Letter Dated January 23, 2012

Dear Mom & Dad;

Thanks for your email.  Sounds like you guys had a interesting week.

well I had an email being sent....but it died....so I'll have to explain things faster.  Sorry.

I am sorry that so much stuff happened at the house, makes life a bit harder, maybe more exciting, ha ha, but harder.  Hope you like Texas.

Ok so, Castex is super Catholic.  Which would be my 1st area of super Catholics.  There are other churches here, but the Catholics are strong.  Kinda interesting.  Castex is like half the size of Quequen.

My Companion is great. He speaks Spanish pretty well.  Lacks a bit, but he is still pretty new.  And he has a desire to work so that's good.

We did have some success this week.  I'm just going to tell about one guy.  Yessib, he has read a lot of the Book of Mormon and says he is praying, but he still wont do a pray with us, or attend church.  But we got a baptism date with him.  We hope he decides to go through with it.  He is studing and such. And he has a desire to know.  He just has to do a bit more.

Most of the rest of the investigators are in the same spot. We found a few more new ones and just taught Lesson 1 a ton.

We did tons of contacts though, ha ha.  It's fun to watch the people try to avoid us.  But there is no escape from two young missionaries.  What can they do, but listen right?  Right,

So yea I'm sorry that I can't write a ton.  I don't know what happened to the other email.

So Mykal Thompson wrote me.   HUGE surprise.  I thought about writing to him, but I didn't think he would reply.

I am Glad Paige is finally getting married.  I expected to hear that like months ago. So that's really good for her.

Yea just tell me when Tyler and Bracken leave and where they are going.

We have some super great members here who are helping us out a ton.  It's great to get some help.

Right now in the mission we are focusing on finding 2 new investigators everyday.  So we are trying really hard. We only got 7 last week. This week we will get the 14.

Anyway.  I'll write more next week (I feel like i say that a lot).

Love ya

Elder Obray

Letter dated January 16, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Glad your week went pretty well.

My week was pretty crazy with a new area and everything. But it was good as well.

For the house I'm in, I don't have a number but its on the corner of the streets Martin Guemes and  Estansil Zeballos so you should be able to narrow it down a lot, ha ha. Our house is actually a house its not a small apartment.  Probably the nicest mission house I've seen. The only thing it really lacks is drinking water, the water here kills people....so we buy water .

I sent some pictures of QueQuen.

Okay, so here are some more pictures. Next email I will write more. I just finished writing the President.

Ok so  the last pictures were more of Quequen, and then we found some knight armor in the church that was cool.

Then some  more of Quequen, me and my kid, then Martin and Noelia Garcia (we ate lunch every Thursday with them) and then Geramias,  A really good kid we would spend some time on P-day with him every once in a  while.  Oh and Adriana and Carlos and their family is a picture as well.          

So in Castex I was hoping to get here and have some way good investigators. And well we didn't have a lot. A   few people to pass by, but we didn't have a ton of luck.

We have Neli, who is someone we found. She has like 70 years. Really nice, but really Catholic, ha ha.  We had 3 Charles with her this last week. And she reads the Book of Mormon, but she is really stuck in the whole I'm  catholic, I don't go to church, and maybe I've done a few bad things in my life, but I'm saved anyway.  So we taught lesson 1, importance of the Book of  Mormon, and Lesson 2.  She reads the Book of Mormon a lot. She likes it.  We invited her to go to church but she couldn't cause  her family was coming to visit her.   But she said she wanted to go.  Which was impressive.  So we will see what happens.

We also found a guy Anabal Raul Garcia. He was really humble.  He can't really walk though. Which is a problem with the whole going to church situation. So yea.

Then Yessib.  He is from Colombia.  He has read the 1st 11 chapters of the Book of Mormon.  Which is good right.  He does have a problem with the whole Nephi killing Laban thing.  But we talked about what is really important, if the book is true or not.  So we talked about how he could know.  I think it went over pretty well. Guess we will see.

And then Enrique.  He cant hear to well.  And he wont take a baptismal date yet. He is a bit difficult. But he said    he would pray about whether he needs to get baptized or not.

Those are the main people we are teaching right now.

We went out with a member, Domingo. The guy is Great. He introduced us as we were walking to citas to people he knows. We  probably got like 4 citas with other people for this week cause of him. Was  perfect.   

We actually have a barrio here, but they meet in a house. They need 60 activos to have their own building.  And we have 34.  They have a great goal of 60 activos by the end of the year.  So we hope that works out.

Ok. So that's what going on. Oh and the Siesta. Or Argentine sleep time from 2 to 5 is terrible here.  EVERYONE sleeps... ha ha, but us. 
 
So we are the only Missionaries here. Our District is in General Pico. A bit North. There are 4 elders there and that's a 6 man district
 
Glad to hear David Titus will probably go back out. That will be good. I'll just hope it's to this mission.  But who knows if he came out here if I would see him now.  It's probable I'll only get 1 more area.

Anyway, I'm  doing good. Its just boiling lava hot that's all.  The people here are pretty good. Oh and yea  they do have  a  giant coo coo bird thing.  But I don't know if it works.

 Have a  good week. 

Love Elder Obray

Letter Dated January 10, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Well I'm sorry I didn't write yesterday.  You see, we didn't have any electricity.  It's kind of hard to write an email without electricity. So I am writing a bit to tell you whats been going on.

        1st. We had transfers and I got kicked out of  Quequen. 

        2nd. So I am actually writing you from a different place.

I'm  in a placed called Castex (I think the map will say Eduado Castex, and I don't know how to spell it.)  its in the Pampa.  Like and hour north of the big city Santa Rosa.  It's a small little town of like 10,000 people.  But it's a really nice city.

No I don't yet  know where my house is.  I'll try and  remember next time.

So I have a lot of pictures of Quequen to send home, unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to write you today.

My companion named is Elder Stutz from South Jordan, Utah.  He has 2 transfers.  And Elder Flamm (who was in my district in the MTC) trained him.  And I just replaced Elder Flamm here.  He doesn't speak much Spanish so should be fun.

These last pictures were things that happened just right after we found out I was leaving.  We started to say good bye to people and clean up the house and pack and such.

So yea, that's pretty much what happened Friday through Monday with transfers.

I was on a bus to get to Castex for like 16 hours.  Ugh.

Elder Arriaga has a new companion named Elder Retana from Costa Rica.

So in these pictures you got a bird we found.  Poor guy couldn't fly.  Then Maria Rosa and her Parents Estela and Florentino.

Then some calles.  Picture 6326; in the middle is the house of flia Marteinez.  They weren't home to    get a picture of them.

Then some streets.  Then the house of Flia Fernandez.  Some menos activos.  We never activated them, but someday they will go, ha ha.

These pictures you can see flia Fernandez and their kid, Marcos, in the wheelchair.  Good family.

Then I got some pictures of Quequen so you can see it a bit.

Oh and its boiling lava hot in the Pom pa.  Monday I just about died of heat, ha ha.

Ok, well this is the last that you will get this time.  Enjoy I'll write more next time.  

Love ya.

Elder Obray

 

 

Letter Dated January 2, 2012

Dear Mom and Dad;

Christmas present from the Mission President

Happy New Year!!  Hope you guys had a good one!  Sounds like you all started off pretty good.  I can't say new years was much for us.  We bought some food to eat, and a expensive (well like 3 dollars so not really) kind of pop.  And we went to bed at 10:30 like normal, ha ha, but the fireworks woke us up at 12:00 ha ha, someone close to us had really loud one, ha ha.

I hope my shoe pictures work ha ha, I glued my shoes so they will hold up for a while longer so I can't take anymore.

Yea, Elder Sullivan went home in....October I think, a long time ago, ha ha.

Winning first place in Volley Ball Tourament

Good to hear everyone in Utah is doing well.  Weird to think Scott and Holly are going to Graduate from High School! They are old now, ha ha.  If Scott goes to a full year of College I'll be able to see him before he goes. That will be nice for me.

OK, so this week we had a bit of success.

First off, well actually its a bit of bad news really, two of our investigators Estela and Floretino wont get married to get baptized for several more months. We were a bit disappointed, but they are fixing their house up a bit.  So they don't have enough money.  They don't have any really.

We found and taught a lady called Carmen, she didn't really care about our message, but the other day we went back to her house, and she wasn't home, but here son was, and we taught him a bit. Then his mom came home, ha ha and she wasn't too happy that he was talking to us, she wasn't rude, but she said that her husband was going to be home soon and he hates missionaries and kicked us out of the house ha ha. So we are going to pass by in a bit and see what happens.

We found two more Niko and Marialisa. We were knocking doors when the son Niko invited us in we started to teach him, when his mom Marialia came home.  Kinda the same as Carmen but nicer, she didn't like that her son was talking to us, but she didn't kick us out. The problem is this, she is Evangelical and active, the good is she is a new convert to their church.  We have a cita with them tonight, we will see how that goes.  I have a little fear that she will invite the preacher of her church....wont be the 1st time that has happened.  They just like to fight us.... o well.  I guess we will see.

Next we went and visited Alejandro (he is a kid we visited a few months ago, his mom name is Monica) He was really nice.  We dropped him cause he and his mom didn't have time for us, and he was to busy drinking and smoking marijuana.  So, we passed by and he said he was tired of these things and was willing to stop.  One thing at a time.  1st the Cigarettes.  So by the end of this week he promised to have stopped.  I think he will.  He knows they are bad for him.

Then we were just walking down the street and a kid of 16 years said a full sentence to me in English, which is really weird.  So I turned around and started to talk to him.  He is called Max, he like to learn English, pretty smart kid, and his friend Santiago.  We probably talked for 15 minutes and him and his friend are going to meet with us in the church (we can't go to there homes cause the parents are Catholic and Evangelist's and don't like us ha ha).  So we got their phone numbers and are going to call and remind them of the cita.  Hope it goes good.

Also this week a guy on a motorbike stopped and tried to rob us, he wasn't very good at it.  He first asked us for a few pesos to buy something.  We said no.  Then he said if we don't he will have to pat us down and rob us.  We actually didn't have anything.  So we told him we really don't have anything, Then he just drove off.....

We also ran into a Guy from the States.  Who served a mission in Cordoba, Argentina.  He was visiting his mission and some of his converts.  Really nice guy, he said he would take us to dinner, but he had to hurry to Mar Del Plata, so he gave us some money to buy something, ha ha.  He is from Texas, his name is Ed Shinedling and he has his own dental business called ¨Dental Implant Surgery Center.

It was fun to talk to him and his family.  He speaks really good Spanish still.

Anyway that's about all I got for you all this week.  Enjoy your week and start the new year good! ha ha.

Love ya

Elder Obray