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. :)