Letter Dated November 14, 2011

Dear Mom and Dad;

Thanks for the happy birthdays and the email.  I for sure had a pretty good birthday.  The people were great!

In truth, I don't know what the huge building are... There are 3 church building in Necochea. I know a hospital is close to one.  So that's possible. The other I've never actually seen.  And the other is in central. So lots of big building.....sorry I can't really help.

We don't see to many boats.  Mostly cause we aren't to close to the water usually.  But I have seen a few  big ones.  Just not up close.

Spanish is coming good.  I almost never speak English. Since my comp doesn't speak English.  My vocab lacks a bit.  But when we teach a lesson.  Facil.  I usually don't have any problems. Sometimes I lack a good description word, but I can work around that a bit. I would say I am doing alright I can understand most the things.  And talk pretty well.  I still have a pretty good Yankee accent, ha ha.  It's hard to lose that part.

So this week, really went alright. Not great.  Not terrible.  We had 55 people in church.  But no investigators.  Part of that was cause it was the primary program.  Which was great.  And of course we participated since the primary and the missionaries are pretty much equals right?  Ha ha, no, but it was fun.  The program went well.  The kids loved it.

Alan, the kid we baptized here, his mom had a baby Wednesday.  So we passed by and talked to them his name is Tiago. like Diego with a t.  And he likes to cry, ha ha. So that was pretty cool.

Oh yea I had an eye infection.  Nothing bad.  I can't remember what it was called.  But I got some medicine (which to be honest I don't trust, but that's just cause I have a hard time trusting anything in Argentina unless a church member says its good ha ha.  But it seems to be working.  It's just some eye drops.  I thought it was just allergies, but apparently a lot of people here have this infection, they say it's because of the ash.  Which is the blame for everything here, ha ha, its kinds funny.  Cause you can't see it very often.  But its there.  And sometimes in the morning there's a tiny bit on the ground. But it doesn't stay for long.

So we found two new investigators.  They stopped us in the street.  So we didn't find them the two new investigators found us. They were driving and apparently having an argument of some sort and pulled over (Still arguing) and said hey you two, you guys teach about God right. Yes.  Good come stop by our house sometimes.

So we got the address and passed by a few times, but they were never home.  Then por fin. Mericoloes we found them in there house.  We shared the first lesson and took out baptismal fechas with them, and we have the follow up cita today.  So we are going to see what happened to them.

We visited a Menos activo, Marta Cuello, Who lives some 35 blocks from the church (which is far) and she doesn't have much money and has like 7 kids. But she started to come back to church. So we are pretty stoked about that.

Juan, a kid in the branch that's preparing to leave for his mission, leaves with us every Wednesday right.  Well this last Wednesday he was acting weird. So oddly my companion had to go to the bathroom in the church.  Where we sat down and talked a bit. And found out he was just worried about his dad, since his dad stopped going to church a while back.  So we told him we would pass by his dad later that week.  When we passed by we talked to him, and he is really smart. He knows just as much as I do about the church. Since I am oh so smart , ha ha no chiste (joke).  Anyway we are now a bit worried ourselves since he wants to get revenge on a guy who fired him from his work.... And well try as we might we couldn't find anyway to help him think about what he wants to do.  He is a but stubborn and wont even say a pray or read (which he used to love to do)... so we were a bit lost.

And for my birthday.  Well 1st we had the primary presentation. Then we had an surprise lunch.  We went to visit a menos activo after church and he was cooking an asado (an Argentina barbecue but it has like....hmmm steak and sausages and lots of stuff.  Really good.  So we ended up eating with him. Then that night. The president de Rama, President  Llanos, invited us to eat at his house. So we went. and his sons Diego and Pablo were there.  It was a huge party.  With another asado with french fries. Way Good. So we at least ate good, ha ha. Then Diego and his wife Ana gave me a gift. A very good gift for summer they said. They gave me some deodorant, ha ha.  Which was great.  Ana and Diego both served mission in pretty hot places, so they know, that after an hour in the sun, you gotta go home and take another shower, ha ha.  Anyway so that was pretty good.

And we got new, news from the President.  Apparently they had a meeting with, some high ranking church officials like Elder Christofferson and such.  And they said that missionaries need to stay in areas longer.  So now.  Instead of being in an area for 4 months as a normal. its going to be 6 to 9 months.  So 4 to 6 translados in every area! THAT'S a TON of time. Seeing as for me 1 transfer in Monolito, 2 in Mar del, 3 in Punta Magotes, and I have 2 in QueQuen so far. So now I am almost assured 1 or 2 more transfers in QueQuen.  Whew.  It's interesting.

Anyway that's pretty much all the news I got.  I think I wrote a lot today.  So enjoy, ha ha. I didn't take any pictures today so. Sorry, ha ha. We will go exploring in the next lunes.

Yea I feel a bit bad for Aaron. I don't know much about his mission or Chile in general.  Besides they have like twice as many members as Argentina.  We have like 350,000 they como 800,000.  But I'm sure in a lot of ways the people are similar.  Which means difficult and very closed minded.  Especially the older people.  The young couples or the teenagers are more open, but they usually just want to know what it's like in the states or for my comp Mexico, and hear a little English. They usually don't have interest, ha ha. The best days are the days when you knock doors all day and don't get into a single house or anything.  I'm sure that's happened to him a few times by now.  And it's always a bit depressing.  But that's when you sit down, drink some chocolate milk, eat an Alfajore, and crack some jokes, ha ha. Then go on.

Anyway I'm doing good.  Just working.  Don't need to worry bout me, ha ha.  Enjoy your week. Hey, you should send me some pictures of some legos things I've built, my comp doesn't believe that I build things with legos.  He thinks there for little kids and I know there for fully grown children, like me, ha ha. That would be great.

Disfruta su semana.

Love Elder Obray

Letter Dated November 7, 2011

Dear Mom and Dad;

Thanks for the Email.

Mike's church building in QueQuen

Yea, Argentina doesn't do daylight savings. So that's not much of a problem here, ha ha.

This week was pretty interesting. It was warm most the week, which was nice since I suffered 2 winters in  row, ha ha.

We started doing a new thing, well its not really new, but I hadn't done it before, ha ha. So new for me. We set up a cita with a member, go to their house, share a quick lesson, then do a reference activity. It works pretty well, we had some decent success from it.

Friday we had a mission activity that we planned, it was a pizza party. Went super well. We had more menos activo and investigators then members. We even had a few people we didn't know go. So we are pretty excited about that.

The best thing about it is the members loved seeing all the people, and some of them were asking us when the next one was going to be. We hope to find lots more investigators through these activities.

In church yesterday we didn't have any investigators, but 13 menos activos went so we did have some success. We had 42 people in church which was a surprise! That's a good number for our little branch.

I don't know if you remember Marcelo y Cecilia, but he finally came back from work in Tandil, so we had a small lesson with them that went well.

We visited Beatrice and Angel Sunday night, unfortunately we didn't have a ton of time to talk. But Beatrice who now has a whole year in the church has been talking to him a lot more then is usual. Sunday during fast and testimony she got up and bore her testimony and said that her desire is to see her husband and kids sealed.  And she is doing lots to see that happen.  Angel was a lot more thoughtful.  But he still hasn't quite made the decision. But when he does he will be a really good member. He did say that he will go to church. So we thinks that he is starting to change little by little.

I sent some picture of the church.  I don't think I sent pictures of the churches in Argentina before. This is before the district conference so its super clean and nice. But really in comparison to our church back home its pretty small, ha ha.

 

You can see pretty much the whole church from the inside you have the church part. Then the foyer which separates the church from the long hallway. Then the hallway with the classes.

Thursday it rained really hard. It was terrible, we were in a lesson when it started.  And we left while it was pouring. We ran home (it was at night) but it didn't help. We were SOAKED. Fun stuff.

Well I was a bit sad that Braeden and Brandon haven't gone out yet.  And that Tyler had to go home for a bit, but its good Tyler wants to go back out. That would be really hard, a lot that go home don't come back. But as long as he goes back out its all good. David Titus the kid from my high school that is suppose to be in my mission had to go home for surgery. And I have no idea if he has come back yet. I hope so. It would be cool to see someone from home, ha ha.

I have been using my glasses this week. There is a lot of ash, and allergies in the air, and honestly I can't even use the contact at all without my eyes bothering me a ton.

Well thanks for sending the birthday money I'll try to find some socks here. Hopefully they have something, ha ha. I'll look next Monday probably. More then that I don't really need anything. Well eventually I'll have to do something about the shoes. My shoes are slowly starting to die. Almost 10 months of strait walking isn't super good on shoes. I don't know what will be better to do. Send you the picture of my shoes and send me the replacements or buy some. My companion already destroyed his shoes and he only has a few  months, the problem is, there are no nice walking shoes in Argentina....

anyway.  


Thanks for the thoughts and scriptures Dad, I wrote them down, and will study them probably tomorrow for my study time.

Enjoy your week. Tell Emma I say hey. Ok? ha ha. You can tell Abby to, but she doesn't have any idea who I am.

Love ya

Elder Obray

Letter Dated October 31, 2011

Dear Mom and Dad;

Yea, I just realized today was Halloween. I forgot, ha ha. Since they don't celebrate it here. O well. Maybe I'll go buy a treat.

Well sounds like you  guys all had a pretty good week. Which is good.

We didn't have the best week when it came to  lessons and such this week. But people actually went to church which was nice. We had 4 investigators and 6 menos activos.

The investigators are:

Adriana - she is an investigator since she isn't married and living with a guy but wants to get baptized.  I think I told you about her earlier.

Mama y papa of a menos activo named Maria Rosa, the dad is difficult, he is  very shy and closed, A  member went and mowed his lawn for him one time, so he will actually listen to us and went to church. The mom honestly, is hard to say . She loves the church. but she is not all there, bit crazy.  But whatever they came to church.

Angel, the husband of a strong member named Beatrice. We have tried to get a fecha and teach him, but he is difficult because he doesn't really have much desire to make a covenant  with God.  He is a smart guy, and when he is  baptized he will  be a great  member. But now he is just difficult. He wont read or pray cause well I think he knows that he will get  an answer and he thinks he's not ready.

So that's where we are at with the investigators that went to church. We had District Conference. And a area 70 Elder Patanias came and spoke and it was really good. Great week for investigators to go to church.   Everyone who went felt the spirit. Angel said he felt a twitch in his heart, ha ha. But the thing with him is he thinks its just emotions, not the spirit, and he cant tell. We tried to explain. But it's a bit difficult to explain the spirit in a way for him to understand, ha ha.  I think if he would read and pray he would learn.

We did a lot of service for members, we cleaned the church (the district conference was in our building) and we  cut the lawn (huge challenge) of a investigator. So we had a pretty decent week.

Beach in Quequen

We had a member cut our hair today. Unfortunately we didn't go anywhere cool. We washed clothes, by hand, ugh.

Ah yea, we met a menos activo, that has a way good testimony of the gospel. He's like 25, has a wife and kid. And He doesn't want to go to church ha ha, but he want his wife and kid to go, ha ha, interesting.

And Domingo after the conference, me and my companion were invited to eat lunch with Elder Patanias and all the branch presidents.  So we went. Ate pretty good, but its kinda intimidating to be surrounded by all the high ranking officials ha ha. It was cool though.

Beach in Quequen

I can't think of much more that happened this week. Hopefully things continue to go good for all of us.

You should check and see if Braeden Hill, or Brandon Harrington have there mission calls. Almost all my good friends are gone...

Love ya

Elder Obray

Letter Dated October 24, 2011

Dear Mom and Dad;

Well. Glad to hear that things went well this last week with Nate's wedding and everything! Sounds like a pretty busy week.

And I was stoked to hear Sammy finally got his call! He is going to a crazy place. Should be pretty fun for him. He will probably enter the MTC when I hit my year mark in January. But who knows. Cool.

Of the pictures I sent this week. One is the outside of the house, then the driveway from the street, then the street we live on. The nicest street in the city. Most aren't like that. Then we went to the beach of QueQuen today. Which was pretty legit and I got a few pictures of things there, ha ha.

We had an interesting week. Elder Parra a Chilean who lived in my house in Mar Del Plata is in Nicochea so got to see him again which was nice.

I cooked home made french fries this week. Actually were pretty good, ha ha.

And my comp ate his first Asado or Argentina barbeque which is good, but some of the stuff they eat doesn't taste so great, ha ha.

We had 6 menos activos come to church Sunday which was good. And 40 people, which is good in comparison to the normal 20 to 30, ha ha. (The weather was nice.)

We had a cool experience though, when we went to teach a menos activo girl and her husband who has very little interest, we got into the house, yaaaa. And it had probably 8 people, 3 Menos Activos, 3 smallish children and 2 people we didn't know and we were teaching in a really small house.  We had to stand and teach (really strange). But everyone could feel the spirit. And well lets just say we got several new investigators and citas from the lesson so we were pretty excited.

This is a boat

We had 2 other similar lessons this week. There is one family where the children are baptized and the mom is active but not baptized. and the dad doesn't care. And since they aren't married she cannot get baptized. We happened to walk into the house when they were having, uhh discussion, and we taught. And the husband came to church AFTER it was over, ha ha.

Unfortunately we had to drop a bunch of people this week. But o well.

I had some allergies this week. So I bought some pills that helped. Not sure what its from. Cause my companion was a bit sick, then there's ash in the air from a volcano or something that's causing problems for lots of people. Then its spring. So yea. But I am alright.

Yea you can just email Nate's pictures. There's a place to print here. Or the other way. Doesn't matter to much.

I can't think of anything else awesome that happened.

Love ya

Elder Obray

Letter Dated October 17, 2011

Dear Mom and Dad;

Thanks for your emails. Sounds like things are going good at home. Which makes me happy. Good old Nate is getting married this week. That's good for him ha ha.

This week was a decent week.

When it comes to investigators it went mas o menos. We didn't have a ton of success. We never got to see Nestor. And we didn't really find anyone. Well we did find a girl, who listened to the first lesson, but we couldn't say any prayers. Kinda a weird situation. But she said she would go to church and didn't show up, ha ha (which is fairly common).

The good things that did happen. We had 3 menos activos at church yaaaaaa! that was pretty good.  One lady hadn't gone to church in 3 weeks, and we passed by her house. Her husband is a super active member. She told us she wasn't going to go to church anymore, We set up a cita to visit with them both. And she wouldn't talk to us during the cita. So we talked to the Hermano, got some ideas of things we could do. And long story short. She went to church, so we were happy.

We had an activity on Saturday, Which was cool. It was for the whole district for 50 years of the church being in Necochea.

So for the activity we opened the church up to the public from 6 to 9 and passed out invitations. Not a ton of people came. But someone from Nechochea central brought someone from QueQuen, So we were happy. We talked to them and got their address. And fixed a cita, but they can only have citas on Saturday.

So that was pretty cool. Oh and Sunday was mothers day in Argentina. So happy mothers day yesterday from Argentina. I think I sent the pictures of the cake we made that says Feliz dia de Madre, ha ha. Hope you like it.

Lets see what else happened. We had a decent amount of lessons. And I really think this next week we will have success. So I guess we will see, ha ha.

Oh and I haven't met sister Iraeslson...Or I don't think I have....hmmm. Well when I left Mar Del Plata there were 4 new sisters going in. So she was probably one of them. But I only met 2 of those sisters and I cant remember there names but I don't think it was her.

Hey, I hit 9 months this week too.

Oh I did forget someone else. We visited a menos actovo and her family is not baptized, and they said we could pass by and teach them the lessons. So we have a cita this week with them, we hope it goes good.

Anyway enjoy your week.

Love Elder Obray

Letter Dated October 10, 2011

Dear Mom and Dad;

Well I'm glad thing at home are still good. Seems like a pretty normal week for you guys, ha ha. Which is pretty good.

Elder Stewart and a family from Mike's last area

This was a pretty interesting week. The weather was actually pretty bad. Pretty rainy and cold all week. My poor companion from Mexico was dying from the cold.  But he made it and now, at least today was pretty decent

This week started out pretty bad for us, we didn't find anyone, Marcelo and Cecilia will be in a city called Tandil for a month. And this was bad news, and it didn't get much better till Friday.

Friday we found a young man, like 23, called Nestor. We were visiting a Menos Activo and he happened to be in the house. And we started to talk to him tactfully (since people are legitimately scared of missionaries) fortunately when I asked if he was interested in religion he said yes. So we pounced, ha ha, and he listened to the first lesson and everything. We took our a fecha, which is a surprise. Then we left and we set a time to come back the next day, to visit with him and the menos activo. But he never showed up and he had left his Book of Mormon in the menos activos house. So we were saddened. But we found his house and talked to him (and he said something came up and he couldn't come) so we fixed a cita for Tuesday which is tomorrow so we shall see.

Then we had two good lessons with menos activo families. Man, I tell you what. Every family the wife and kids want to come back, but the dads are lazzzzzy, ha ha. (In the mission they are called Bago Pa´s which means lazy dads in Argentine Spanish.) In seriously every menos activo family we have its the same kind of problem. One of them legitimately said this¨I know I need to go to church I have a testimony and I know this is the only true  church, but I'm lazy. But I know I'll come back someday,¨ ha ha.  We got a bit frustrated. We have a cita tonight with that guy. One of the other families the dad got offended because he didn't get a church calling after a few years. Which is impossible here since there aren't any members unless he had some sort of problem...I guess we will see.

Sunday was a weird day for us. We spent the entire day searching for people to teach, ha ha. Well we walked out our door and a car stopped and a couple were arguing about religion, and somehow we managed to get a cita with them tonight and come to there house. Hope that goes well. Then we got into a house of a teenage kid who told us he had NO interest in religion, ha ha. But we taught and we Know he felt the spirit. and we have an invitation to come back, but his schedule is crazy since he is a soccer player, ha ha.

Then we were walking down one street and we decided to knock a door with cracked windows and a broken door. Humility right? Well turns out they were a menos activo family. And there house literally exploded (from gas fire) and their lives were miraculously saved. And the hermano was a ward mission leader. They loved to talk to us (the family is crazy a bit ha ha) we didn't get much chance to share cause they don't have a whole ton of interest. But they invited us to eat dinner with them Saturday night, ha ha. And we left there house at almost 9, which is when we are suppose to be home, and the hermano was soooo worried about us he called us and sent us a message to see if we were alright, ha ha. I thought it was funny. But anyway. We had some interesting stuff happen this week. 

And in our mission there is a senior missionary couple and they visited our branch. They are really cool. The poor sister was trying to learn Spanish I felt bad for her cause its not easy. But she did really good. Tell you what, talking to senior missionaries is awesome. They help make life for us missionaries a lot better. Its kinda (as in the way they talk) like having another mission president.

We did have a bit of success with  a menos activo, named Oscar Lopez, who came to church. Which was good. I was pretty happy somebody came. Everybody else bailed on us ha ha.

Anyway I am going good. I sent a few pictures of people in my last barrio. So I hope you enjoy them.

Hope things continue to go good. We have transfers this week. But I am almost 100% positive we will both stay.

Argentina has elections in the end of October.....should be interesting....I've heard we can't leave our houses that day, ha ha.

Anyway, love ya, enjoy your week.

Elder Obray.

P.S.  I get a wedding picture of Nate and his girl right? That would be cool. Since I can't remember what she looks like ha ha...am I bad...I forgot what she looked like. Black hair?  Maybe, pretty sure it wasn't blonde.....anyway that would be cool thanks.

Letter Dated October 3, 2011

Dear Mom and Dad; 

Taken from last area in Mar Del Plata

It was just me and my comp who played soccer. But it was fun ha ha.

So this last week was pretty good.

We did not have tons of time to go out and teach. Or at least it felt that way since we had general conference. For conference we went to a church in the central part of the city and we were there all day Saturday and Sunday. So that was good. It was pretty fun. Conference is just like Christmas for missionaries, ha ha. Its a bit strange I would say.

We did get to listen to all but the priesthood session in English. Which is good. But it doesn't matter to much for me, I can pretty much understand Spanish 100% when talking about the gospel.

The talks were really good this time, I picked up some good stuff. Conference is so much better on the mission.

We didn't really find to many new investigators, by that I mean 1. But we have started working on the menos activos in our branch a lot. The members actually want to help with that, so I think it will go really good. I guess we will see.

I really don't have much news on investigators or anything. We really are struggling to find and keep them. We can get into houses for 2 or 3 lessons then they don't want more :( kinda sad for them. But nothing we can do about that really...

We went and taught Alan, our baptism, this week a bit more, we met Flia Alberta who is menos activo. Taught Marcelo y Celcilia twice this week, We are trying to get him started on his divorce papers.

We went into a menos activio house, her name is Maria, and her mom was there, her mom isn't baptized.  So she is a new investigator. 

Really I'm stuggling to think of awesome things that happened and I cant ha ha. Besides conference. 

But the week went decently well, ha ha.
 

Take from Mike's last area in Mar Del Plata

I can't even think of any stories. How dull... haha. sorry. 
 

Which is weird since we are really busy, ha ha.  We almost went fishing for P-day today. But we didn't. :( oh well.

Anyway I hope to have more to say next week. 

Glad to hear you guys are all doing good. Nate going to be married in a month, huh, weird.

Love Elder Obray