Hi family!
Thank you so much for your emails this week! It sounds like everyone
is enjoying fall and all that comes with it! Things are finally starting to
cool off here in Louisiana and I LOVE IT!! We biked most of Saturday and it
felt so good while we were biking. Once we stopped biking, though, the
humidity would instantly hit us and we would be dripping with sweat :) Gotta
love it!!
It's been an awesome week here in Natchitoches and our efforts from
the week before are starting to pay off! Monday we had a crazy storm during the
afternoon and because it was still going on in other parts of the mission during
the evening, they put us on lockdown in our apartments for most of the day. So
Sister Arntz and I decided to use that time to call some of the people in the
former investigator section of our area book. We called all of them that we had
phone numbers for but didn't have anyone interested in meeting with us.
However, we got a call from a random girl named Teca and she had just moved into
a new house and needed help organizing and unpacking. We could tell she wasn't
from the United States originally because she had really broken up english and
she made it sound like she was a less active. Anyhow, we were super excited to
meet her and set up an appointment for Wednesday. When we went over there we
found out she is from Brazil originally and not a member of the church. She has
a friend that is a member and used to live in Natchitoches and she got our
number from her. Anyhow, we got to help her unpack and shared a message with
her and asked her if we could come back and teach her more. She was super
excited and told us we can come over whenever we want! We got to go over again
on Friday and talked with her about the Book of Mormon and she was really
excited to read it! Because of the timing of when she called I know that
Heavenly Father blessed us with her because of the efforts we made in trying to
find His children when we were stuck in our apartment for 3 hours! She is
absolutely incredible too and so prepared for the gospel! We are excited to
continue meeting and teaching her!!
We also met another lady when we were out tracting on Tuesday! We
started doing this new thing with the members in the ward. Because we still
don't know Natchitoches very well and therefore don't know the best places to
tract we decided to turn to the members. I've been studying a lot about how
this work cannot reach it's potential unless the members and missionaries work
together, but I didn't know the best way to go about working with the members
here. So, we decided that every time we would go to a member's house for dinner
we would invite them to pray for an area we can tract in and then seek for
revelation as they go about their day and drive through different areas of
town. It's been super cool to see how excited the members get about it and we
had two members direct us to the same neighborhood, so we knew we needed to go
tracting there. So on Tuesday we set aside time and started knocking doors in
the neighborhood and the first door we knocked on was this older lady Gertrude
and she immediately let us in and let us share a message with her! It was
incredible and we got to go back yesterday and share a message with her about
the Book of Mormon and we talked about her favorite scripture and marked
scriptures in the Book of Mormon for her to read! It was such an incredible
experience to see how the members were able to receive that revelation to lead
us to Gertrude and we are hoping to take one of the members with us next time we
visit her!
Our third investigator that we picked up this week is actually a former
investigator and we met her a few weeks ago. Her ex husband is an active member
of our ward and she investigated the church for 30 years while they were married
but has a problem with the priesthood and that was the biggest hurdle that
prevented her from getting baptized. We met her a couple weeks ago and asked
her if we could come and visit her and she said yes. We were able to start
visiting her last week and it was definitely inspired. She's an alcoholic and
has reached rock bottom and we came into her life right when Heavenly Father
knew she needed it. I don't think I have ever seen someone at rock bottom like
she is. It makes me so grateful for the gospel and the knowledge that it can
heal us, we just have to let it. That's the biggest hurdle we have with her
now, she wants to be healed but she doesn't want to give up those things that
are preventing her from being healed (smoking and alcohol). I know that we have
been guided by Heavenly Father each time we have visited her this week though
and I know He will continue to guide us as to what He needs her to hear at this
time in her life!
Things are continueing to go well with Darby and Shelby too!
Unfortunately Darby didn't talk to her parents this last week so we had to put
off her baptismal date. When we met with her at the beginning of the week she
made it sounds like she was questioning baptismal all together, but as we have
continued to meet with her she is anxious to continue learning and progress
towards baptism. She texted us earlier today and asked us if we could come over
and help her go through her wardrobe to pick out modest outfits for her!! That
made my day!! We've decided to not set a new date for her until we have taught
her all the lessons. She has bad anxiety problems and has a lot of trouble
making decisions for herself. So, we are going to finish teaching all the
lessons and then let her know that she has learned all that she needs to know to
be prepared for baptism and that it's up to her at this point. Our ward mission
leader, who's wife originally introduced Darby to the church, felt like that was
good for her as well. I will continue to update y'all with how it goes! Shelby
came to church this week too!! I was so excited! She had to cancel all our
appointments this past week because she was overwhelmed with school work and we
were super nervous that she was starting to drop us. We had some extra time on
Saturday and we were in the area where she works and decided to stop in and say
hello. I am so glad we did too! We ended up spending time talking with her and
her coworker there and we were able to invite her to church! I know if we
hadn't stopped in and invited her in person she wouldn't have come and she
seemed to really enjoy it yesterday! We have a lesson with her tomorrow so I'm
excited to talk to her and see what she thought of it!
Those are really the exciting things from the week! It's wonderful to
see how God has blessed us for our efforts and our obedience and diligence! I'm
definitely exhausted from all the work from this past week but more than that,
excited to see what this next week holds! I love y'all and I hope you have a
fantastic week!!
Love,
Sister Ogden
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