Monday, October 22nd, 2018

This week started off pretty well on Tuesday. We got to have dinner with the Wheelers who are in the branch. Sister Wheeler is from Guatemala and her husband's Spanish is pretty good too. We actually went to Brother Wheeler's parents' house and there was a ton of people. We ate these ribs and they were so good. The Wheelers are one of my favorite families here; they are so funny. Their son just got back about 3 weeks ago from his mission in Nampa, ID!

As a zone we made leis (the Polynesian necklaces) one morning because of all the Polynesians in Independence. It was a pretty creative idea! No typical zone t-shirts for us!

We set up a lesson with Manuel, the recent convert, on Wednesday night. We showed up and there was about 10 millions cars there, which is always a bad and a good sign. We went and knocked on the door and they opened up and introduced us to pretty much the whole country of The Dominican Republic. They then sat us down, just after we ate dinner, and gave us some more food. It was awesome; they were so nice and hilarious. I'm pretty sure some were from the DR and then some were from New York. They were just in the country for a while, so it was cool to see some of them at church yesterday. 

Hermano Wong, our new Assistant Branch Mission Leader, always roasts us for being ugly. He's hilarious. He doesn't know a lot of English, mostly just the bad words, and he is such a goof ball. Whenever we walk in anywhere, he comes up to us and says "como te sientes, ya que eres lo mas fejo en la rama?" Or something like that. He's pretty much just saying "how does it feel to be the ugliest one in the branch?" He's hilarious. Man, I love that guy and this branch. 

Our new branch mission leader is from Venezuela and he is a super cool guy. He just moved into the ward, but apparently he was here in the area a while ago. The branch was only created about a year and a half ago, so he was in another ward, but he fits right in. He is hilarious and has a cool and unique plan to ward missionary work, really focusing on service, which I think is cool. I am gonna miss Hmno Mena, but we still get to work with him because he is the Elder's Quorum President. 

This week elder Kuhre and I went to the Jazz district for a little bit. We didn't see a lot of people to teach, so we didn't spend a lot of time there, but I got some cool pictures! The only thing I don't like about being in KC is that it is so big and there's so many cool nooks and crannies of the city that we dont get to see all of it. We cover center to northside of KC and then you have The plaza, which is in KC1st ward, and that is wicked fancy. I think we cover most of the city, but KC1 still has some ghetto. 

A cool experience that happened this week. One night we didn't know what to do after a couple apts and contacts fell through. We were thinking of what to do and so we chose street contacting, which is one of my favorites. It was about 8 at night and so we prayed, felt it was right, and went for it. We went to this part of our area we call Lil Mexico. We were walking up the street, with little success, until a guy from a outdoor bar thing yelled," Son Misioneros? Ay, De La Iglesia De Jesucristo De Los Santos De Los Ultimos Dias?" We said we were and we started talking to him and he said he moved into Shawnee Mission, Kansas (A suburb city, definitely not our area) and hadn't been to church in 3 weeks or something like that. We got his contact info and apparently he was an investigator in the past and he and his family were pretty close to getting baptized! It was cool, even though it wasn't some giant miracle that affected us, I still felt like it was the Lord's Hand in our lives. 

The Community of Christ and a lot of reorganization branches are EVERYWHERE here. In fact, The Stake President, President Cato, of the Independence Stake used to be high up in one of the restoration branches. He's awesome. We got to talk to him for a bit when I went on exchanges with Elder Askelson to Hill Park ward. It was a super interesting exchange. Like I said, there are a lot of Polynesians and Islanders around here and I got to teach someone from Pohnpei. The wife couldn't speak english, but could mostly understand. The husband had really good English though. The problem is that not a lot of people speak Pohnpeiin. The Book of Mormon isnt even translated into Pohnpeiin yet, only a couple select books. 

I love you and appreciate you all.

Elder Ogden 

Monday, October 15th, 2018

Hey everyone,

As a mission we are doing the 10 day social media fast as well, and sister Love said that includes music, so our car rides are filled with Conference talks now and it's been pretty nice. 

This week was a fun one and a tough one. On Thursday I went on exchanges with one of the other Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Bischoff. We get along pretty well and he's super funny. He went to high school with my cousin, Grant Hillam from Utah, and they were pretty good friends. On our exchange we knocked quite a few doors and went downtown. As we were walking around we met some pretty interesting people and I got some cool pictures. 

THIS BRANCH IS LEGENDARY. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. 

Well, that's about all for today. Love ya all.

Elder Ogden 

Monday, October 8th, 2018

It's been a good week. On Tuesday we took Manuel to the Visitor's Center and it was sweet. He has already gone to the temple to do baptisms and he loved it. They have a couple different tours available and we took one called "God's Plan" and a short one about the Book of Mormon and temples. We are planning on going to the Liberty Jail with him tomorrow, another visitor's center, if they have a Spanish speaker on shift, and it should be sweet. 

On Friday we had a lesson with Angel and Miguel and it went really well. They are 9 and 10. They are planning on being baptized Nov 10th and it's awesome. 

On Friday we had zone conference and it was super cool. I got to see Elder Hamby and Elder Richins and Elder Rowley again. Man I miss those guys; they're so funny. 

Saturday morning we watched General Conference with the Wheelers and they made us French toast, which was really good. It was really nice. 2 hour church is going to be a different change, but I had a thought during conference when they were explaining more about how we will be studying at home: how are people going to feel when they walk into a home that has the Spirit there so often? I think member missionary work is gonna be super productive because, I think a lot of the time, all they're gonna have to do is invite them over and they'll feel what is there. 

The weather has been pretty rainy, then super hot, then rainy. Which just makes it crazy humid. Thanks for all you do for me.

Love you guys,

Elder Ogden

1&2 la fiesta from like 2 weeks ago

3 VC with Manuel

Monday, October 1st, 2018

 Elder Kuhre and I in Kansas City

My district playing volleyball this morning 

Elder Kuhre and I at the Wheeler's house for Fast Sunday dinner (they sent this to my mom, too...she was really happy...yes, that's Esther adding that last part!) ;)

Elder Ogden's weekly letter: 

What's up, this week was a pretty good one with a lot of tracting. I didn't write a weekly last week, but Elder Kuhre and I are staying together another transfer. 

Last week, we were tracting and got some crazy hot peppers from a guy, who really wasn't interested, but hey he gave us some peppers. Fast forward to this week's District Council. One of the APs came to it and afterwards we were getting ready to take a picture as a district. Elder Paskett, the AP, is apparently a whimp at eating spicy stuff, and so I thought "he's gotta try one of these peppers." So, it was done and he ate the pepper. Tears started rolling down his face as it turned red... screams, the whole 9 yards. Then we took a district picture, even though he was still crying. Whatta man. 

We have some members moving back to Argentina this week and so we helped them move on Wednesday. During that, their nephew told us that Spanish is the language spoken in the heavens, and because we are learning it, I guess we'll be there. Remember, you heard it here first. 

At a member's house this last Friday, the branch put on a huge party. They had tons of people from different countries set up tables to show what their country was like. There was usually a flag, tons of food, and pictures, but they went all out. The missionaries represented USA and we had hot dogs, chips ahoy, candy, root beer, and all that good stuff. The members also got to perform a presentation of their country on stage, like a dance or a video, and it was super fun to see it all. For USA, we had 4 of the senior elders sing the national anthem. It got pretty nutz when it got later, but we got some awesome contacts out of it and we will be teaching one of them this Tuesday. 

We saw the Lord's hand in our lives this week tons of times, but I'll give ya the 2 that stand out.
1- was we didn't have a dinner fast Sunday, and the Wheeler family came into church and invited us over. Prayers answered. It was good too.
2- was we were kind of feeling down with so much tracting and little success, but we were placed in the path of a kid named Jesus. He has tons of questions and has already read the Bible and is eager to learn more. 

That's about it from this week. Love y'all 

-Elder Ogden