.  Some 10 miles, ha ha.  He had to be there, cause the Elders came form Nechochea.   Whew. Close call.  The baptismal water was freezing.  The water heater broke, or had very little flame so  it didn't heat much water...whew.  O well.

Well I hope you have a good little week.  I guess I'll hear from you soon.  I would love to see some pictures of the new house sometime, ha ha, if possible.  That would be cool.

Well that's all I got.

love ya 

Elder Obray

Letter Dated October 15, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Thanks for the email.  Sounds like things seem to be going pretty good back home there.  Our old house actually looks pretty good with a red Garage, ha ha.  Not to bad.

Sounds like you ll have a pretty interesting week moving and everything.  I Hope it all goes well.

We had a pretty good week this week.  Lots of things to do.

Julia, is progressing super well. We had a few good lessons.  We should know TODAY, when they are getting married.  They wanted to get married this week.  So if that happens we will have a baptism this week.  That would be fantastic.  So we are pretty happy with what is going on there.

Juan and Alberto, the two older guys are doing well as well.  They went to church and really enjoyed it.  They have read and prayed and felt the spirit.  So we are working towards baptism on the 27th of Oct.  If all goes well it will happen.  Really good guys.

Fransico should have gotten baptized this week, but he didn't go to church Sunday.  We have a lesson at 7 tonight with him, I guess we will see what happens.  He knows what he should do, but he is scared to do it.

Lucas dropped us, it was sad cause he was progressing really good.  He wouldn't tell us why either.  Said it was cause he didn't have time.  But we think otherwise.

We had zone conference on Friday.  That was really good.  We almost have 1000 baptisms in the mission.  If every companionship baptizes 3 before the end of the year we will get 1000.  That would be great.  It would be the best year in like 20 years or so.  I sent a picture of our zone.

We did service on Saturday for Ezekiel.  He has a Lot and tons of brick on it.  We helped him organize the brick for his house for a few hours. That was good.

Some bad news, one of the few Priesthood holders we have here died today at 6 in the morning.  He was hospitalized for internal blocking Wednesday and after the operation they didn't give him very long to live.  He was a good guy.  We went to his funeral.  They had it today.  They had it fast.

We had 5 investigators go to church, ha ha.  One was a surprise.  We passed by a less active member Saturday night, and while we were talking one of their family friends came in, so we talked a bit with her, and invited them all to go to church.  Well the surprise was they all came together.  When they walked in I almost went in shock. But it was good anyway.

We have lots of work to do here. But all in all the area is doing really good. 

Yesterday a group of 14 year olds called us over.  Which isn't really uncommon, ha ha.  Since they are bored and want to chat and laugh at something right?  Ha ha.  So we talked to them for a bit.  We had actually taught one of them and his mom before.  He really liked the messages but never went to church.  Invited all of them to church and to get baptized.  They said yes, and we fixed to pass by tomorrow.  I guess we will see what happens. Could be good.  Cause we really need some youth here.

Anyway that's more or less what happened over here this week.  Went pretty well.  And I think it will continue going pretty well. 

Anyway have a good week.  I Hope moving and such goes well.  I'm excited to be able to see the new house.

Love ya

Elder Obray 

Letter Dated October 8, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Sorry you didn't get the letter last week.  I'm not sure what happened.  Every time I tried to send one it just failed.  Some sort of strange problem. 

Anyway, we had the baptism of Fernando. I'm going to send the picture.  Went well.  I hope you get these.  I'm doing fine.

We had a pretty good week last week with the baptism.  And another pretty good week this week.  Honestly I don't have much time, but I'll tell you what I can.

On Tuesday we found two old guys, 70 years old the two of them.  Usually we teach older people and they just don't care, or they don't want to change cause they are old.  But these two were very interested to talk to us.  The 1st lesson we didn't teach the Restoration, we taught the 3rd or the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It went really well, they liked it.  Then the next time we passed by we taught the Restoration and the spirit was really strong.  They promised to read and pray, and go to General Conference.  And they did all of the 3.  That was pretty fantastic.  We were pretty excited.  They felt the spirit during the conference.  One of them told us, ¨the difference between you guys and the others, is that your not lying.¨  I thought that was pretty funny.  We talk to them tomorrow.  Should be good.

We had a really good lesson with Julia and Ezekiel. We started the lesson but Ezekiel had left cause he wanted to do something else I guess, so it was us and Julia and the grandpa.  But during the lesson we felt we had to talk to Ezekiel. 

We have been trying to get them married.  They want to, but Ezekiel wants to wait till like April.  Whew.  So we wanted to see if we could help him to see why its important to do it now.

So we called him back, and had a great lesson.  He felt the spirit and said that Julia could go get the date from the city for the marriage.  We were pretty stoked.  But worried as well cause they didn't go to conference.  We have a cita right now with them.  So that should be good.

Lucas, we are worried about.  He hasn't dropped us, but we couldn't have a single lesson and he didn't go to church..... we will see what happens this week.

Fransico is doing great. He went to conference and When Jeffery R. Holland was talking he couldn't break away. He was super absorbed.  Which is good, ha ha.  He really felt the spirit there.  We have a baptismal date for the 20th of October.  This one should happen.

Conference was great.  We start at 1 and then at 5, little different.  Kills most of out work day.  But its always good to hear the prophet and such.  I was pretty stoked to hear about change in missionaries.  That will be great.  I think they want more sisters to go, ha ha.  Which is great since they are better then the Elders, ha ha.

I hope Mitt Wins.  I think ill hear about it from someone here, ha ha.  I guess we will see

If you get pictures of our house you should send it to me and and new house as well.

Oh, and I have to start to collect information, the office sent me a paper that I have to fill out, but I forgot it at our house.  But its all our house phone and direction information.  Then as well the bishops name, stakes name, and that stuff, then where you want me to fly into.  So think about that stuff.

I won ice cream today.  A kid in our branch challenged me to a 100m race today for p-day.  Just so you know, ha ha.

Anyway I hope you get this email. 

Love ya,

Elder Obray

PS:  I haven't adopted another family yet, ha ha   ;)

PSS:   That's not going to happen by the way.  I'm not looking, ha ha.