This week we think we bugged a member about one of his nonmmeber friends. (which is our job haha) but he said that it is sure nice to have missionaries in town all of a sudden, that he never thought little old mendon would need full time missionaries. He said that when the mission age changed they had so many missionaries come out that he guesses they had to put us somewhere. And in that moment I had the greatest confirmation that I'm here because Heavenly Father put me here so that I could serve Him. That's what I'm doing out here, serving my Heavenly Father, and I can't think of anything better to be doing. Wouldn't that be a wonderful eternity? To spend every moment of forever serving our Heavenly King? I was thinking about that one morning and praying to know what I could do to better do that and in my studies I stumbled upon this verse:
23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
And I followed a footnote to Moroni 10:4. To worship God fully we do so with real intent, with a sincere desire to glorify him.
We've had a series of wonderful moments this week where we were in the right time and the right place. It was a kind of hot day and we were out finding people, and we felt like we should go and visit this lady. And we got there and she immediatly says for us to come in and sit down. We were like, okay, this is cool (especially after an afternoon of not really finding anyone). We started talking to her and it turns out she has been praying and thinking about how she can help her husband come back to church. And the question came to my mind if she had been back to the temple recently. She seemed surprised and then said no, that it had been a while since she's gone. Like *years* kind of a while. But she has a current reccommend, she's just been too scared to go by herself. We were like, no problem, let's go! And right at that moment it looked like a huuuuge load was just lifted off of her. We are excited to go with her this week and help her feel of her Father's love for her and the peace that is there in the temple.
There was one day this week when I realized that in Preach My Gospel it says that the Lord is preparing people to hear the message of the Restoration from us. And I realized it had been a while since we had the opportunity to teach that, so I prayed for that chance. And guess what! That day we taught it three times and we've been teaching it pretty regularly since then. Coming on a mission has really brought me to find a testimony of the Restoration. What a powerful message! We taught sunday school this sunday and opened it up about all of the precious truths we have received during this dispensation. We listed off things like a true understanding of who God is, that our families need to be sealed together, that we can receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost to teach us and change us, that God continues to speak through a prophet, the Book of Mormon....it goes on and on! Then we invited them to care share testify and invite. That's our job as covenant members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That's it. We don't change people, we don't teach people even, we just have FAITH instead of FEAR so that the Holy Ghost can do the rest and help them come closer to the Savior, who then brings them to the Father. We talked about the difference between faith and fear a little bit. Where if fear is like an arrow or a dart, and faith is our shield, if we have our faith and don't forget it we will not be afraid.
There is one family that we keep hearing about. They are from England and live in Mendon. Mendon. Of all places. They have been offended by missionaries before because they are very religious in their own church and have gotten into a few "bible bashes" with missionaries before. But their names keep coming to my mind that we should go visit them. And I've been afraid! The spirit pointed that out to me yesterday, that it's the fear of man and not of God. And I got so excited! I can overcome that! So we are going pretty soon. I'm going to be honest with them that we are there as imperfect people, but there only because their Heavenly Father want us to be there, because He loves them so much. So pray for me as I try to conquer that fear with faith and trust in Christ.
I've been studying the scripture John 17:3 a lot this week. Why is it that eternal life is to know God? I prayed about it one morning asking for an experience to help me understand. And later on that night it came! We were teaching a less active family who really has never been active before. We invited them to church and they expressed their concerns about going. And then they said that they didn't understand that if God was so loving and powerful and Good, why would He ever tell someone that they couldn't be with their family forever? And I was so confused for a while after the lesson. Sister Sekona brought up that very same scripture in John 17:3 and pointed out that they don't really don't understand who God is. I've been thinking about that a lot. As we come to know Him, and really how Good and how Great He is, we come to love Him so much. We obey His commandments because we love Him regardless of the challenge it might be to do those things. We obey out of love and not out of obligation or societal pressure. Those commandments are gifts from a loving Father to help us feel close to Him and express our love and gratitude for His goodness. A great talk about that is by Uchtdorf – The Gift of Grace, April 2015.
Funny moment of the week! Okay, a side note, we laugh at a lot of things that are funny to us. But they are things like Sister Ramirez sneezing a ton and getting fed up with it so she starts vaccuming and then sneezing rapid fire as she does so. So theyre really funny but not funny...me explico? hahaha
But we were in a lesson and getting to know the family and having a great time and then we go to start the lesson and I ask if we can start with a prayer. The baby who was just laughing and smiling like 3 seconds prior looks at me and starts to cry! We cheered him up and had a great lesson, and then I ask again if we can say a closing prayer. And the same exact timing and same exact kid – he starts to cry again!! Sister Sekona has not let me forget that moment for basically the entire week xD I think it was funny mostly because Sister Sekona thought it was hilarious hahaha.
Well I'll end here. I love you all so much! God is Good, Christ is Kind, and They are close!
love,
Sister Ogden
179 E 800 N
Logan Utah 84321 *hint hint*
Oh a bonus! Favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon for the week!
21 Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.
23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
And I followed a footnote to Moroni 10:4. To worship God fully we do so with real intent, with a sincere desire to glorify him.
We've had a series of wonderful moments this week where we were in the right time and the right place. It was a kind of hot day and we were out finding people, and we felt like we should go and visit this lady. And we got there and she immediatly says for us to come in and sit down. We were like, okay, this is cool (especially after an afternoon of not really finding anyone). We started talking to her and it turns out she has been praying and thinking about how she can help her husband come back to church. And the question came to my mind if she had been back to the temple recently. She seemed surprised and then said no, that it had been a while since she's gone. Like *years* kind of a while. But she has a current reccommend, she's just been too scared to go by herself. We were like, no problem, let's go! And right at that moment it looked like a huuuuge load was just lifted off of her. We are excited to go with her this week and help her feel of her Father's love for her and the peace that is there in the temple.
There was one day this week when I realized that in Preach My Gospel it says that the Lord is preparing people to hear the message of the Restoration from us. And I realized it had been a while since we had the opportunity to teach that, so I prayed for that chance. And guess what! That day we taught it three times and we've been teaching it pretty regularly since then. Coming on a mission has really brought me to find a testimony of the Restoration. What a powerful message! We taught sunday school this sunday and opened it up about all of the precious truths we have received during this dispensation. We listed off things like a true understanding of who God is, that our families need to be sealed together, that we can receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost to teach us and change us, that God continues to speak through a prophet, the Book of Mormon....it goes on and on! Then we invited them to care share testify and invite. That's our job as covenant members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That's it. We don't change people, we don't teach people even, we just have FAITH instead of FEAR so that the Holy Ghost can do the rest and help them come closer to the Savior, who then brings them to the Father. We talked about the difference between faith and fear a little bit. Where if fear is like an arrow or a dart, and faith is our shield, if we have our faith and don't forget it we will not be afraid.
There is one family that we keep hearing about. They are from England and live in Mendon. Mendon. Of all places. They have been offended by missionaries before because they are very religious in their own church and have gotten into a few "bible bashes" with missionaries before. But their names keep coming to my mind that we should go visit them. And I've been afraid! The spirit pointed that out to me yesterday, that it's the fear of man and not of God. And I got so excited! I can overcome that! So we are going pretty soon. I'm going to be honest with them that we are there as imperfect people, but there only because their Heavenly Father want us to be there, because He loves them so much. So pray for me as I try to conquer that fear with faith and trust in Christ.
I've been studying the scripture John 17:3 a lot this week. Why is it that eternal life is to know God? I prayed about it one morning asking for an experience to help me understand. And later on that night it came! We were teaching a less active family who really has never been active before. We invited them to church and they expressed their concerns about going. And then they said that they didn't understand that if God was so loving and powerful and Good, why would He ever tell someone that they couldn't be with their family forever? And I was so confused for a while after the lesson. Sister Sekona brought up that very same scripture in John 17:3 and pointed out that they don't really don't understand who God is. I've been thinking about that a lot. As we come to know Him, and really how Good and how Great He is, we come to love Him so much. We obey His commandments because we love Him regardless of the challenge it might be to do those things. We obey out of love and not out of obligation or societal pressure. Those commandments are gifts from a loving Father to help us feel close to Him and express our love and gratitude for His goodness. A great talk about that is by Uchtdorf – The Gift of Grace, April 2015.
Funny moment of the week! Okay, a side note, we laugh at a lot of things that are funny to us. But they are things like Sister Ramirez sneezing a ton and getting fed up with it so she starts vaccuming and then sneezing rapid fire as she does so. So theyre really funny but not funny...me explico? hahaha
But we were in a lesson and getting to know the family and having a great time and then we go to start the lesson and I ask if we can start with a prayer. The baby who was just laughing and smiling like 3 seconds prior looks at me and starts to cry! We cheered him up and had a great lesson, and then I ask again if we can say a closing prayer. And the same exact timing and same exact kid – he starts to cry again!! Sister Sekona has not let me forget that moment for basically the entire week xD I think it was funny mostly because Sister Sekona thought it was hilarious hahaha.
Well I'll end here. I love you all so much! God is Good, Christ is Kind, and They are close!
love,
Sister Ogden
179 E 800 N
Logan Utah 84321 *hint hint*
Oh a bonus! Favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon for the week!
21 Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.