February 20, 2017

Dear Family,

Well, once again we basically did the same thing as last week. Say it with me! "We contacted referrals." We finally got it down to about 35 uncontacted though. Then we got two more this morning but I think we're finally on top of them enough that we can get at the least the new ones contacted quickly enough.

This week we actually got to meet the guy from whom the lady was demanding chicken and who "was taking care of business downtown." Let me tell you, that situation makes even less sense now. They were just neighbors that do random favors for each other sometimes, including bringing each other chicken I guess. Anyway, we sat down with the guy to teach him and he ended up talking at us for about an hour and a half. He has a triple combination and says he believes it's all true but the problem is he's basically taught himself from it. He got a couple things right like a few things about Adam and Eve. The rest of it was weird, random theories. It's like he put our doctrine in a blender, drank it, and spat it all over us. It got weirder too. Some Sister missionaries called him in the middle of our lesson and he put it on speaker. He explained that he was currently meeting with missionaries and they sounded super confused. We assumed that they were calling from the referral center to follow up with him since they've been doing that a lot with our referrals. After the lesson we got the number so we could call and tell them how it went and apparently they were actually proselyting missionaries in Austin that received the exact same referral we did for a different city. The guy must have referred himself twice and not put the city in one of the times. It made for a very awkward conversation... but we got it sorted out.

We do have a couple of investigators who are beginning to progress a little more, neither of them from bible referrals. One is a lady who began investigating in New Mexico and recently moved here. She is a self-proclaimed free spirit which makes for some funny conversations sometimes. Right now we're working on getting her to commit to a baptism date and gain a more sure witness of the Book of Mormon. She keeps most of her commitments so it's going pretty well.

Our other investigator moved from Indonesia fifteen or twenty years ago. A friend of hers who happens to be in our Ward introduced her to the church a few weeks ago. She's sincerely seeking for truth right now so she is determined to figure out if the church is true. She's been reading the Book of Mormon pretty much whenever she has free time. Our goal with her is basically just to help her understand how to recognize the spirit so she can really get that answer.

Things are going relatively well so let's just hope that keeps going!

One thing I forgot to mention earlier was an interesting activity we did at a dinner this week. We were eating with an older couple and they set an extra place for an ancestor of our choice. We each went around the room and talked about who we would invite to the dinner. I thought of Grandma Wood at first of course but then I thought wait, what about Edward J. Wood? So I invited him and talked about his missions to Samoa a bit. I thought he'd enjoy a missionary dinner in Texas. He's also been an inspiration to me on my mission. I wish I could talk about my mission like he did but I'm not quite to that point yet. Maybe someday. I'm sure Grandma Wood came too, she doesn't need an invitation.

Love,
Elder O'Brien (the younger)