And the Learning Curve Continues...

Man, wasn't Mothers Day the best?! It was so great to see you all. Even though last week was a tough one once I saw your faces on skype those burdens just went all away. I love you so much! It was so great to see everyone. Later last night we had some lobster! MMMMMMMMM (jealous?) It was super yummy. I don't think I've had lobster tail before but it was so good.

Okay so this last week...well just a lot of our investigators have hit some road blocks. But I think that that means that this week is going to be amazing and something good is going to happen.

We had a new investigator last week. He was very interested in what we had to say. We met him at the church with the bishop. The bishop is really spearheading everything with him but he is doing well. He is a really nice guy. He already started reading the Book of Mormon! Hopefully he will come to church next week. This week we are teaching another investigator the gospel of Jesus Christ so it should be good. A lot of things to look forward to this week.

I have learned so much the last couple of days. First of all, I have learned a lot about God's atonement. Sometimes I think I have failed as a missionary...I'm not a good studier, speaker, etc. But my comp taught me the other day how there is no such thing as a failure/bad missionary (unless they like break all the rules or purposely try to be one). Recently I have focused on everything I need to do to become a missionary. I forgot though that I already am a missionary. Ever since I was set apart I became a missionary. Also I reread my favorite scripture Hel 5:12...but I learned something new. If you read it closely, it talks about how Christ is the one who prevents us from being sucked away from the storm. Right now, Christ is holding us up from falling into despair and hell. He is our rock. I've definitely felt lately that He is the one that's keeping me grounded especially when Satan's storms try to bring me down. It's been awesome to witness how Christ will not let us fall. Another thing I learned is that sometimes I set too high of expectations for myself. I expect myself to be perfect, amazing, etc. And then I set too low of expectations for God. We need to have faith that God can do anything and will help us and anything is possible with Him.  Make sense?

Love All, Serve All

It is now summer. There is no such thing as Spring here. It is getting hot, and I mean HOT. I love the sunshine though. It is so fun to now go talk to people because now there's a ton of people outside and I'm not freezing my tail off anymore.

First of all, the exchange went really really well. I went over to another city to be with another trainer, and her trainee came here to be with my comp. Wednesday night I left and I didn't reunite with my companion until Saturday morning. Crazy I know! But the exchange was so fun. The trainer taught me a lot and it was good to really get absorbed in the work. Thursday we tracted and walked pretty much for 6 hrs. Hahaha. We talked and talked and talked to people. It was really fun and it helped me a lot. Here's a lesson for ya: the more people you talk to the more comfortable you are. I swear we talked to at least 30 people. This one lady we talked to just came up to us and gave us a hug. I was pretty startled. We took a bus and tried to do some bus contacting...but that was kinda hard and I was WAY out of practice. It got kinda awkward at times. We taught someone the first lesson of the restoration. For me, I was kinda scared, especially because I didn't know her AT ALL. After the lesson I was pretty disappointed in myself for being kinda nervous.

The next day, we had a car. So we went and served a woman who is trying to come back to church. We helped her with her garden for a couple hours. So I learned some wicked gardening skills. It was pretty fun. Then we had some appointments. But the highlight of the night was teaching their investigator. He is married to a member and it was so fun to work with him. I still was kinda nervous, but guess what? I invited him to be baptized! :) I still contributed to the lesson even though I didn't know him. It was a great learning experience and I ended up really taking a liking to this guy. It goes to show you can love ANYONE and desire their salvation, even if you don't necessarily know them that much.

So yeah, the exchange was great. I also learned about choosing. I told the trainer my confidence was kinda low...she straight up told me a few things. First she asked me, "What kind of a missionary are you going to choose to be?" We talked about how it is up to me to choose who I can become. I can choose to be scared and shy. And so I've made up my mind. I'm choosing and working towards becoming a confident, proactive missionary that has the spirit of the Lord. My attitude adjustment has made a big difference!!!! Sure I still make so many (maybe even more) mistakes, but I'm learning and it's been more fun. She also told me at one time, "Sister Ogden, missions are SUPPOSED to be uncomfortable. If you don't feel like you are going out of your comfort zone you are doing something wrong." It opened up my eyes a bit.

We saw one of our investigators last week before the exchange and had a great lesson with her. The spirit was strong and we talked to her about keeping the commandments. We are going over to her house tomorrow and we are going to be serving her so hopefully we can figure out what she needs.
Tomorrow, we are meeting a man who requested a missionary visit through mormon.org and he is "looking for someone who knows about God..." I'm pretty stoked! The bishop is going to be teaching with us.

Yesterday at church we were sitting down at fast and testimony meetings. A sister who is blind gave a beautiful testimony.  She has a heart of gold. She talked and testified of the Book of Mormon and talked about how excited she was to do family names in the temple and go to the temple someday!!!!

Today we went to a high school class with a member of the bishopric and talked to a World Religions Class about our religion. It was pretty interesting teaching in a class setting. It was kinda cool though. You can tell some students were interested and could feel the spirit. But obviously, because it was a school, we had to be careful. But some kids took the Book of Mormon. It was kinda fun! :)

Love all serve all! Onward and Upward!

A Week of Conferences and Learning to B+ (Be Positive)

Okay first of all: Our investigator is doing good. She came to FHE last night and we taught her about the Sabbath day. She has a lot of questions but she is willing to learn and has a great desire to become closer to God. It's pretty awesome! We love her and her son. She has great faith and it's amazing to see that.

Then, last Saturday we tried to visit someone but they bombed. So we were like "let's go tracting!" First house we went to the lady told us she wanted to hear our message and scheduled us to come back the next day. So two days ago we taught her the restoration with a member from the bishopric. It was a great lesson! She told us she could sense something different about us. It was pretty cool. She even said after the Joseph Smith story she knew it was true because she could feel chills. We will teach her later this week! So yeah super excited! :)

Well this last week there were a TON of ups and downs. I was getting pretty discouraged and it wasn't good. But my prayers were answered because last Friday we had interviews with the mission president and his wife.

She talked about controlling our thoughts. The easiest way that Satan gets to us is through very very subtle thoughts. I testify that this is true. It starts with a simple doubt like, "Man, I messed up, I'm not a good missionary"  The more we believe these thoughts, the more Satan ties us down. And so, we need to focus on not what we AREN'T but what we ARE. "I CAN do this...I AM this...I'm DOING this..." We need to not focus too far in the future "ex: I'm never going to be a good missionary" or too much in the past "ex: Man that was really rough. I'm so mad at myself for doing that..." Instead we need to focus on the present. What we are doing NOW. When we have those subtle negative thoughts we need to instantly cast them out. We can't dwell there. There is power in positive thinking. Lately I've been working on positive thinking and I can promise that when we do this we are not only happier, but more productive. Thinking about Christ has helped me draw so much closer to him.

Also, I talked to my mission president. This week I'm going on an exchange in a neighboring city for 48 hrs! Super long I know! I'm pretty excited.

Stake conference was awesome. It was pretty crazy because we had Elder Echohawk come last minute and he told us that he was originally going to a stake conference in Lehi Utah. !!! I couldn't help but get excited. But our old Stake President was made a Seventy last general conference and so a new presidency was put in. And get this: our mission leader that was so awesome? The new second councilor in the stake presidency. I'm excited for him but at the same time I'm going to miss him so much! He's going to do great.

Zone conference was awesome. Hmmm I don't know exactly how many are in my zone. Probably 12-15 companionships roughly? But anyways this zone conference was awesome. Elder Johnson from the Seventy came and spoke to us. I got to shake his hand! Zone conference you are definitely spiritually fed. They talked a lot about how important it is to focus on the investigator and what they need rather than focusing on their baptism. I need to do better at focusing on conversion rather than baptism. But they also talked a lot about discouragement. I couldn't help but tear up a little at the end because there was such a powerful spirit. They talked about how we try to perfect ourselves, but we can't. Christ is the only one who can and will perfect us. I get way too caught up in myself and I need to focus on Christ and focus OUTWARD instead of INWARD. That's my shpiel.

Love you lots!