Finally Training Replacement

February 3rd

Another good, fast week for me. This week was the last one of the transfer, and I got some news. I'll be training another missionary here in the mission office and then I'm heading back to the field! I'll have the whole transfer to train him, and it'll end here in 6 weeks. It's crazy that I'm already going to be leaving the office soon... I got here at the end of last May, but it sure doesn't seem like it's been that long! The missionary that I'll be training is Elder McLean from Illinois. I've known him since he's arrived on the mission, so it should be a fun transfer. Another thing that happened though is that, sadly, I won't be companions with Elder Dantas anymore! President decided that he is going to have one of the financial secretaries train as well, and so instead of having 2 trios we'll have 3 groups of 2. I'll just be with Elder McLean. I only got to work with him for one transfer, but it was a good one!

In the field, our investigators are slowly progressing, in the office we just planned for the transfer, etc. Although something cool that happened is that the Sister's had a baptism and a wedding for a less-active and her husband, who was the investigator. They've been teaching him for over 4 months, and finally he was able to be baptized and get married. It was a real example of perseverance and patience to me. The wedding that they and the members put on was awesome! It was on Friday night and all the planning that went into it really payed off. I realized that it was probably a good thing that the sisters were teaching him, because if it were my companion and me that had to plan the wedding, we'd be toast! But I also had the privilege to interview this investigator. His name is Jorge. He really is an example of a convert. He just has so much faith! He told me that one of his biggest concerns was not being able to pay tithing. He doesn't make a whole lot of money and doesn't want to have to choose in between giving his baby food or paying tithing. We talked for a long time about how the Lord will bless him for his efforts, and in the end he said "okay, I'll never miss a month paying tithing, even if I don't know what's going to happen". He hadn't even been baptized, but he has that much faith! He has a stronger testimony than lots of members even have. Super cool experience!

We found a couple this week that have already been taught by missionaries a few times, and it was a really fun lesson. Their names are Jessica and Pablo, and they know a lot about the church! When we asked about what they remembered, they explained the entire Plan of Salvation and all about Joseph Smith! What's good is that even though they've researched the church a lot, they haven't gotten into any anti-mormon stuff, and if they have it seems like it hasn't effected them in any way. They just had good things to say about the church! Jessica even said that she was grateful for Joseph Smith and the vision he had (the First Vision). They even listen to church EFY music at home! But, when we talked to them about baptism, they were hesitant and said that they were already baptized in another church so they didn't see it as being something necessary... Even though they understand well, they still can't see the importance of being baptized in the right way, so there's a bit of a disconnect somewhere. Usually when people understand our messages so well like they do it becomes clear that they need to be baptized again, but we'll keep working with them to find out what's missing!

On a side note, I was able to make a cool connection with Pablo. He really loves basketball (pretty rare here in Brazil) and when I walked in I couldn't believe what I saw... He was playing NBA 2K18! I've never seen someone play NBA 2K on the mission before! It was pretty cool to talk to him a bit about the NBA too. Pretty sweet!

But, that's my week! Have another great week and until next time. 

Elder Odom

Spence upload a bunch of pics - here's a few:

A new investigator

January 27th

This week was great! Until now, we've been having a bit of a hard time with our teaching group, but we were able to make headway this week. This week we had a great experience with a new investigator. His name is Cesar and we was a referral from Leila, our investigator. We talked to him last Sunday and we were able to teach him the first lesson this past Tuesday. It was great! He is very smart and polite and can see things/think in a a logical way like so many people can't. The lessons we teach are very logical; they make a lot of sense and are simple. Because of this, he was able to understand very well the "why" of prophets, the apostasy, etc. When we invited him to pray about our message, he said that if he got an answer, he "wouldn't have any way to not follow an answer from God". And when we marked a date with him, he even asked "what time will the baptism be?" I don't think I've ever had someone except a date so easily while at the same time understanding what he was agreeing to! It's great to see the hand of the Lord in this work, with patience and perseverance the blessings will always come.

We've been having a lot of great opportunities given to us to find more people. Friends of members coming to activities, people approaching us in the street, investigators giving us referrals, it's been so cool! It doesn't always happen like this on the mission, so we are really trying to take advantage of it while we can!

Something that I've felt impressed to study more this week is about the temple. Kind of funny, because I don't have a temple on my mission! And it's here on the mission I've come to be grateful for the temple... Probably because of the fact I can't go! I was able to get my hands on a really cool book called "You can claim the blessings of the holy temple" by Boyk K. Packer. I've really started to recognize how lucky we are to have so many temples where we live. A quote I really like from it is; "Those who fail to partake of the privileges and blessings of the temple work deprive themselves of some of the choicest gifts within the keeping of the Church". Wow! That's powerful! The members here consider themselves lucky that they only need to pay 100 Reais (their money) and take a 3 hour bus ride to get to the nearest temple. Man, there are a lot of things that I think that I should've done differently at home, but going to the temple more is up there as one of the biggest. You guys should find this book and read it. It's super good!

All in all a successful week for me. It's great being a missionary! I'm always grateful for the experiences I have to learn and grow and help others. There really isn't any other time like this in my life! Love you all!

Elder Odom

A Cool Experience

January 20th

Hey!! Pretty good week for us. It was a bit harder to do stuff in the office during the first part of the week because President had interviews with the missionaries, so a bunch of missionaries from the areas here in Ribeirão Preto and close cities were here. Fun to see everyone, but it makes it a bit harder to get stuff done!

This week we had a super cool experience. On Saturday the Sister's had a baptism, and before we stopped by our investigator Leila's house to pick her up. But, we found out that her husband, Luciano, had gone out onto the street and started to argue with some neighbors, then grabbed Leila's phone and the keys to the house and just walked away super mad. Their daughter Letícia got really scared and went to a friends house to spend the night with her. So Leila explained that she really wanted to go the baptism but couldn't leave the house unlocked with nobody there because of security reasons. It was sad for us, but we just told her that we'd pass by her house to get her for church the next day. So on Sunday morning we got to her house again and went to church with her. This year the ward is starting with Quorum and Relief Society, so we left her with the other women and went to quorum. As the first block was ending, we saw the Sisters motioning for us to come in the door, so we went out to talk to them. They said that Leila got up and said she was going to get a drink, and never came back! We couldn't believe it! Until then, I'd never had an investigator leave in the middle of church without telling us... So, we went to her house to find her. We kept clapping at her door, but she nobody was coming. Then a neighbor passed by her house and threw a bag of recyclables over the wall (her and her family sell them to earn a little extra money).  We waited for a few more minutes, and then we heard some rustling, I looked through the crack in her wall and saw her getting the stuff the neighbor threw over. So then we knocked and she had to answer!

She told us that she had gotten a call from Letícia's friend's mom that she was going to drop Letícia off at their house in between 9:30 and 10:00, but she couldn't drop her off at the church because she was "embarrassed". So we decided that we'd wait with her until her daughter got back, and while we were we'd review the Restoration with her. We asked her if she'd prayed about Joseph Smith since the first time we taught the lesson, and she said that until then she hadn't. I started to say "Tonight will you pray to receive..." then I immediately remembered something that President told  us; "Why don't we invite people to pray then and there? Lots of times we say that it's the investigators that don't have faith, but it's actually you guys that need to have more faith!" and I knew that I needed to invite her to pray right then. So I asked her if she believed if God could give her an answer if she asked, and she said yes. So we invited her to pray for us. We knelt down and she said in her prayer "God, I want to know, with a sincere heart, if the things the Elders have taught me are true, and if you called Joseph Smith to be prophet. I believe that I can get an answer to these things". Wow! I'd never heard someone pray that specifically to get an answer! As she was praying, I was also praying that she'd get an answer that she could recognize. Elder Dantas and I put our trust in the Lord and we needed Him to do His part! And, he did. At the end of the prayer I started to feel the Spirit, and Leila did too. We sat in silence after the prayer for about 15 seconds, and we told her to look at the image in the pamphlet of the First Vision. Then we asked her what she was feeling. After a little pause, she said "peace". We explained that peace is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and if what we taught wasn't true God wouldn't be giving her the feeling that she had. She started to cry as we continued to talk. It was a real miracle that happened right in front of us. It was a great experience that I'll never forget, and an important lesson that when we really put our trust in God He will always do His part. What's interesting though is leading up to that point, it seemed as if everything that could've gone wrong did. And when I was inviting her to pray, I felt something that I've never felt before... I felt that Satan was actually mad at us. I can't explain it very well, but it was like a heavy feeling was in the room in the moments leading up to her prayer. Super weird, but I'm super grateful for the Lord's help and that I got to be a part of this great experience! We actually went back to church without Leila because Letícia still hasn't gotten back, but it was all worth it!

Well, I hope you have an awesome week! Love you!

Elder Odom