New Companion

Hey Family!

   Thanks for all your emails this week!  I felt so loved! Well I will begin by telling you about my new companion and the adventures we are going to have this transfer.  Her name is Sister Andrade (you pronounce the second "d" as a hard "g").  She is is from Northeastern Brazil and she is actually a temple square sister.  She is super awesome and has actually been in my zone the last two transfers so I already knew her.  She is only here for another three weeks though and then she heads back to SLC and I get to go to the airport and pick up my new companion from temple square.  So I actually get two companions this transfer, which means I will probably be at LSU for at least one more transfer after this- I'm not complaining!  I love my companion though!  She is a hard worker and excited to be working with the YSAs in our ward.  One problem is that she can't ride a bike because she has arthritis and therefore we are 100% dependent upon the LSU buses(which don't run on the weekends) and members for rides.  That is extremely stressful because we are dependent upon others for all our transportation and last transfer whenever Sister Tuft and I had an appointment and couldn't find a ride we were always comforted in knowing that we at least still had our bikes to ride.  Luckily we have amazing members though and they are wonderful at giving us rides!  

   We had free speech alley on Thursday and it was really nice having Sister Andrade there because of her experience at Temple Square she really taught us a lot about how to contact people.  We were able to brainstorm some great ideas to improve free speech alley that we are excited to implement!  I'm pretty sure that's why president decided to start sending the temple square sisters here because they can help a lot at free speech alley!  We didn't have any lessons with investigators this past week, but we did teach a lot to members.  We haven't been able to meet with Perry for a while which is frustrating and with Jessica our schedules just never seem to match up!  Luckily she really wants to meet with us and we obviously really want to meet with her too so we are determined to make it happen this week!  We have a lesson set up with a potential investigator who we met at Free Speech Alley and we are really excited for that though!

   I can't think of anything really big that has happened this past week.  I'm not sure if I told ya'll about the Book of Mormon play that is coming to New Orleans in a couple weeks?  We have been reading the Book of Mormon as a mission and the New Orleans stake is reading as well in order to prepare ourselves for questions that arise from the play and when people ask us about it we can share with them about the real Book of Mormon :)  That has been a great experience to read it as a mission though!  It is really nice having a whole hour devoted to studying in the morning.  I'm really able to see how everything relates between the various prophets and I'm able to make sense of and apply so much more!  It's awesome!  As a companionship we have also been doing what's called the Liahona Challenge and we have been doing it with a number of the members in our ward.  It's an invitation that we extend to members to be a missionary and share the gospel with someone in their lives and we relate it to the Liahona and how it acts as a guide to us.  It has been a wonderful opportunity to see all the members who are excited to accept the challenge and the results that have come about.  One of the freshman in our ward texted us Saturday night because she had given her Book of Mormon to her suite mate and it was really fun to talk to her and see how excited she was.  For a lot of these girls it is their first time giving away a Book of Mormon and you can tell it is a powerful experience for each of them!

   Other than that I can't think of much else to tell ya'll.  It rained a lot this weekend and traffic was crazy because of the game.  LSU played Auburn and it was the first BIG game of the season so people were coming from all over for it!  The campus was covered in tents because of everyone who was tailgating.  Luckily LSU won too :)  Someone was telling us that Tiger Stadium becomes the largest city on game nights in Louisiana and I believe it!  People fly in just for these games!  It was fun to go to transfer meeting this week too!  It was sad to say goodbye to Sister Tuft because I might not see her before she goes home and one of the LSU elders went home because his mission was over so that was sad to say goodbye to them but it was still fun!  I got to see my companion from the MTC and a few others who were in my district at the MTC and that was fun!  It's always fun just to be in the company of so many other missionaries as well!  

  I wish I had more to write but that's about all the happening events from our week!  One more thing before I forget though!  I remembered that Devin had A TON of ties that he collected from his mission and I was wondering what happened to them?  Our theme at Free Speech Alley is ask a question, get a tie and if Devin doesn't care about those ties anymore I was wondering if he might be interested in donating them to us?!!  He honestly doesn't have to but it would be really awesome if he did!  Also... How is Melynda doing?  She is due really soon isn't she?! 

   Well I hope ya'll have a most excellent week and thank you for your love and all ya'lls prayers!  I love you so much and I am so grateful for all ya'll have done for me thus far!!

Love,

  Sister Emily Ogden

Free Speech Alley is in Full Swing

Hi Family!!  So... I realized last week that I forgot to tell you it was transfer week this week so I wouldn't be writing until Tuesday... Sorry!!  We got our transfer calls yesterday and I learned that I am for sure staying at LSU for at least one more transfer, but the sad news is that Sister Tuft is getting transferred :(  We're pretty sure she is getting sent back to New Orleans which she is really excited about but I'm definitely nervous about who my new companion will be and the fact that I have to teach them about all those we are working with at LSU.  Hopefully I don't totally mess up the area! 

   

For the news of the week...

Free Speech Alley went great this last week!  We only had it on Thursday but it was really fun!  We had about seven people sign up, wanting to learn more and we were able to give away our first full box of copies of the Book of Mormon.  Each box holds about 50 copies so that was really exciting!! We also had one girl whom we met the previous week come to FHE last week and our Thursday night activity and another girl (who's boyfriend is a member but just left to BYU so we met her at free speech alley) who came to church this last week!  We are really excited about both these girls.  The first one who came to the activities we are just going to keep inviting to activity and let her come to us when she wants to learn about the gospel.  We can tell that it is definitely the activities that drew her in so we are just going to keep inviting her to those!  As for the other girl, her family is all Catholic and so we don't know how soon she'll start asking to take the lessons but we are just going to be patient with her as well!  It has been a lot of fun working at Free Speech Alley though and I'm excited to continue with it for at least another six weeks!  Today we walked by on our way to the library and today is noted by the LSU students as "Go to Hell Tuesday".  There are a few pastors/students from other churches who stand in the Alley on Tuesdays and tell everyone walking by that they are going to Hell.  The students don't really like it, understandably, and we don't really like it either.  Except for the fact that a lot of people like us even more because we don't yell at them and tell them they're going to Hell but simply invite them to learn more!  It was pretty interesting though to see those guys today.  There was also a group of ladies from the Pentecostal Church that were standing out there too.  Hopefully I will eventually get to send you a picture from it to show ya'll what it looks like.  Unfortunately the computers we use on campus don't let us use USB devices so I have no way of uploading my photos... sorry!

  Anyhow... on to more news of the week!  We were able to get back into contact with Lily yesterday and that was really exciting! We stopped by to see her and she was home so we came in and just talked with her for a while.  It was really nice because we just talked about when she first got interested in religion and how she decided to be baptized.  It was a great opportunity for us to really re-establish our relationship with her and we invited her to church so hopefully she comes!  We still haven't been able to meet with Jessica because our schedules just never seem to match up!  She did come to FHE last night though and it seemed like she had a good time.  She came up to me afterwards to ask about our schedule on Wednesday.  She only has an hour free and it's looking like it's right in the middle of transfers but we are hoping we can work something out for this week!  Both these girls really are wonderful and I hope that we can really begin working with them and getting them to church with us each week!

  As for other news... we had a "funeral" on Sunday, don't worry though- It wasn't a funeral like you are thinking!  A few members from our ward put together a "funeral" for Elder Ageda this last Sunday since he is going home this week.  It was hilarious!  The sisters in the ward put together a powerpoint with pictures from his mission and the opening slide read "In Memory of Elder Ageda" and they had that playing in the front.  Then they put up a table in the front with a black tablecloth on it, put the chairs in rows and then they all wore black.  He had no idea about it and we told him we needed him and his companion to meet us at the institute for a lesson.  The look on his face was priceless when he walked in and saw his picture and all these white flowers around and everyone dressed in black.  They made him lie down on the black table with a flower in his hands and then they read eulogies and everyone told their favorite memories of him.  Then they went outside and burned one of his ties.   It sounds really weird but honestly it was just hilarious and I think it was really touching to Elder Ageda to see how many members of the ward appreciated his time and service.  He served at LSU for almost five months and really did impact a lot of people there!  Afterwards we had funeral potatoes and casserole for dinner.. It was great!  I have pictures that, once again, I will send when I can :)

  I can't think of any other big news from the week.  We had a pretty slow week in terms of lessons.  We had lessons set up with almost everyone we work with but almost everyone canceled on us last minute.  We got to go to a dinner appointment this week and it was actually with a group of the born-agains who we know from Free Speech Alley.  One of them made us curry and rice and it was delicious!  She had the LSU elders, the Spanish elders, and us all over and it was a great evening!  It has been great getting to know them and establishing a relationship with them!  They are all very devoted to their church group and have a great love for Jesus Christ!  They table on Wednesdays with us at Free Speech Alley and so I will get to see them a lot during these next weeks!  

  Thank you for ya'lls letters and all the hilarious stories!  I almost died laughing when I read the story about plumbing snake and dad's comment and I loved the story about the YM president from Kristen's ward!  Great pictures!  And I LOVED the video of Abbey!  She is getting so big, it's crazy!!!  I hope ya'll have an absolutely wonderful week and know that I love you and appreciate your prayers so much!!!!

Love,

    Sister Ogden

Free Speech Alley Jitters!

Hi Friends and Family!

    Well... this week I experienced  my first Free Speech Alley and you know what... It was actually really fun!  We had our interviews with President Wall the day before (Tuesday) and I told him how nervous I was about not knowing the answers to all these students questions.  He told me that it is perfectly okay not to know the answer and I can simply tell them, "I don't know, but I would love to tell you what I do know and I will try to find the answer to your question for you if you want to come back another day!" It calmed me down to know that it was ok not to know the answer :)  It ended up going really well on Wednesday though!  The LSU elders had their mission leadership meeting with President that day so they weren't able to come and we had a couple other missionaries come from our district to help out. We set up our table with a ton of pamphlets and I'm A Mormon cards and put out posters that said "Ask a Mormon".  We basically just stood in front of the table and asked people if they wanted to ask us a question about religion and get a free tie!  The free tie really enticed a lot of people and our most common question was, "what makes you different from other religions?"  It was really fun to tell people about the Book of Mormon and we handed out A LOT of copies!  We had a lot of members that came and joined us at the table too and that was awesome to watch them answer peoples' questions as well!  There weren't any questions that people asked and I had to say "I don't know".  Most the time if I didn't know the answer or how to respond I just looked at Sister Tuft and smiled and then she answered :)  Thursday was our best day because the elders where back!  Elder Ageda has served on the campus previously and LOVES Free Speech Alley and because he is from Guyana almost everyone who talked to him last Spring remembered him!  It helped out a lot to see how he went about talking to people and I was able to learn a lot!  It is definitely a different experience because you can't just go up to people and start telling them about the church.  It was awesome to see how he really develops a trust with the person by asking them questions about where they are from or what they are studying.  Eventually the topic of religion  comes up and then you are able to talk with them about the church.  It is definitely a learning experience every day but it is exciting!  We have a list of about ten people who signed up, just on Thursday, with their name/number/address and expressed in interest in wanting to know more!  I was also introduced to a group of born-agains who apparently LOVE the Mormons!  One of them has been to Utah a number of times and wants to move there next year!  They know a lot about our beliefs and the Book of Mormon but right now have no interest in joining the church.  I know for a fact they will join the church one day though and it is exciting to talk with them and build a friendship with them at Free Speech Alley!

   That was really the most exciting part of our week!  We had a great Labor Day on Monday.  We had a bbq with our ward for FHE that ended in a shaving cream fight!  The whole ward gained up on Elder Ageda and he was completely white by the end of the night!  One girl in our ward took a really cool group photo and I will try to get her to email it to me so I can forward it to ya'll!  Friday and Saturday where filled with meetings and so we didn't get to really teach a lot of lessons.  Friday we had zone training meeting and it went A LOT longer than it was suppose to and then on Saturday we went to a public affairs meeting with our bishop.  He wanted us to go because he thought they would talk about how to use Facebook and regulations with using the Church's name.  He really wants us to be able to use Facebook to spread the word about activities in our ward and contacting less actives and information for Free Speech Alley but in all honesty I'm pretty happy about not being able to use Facebook :) Saturday night was our first home game and it was CRAZY here!  We got to go visit some of the born-agains at their tailgating truck and the campus was crazy!  The whole campus was covered in purple and gold tents and tons of BBQ grills and also a lot of RVs.  I don't think I have ever seen so many crazy football fans and remember, I went to a BYU game last fall!  BYU football fans are NOTHING compared to LSU football fans!  It was fun to walk around though and luckily I had my purple skirt from Kohls that I was able to wear so I was able to show my school spirit :)

   All in all it's been a great week!  We were able to quickly meet with Perry on Tuesday and he still hasn't read the Book of Mormon which is frustrating but we have another lesson scheduled with him this week.  We were also able to run into Lily while at Free Speech Alley and we have an appointment set up with her for Friday of this week!  We also met with Jessica for the first time this last week and we get to have our first lesson with her this week!  She is really nice but unfortunately has a super busy schedule which I can tell is going to be a hurdle for us to jump over as we begin the lessons with her again.  She is excited to start the lessons again though and I'm excited to get to know her more!  Also, Ericka got baptized this last Saturday!!  She sent me a cute email with pictures from her baptism and it was great to see her all dressed in white!  I am so grateful to have been a part of the beginning of her journey and that ward is so lucky to have her!!

    We also had a lesson with Daniel this week and we actually had him teach us!  He studied the Tree of Life a lot on his mission and discovered a lot of cross references so we had him teach us what he learned.  It was really cool everything that he learned and I learned a lot from him!  He has continued to come to church every week and you can definitely tell that he is changing and growing again in the gospel.  We are excited to meet with him this week and talk to him about where he feels he is at.  It was interesting because he has been coming to church consecutively for about the last two months and last week people from the ward finally started to notice him and say hi!  I don't know for sure why it has taken so long for the members to notice him and but my theory is that he is starting to regain that Spirit and people are noticing it!  It is such a treat to be able to witness someone grow and begin to understand their potential once again!

   Well that was pretty much our week!  One last note- we got fed by members A LOT this week and it was AWESOME!!!!  Apparently this is what it feels like to be in a family ward :)  I love this ward so much though and it sounds like I'll probably be here for another transfer!  President told Sister Tuft he is probably going to transfer he back to her favorite area and she is super excited!  She likes LSU but she LOVES New Orleans and she is really excited to go back!  I have absolutely no clue who my new companion will be but I'm sure we are going to have an adventure no matter what!!

   I guess I'll end with a scripture from my personal study.  It's Alma 2:28 and it says, "Nevertheless, the Nephites being strengthened by the hand of the Lord, having prayed mightily to him that he would deliver them out of the hands of their enemies therefore the Lord did hear their cries, and did strengthen them, and the Lamanites and the Amlicites did fall before them" .  I know the Lord hears our prayers and he does strengthen us in our hours of need and that is such an awesome blessing and knowledge that we have as members of his church!  I love ya'll and thank you so much for all ya'lls prayers!!!!

Love,  Sister Emily Ogden

Tiny Steps This Week

Hi family!

   Sorry I'm late sending my letter today, the library opened later for Labor Day!  I loved getting ya'lls letters as usual and it sounds like a lot of exciting things are going on there around the West Coast!  Life is great here on the LSU campus.  I never realized just how large this campus is, but then it became very apparent once school started!  There are so many people!!! I also never realized just how small BYU-Idaho really was :)  Besides school starting it hasn't been too eventful of a week.  It was stressful more than everything else because everyone's schedules became busy all at once and we didn't have rides to our appointments anymore!  It is really hard covering the entire city of Baton Rouge when you don't have a car!!  We spent most of our time on campus and getting adjusted to life on campus with thousands of other people around :)  It is pretty overwhelming but everyday I am able to get a little bit more use to it!  We found out we finally get to start Free Speech Alley this next week and we are stoked about that!  This will give us a great chance to talk to people on campus and it allows others to come and ask us questions.  Not going to lie, I'm pretty terrified about bashers coming up to us but I just have to keep reminding myself that I have the Lord on my side and therefore all things are possible!  

    I have learned one of the best things about being on the LSU campus when school starts up is watching peoples' faces as their eyes meet our name tags.  People around the world really are beginning to recognize the Mormon Missionaries and it is fun to watch the surprise on their faces when they realize we are on the college campuses too!  Sometimes it is looks of confusion that they have as well :) We were also able to meet with Perry again this week and that was great!  We found out he still hasn't read the Book of Mormon so we sat down and read the first chapter of First Nephi with him.  It went really well and he said that he would read more of it on his own this weekend.  He was going to Texas for the weekend and we really hope he keeps his promise!  As for Lily, we are working right now on just building a relationship with her.  Because she started out with a different group of sisters we feel like we never got to really build that relationship with her and that is vital in regards to obtaining her trust.  We didn't get to meet with her at all this last week but we are hoping to meet with her this week and just have a fun conversation learning more about her and building that relationship!  Those are our only investigators right now but we are really hoping to meet a lot more people when Free Speech Alley begins!

   We continue to work with strengthening the ward members and teaching less actives.  We had one of our less actives come to church on his own yesterday and that was really exciting!!  Our main less active, Daniel, that we have been working with, is making huge progress!  Our last lesson with us he told us that as he started reading the scriptures again he felt really good and everything he read kept telling him that he needs to start praying and so he is going to pray.  When he told us, Sister Tuft and I just sat their with the greatest looks of excitement!  We knew this whole time that is what he had to do and it was great for him to come to that conclusion himself!!  We have our next appointment with him on Wednesday and we are really excited to see what progress he makes between now and then.  Yesterday he stayed for all three hours of church and that is the first time he has done that in at least the last three years!!

   I wish there was more to tell you.  The only thing I can think of is that LSU won their football game on Saturday so that was pretty exciting :)  Don't worry, I didn't watch the game, but whenever LSU wins it is posted ALL OVER the town!  We are continuing to enjoy life on bikes.  We found out that we are actually the only sisters in the entire mission that are on bikes.  All other sisters have a car, I thought that was pretty funny!  I really do like being on bikes though.  I think the only frustrating thing is when we have an appointment too far away to bike to and we can't find a ride, that's pretty hard!  And don't worry mom, I am working hard on eating nutritiously!    I have my multi-vitamins almost every morning and I'm starting to learn how to use our crockpot!  I could really use some crockpot recipes though!  If Melynda and Kristen want to look some up on Pinterest and email them to me, that would be awesome!!!!  I realize more and more each day how blessed I am to be serving a mission and representing our Savior Jesus Christ.  It is actually pretty intimidating and I just hope I am living up to the potential that is within me!  I know that I can receive help to meet that potential though and that's pretty awesome :)  I got a letter this week from the young women in our ward and they wrote some of the cutest things!  It reminded me of the example I am to younger girls in the church who see me and that really struck me.  One girl told me to show Satan no mercy so I think that is my new vision for my mission :)  I hope ya'll are having a wonderful Labor Day and enjoy the rest of your week!  Stay safe and make sure to share the gospel with someone new :)  I love you!!!

Love,  Sister Ogden