I love this mission!

Hi ya'll!

   Well... Where to begin!  So this week has been awesome!  We had a lesson with all three of our progressing investigators and they were all wonderful!  Lily is doing AMAZING and she is continuing to read the Book of Mormon and seek for that testimony that it is true.  She comes and visits us each day at Free Speech Alley and on Saturday we got a few sisters from the ward and we all went and got frozen yogurt with her.  I think it really meant a lot to her that we spent time with her outside of a lesson and it really showed her how much we care about her!  We had a lesson on Friday with Quynh and we taught her the first part of the Plan of Salvation and she was very receptive to it.  She has such an amazing desire to learn for herself whether the message we share is true and I love all of our lessons we get to have with her.  Finally, we had an awesome lesson with Jessica yesterday and we began teaching the Plan of Salvation.  It was really interesting because we taught about our pre-Earth life and afterwards asked her what she thought about it all and she said it was all stuff she had heard before and agreed with.  That really caught us off guard because most people don't think much about our pre-earth life!  She was very receptive to everything though and is excited for our next lesson.  She even came to our dinner and a movie activity last night and gave us a ride home afterwards.  It was great because she hasn't been to church yet but got to meet a lot of the members when she came to the activity and they were all amazing at coming up and introducing themselves to her.  She seemed to have a great time and we are excited for our next lesson with her!

    Those are the most exciting moments from our week!  Free Speech Alley was a blast as always.  The elders couldn't come on Thursday so we called up the Prairieville Sisters and they came and joined us.  It was a blast having an all sisters day and we got to talk to a lot of people!  We also got the ties that ya'll sent so we got to use some of those on Thursday and it was great!!  Thank you so much Dad for donating those!  We used about half this time and are saving the other half for this next week!  And mom, thank you for the fruit strips and sesame snaps!  You know me all too well and I love wearing my yellow cardigan again :)  We didn't have anything else too exciting happen this week.  LSU played Florida here on Saturday and so traffic was crazy all day and that made Saturday pretty hectic!  Luckily, we still survived though!

     I wish I had more the write about our work here but I can't think of anything!  We still have a fairly large group of less actives that we are working with as well and we love all of them!  They are all doing great and I feel so blessed to be working with them!  Working in the singles ward has been a great experience and I have met so many individuals who are amazing people!  I am so glad I made the decision to serve a mission and while each day is still a challenge, I love it!  Heavenly Father never ceases to show me my weaknesses and to push me out of my comfort zone, but I'm growing and learning because of it! Each day I think about where I was when I first came out and how much I have changed and how much more I know I will continue to change as I go forth in this work!  I think the hardest thing is putting all your pride aside and really letting Heavenly Father mold you into the person he knows you can become.  It's a lot easier said than done :)  I love this gospel though and I feel so grateful to have been raised in the church.  It's been a great experience to work at Free Speech Alley and meet so many individuals who practice different religions and to learn about what they believe.  The more I learn about what their religion the more my testimony grows of this being Christ's church on the earth!  I love it and I love that I get to share the message of it with so many students here!  It's so much fun teaching people my age!

    Thank ya'll so much for all ya'lls prayers and your e-mails!  I love ya'll so much and I feel so blessed to have ya'll as my family and to learn from your experiences!  I love ya'll and have a fantastic week!!

Love,

  Sister Emily Ogden