September 2nd

Another week down. It was a good one! Here's a few of the things that happened.

On Monday the zone leaders got in from around the mission for leadership council, and we always do splits with one of them. I got to go out with Elder Jones from Lehi, one of the first missionaries I met here on the mish and one of my best friends out here! I also was with Elder Hidalgo from El Salvador who's awesome. I had written down a few addresses of inactive members to visit with them. While we were walking around, I realized that we had passed one of the houses that I had written down! It was going to take a few minutes to walk back and we were already getting close to another house, but I just decided to go back and knock. When we got there, we found that the member had already moved a few years ago so we started talking to the boy that answered the door. His name is Igor and is 12 years old. We told him a bit about us and wanted to share a message with him and his family. He went and got his mom and she invited us right in! We sat down and started to talk to her. The mom's name is Maria, and she has 2 kids, Eduardo (15) and Igor. Maria told us she had just been commenting to Eduardo that they need to start going to church and making God a priority and then 5 mins later we knocked on the door. We went ahead and taught them the Restoration of the Gospel and they loved it and understoood it well. At the end of the lesson, you could really feel the Spirit. Elder Jones told them that they can receive am answer about this message for themselves through the Spirit, and the Spirit is what they are feeling right now. Maria said "I know that the Spirit is testifying to me right now that this is true" and when we invited her to give the closing prayerr, she said, "Heavenly Father, thank you for sending these missionaries to us and showing us that the true church of Christ exists on earth." How cool!! We we're truely lead by the Spirit to find this awesome family that was so ready to hear the message of the Restoration. I'm so grateful the Heavenly Father for helping us find them.

With Claudio and Elisangela, we are making progress as well. Turns out that they didn't really like the Cervada, but they stopped drinking coffee either way! We visited them yesterday on Friday and when we asked about the Word of Wisdom, they gave us some good news. They said they're already realizing that coffee is bad for you and they're seeing the benefits of stopping. Elisangla used to get bad stomach aches reagularly but since the day she stopped drinking coffee she hasn't gotten one! Claudio said that his headaches that he always gets went away as well. They both mentioned that they have more energy during the day too. How cool that the Lord is already blessing them for their efforts to keep this commandment. They are both reading the Book of Mormon regularly too. They told us all about what they read and both are really enoying the story the Book of Mormon tells! It has taken awhile to get to this point with them, but they're finally getting going! I'm  super excited to see what more progress they'll be able to make. It's been really fun to help them and see the gospel blessing them in their lives from up close. This is for sure one of the best parts of the mission, seeing the difference the gospel makes in people's lives. Being born into the gospel, I've always been around it and haven't really seen or noticed the difference it can make in the lives of those who have never had it. But here on the mission, I have this opportunity to see it everyday! I'm now more grateful than ever to have been born with everything that I have, with my family, friends, where I live, being born in the church, I have really been blessed. 

Today is Elder Breno's (one of the financial secretaries) birthday, and what he asked for was an American breakfast. We brought it up to President Scholz and he got on board with the idea real fast... I think it'll been awhile since he's had one too! So this morning at 10 we all went over to the mission home to eat the big American breakfast that Sister Scholz cooked for us. Man, it was so good! You don't realize what you've been missing until you have it! First time I ate french toast, cantaloupe, cranberry juice, and blueberry muffins in year. This is just one of the awesome things about being in the office. Working so close to President and Sister Scholz is a blessing and an honor. I really do have the best mission president and sister in the world!! 

Okay, I love you guys, thanks for all the continued support I get from you back at home! Have a great week and until next saturday!

Love Elder Odom