President is a Super Hero

October 21st

This week was great! It was a busy one with 3 Zone Conferences in the mission. This time, it was my turn to go to the other side of the mission to participate. We always have 2 conferences here in Ribeirão Preto and another one in another city called São José do Rio Preto. A talk that President Scholz had us read in preparation is "And This Is Life Eternal" by Elder C. Scott Grow. It's from the April General Conference of this year. It's a really good talk that you should for sure check out. It give us specific things that we need to do in order to get to know the Savior better.  I've already mentioned this, but I really love the simplicity of the gospel! This talk is an example. Something specific that we can do with a specific promise of what will happen. 

This week President had a pretty rough one. On Wednesday night I got a phone call from Sister Scholz, and she asked if we would be able to stop by the mission home on the way home to give President a blessing. My first thought was 'uh oh' because I know he wouldn't ask for one unless it was really bad. So when we got there, I walked in and immediately could tell that pres wasn't good. Turns out, he has a kidney stone and he'd been feeling pain from it for almost a week but he didn't show any signs of it. We're around him all day too! So I gave him a blessing, in English (which was hard but I managed) and president said that during the blessing his mind was opened and he realized that he needed to go to the hospital, even though he really didn't want to. So as we left his house he told me "see you at 6:30 tomorrow morning for conference". That night he went to the hospital and didn't get home until 3:30 in the morning, and still drove 2 hours and gave an awesome conference even though he was feeling so much pain. He's so tough, the other Elder's in the office and I couldn't believe how he did it. He really is such a good example of perseverance and faith. Even though he said at the hospital he was "thinking about the spirit world" because of all the pain haha he didn't have any doubts that he would be healed enough to be able to go to the conference the next day. Once again, I'm so grateful  for the President that I have and everything I learn from him!

So this email will be a bit shorter because I didn't have time to use the Alphasmart this week, but this is what I wanted to share with you guys. But I hope that you guys all have a great week! 

Elder Odom 

The Easy Way Isn't the Best Way

October 14th

Okay, so about my week. Last Sunday was my first official Sunday in the ward, and I’m really liking it! The leadership in the ward is pretty young and the bishop got called 4 months ago and he’s really excited about missionary work. He gives lots of ideas and he’s ready to help us out. It helps sooo much when you have a ward that supports the missionaries and are willing to do their part! Our ward mission leader, Carlos, is awesome too. He’s about 55 years old and he’s super crazy! He’s constantly making us laugh. For example, on Sunday we had a ward lunch where every family brought something and we all ate together, he went up to a brother in the ward and kissed him on the bald spot on his head, then grabbed his fork and started feeding him. Elder Vilas Boas and I were dying! Carlos is always doing stuff like that. Not only is it entertaining to be around him, but he also likes to help the missionaries out a lot.

This week Elder Vilas Boas and I focused on and studied about the importance of talking to everyone. Lots of times, you see someone on the street and think to yourself “no, that person wouldn’t except our message” so you just pass him. But in reality, it’s our job as missionaries to give them the opportunity to use their free agency to either accept or not. We can’t decide for anyone what they’ll do! This week we had a pretty cool experience with this. We were walking to an appointment and saw 3 guys sitting in front of a store when I got a nudge to go and talk to them. Then the thought came to my head that said “you don’t need to talk to them, these type of people never want to listen to you!” but I looked at my comp and saw that he also got a nudge to go and talk with them, so we did. At first, they weren’t really paying attention to what we were saying until we started to talk about the Book of Mormon. Then one of the guys looked at us and said, “wait, Book of Mormon? This isn’t the Bible!” and started to challenge us a bit! He started to ask a ton of questions about the Book of Mormon and what we believe. But we just calmly answered all his questions and kept talking to him, and at the end of the conversation he was joking around with us and we were able to mark a day to teach him at his house. One thing that I noticed while I was talking to him was that what I needed to say kept popping into my head right as I needed it! The promise from D&C 100: 5-6 is real. If we just go out and talk to people, we will know what we need to say! I’m glad that my companion and I were able to talk to them, even if we were a bit hesitant at first. If we had decided to just keep walking, which is the much easier thing to do, we wouldn’t have had the experience we did! This is one thing I’ve learned on my mission, is that lots of times the easy way isn’t the best way. Lots of times stepping outside of our comfort zone is necessary!

The focus of my study this week was faith. I’ve been thinking; what does it actually mean to have faith? How can I trust more in Heavenly Father and Christ? Preach My Gospel has a part that I love about how we can grow our faith: “Your faith will increase through diligent study, prayer, dedicated service, and obedience to the promptings of the Holy Ghost and the commandments.

Your faith in Jesus Christ grows as you become better acquainted with Him and His teachings. As you explore the scriptures and search them, you learn of His ways, His love for all people, and His commandments.”

This is an awesome promise, super direct and simple. If we want to increase our faith, we need to do these 4 simple things. I love how simple to gospel is! One well known chapter about faith that I decided to study this week is Ether 12. Everyone should check it out, I promise that you’ll get some better insight about faith out of it!

Well, that’s it. I’m grateful for all the experiences I’m having out here as a missionary, it seems like I’m liking my mission more and more everyday! Have a good week!

Elder Odom

missionaries coming and going

October 7th

This week we sent off the departing missionaries and got the incoming ones. One thing that’s good and kinda lame at the same time about being in the office is that we say bye to all the missionaries leaving. This time, 3 Elders who I got to be really good friends with, Elder Jones Campbell and Jacobsen, left. Elder Jones was one of the first missionaries I met when I got to the mission, he really helped me out with getting used to being out here!

We had a really big group get here though; 10 americans, 2 mexicans, 1 chilean, and 3 brazilians. It was a little funny for me to see all the new americans, I just remembered when I got here and understood nothing and thought about how Ty’s doing right now! It was a really packed day, we gave trainings, took the trainers to lunch, helped Sister Scholz with interviews, etc. We started at 8:30 AM and didn’t stop until 8:30 at night! There’s a lot to do with the new missionaries getting here.

Another change we’ve had in the office is that Elder Da Cunha is going to leave to go to be a “normal” missionary again so President called Elder Sánchez to take his place. He’s from Mexico and is super funny. I was in the same zone as him and have done splits with him when I was in Franca, so we already knew each other pretty good. He’s a real funny guy and definitely makes the office more exciting.

Today we played basketball and volleyball again, when we played bball, president came to join us, and that’s always a blast! We had 5 people so we played President and me versus 3 of the Brazilians in the office. Even though we won, I was super tired at the end. Man, I realized that I definitely can’t run very much without getting tired! But P Days are always fun especially when President plays with us.

In the field, we’re just getting used to the new area. We visited a few people that Elder Vilas Boas was teaching when he was here a year ago, but we still have a lot of work to do to get a good teaching pool.  Opening an area (what we calling it when you put 2 new missionaries at the same time in an area) is always a bit tricky at first, but we’re ready for the challenge and to get to work!

So General Conference this past week was awesome!! There is so much stuff that I liked from it! I think my favorite talk was The Book of Mormon: What Would Your Life Be Like Without It? From President Nelson that he gave during the Saturday afternoon session. His talk really made me think. He asked, “How precious is the Book of Mormon to you?” We saw a picture of him studying the Book of Mormon and when I saw that picture, I got a feeling of how important the BoM is. He’s an Apostle, but he still does all the small and simple things! Another thing he said that really caught my attention was “We need to feel, deep in the inmost part of our hearts, that the Book of Mormon is unequivocally the word of God. We must feel it so deeply that we would never want to live even one day without it.” Do I feel that way about the Book of Mormon? If there’s one thing I got out of General Conference this time it’s just how important this book is. If President Eyring and Nelson can act on the Prophet’s invite to study the Book of Mormon more, then all of us sure can! The promise President Nelson made is awesome. If we study the Book of Mormon every day, he said we will make better decisions, the windows of heaven will be opened, and we will be shielded from temptations. I’m going to do my best to study a little harder, think about the Book a little more, and try to understand it’s importance more and more each day. I’m so grateful for the blessing we have to have prophets here on the earth to guide us, and for scriptures to help us know how to find all the answers for the questions we might have in our lives.

I hope that you all have a great week, and remember to make the BoM a priority.  Until next time!

Elder Odom

Changing areas

September 29th

These past 6 weeks went by so fast, time just keeps going by faster and faster!

This week we just did a bunch of little things to get ready for the transfer on Monday. But about the transfer, there were a few good changes. One of them is that my comp and I are changing areas! We were in the Vila Virgina Ward, and now we're going to the Riberião Preto 1st Ward. It's kind of cool, because we've wanted to switch areas for awhile now and so we made a plan of how we'd be able to do that and it turned out that President used a lot of the ideas we gave him. Elder Vilas Boas actually started his mission in this ward that we're going to, so hes super excited to go back and see the members and investigators that he met over a year ago there. He says it's a super good ward that helps the missionaries and the work is good there too, so I'm looking forward to the change.

Although, it will be sad to leave some of the people behind in Vila Virginia. We visited our recent converts Andre and Fatima for the last time this week. It's always sad to leave people behind once you've come to love them, but it's part of the mission. I'll also miss Fabio, our ward mission leader, the bishop, and other cool members. But like I said, I think the change of area will be good. Especially because Vilas Boas has been in the same area for over 7 months!

One highlight of this week was President took us to a churrascaria, which is a Brazilian barbecue restaurant. Basically it's like Rodizio or Tucanos, although I have to say it's better here! President made a deal with one of the financial secretaries that once he found a new house in a certain city (that has been super super hard to find) he'd take us all. Finally they we're able to find one last week so we all went! It was super good food and once again made me realize how cool President Scholz is. It's not cheap to bring so many people there, but he still brought us!

Because we figure out what's going to happen in the transfer early in the week before the rest of the mission in order to prepare, we've known since Tuesday night that we were going to leave. But, we've been working really hard to find new people to teach this week for the other Elders that will stay in Vila Virginia. We've been able to find some cool people that really seem interested. But, we had an experience contacting a referral that the other missionaries gave us that made me grateful for the Spirit. As we were getting close to the address they gave us, Elder Vilas Boas said "oh you've got to be kidding me" because the address was right next door to a place that does something called Marcumba. Marcumba is a type of religion or cult here that deals with spirits and voo doo and stuff like that, it's bad news. So we entered the man's house and about 5 minutes into our lesson, we started to hear drums and other sounds coming from next door. Right as it started, you could literally feel the Spirit leave the house. It's a super weird and really uncomfortable feeling to feel an absence of the Spirit like that. We went for a minute longer and then Elder Vilas Boas looked at me and gave me the look that said let's get out of here! We cut the lesson short and told him we'd come back another day. As we walked away, the strange feeling we had started to go away the further away we got from the house. I thought a bit about the experience and how great it is that we have the Holy Ghost with us at all times in order to help us know what we need to do. One of the main things that he does is alert us to dangerous situations, and I'm grateful that he was looking out for my companions and me that day! The Spirit is always here to help us, we just need to stop and listen to what he's telling us to do.

Another thing I'm happy about is conference! I know I've already said it, but time really is going by fast. It doesn't seem like it's already been 6 months since our last general conference. But what a great opportunity we have to listen to the general authorities of the church. I didn't do a super great job of watching the Saturday sessions at home, but I wish I would've. We literally get to hear what God wants us to do specifically right now. Seriously, an awesome opportunity!

Have a great week!

Love Elder Odom

continuing the work

September 23rd

I had a good week! It was probably one of the most laid back weeks I've had here in the office actually. This week President did all of the interviews in the other cities here in the mission, so he was traveling the whole week. It was also nice that we didn't have a lot of missionaries coming in and out of the office everyday so I was able to get a lot of stuff done.

Something that's a bit different though is that we have Elder Santana living with us now. He's an Elder that I lived with when I was in my last area in the Pinhares ward in Franca, so I already know him really good. His companion went home last week and he had nobody to stay with so president put him with us. It's always a bummer to see missionaries go home early. But this week I was able to get pretty much everything ready for the next transfer as we enter the last week of this one.

This morning we all played volleyball. We had the 5 secretaries (one is being trained right now), the assistants, and President came too! It was a blast! Basketball is really fun to play too, but volleyball is a bit more competitive so that what we've been playing recently. Not sure if I've mentioned it yet but President also bought us a nice volleyball and football to play with. He's awesome! 

With our field work, we're just going. We're still following up with our 2 main invastigators, Elisangela and Claudio, and focusing a lot on getting them ready to be baptized. They're great, they've been going to church every week for the past 8 weeks. They just need to be a bit more consistant with reading the book of mormon. Claudio is also still trying to stop smoking as well. I've really learned how addicting cigarettes are on the mission. Pretty much everyone here smokes and it's just sooo hard to stop for people. Elisangela and Claudio already stopped drinking coffee and Claudio is really close to stop drinking. But as soon as he stops smoking, I really feel like they'll be prepared to be baptized. 

This week I thought about trials in our lives and why we have them. One of the most common questions we get as missionaries is "Why is life so hard? Why do I have so many problems?" A scripture that I really like in Mosiah 23 says that "the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith." The people in this part of the Book of Mormon we're following the commandments and being righteous, but still had these problems. We learn that the Lord gives us trials on purpose! I know that every single trial or difficulty in our lives has a reason, and the Lord wants us to learn something from them, but we have to actively look for the things to be learned in these trials. It's all about attitude. In the next chapter, Mosiah 24, verses 13-16 it talks about what happened to these people, and how the Lord is always here to help us in all of our times of need. We'll have lots of problems throughout our lives but we can always be happy in any circumstance, like President Nelson said last general conference. I've been really trying to be grateful and positive during hard times. It's for sure not always easy, but I can feel the influence of the Lord helping me along whenever I look for and ask for it.

But that's my week. Have a good one, love you guys! 

Elder Odom