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!