Monday, July 8th, 2019

Elder Alexander and Elder Ogden in Kansas City, Kansas

The infamous Doberman Pinscher

I appreciate the prayers of safety and health [lately]. I know they are working and I'll tell you why a little later in the email haha. 

Elder Alexander and I are doing really great! We have so much fun. He is so humble and such a good missionary. We started teaching Ana this week, who has a baptismal date for July 20th. She is awesome and we are excited to see her progress even more. We had a super spiritual lesson with her on Saturday that was supposed to be the Plan of Salvation, but turned into just pure testimonies of Jesus Christ and the spirit was so strong. It was awesome. 

As to the impression for you to pray for more strength for me, I'll tell you why it worked! So on Wednesday, we went to go contact a referral. He was locked out of his house, so we helped him break in. Kinda fun. After that we left and were going to talk to some people in that area. We talked to some people, and as we were talking with them, this Doberman Pinscher and older blackish German Shepherd started running towards us (my back was to the dogs, so I didn't even notice). The Doberman, as it was running by, barked at my ankle. I thought I was dead then, but it didn't even touch me…the dogs kept running. After talking with those people, I realized there was something watching over us. Then we knocked some doors. Sorta at the top of the street, we knocked on the door. Then Elder Alexander saw the dogs coming again, and said "oh shoot". I saw the dogs and did what I had done before, which is run from the dogs. 

This Doberman just locked onto me and chased me down, passing Elder Alexander, who was sorta getting chased by the German Shepherd. I ran the fastest I've ever ran in my entire life towards the busy street, but that didn't matter because Dobermans are like Cheetahs. It ran fast and then lunged at me, biting the back of my hamstring. At that moment, I was nearing the corner of the busy street and the street we were knocking and had to slow down [or I’d run into the traffic]. I thought I was going to die. I'm not sure why, but this dog just stopped…then turned and started running towards Elder Alexander, who had been chased by the Shepherd. He was swinging his bag at the German Shepherd in a taco shop’s parking lot. [Feeling protective], I pulled out a pocket knife and started chasing it haha. I even let out like this war cry "YAWWW" just because of the adrenaline. We scared the dogs off, and Elder Alexander got off clean, except for he broke his bag trying to hit the Shepherd. Sadly, he missed, but if he would’ve hit that dog, that thing would've been dead he swung it so hard. Anyways, the Doberman bit another in the leg, so the taco shop had called the cops and stuff. The taco shop people were so nice and had us come in and wait until the police and EMTs showed up. We had to talk to the cops and animal control, but it was pretty fun. Crazy experience and now I know not to run from psycho dogs…haha. But here's where your prayers, and garments, offered protection. 

I was wearing 3 layers. G's, compression shorts, and pants. The dog absolutely destroyed the pants and compression shorts, but there was nothing more than a little hole in the G's. The compression shorts and the G's are pretty much one tight layer, so it’s amazing. I still got pretty gnarly gashes though, but it should've been a lot worse. [The EMTs were amazed that I didn’t need stitches with all the blood and how my pants were destroyed.] So thank you for the prayers! Sorry, I can't tell the story too well in writing. It was nuts though and I thought I was gonna kill that dog haha. 

4th of July is flippin nuts here. We were allowed to stay out late to talk to people and it was absolute chaos, just because everyone is so close to each other. It was just smoke and fire. It honestly looked like the purge. Just the end of the world. Like 3 fireworks booms a second. It was awesome. We got tons of food too that people gave us as we were walking around. 

Had some pretty good tacos this week. We also got to do some work around the Kansas University Med school, which is in our area. It was a lot of fun!!

I love you. I love you and pray for you daily. Thank you for your example and prayers. I love you so much. Thank you. 

Elder Ogden