Busy zone conference week

January 13th, 2018

Wow, what a busy week! This one really passed by quick. This week we had 3 zone conferences and there was a lot to do. It's good to stay busy, but it seems like whenever we have zone conferences we are so busy doing stuff for them that I get behind on other stuff!

I've been really trying to focus on planning this week and how to make the most out of the time that I have. I've realized that it's been a bit hard to balance all that I need to do... Stuff in the office, in my own area, and as a district leader. It's definitely a different experience having to try to give time and effort to all these different things.

This week we had a cool experience with our investigator Leila. When we started to teach her it was a bit rocky, it just seemed like it wasn't clicking with her. But this week we finally made some progress! She's now starting to understand more about how the gospel can bless her life and the lives of those in her family. We planned a family home evening with the Sisters and our ward mission leader to take our investigators, and it was super cool. Leila and her daughter were able to get to know other investigators and recent converts better which will really help her in the long run. It was a good reminder that when members are helping in the work it's always soooo much better!

But for zone conference, President focused a lot on the Book of Mormon and the power that it has. As a missionary, it's our most important tool in helping people become converted to Christ. It's also the main thing we can use to answer questions that people have. It's so cool to think that there's a way for any question that an investigator could have can be answered with one question: Is the Book of Mormon true? Because if it is, it doesn't matter if someone doesn't agree with not being able to drink coffee or doesn't believe that God talks to prophets in our day. By teaching and studying this throughout my mission I've really come to learn this for myself. We can also apply this in our own lives! it doesn't matter what doubts someone has about the church, they only need to ask themselves the question if the Book of Mormon is true. It's so simple so get rid of doubts! If we continually focus on the basics and keep striving to strengthen our testimonies of the Book of Mormon we won't have any room for doubts or questions!

I've been thinking about your talk a bit this week mom, about how my mission has helped me grow closer to Christ. It's a big topic! But I wanted to focus on just one of the ways. Something that I understand much better now than I did when I was at home is that we don't ever have to be alone in our trials or challenges. If we do our part and just trust in the Savior, things will work out. It's for sure a hard concept to explain, I think one of the only ways to really learn that is by experience! Throughout the scriptures, we receive promises that if we ask, then we will receive, and this promise is true! Heavenly Father wants to bless us! But, we have to ask with faith, and we will get the help that we need after doing all that we can. I know now that it really is impossible to be a missionary and work just with my own abilities, I need the Lord's help in order to accomplish the things I need to, and this goes for life after the mission as well. I know that if we have hope and patience and we expect to receive the blessings we need, then we always will! It's still something that I'm learning everyday, how to trust more in the Lord in all I do, but I'm very grateful for the experiences I've had and that the Lord has given me in order to understand this a little bit better.

Another thing that I'm always saying as well is that "hard is good". I really didn't understand this before the mission. I wanted to try and escape all suffering and all trials, and when I had them I didn't try to look for ways that I could learn or progress, just how I could get away as soon as possible! Looking back now i can really see the hand of the Lord in all the trials I've had, bearing me up and teaching me things that I wouldn't be able to learn without them. The Lord really does know what's best for us, and the only way we can become what he expects us to is by just forgetting our personal desires and trusting in Him.

Well, there's my week. Sorry not much as far as experiences go. It's just not very interesting hearing about dealing with health appointments for missionaries or making announcements during zone conferences. But until next week, Love you guys!

Elder Odom

Priorities

January 6th, 2018

Hey! I had a good week. I had the opportunity this week to attend leadership council and it was cool! I was able to learn a lot, especially about the importance of being a good example. President really focused on the point that in order to teach something, you have to put in in practice and live it in your own life. The talk that he had us study in preparation was Repentance is Always Positive by Stephen W. Owen from last General Conference. It really helped me remember that we need to repent everyday, because like he says in the talk, we are all prodigal sons. You guys should for sure check it out!

The weather here actually hasn't been too bad during this past week. It's been raining off and on and so it's stayed a bit cooler. Sure, like I said last week there are some periods of hot humid sun, but in general it's been pretty good! So on Sunday, a member gave us a name of a family of inactive members that we should go visit. We went there and we talked to a man named Claudinei. he was super receptive and said that he would like to start coming back to church. He has a lot of other people in his family that were also baptized and there are even a few that weren't baptized yet, so we're going to start working with them to get them reactivated! 

Anther cool experience that I had was on Tuesday night (the day before leadership council) I got to go out and work with Elder Vilas Boas again, and President actually asked us to go to our old area, Vila Virginia, and talk with our recent converts there. They've been passing though LOTS of problems, and because of that they have stopped going to church. They were pretty surprised to see us at their door when they came outside! We talked to them and found out that they still have testimonies of the gospel and don't have any intentions of not being members anymore or anything, but the problem is that it seems like they are allowing their personal problems to take priority over their spiritual lives. This is something that I've really seen a lot of on the mission. So many people are missing out on blessings and happiness just because their priorities aren't what they need to be! During the rest of the week, I've thought about my own priorities before the mission. How many opportunities did I lose just because I was putting other things before the gospel? What do my priorities need to be here on the mission? What do they need to be after? Often times, it just requires a simple change of habit. Instead of getting home and sitting in front of the TV, open up the scriptures and read a chapter from the Book of Mormon first! Before you leave for work/school, make sure you say a quick prayer! There are so many small things that we can do that make a big difference. If we don't let our "temporal" concerns take up all of our thoughts and we give necessary time to spiritual things, I know that it will make a much bigger difference than we realize. One scripture that I love talks exactly about this. It's in 3 Nephi 13:31-34. If we do our part and make sure our biggest concerns are spiritual, then we can leave the rest to Heavenly Father and he'll make it all work out!

Next week we'll have zone conferences again, so it should keep me pretty busy. 

Elder Odom

A New Year

January 1, 2018

Happy New Year!!

This week was pretty good, everything seemed to slow down here on the mission. I got way less phone calls from missionaries and from the church in São Paulo, and in the field it was a lot quieter as well. It's nice to have weeks like this every once in a while! But in the field, holidays make working a bit more complicated. It was harder to find investigators at home and find people who weren't "busy getting ready for the new year" but it's during weeks like these that I think the Lord tests us as missionaries, to see if we can keep working even though it's a bit tougher than normal.

Something pretty funny that has happened the last 2 sundays in a row, the 24th and the 31st, is that our lunch was fallen through, or in other words the members forgot to prepare lunch for us. So we've had to make lunch in the church both sundays! It was my comp Elder Dantas and I and the 2 sisters Sister Magleby and Zêni that serve in the ward with us, so it was actually pretty fun. On the 24th we made rice, beans, and chicken, and yesterday we make rice and stroganoff. It was good!

This week it has also rained a ton. Every single day this week the day starts rainy, then (if the clouds go away) it gets really really hot and humid, then at about 7:00 or 7:30 it starts to rain again.

Man, is 2017 really over? This year really flew. It seems like only a little bit ago I was in my first area during the new year thinking "Here goes the year of the mission! The only complete year that I'll have as a missionary", and now it's come to an end. 

Thinking a bit about my "mission year" it's been really interesting to see how the different experiences I've had, the people I've met, and the things I've learned have shaped me as a missionary. Lots of times, it's hard to see a change in myself and I feel like the same person as when I left. But if I pay attention to the small things, I can see that I have changed a bit! The way that I see the world and that I think about things now are for sure different than one year ago. I'm grateful for all the experiences that Heavenly Father has given me during this past year, even though lots of them weren't the experiences that I expected or what I necessarily wanted. If there's one thing that I learned this past year, it's that the Lord always knows best even though lots of times we think that we know what's best! The faster we can learn to just trust in Him and make the best of the situations that He gives us, the happier we'll be. If we trust in the Lord, things will work out, lot of times in ways that we don't expect.

Let's have a great 2018! Love you guys!

Elder Odom