Monday, November 11th, 2019 - Last Letter Home

 The Kaw River Ward Elder's Quorum

 Wearing his new tie from Hermano Porras with Bishop

 Sister Romero is a hard worker! She is going home the same day as me. I will miss Elder Owens. I love that guy.

 The new Kaw River Spanish Ward

 Brother Romero and I swapping ties...he says I got the short end of the stick cuz his tie es muy feo. Hahaha

 Our Zone having some fun

Elder Owens, Brother Andrade, and me

Honestly this week has been really awesome, but yesterday at church was one of the best days ever. It was the first sacrament meeting of the Spanish ward and it was awesome. We had 5 investigators come! We took an awesome picture, which I sent you, and they asked me to bear my testimony. It was really cool and I don’t think I've ever felt more loved in my entire life. I got to switch ties with Hermano Porras, and he’s such a cool dood. He’s moving back to Mexico soon.

My favorite part was the sacrament Hymn. 118 Asombro Me Da. The same hymn that we sung in Olathe and that we sung right before they announced that there was gonna be a Spanish ward there. Fitting…I love that one. 

Saturday was pretty fun. We got to go to a couple of ward parties and that was pretty fun. They love their parties and it is so lit! One was the new bishop’s and the Elders Quorum president's birthday party and it was so fun. Really good carne asada. 

Rodolfo is doing well and I think he’s gonna get baptized on the 30th. He is such a humble man. 

I'm so thankful for the last 2 years. I don’t like to think about leaving it because then it’s sad, but it has been the best 2 years of my life. I feel like I've done what I needed to and I've worked hard till the end. See you soon! I truly do love these people and my Savior. 

I love you all, 

Elder Ogden 

We missionaries get excited about tech easily!

One of our last doors knocked

Monday, November 4th, 2019

The elders got sick again, but this time with a stomach bug. Poor guys haven't been able to catch a break! They have great attitudes and faith, so I look forward to hearing from Zack tomorrow...his last P Day!

Elder Zachary Ogden comes home this Friday, November 15th! It's been an amazing 2 years for him and he has worked tirelessly! As his mother, I am so proud, but I know that nothing compares to the approval his Father in Heaven is smiling down upon him! But seriously, I am glad that I get the first hug!! ;)

Finish strong, Elder Ogden! You got this!

Monday, October 28th, 2019

Sister Andrade is the best...she sends me (Esther) pictures all the time of these awesome missionaries!

This last week was so rough. We were so sick. It kind of sucked hahaa. This week was our “walk week”, so that 1st day (after being cleared by the mission nurse) we were so tired about half way through the walk. Then we played soccer with a bunch of kids, and that kind of wore us out. It was a ton of fun though. One thing I love about this area is just how many people there are and they are all so different. There are a lot of homeless people, and so when we walk up the street at night, we see people digging out of garbage cans just to grab anything to eat, or begging for some sort of food. A lot of them are pretty nuts, but it's so humbling. Before the mission I never saw people living like that. Every time I see it i think of the time you told me about the poem "but by the grace of God, go I" or something like that. We met one who was actually a member, but he had gotten into drugs and lost his kids and everything. It was kind of funny because he just followed us around and talked with us. It was late at night and we were far from the apartment. But he was a cool dood. 

I have a hard time understanding all the people walking the streets at night. How they talk, it makes no sense. One of them this week just was just trying to be nice to us and told us to stop smiling and walking the way we walked and stuff, because we were making ourselves a target… “although y’all be some J.O. motha......."(idk what that means)haha. We were actually across the street from the bar where there was that shooting a couple weeks ago. So, I tried not to smile while he was telling us this, which ended up in me laughing. He turns to E Owens and points at me and says 'HES GONNA GET Y’ALL KILLED.' So that's when I started to laugh harder and eventually just asked him if he wanted a picture of Jesus. He then realized who we were (missionaries) and then he said we can walk however the heck we want, but with a lot of profanity. Ha!

We met a guy who has a friend in North Carolina that se hizo Mormon and Rodolfo, the guy we met, was talking to him a bit about meeting with us, but he never did until we street contacted into him. We went over there with Ramon Andrade and we had a really good lesson. We love having Ramon with us bc he is hilarious and he also used to be Catholic, and as you know all the Hispanics are. But the spirit was super strong.

The Kaw River Ward Halloween party was way fun!

They announced yesterday in church that they are going to be realigning the boundaries of the ward. Personally, I think and hope they start an all Spanish branch because that would be lit! 

I love you!

Elder Ogden 

Monday, October 21st, 2019

Elders Ogden and Owens got super sick with the flu, so Zack was unable to email, but he did get to call home and message us a bit. Poor elders were sick for a full 10 days.

Owen and Avery came out of their rooms ready for school Tuesday morning, after hearing they were so sick the day before, wearing their Kansas City gear. It was pretty awesome to hear them pray for their big brother and his companion to get well soon.

One funny from Zack:

Monday, October 14th, 2019

Hola!

In your last transfer as a missionary, you have to do something called “My Plan”, which is where you make a plan for after the mish. It's like a once-a-week thing and I started it this week. It just pretty much says "congrats you finished”…so that's weird. We had Zone Conference this week, which went really well. I got to share my “departing” testimony, so that was kind of surreal. 

There is a guy who is going to get baptized in New Mexico. His kids and ex wife live here, and we are going to start teaching his kids. They are so cool. One of them, Cesar, is a total G. 

 On Thursday we had an awesome lesson with Carmen. We brought a recently returned missionary, and it went super well. We read the Book of Mormon intro and she loved it! 

Ok, a good thing that happened was we got to visit that Honduran family that we found a while ago. They are the best. They are going through some health struggles right now, but they are so kind and humble. We have started teaching the sister of the wife. 

Sorry for the short email, it was a weird week haha. I love you, and thank you for everything you do. Thanks again. 

Elder Ogden 

Monday, October 7th, 2019

In Spanish z and s sounds the same, so I died laughing

General conference was really good as well. They talked a ton about Satan and how he works. They talked a lot about focus/distraction. And joy, lots of joy. Really just prioritizing and using time the best way possible. It was way good and I loved every talk! The lil Puerto Rican guy was super funny! Also… Peter Johnson. That man could read me a dictionary and I'd take notes. Super cool voice. 

In life, it doesn't have to be perfect, in fact, it sometimes sucks! But there's so much joy in it, if we look for it and focus on the Savior. This week, we were on “walk week” and didn’t have a car, so we walked a ton. One day we checked the weather and it said 15 percent chance of rain, so we thought we were good. I was wearing a sweater and Elder Owens was wearing this fuzzy coat thing. As we were walking, it just started in and POURED on us when we were a long ways from the apartment haha. Then, while it was raining, our dinner pushed the time back, so we had to be out in the rain even longer! Then, we got to the house we were trying to go to, and nobody was there hahahaha. But it was actually one of the funniest times of my life, just bc we were sitting there, absolutely drenched, smiling, trying to talk to people and let us in their house. People probably thought we were fetching nuts, but it was actually a joyous experience bc we knew why we were doing it and weren't being negative. It was tons of fun. 

Last night, we had an interesting experience. We found a “lost sheep” in our parking lot the other week and we went to go visit him, hoping to bring him back to church and baptize the people he lives with. He moved here a while ago and is from Guatemala. His name is Kevin. We got there, which was kind of a fat walk and didn’t really make sense to go there that late, but looking back we were definitely guided. We got there and the house was packed with people. We walked in and Kevin's mom told us that we could go in the back room with Kevin. As we sat on the floor and mattresses, he told us about some things. He had a kid while here in the states who was 3 years old. The mom said that Kevin hit him, and took him away. He hadn't seen his son in 3 months and has no idea where he is. He constantly calls and is looking for him, but nothing. The mom of the kid seems to do this every year he says, but not for this long. Usually 1 month or something. He’s gotten into drugs and just a ton of depression is hitting him. Actually, that's how we found him in our apartment, our neighbor is a drug dealer haha. Anyways, it was a really tender moment, I guess you could say. It was more than just a lesson or a message, but it was inspired application of scriptures we shared and the spirit was so strong. Later, he told us that everyone in that house were members. All of them were baptized except for one guy who was from El Salvador. So, we ended up finding like 4 or 5 lost sheep, who are eager to come to church and change. They just fell out of it for a while. Honestly, it is so nice to just see immediate results and blessing come to a family that you find. Just like with the Honduran family. It’s just another testament that this work is truly Christ’s, bc we didn’t do anything special. He just guides us or them to where it’s needed and boom. 

We talked to this one crazy lady who all of a sudden just told us an entire movie plot (which was terrifying, by the way). It was wack. There was no segway nor connection with the previous conversation, so it was kind of shocking.

We found a homeless guy who said he was baptized in California, but now hates the Book of Mormon. Immediately after he said that, he smacked his head on the bus stop sign. 

We talked to a guy from Rhode Island who had the Nintendo "N" tattooed on his face. He was actually way cool and were gonna be teaching him soon. 

I made a goal to not eat fast food this transfer, and every single night this week other like 1 or 2, we went out to eat hahaha rip. 

This last week it super hard to say bye to Elders Morita and Hamby. I love those guys, they're the best. Not gonna lie, I'm so excited to see you guys, and I think that's ok, but at the same time I don’t want to stop doing this, ya know? It's a hard and weird thing to explain, pero así es. I’m so happy and excited. Just peace. I just get to be a missionary. 

I love you,

Elder Ogden 

15% chance of rain, eh?

Sister Andrade sent this to me (Esther)...Elders Owens and Ogden running to get home before dark after a lesson. Hard at work...I love everything about this video. :)