Well I'm Here!

Hey family!

Well as you might have guessed. I'm here! I'm in Canada! Wow how crazy is that?! I have so much to tell you I don't know where to start! Alright well here it goes...

First day was crazy. It was fun to fly over with 33 other missionaries. We all took a bus from the airport and then stayed overnight at a hotel. We had interviews with the mission president and training and all that. It was so neat to be part of such a large group! It was pretty crazy! And it was so hard to wait for my assignment.

I love love LOVE my companion. She is from Canada. (There are a lot of Canadian missionaries) She has only been out in the field for 5 weeks. I don't know how she does it but she has been super duper patient with me in showing me the ropes. Even better she plays rugby and...wait for it...BASKETBALL! Woohooo!!! So we've been doing good working out every morning and now I have a buddy to go play basketball. It's great! And she is really really athletic, probably more than me.

So we are in (town) right now. I think it's been fun because it's like the states...but then in a sense it's not. It seems like a city to me (and I guess it is but I think it seems so much more city like because I have lived in rural Hawaii and Utah). We live in an apartment and it's pretty fun. We have a HUGE area...we also cover nearby towns (*). So we drive around a lot. Unfortunately, my poor comp doesn't know the area well at all because she is new too and so we've gotten really really lost a couple of times. I've been learning how to use the map. (the wrong way!) But we are getting a GPS this week so that is a relief.

Anyways, it has been a hard couple of days. Dad, you are right, this is the longest week of my life! I've had some great spiritual experiences, but I've also had some hard times. I remember the day I arrived, we started to talk to people on the street and I kept on thinking to myself "what am I doing?!" As you know talking to people isn't a strength of mine so I've had to stretch myself a little bit. We've done a ton of tracting and talking to people...I still get super nervous but I feel like I'm slowly doing better. I just really really wanna say the right thing and so when someone answers the door I get super nervous and sometimes stutter or say something stupid. But the last couple of personal studies, God has kept reminding me that it's not about me or how intelligent I sound. It's about the investigator. So I'm trying to focus more on the investigator and the person I talk to instead of me. I'm hoping though as I talk to more people it will come more naturally to me. . I've taught a couple of spiritual thoughts to members and one investigator, but other than that I haven't been really teaching so I feel very very inadequate.

Yesterday I went to church and I love our ward. I bore my testimony which was fun. The ward members are very supportive of the missionaries. The ward mission leader is amazing. So I do feel a lot of support from the members. The members also feed us a lot and we go to a lot of dinners. So that's really great and the people are super nice here.

Other things that I like about Canada: well I have been corrupted by their junk food. They have ketchup chips, all season chips and just really good chips. Also their CHOCOLATE BARS ARE AMAZING!!!! Yum yum yum :) So I've been splurging a little bit. haha And there are a LOT of different people from everywhere here. It reminds me a lot of the diversity I loved back in Hawaii. I've met people from Ireland, Scotland, Lebanon, Italy, the Phillipines, Syria, etc. It's awesome! Oh and by the way...we don't have a fridge today. Last night we came home and there was a horrible smell. Yeah the fridge and freezers combustion engine decided to shut down. :( But that's okay! We are going to have it fixed. But it was reallly fun trying to throw away all the food. haha.

I've felt God's help a lot this week. I've definately felt sad, inadequate, small, and very far from becoming a good missionary. But every time I've felt this way and prayed, the Lord has helped me push through. I hope that continually I can push through and become better. And I hope that this week I'll have more investigators to teach hopefully!

Sister Ogden