Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had an awesome time celebrating it!
On Tuesday, we got our new companion! His name is Elder Dantas, he was born in the state of Rio Grande do Norte but has lived in the state of Santa Catarina since he's been 15. he's going to be trained to be the other secretary for the next 3 weeks, so we'll be in a trio until the end of the transfer, and then it'll just me him and me until I leave the office. He's really cool and we're already having a good time with him. Something else that's cool is that he has the exact same birthday as me! He has been on the mission for about 6 months now, which is funny because he was in the first group of new missionaries that came when I got called to be in the mission office. It's already been awhile! Time's going by quick for sure.
This week I'd like to talk about another really cool experience that my comp and I had. It happened last Sunday. As we were going to the different lessons we had planned, pretty much every single one of them fell through. So we sat down in a park to try to figure out what to do. we talked for a bit and then said a prayer to be led to those who need us. Then we went out and started kind of walking around without a destination in mind, like we did last week with Julie. As we were walking, we passed a girl that was just bawling and another woman trying to console her. After about 10 seconds, my comp Elder Vilas Boas stopped and asked, "Do you think that we should go talk to them?" Honestly, I'd been asking myself the same thing! I said that I didn't know. We sat there talking about if we should or not for a good 5 mins, because we were worried! We didn't want to get there and start talking to them and have them get mad and us and say "why are you talking to us? Can't you see this is a personal moment??" and be annoyed with the missionaries. It's been a pretty long time since I've been that hesitant to make a contact with someone. After thinking and talking about it, we just decided to go for it. We could literally feel the Spirit saying "go and talk to them!!" As we were walking back to them, Elder Vilas Boas said "Heavenly Father, we're doing our part and trying to be obedient, please help us!" We also noticed that 3 more people had left the house to help talk to the girl. At first, they were a bit annoyed and startled that we would even talk to them. But, we just testified of Christ and told them that He has a plan for each one of us and that through the gospel any problem we have can be overcome. We could feel the Spirit really strong as we talked to them, and I know that they did too. By the end of the conversation, they we're all excited and said that they knew that God was looking out for them by sending us to talk to them in the right moment. We marked tomorrow (Sunday) to go back to talk to them. I hope that we will be able to follow up with them and continue to teach them! Elder Vilas Boas and I reflected on that moment afterward. It would've been so easy to judge and say that it's a bad moment to talk to someone and that we didn't feel anything, but what a great experience we would've lost! We would've never known what good we could've done. My comp also mad e the comment that he's glad we listened, because on judgement day the Lord would've reminded us about this moment! This was a great testimony builder to me. Lot's of times, we have the tendency to judge and think that we know best. Lot's of times we're scared because we don't know exactly what will happen. But, the Lord always know's the best way and if we follow Him and do our best to follow the promptings of the Spirit, we can be sure that things will turn out the right way. I'm grateful that my companion and I had the courage to follow the Spirit even though we were apprehensive and nervous about what would happen. But we did our part, and the Lord did His! The more we put our trust in the Lord, the better things will work out for us.
Sorry I didn't write a whole lot, I forgot to use the alphasmart (yeah I still use it because in the office I generally don't have enough down time to write my letters). But I'm grateful for all of you! I've been so blessed!
Elder Odom
President Schultz played Bball at BYU! The Elders are so impressed with his skills!
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