Monday, July 28, 2014
July 28 Letter - Miracles
Hey Family!!
It looks like everyone is having a blast in Chico and it's crazy to
see how big all the kids are getting! I thought y'all where suppose to stop
growing while I was gone?!? Things are great here in Alexandria and
Pineville! We had a crazy busy week with a fantastic ending! We spent most of
our week in the car traveling around to all the districts and attending their
district meetings to tell them about a few things President Hansen has wanted us
to emphasize. We used to be allowed to play sports with our ward one night out
of the week, other than our regular p-day. This didn't really matter much to us
but the elders would play basketball with the ward every Wednesday and there
were always a lot of non members they could talk to there. President Hansen has
asked us not to play sports on any other day other than p-day now though and he
has also asked us to not do member service anymore, so we got to be the ones to
go tell the zone. I was super nervous about how everyone would take it, but I
was reminded how amazing our zone is. Almost everyone was extremely supportive
and willing to give up those things. I was so impressed! We tallied it up and
we spent approximately 16 hours in the car this past week, just traveling to all
these places. Our zone covers the entire upper half of the mission so we have
to travel at least 45 minutes in order to get to the closest areas. It was a
lot of traveling and we are very happy to be done with it :)
For exciting news though: We had an amazing lesson with Chrystal this
week. The lesson began with her telling us she read some stuff online and she
had some questions. I immediately knew it was anti she had read so we just
laughed and told her to ask them and we would do our best to answer them. We
also told her that there is a lot of stuff that is published against the church
that is complete lies and she has to really pay particular attention to what is
true and what is not. I thought it was super awesome that when she read these
things she didn't immediately believe they were true and stop meeting with us
but came and asked us if they were true. We were able to answer her questions
and explain why some of these things were written and how people have warped
church doctrine to create these false ideas. After answering her questions we
got to ask her a lot of questions about who she believes Christ is and how she
came to that conclusion. She told us that she believes he is a prophet and not
the Son of God. It was super awesome as we talked to her though because I could
see why she doesn't believe he is the Son of God. She doesn't see the need for
a Savior and so it doesn't make sense why God would send us His Son if there
isn't the need for it. We asked her if we could meet at our church building
this week and teach her the Plan of Salvation. She said yes and seems excited
for the next lesson. I'm super stoked about it because it explains so perfectly
why we need a Savior. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be teaching her
and it's great to teach someone my age again :)
Other amazingly exciting news!! Kim is getting baptized this week on
Saturday!!! She was working on quitting smoking and drinking coffee and she got
really sick last week so we didn't get to meet with her as often as we had
hoped. We didn't think she was going to make it for her date of August 2nd but
she most definitely proved us wrong! We went and saw her on Friday and we were
bold in telling her that if she wants to get baptized on the second she has to
stop smoking and drinking coffee that day. She looked at and us and with a big
grin said, "ok". She had only had one cigarette and a half a cup of coffee
during that entire week and had already decided that she was done. I was so
shocked when she said that and so excited at the same time because I could tell
she was sincere! It was great to see her at church yesterday and the light in
her eyes when her baptism was announced. She asked one of the elders I came out
with to baptize her and it was really cool to see how excited he is. He told us
on the phone today that she will be the first person he has baptized. I thought
that was awesome!! We have a lesson with her in about 20 minutes and her
baptismal interview is tomorrow!
We also have another investigator that might get baptized this
Saturday!!! Her name is Zoe and she is a true miracle story to us! Her dad is
a member and used to live in Baton Rouge but moved to Tennessee and her mom
lives in Pineville. She stayed with her dad during the summer and ended up
taking the missionary lessons with the sisters there. She came down to Baton
Rouge and went to girls camp there and also youth conference and people kept
calling us and telling us about this girl we need to teach. She came to church
last Sunday with her mom (who also isn't a member) and we got to meet her mom
and then Saturday we got to go over and meet her and have a lesson with her. We
really had no clue what to expect but when we asked her about the lessons she
told us she had been taught everything and she really has! Then she told us
that she wants to get baptized but needs to see when her dad can come down
because she wants him to baptize her. He called us from Tennessee last night
and we talked to him about Zoe and when we told him she had come to church twice
on her own and told us she wants to get baptized him and his wife started
crying. He was so excited and told us he will call his boss (who is a member)
and see how soon he can get off work. Zoe called him after we talked to him and
told him she would love to get baptized this weekend so he is going to talk to
his boss and he is sure he can get work off to come down this weekend! It's so
crazy and it was such a wonderful way to end our week!!
It's so exciting to see how much the work is growing here in these
beautiful areas! We have a musical fireside that we have been planning and we
are going to be teaching the restoration though music and having members perform
the songs. As we announced in Relief Society yesterday it was exciting to see
how excited the members are. We also started a new thing where we are inviting
a sister in RS every week to pass out a copy of the Book of Mormon with her
testimony in it and then report the next week. We started it off by inviting
sisters to share their experiences with passing out copies in the past. The
Spirit that filled the room as they told their experiences was so strong! When
I first came into these wards they were not very missionary motivated but it is
so cool to see how the Work of Salvation is really starting to take fold in
these wards and touch the hearts of the members. I love it!!!!
Well, as I said, we have a lesson we have to run off too! I love y'all
and can't thank you enough for your prayers, emails and love!! I hope y'all
have a fantastic week in Chico and try to stay cool :) I love
y'all!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Sister Ogden
July 21, 2014 Letter
Hey family!!
Sounds like John had a wonderful wedding and the pictures all looked
beautiful! It was especially fun to see pictures of all of you :) Life is
continuing to be grand here in Alexandria! Sister Betts and I have been working
hard and it's been awesome to see the fruits of our labors and to witness little
miracles each day as we go forth in the work. We had our first lesson with Kim
last week and it was great!! We committed her to baptism but she has to stop
smoking first so we are currently helping her with that! We were on such a high
after that lesson though and it has been wonderful! We also got to meet her mom
and she is wonderful and wants to have us over for lunch sometime soon so we are
really excited about that!
We also have two potential investigators that showed up at church
yesterday! It was a fifteen year old girl and her mother. The mom and dad are
separated and the dad is a member and lives in Tennessee. The daughter spent
the summer with him and apparently started taking the missionary lessons there
and now she has moved back home with her mom in Pineville and wants to continue
taking the lessons from us and wants to get baptized!! We have been hearing
about her for weeks because she went to the Baton Rouge girls camp and then to
youth conference this week but she has been in Baton Rouge up until Saturday so
we are hoping to finally meet her this week and we are so stoked! We got to
meet her mom in Relief Society yesterday though and she was really excited about
meeting with us and it sounds like she wants to start taking the discussion
too!! We are hoping to meet with the daughter soon and the mom said we can come
visit her this weekend!
Other cool experiences from the week: We had a lesson with a member
that super inspired! She has cancer and just found out last week that it is
spreading again. We felt like we should go visit her on Thursday and when we
got there she answered the door and it looked like she had been crying. We
started talking with her and then noticed her scriptures were open and asked her
what she had been studying. She took us over to the table where her scriptures
where and told us that we were the answer. We were both very confused and asked
her what we were the answer too. She shared with us a scripture she had just
read about Jesus Christ telling a woman that he had healed her infirmities, and
she had said a prayer asking Heavenly Father if this meant He was going to heal
her and as soon as she finished her prayer we knocked on the door. Then she
asked us if that means Heavenly Father is going to heal her of her cancer.
Sister Betts and I both just looked at each other with a "no pressure?" look on
each of our faces and immediately began praying silently for guidance on what we
should say. And those prayers continued for the rest of the lesson. We talked
about what Christ means by infirmity and the infirmities we experience in our
lives. Then Sister Betts (being totally inspired!) shared Proverbs 3:4-5 and we
talked about trusting the Lord. We finished up talking about that and then she
began talking about how worried she is about her less active daughter that lives
in Lafayette and then there was a knock on the door and it was Brother and
Sister Green. They came in and the five of us talked together and then we had a
prayer because we had another lesson to go to. It was really cool though
because we pondered upon it afterwards and noticed all the little things that
had happened to place us at her house right at the exact second we needed to be
there. We also know the Green's were inspired to come when they did because
Brother Green is a cancer survivor and while we were able to talk to her about
the spiritual part of what she is going through he was able to come in and
answer her questions and give her relief in regards to what she is experiencing
physically. It was an incredible experience and we were very spiritually
exhausted after it :)
We also got to drive down to Baton Rouge on Wednesday and have our
first missionary leadership council with our new mission president. It was
great to be able to spend time with him and get to know him and his wife a
little better. Afterwards we had our interviews with him and that was good. He
asked me a lot about my parents and my plans for after the mission and then
asked me about the people we are teaching here. Afterwards he said a prayer and
it was really cool to hear my mission president pray for me personally. It's
definitely an adjustment having a new mission president but I'm so grateful for
the testimony that I have that he is inspired! His wife is a doll too and she
talked to us a lot after MLC and that was really fun to spend time with her and
get to know her a little better!
That's really the most exciting things from the week! We didn't get
to have a lesson with our investigator Chrystal this week. She's the one from
the zoo. She had to postpone it until next week and I am very excited! We have
plans to talk about who Jesus Christ is and why he is important to us and then
to take her on a chapel tour! Our less active that is the director of the zoo
came to church this last Sunday too and that was really exciting! This was her
fourth Sunday coming to church and she is now coming completely on her own and
asking us when we are going to come visit her next! I love it and I am so
grateful for the opportunity to be a part of all these people's lives!! We also
have a part member family and we were finally able to get into their home this
last week. The husband isn't a member, but you would think he was, and he was
at work when we visited them but their entire family came to church this last
week! We were so excited and he was participating in Gospel Principles too!
The missionaries have taught him in the past and he actually had a baptismal
date but something happened and they all just stopped coming to church. So we
are definitely taking it slow now that we have our foot in the door but I am so
excited! They are a wonderful family and I absolutely love the mother and their
two kids! I will definitely keep y'all posted on how that goes!
As you can see it has been a wonderful week and hopefully this week
will be just as good. We are doing a zone tour this week with the zone leaders
and that should be interesting. We are going to each of the districts
personally to tell them about some new changes taking place in the mission, so
we will be doing A LOT of driving this week! It will be a great opportunity to
spend more time with all the members of our zone though so I'm excited about
that!
Thank you for your letters and I hope y'all have a fabulous week!! I
love y'all!!!!
Love,
Sister Ogden
July 14 2014 Letter
Hey Family!!!!!
Thank you for all the emails and updates on life on the West Coast!! I
love the Cook's new home and it looks like dad has been having a blast with Abby
in Utah!! Things are great here in Alexandria!! I absolutely love my new
companion and everyday we have been experiencing miracles together, it's
awesome! Her name is Sister Betts and she is from Colorado Springs area and she
has been out for a little over 10 months now. We are still the sister training
leaders for the zone and we picked up another set of sisters for the zone so we
are going to have a busy, exchange filled, transfer; but it's going to be
awesome!
We had got to meet with our investigator that we met at the zoo and we
taught her the restoration and it was amazing!! Earlier in the day we had
texted her to ask if she was still free to meet up and she told us yes but she
felt bad because she hadn't read much from the Book of Mormon. Our first
thought was, "you actually read some of it??" Then when we got to the lesson
she informed us that she had read through 1 Nephi 3 and I think both our jaws
just dropped. Do you know how hard it is to get people to follow through with
their commitments to read from the Book of Mormon?! We were both stoked!! And
she was enjoying it too and said that she really likes the summaries above each
chapter and she likes how it is written in first person. Then we started
teaching about Christ organizing His church and then we taught about Joseph
Smith and the first vision. When we asked her afterwards what she thought about
it all she told us, "Well, why not? I don't know of anywhere where it says
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ can't appear to someone". Then she told us how
much she liked the picture of the restoration because she had never seen a
picture of Heavenly Father and it totally makes sense that he has a body because
we have bodies. It was awesome!! We have a return appointment set up for
Thursday and we are hoping to take her on a tour of the church!! I am so
excited and feel so blessed to have this opportunity to be a part of this
journey with her! It is obvious that she has been prepared! Please keep her in
your prayers!
We also had an awesome experience on Friday night. We had a thought
to go try a potential investigator and when we pulled up to her house she had
just left. I was super bummed because we had missed her, but when we got into
the car I knew there was someone else in the area that we were suppose to visit,
I just didn't know who :) So we went and tried this less active girl that lives
in the same neighborhood but they weren't home either. As we were pulling out I
remembered about a lady Sister Lindstrom had tracted into that lived in this
neighborhood, but I had no clue what house she lived in. I knew the general
area and I knew the ladies name but that was it. So we decided to tract and see
if we could find a lady with this name! Our first trailer that we knocked on
was a lady and she told us that she had actually gone to church in New Orleans a
long time ago and said yes when we asked if we could come back and share a
message with her. Before we left I asked her name and it was the lady we were
looking for!! How awesome is that!! We have an appointment set up for tomorrow
afternoon and I'm totally stoked!!
Also.... yes... there's more!! I don't know if I ever told y'all about
Kim. She's the girlfriend of a member and Sister Lindstrom and I started
teaching her back in March but then she moved to Shreveport in May. Well,
apparently she started meeting with the sister missionaries in Shreveport and
had a baptismal date set up with them but through a chain of events she has now
moved back to Pineville so we get to continue teaching her again and prepare her
for baptism!! How exciting is that!! We have a lesson with her tonight and we
are going to go over the baptismal interview questions and see what we still
need to review with her and what lessons she hasn't been taught. I know she had
a smoking problem before and I don't think the sisters in Shreveport had tackled
that yet so we will get the honors :)
As you can see, miracles are happening all over the place here and I
am in no way complaining! I love it! I know this transfer is going to be full
of them and I am so excited to be working with Sister Betts! We both have
similar personalities and a desire to work hard and truly be missionaries and I
can't wait to see this area grow! We also have a goal of memorizing a new
scripture every day! We are now on day four and so far so good :)
I love y'all so much and can't thank you enough for all your prayers
and letters and stories!! I hope y'all have an amazing week and always look for
opportunities to share your testimonies! I was reading about missionary work in
True to the Faith this morning and it was really cool what it said about member
missionary work. It talked about being an example and allowing your friends to
feel of the Spirit. Not everyone needs a gospel lesson in order to build that
desire to learn more. Often times they just need an opportunity to feel the
familiar Spirit and their heart will yearn to have more of it! So pray for
opportunities to share that Spirit and then go forth in the day and open your
eyes to all the opportunities the Lord will put in your path. If you pray with
real intent He will give you those opportunities!! I love y'all so
much!!!!!
Love,
Sister Ogden
July 8 Letter
Hey family!!!
Life is great here in Louisiana! We had transfer calls last night and
the news is.... I'm staying here in Alexandria for another transfer!! My
companion is getting transferred though so we will be heading down to Baton
Rouge tomorrow and that's when I'll find out who my new companion is! I'm
nervous but excited! I'm really excited that I get to stay another transfer
here because I have grown so close to the people and the main people we are
working with are really starting to progress and I would hate to be pulled away
now. I know there is still a lot more work I have to do here!
We had a wonderful week this past week and we had a blast on the
fourth! The Greens had a huge bbq at their house with a ton of members and that
was a lot of fun and Brother Green smoked some delicious meat! Then afterwards
we got to go out to the levee and watch the fireworks! It was beautiful and we
had a lot of fun! We also got to meet our new mission president and his wife
last week at our zone conference! They seem amazing and I'm really excited to
get to know them better! I especially like Sister Hansen! She is actually a
convert to the church and she is adorable and you can tell they are both
understandably completely overwhelmed! It was a great to meet them though and
he has A LOT of greenie fire so we are excited to see all he does for the
mission!
As for the work- we had a great week last week and we actually picked
up three new investigators! We had contacted them through tracting and other
means in the past and last week we followed up and are now teaching them! One
of them is a girl my age that I met at the zoo when we were doing service and
she was helping out as well and hung out with the four of us missionaries the
whole time. I had asked her if she would be interested in meeting with us
sometime and she said yes and actually asked for our phone number. We had our
first lesson with her on Saturday and it was wonderful! You can tell she is
definitely searching for the truth and her questions where amazing! We have
another lesson set up for Thursday night and I'm really excited!! I will
definitely keep y'all posted on how it goes!
That is really the most exciting news from the week! We had two of our
less actives come to church on Sunday and that was AWESOME! One of them is the
director of the zoo. I think I've told y'all about her in the past. The best
part is that she came completely on her own! She has been out of two so we
haven't been able to meet with her for a few weeks and personally invite her to
church but she came on her own and stayed for all three hours!! I was so
excited!
It sounds like everyone had fun in Utah and I loved seeing all the
pictures! It was especially cool to see how many people were able to come to
Brook's blessing! I'm sure it was beautiful!!
Thank you again for your letters and prayers! I love y'all so much and
I am so grateful to be here serving! I hope y'all have an amazing week and
don't forget to share the gospel every chance you get :)
Love Y'all!!
-Sister Emily Ogden
June 30 Letter
Hey Family!!!
It was so much fun to read everyone's emails today! Sounds like y'all
are going to have a party in Utah this week!! Things are going great here in
Louisiana, as usual! President and Sister Wall left on Saturday and so we are
now under the leadership of our new president, President Hansen. I talked to
him quickly on the phone yesterday. It was actually quite embarrassing because
I didn't know the Walls had left yet, so when I called I started off with, "Hi
President Wall, how are you?" and then I hear, "I'm great, but this isn't
President Wall, this is President Hansen". and then I was just super flustered
and confused :) I quickly said hello and introduced myself and told him why I
we were calling, and that was it. We have zone conference on Thursday though
and that's when we'll get to actually meet him. The assistants said he is
really cool and a lot like President Wall and has a lot of greenie fire, so I'm
excited!!
This week has been different and really not filled with too many
exciting things. We did service all day Tuesday for a member and then Wednesday
my companion wasn't feeling well so we had to stay in all day and then Thursday
I was off to Many for exchanges and then Saturday we did service all day so
while it the week wasn't filled with a lot of teaching we got to do A LOT of
service and that awesome! We also got a new ward mission leader in our
Pineville ward and he is awesome and really pushing us and I'm excited to see
how the work improves with us and the members because of it!
We got to go on another bike ride today and that awesome! I took some
pictures and sent them to Dad's Picasa account so hopefully y'all got them! We
did a 9 mile loop this time and it was absolutely beautiful! I was hoping we
would see at least one gator in the lake but unfortunately they decided to all
spend their dad under the water where we couldn't see them :/ It was a
beautiful trail though and we had a lot of fun! It's our last Monday p-day
before transfers so I won't be emailing you until Tuesday next week. I was able
to get a little information out of one of the assistants a couple weeks ago but
it's still not that reliable. They told me that there is an 80% chance I'm
getting transferred and it sounds like I might be opening a new area for sisters
here in our stake. It's actually on an army base and I think that would be
really awesome so we'll see what happens. It's not a definite thing though, they
just both happen to mention Leesville when I talked to them about transfers and
asked what I thought of it and I know they're opening it for sisters so we'll
see what happens. I told Sister Green that night that about the probability
I'll get transferred and she has started to prepare herself. Part of me wants
to get transferred to experience new areas but I don't want to leave the people
here and especially the Greens. That will be the hard part if I do get
transferred.
That's really the big news of the week. We are hoping to get a lot more
proselyting in this week but with the fourth of July, we'll see what happens!
I'm excited to meet the new president on Thursday and I'll definitely let y'all
know how that goes! I hope y'all have safe travels to Utah this week and have
fun!!! I love y'all!!!!!
Love,
Sister Ogden
June 23 Letter
Hey Family!!!
It sounds like it's been an exciting week in Chico!! I always love
hearing y'alls stories and they always provide me with some good laughter!!!
Things are going great here! We had our last meeting with President Wall on
Thursday and we all had to said goodbye to him, it was very bitter sweet. He
has been an amazing mission president and President Hanson is definitely going
to have some big shoes to fill!! It was a great meeting though and he basically
went over the main things he has been emphasizing to us during the past year.
It was wonderful and afterward him and Sister Wall took the time to take
pictures with all of us and that was a special treat! Sister Stephens and I
were the first ones waiting and we were taking a picture so he came in and
jumped in our picture so I even got two with him! I thought that was pretty
awesome! I have loved serving with them and I'm grateful to know that it's not
goodbye, just see you later!!
Onto other exciting news! Today was an adventure! We had a mission
wide bike ride today. It was called the final Ride and everyone in the mission
rode their bikes around the same time as our last hoorah with President Wall
(He's a big biker). We all rode in our own areas. We went to Kincaid lake and
went trail riding and it was a definite adventure. We got lost trying to find
the trail head and after about 45 minutes we finally found it so we parked and
pulled out our bikes. One of the elders pulled his bike out of the truck and
set it down and all of a sudden we hear this loud pop. We all knew what it was
and his tire had popped. Luckily Walmart wasn't too far away so him and his
companion jumped in the car and drove off to get a new tube. After about
another 45 minutes they finally came back and about 2 hours after we initially
planned to start, we began the ride. It was so much fun biking on the trails
and I was so grateful for Kristen's mountain bike!! I learned a lot about how
to use the gears and how to actually trail ride! It was hard but it was a lot
of fun!! We were only able to bike about 7 miles but it was rolling hills the
entire time so we were all pretty proud of ourselves. I only biffed it ounce
too, so that was pretty good! The only bad thing about it was that there was
only one person we passed on the trail and naturally it was in front of that
person that I fell! That was embarrassing :) We had a blast riding together
though and it will be exciting to see how many miles we clocked as an entire
mission today!!
The work is continuing to progress here! We had four of our less
actives at church yesterday and that was huge!! One of the ladies it was her
first time at church for a number of years! She is the director of the zoo here
and we did a lot of service for her this last week! I know her coming to church
was definitely a miracle that came about because of our service! It was
wonderful to talk to her after church too because you could tell she was very
touched by the talks given and I'm hoping she will continue to come! It such a
wonderful opportunity to see miracles come forth from your efforts!
I also got to go to Natchitoches this last week for exchanges and that
was a lot of fun! It's the oldest town in Louisiana and I love it there! It
has a very classic southern look to it and it's so cool to see the history of
the town everywhere! I even got to have dinner at our stake president's house
while there and that was a lot of fun! I swear he is going to be an apostle one
day. He's not even 40 and he is our stake president! He's simply amazing and
it's been wonderful to work with him and set goals for each of the areas in our
stake!
I don't really know what else to write about. I'm exhausted from our
bike ride and I don't know how well my mind is working right now :) So
hopefully all that I have included is making sense!! I love y'all and can't
thank you enough for all your emails! I hope y'all have a wonderful week and
remember to always look for missionary opportunities!! I love
y'all!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Sister Ogden
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