Right Place at the Right Time

February 10th Hey! This week has been pretty busy! Now that I've gotten started on the training, I'm starting to realize just how much stuff that I need to pass on to Elder McLean. Like you said Dad, you don't realize how much you do until you have to teach someone else, but it's going good! This week we got more new missionaries. In the group was another Elder from Draper, Elder Swanson. He went to Alta and we have a few friends in common so it was fun to get to know him a bit more. Aside from the training, there hasn't been much else going on in the office. But, this week we actually moved apartments! Elder McLean and I will now be living with the assistants and the other secretaries will be moving into another apartment in the same building later this week. It's a much bigger apartment than our last one and I really like the assistants, so it should be pretty cool. Something random that I was pretty happy about though is that I was bale to get all my stuff into 2 suitcases! I remember the first time I was transferred, I almost didn't get all my stuff into 3 suitcases but I put the medium sized one inside the biggest one and between that and my carry-on I was good to go. I got a box from the office and put a bunch of stuff in there that I want to take home but don't want to take to my next area, like letters, a few souvenirs, etc. and I'll leave the box in the office until I go home. In the area, the work's going good. Our main problem this week was that a bunch of stuff in the office kept popping up that we needed to do and it made us get to the area late. Because of that, we've had to remark a bunch of appointments. With less than 3 hours in the field everyday, it really just isn't enough time to do everything that you want to! We really have to make sure that we plan well so that we can take advantage of the time that we have. Our investigators Leila, her daughter Letícia, and then Cesar are our main focus in the field right now. We had a great lesson with Cesar this past Tuesday. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation, and he just took it all in. One thing that I really like about him is that he asks good questions because he actually wants to understand and learn more. Teaching investigators like him is super fun! Now we just need to work on getting him to church. He also has a 10 year old daughter named Luana, but she's super super shy and quiet, so we decided that we're going to work on getting Cesar ready for baptism and then once he's baptized we'll focus more on Luana. Leila is still in the same spot as she was... Her main problem is her husband. If it wan't for him, she'd be baptized already! Every time she doesn't go to church it's because he does something to make her not go. Sometimes he takes the keys to the house and leaves her there, other times he just straight up tells her that she's not going to church. It's been pretty hard and I've been pretty worried trying to find out how to get around this situation. Last Sunday during ward council I talked about her and said that in order for her to be baptized, she's going to need support from the ward. The Relief Society president said that she was going to visit her this week so we'll see how that will help. Leila has been going to all the activities that the Relief Society has every Wednesday as well, so that 's been great! She's already making a lot of friends in the ward and so when she's baptized it's just be that much easier to stay active afterward. We had a really cool experience with a less active member. We were in the area on our way to an investigators house when we heard "Hey Elders!". A boy came up and started talking to us. He said his name is Filipe and is 14 years old, and he was already baptized but wanted to start going to church again. So we went to his house to talk to him and his family, and during the lesson he started crying because of some hard things he's going through right now. He and his family are super poor, they live in an area called a "favela" which is basically a slum. We talked to him about the importance of putting the church and gospel as your number 1 priority, especially during hard times, and he and his family promised they'd go to church. On sunday, Filipe showed up! He walked to church by himself, even though his family didn't go. We told the young men's president and the bishop that he was there and they talked to him and helped him out. The ward now has helped him out to go on "acampamento", which is what they call youth conference. he's actually there right now! The ward was able to pay for him. I was super happy that the ward was so quick to help him out, and that we were able to be in the right place at the right time in order for him to find us! That's all for me though. Have a great week, love you! Elder Odom