.jpg) |
| Sister Ogden and Her New Investigator |
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
It's Hump Day!
Hi family!
It was great to hear from y'all! Before I forget to answer the main
question you asked... I am no longer on bike and am blessed with a car :) It's
really nice to be able to drive anywhere in my areas and not be limited to
biking distances and bus routes! I'm continuing to love it here in Alexandria
and Pineville! There are some crazy people here and it is so much fun to talk
with them! I got to go tracting for the first time this last week and that was
an experience. Not going to lie... I was terrified! But luckily it wasn't as
bad as I was expecting and I know it will get easier the more experiences I have
with it :) The ward members are wonderful though! We get fed at least one meal
every day and sometimes two. I honestly don't think I have every eaten so much
in my life!! I love living with the Greens too, they are hilarious!! We had a
lesson with them after dinner earlier this week and we taught the Doctrine of
Christ. When Sister Lindstrom placed down the piece of paper that said "Endure
to the end", Sister Green quickly picked it up and said, "oh, we don't want
that!" and moved it away! I was laughing so hard! Bishop Green also loves to
prank us and he has these creepy mannequins. One of them I swear is Chucky's
sister and he placed her behind our bathroom door last night. I was brushing my
teeth when I saw it and I yelled and jumped sooo high! Sister Lindstrom was
dying from laughter. I am now determined to get him back!! We had a burn party
on Thursday night to celebrate my 9 month mark (can you believe it??? 9
MONTHS!!) and we took a video of it so hopefully it uploads so you can get a
taste of what I live with :) I also love being companions with Sister
Lindstrom! We have our first exchanges this week too so I'll get to start
meeting the other sisters in our zone! It should be fun!
As for the work, it's going great! We do a lot of work with less
actives and strengthening/serving the members so I don't have a lot to write
about investigators. We started teaching one girl this past week and we are
really excited! She is dating a member and he just barely started coming back
to church. We had dinner with them on Friday night and taught the restoration
lesson and she said she would be ok meeting with us to learn more and she has
thought a lot about baptism! We're excited to keep teaching her! A lot of our
time is spent visiting the less active members of the ward and serving the
members. We do a lot of service for members and have lessons with them to
strengthen them. That's always been a big thing in our mission. We are trying
hard to find new ideas for finding. It's hard working two areas because there
are so many less actives to visit between the two wards and we are trying hard
to fit in more time for finding people. It's really nice how we are able to
stay so busy though! I remember that was really hard at LSU because there would
be those holiday breaks where EVERYONE would leave the area and we would have
absolutely no one to visit or drive us around to try contacting people and that
was always really stressful. I enjoy being able to stay busy in the work
here!
I definitely miss LSU still. The assistants came up to do a training
with me on Thursday and they had helped out at FSA the day before. I think he
thought I would enjoy hearing about it, but it really didn't help at all :) He
had good intentions though and I was able to get my mind focused back on the
members in Alex/Pineville as soon as we left the training!
All in all it's been a great week! I just finished talking to this
man at the library for the third time. I think he's crazy :) as in, not all the
way there! He's currently explaining to us how to dumpster dive in the library
trash cans! It just strengthens my love for these people even more! It's weird
to think that I'm already half way done with my mission. The time has gone by
so fast! It's starting to warm up again here too! I'm not sure if I'm ready
for summer again!! I love y'all and I am so grateful for all your e-mails and
the love you have shown! I'm grateful to be a missionary and to be an
instrument in the Lord's hands each day. I get to serve his children and I get
to share a message that changes lives! I love it! I love y'all and I hope you
have a wonderful week!!!
Love,
Sister Emily Ogden
The Big Reveal! Where Did Sister Ogden Go!
Hi family!
I loved getting your e-mails as always! Well, you're probably anxious
to hear the big news... Where did Sister Ogden go?? Well, let me begin by
saying that I knew it was going to be hard to leave LSU and I wasn't sure how I
would adjust to any area outside of LSU, but as soon as I entered my new area
and went into a member's home, I knew I had a new home and I knew I was going to
love this place! I am now serving in two words and I am a Pineville/Alexandria
sister!! It's almost exactly in the middle of the state and the people here are
amazing and crazy!! I love it!! I don't know the last time I laughed this hard
because the people here can be so crazy! My new companion is sister Lindstrom
and she is from Rexburg, Idaho. She came out just a transfer after me and has
been here her entire mission. We actually live with the bishop of the
Alexandria ward and I feel so spoiled! We live upstairs and actually have our
own separate entrance. We also get fed daily by members and if we don't have
anyone sign up to feed us, the bishop feeds us! Therefore, I am going to get
fat!! Luckily, we live just down the street from the high school and go running
on the track every morning, but I don't think any amount of running is going to
counter balance how much these people feed us! I honestly love it here though
and the cool part is that there are a few members from the YSA ward that are
from the Pineville ward so I still get to see them when they come home on
weekends! I was pretty stoked about that!!
Obviously, because of transfers this last week was pretty crazy, but
it was still good! Sister Tuft, or I guess Marie now, came into town on Monday
and I got to go have dinner with her! I had crawfish broil for the first time!
I have some pictures from it that I will try to send y'all later! She was with
me when I got the first call from the zone leaders telling me I would be getting
transferred and then also when I got the second call from President Wall telling
me I would be a Sister Training leader. It was really nice to have her there
because she knew what it was like to go from the YSA ward to a family ward and
she quickly reassured me that I would be ok. I was actually able to handle it
all pretty well! I knew it was coming and I was able to share my testimony on
Sunday and begin prepping myself for the change. I think it was the call from
President Wall that she had to help me out the most with :) I didn't really get
to talk a lot about my new responsibilities in last weeks letter and honestly I
still don't know what a lot of my responsibilities are! We are the sister
leaders for the zone and we work a lot with the zone leaders. We teach at the
zone meetings we have each month and we go on exchanges with the sisters
throughout the transfer and then report to President Wall about how they are
doing. It's a lot of responsibility and I just hope I can help the sisters in
all ways that I'm suppose to. I feel like I just got out here and know nothing
so it's kind of intimidating to think I'm suppose to help sisters that have been
out longer than me! I know the Lord will help me during this transfer, however,
to know what it is he needs me to be!
Things ended well at LSU. It was really hard to say goodbye to
everyone but I know I'm leaving the ward in good hands with Sister McEntire. I
think the biggest tender mercy was that one of the less actives I worked with
finally realized his testimony and his potential, my last Sunday. I have no
clue if he is the reason I stayed in the YSA ward for so long, but it was a huge
tender mercy that I was able to be there in that very first lesson and stay
there throughout his entire journey. He gave a talk in sacrament meeting this
last Sunday and Ariel sent it to me so I could listen to it. It was amazing to
hear him talk about his experience and then share his testimony at the end!! It
was AWESOME!! I was grateful that I also got to be there for our missionary
bonfireside the Friday before last! It was amazing and we had almost 30 members
come! The Spirit was there during it all and the members were incredible! We
had a member from the second ward come and speak about being member missionaries
and then we watched clips from the Work of Salvation. We then talked about our
missionary goals as a ward and then we gave each member a copy of the Book of
Mormon and had them each write their testimony in it. We then invited them to
pick a day to fast that week and spend that day with a missionary mindset. It
was wonderful the following Sunday to have a few members stand up and share
their testimonies about the fireside and missionary work. I'll be excited to
hear about the fruits that come from it all!
I don't know what more to really write about. I'm starting to learn
about all the people in my new area and they are all wonderful members! We do a
lot of less active work but I feel like there is a lot of improvement to be made
with finding people to teach. I'm hoping I can make a difference in improving
that area of the work here! I love my new companion though and I'm excited to
be working with her! I'm excited to go tracting too and I'm sure I'll have some
fun stories to share with y'all as I continue to serve here. I honestly don't
know how long I'll be in this area. It's nickname is the black hole because
people get sent up here and then never come back :) So I may just end up
spending the whole second half of my mission here :) I really do love it though
and the people are wonderful! I love living with Bishop Green and his wife and
they completely spoil us! I'm sure you'll be getting facebook requests from
members if you haven't already! There are more than a few members that love to
contact the parents of the missionaries here and send y'all pictures and Bishop
and Sister Green are two of those members! I'm sure you'll fall in love with
these members too!
I love y'all and I hope you have an amazing week! Thank you for the
adorable pictures of Sister Orgill and also mom, thank you for putting me on the
prayer roll! The more prayers I can get, the better :) I love
y'all!!!!!!!
Love,
Sister Emily Ogden
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)