Well, this is it! My last email out to everyone.
This week was tough with a lot of things not going as planned with our investigators and stuff, but at the same time it was full of small miracles. Elder Niedert and I were out in our area and all the investigators we had planned to visit weren't at home. So we stopped and decided to say a prayer to know where we should go, because we were out of ideas! Right after that, we just decided to knock on the door across the street from where we were, and we ended up finding a man named Paulo. He lives alone and his house is also super close to the church building. The first thing he said was "I've already gone to a bunch of different churches, but in every one I find something a bit different. Shouldn't there just be one right church?" How cool! Yesterday, the exact same thing happened, and so after we said another prayer we were walking down the street and I felt like we should knock on a specific house. Right after I slowed down to go, Elder Niedert stopped and said that we should knock on the same house. So we went over there and we were answered by a 20 year old guy named Marcos. He said he used to be super active in his church and has always been super into religion and had even done missionary work, but recently he had fallen "back into the world" and had desire to get back on the right path. He knows the Bible a bit and is smart so it was a super cool lesson. It's cool to see how fast the Lord answered our prayers this week with these two experiences. It doesn't always happen like that in life though, and I'd say that the majority of the time it doesn't! It's always in the Lord's time, He does things knowing perfectly when in order to bless us the most. But, when it does happen immediately I'm grateful!
So we're going to have Milton's baptism tomorrow! After not being baptized last week because of smoking, it was a miracle that he is ready. Even though we had to travel this week, we used the ward to keep him ready. We had members go to his house every single day in the morning to help him not smoke! It was so cool to see how the ward helped him, and now he's more than ready for his baptism. His conversion taught me that really anything is possible if it's God's will. After smoking almost his entire life, he was able to stop in just 3 weeks and give up all of his old habits to follow Christ's example and be baptized. I also say the importance of doing it as a team, without the ward I don't think he would be ready by now. When we have problems in our lives, we need to get help from those around us! It's much easier going through the journey of life with as many people helping us as possible.
So, to end, I'd like to thank everyone so much for all the support I've received over these last months. Every prayer, thought, all made a difference. When times were tough for me, it always brought a lot of comfort thinking about all my family and friends praying and rooting for me back home. During these 2 years I've had the opportunity of a lifetime to learn and to give everything to do the will of the Lord. Although it's impossible to write down every little thing that I've learned, one thing that I feel like sharing from what I've learned is that life is what we make of it. No matter what the situation, if we sincerely want to we can get something out of it. Something that my Dad told me over a year ago that changed my perspective is that "The Lord gives us all the opportunities we need". And it's true! God knows us perfectly and because of that everything that happens in our lives can possibly be something that we can use to grow and become more the person that He wants us to be, but it depends on us and if we really want it. I'm grateful for everything that I've experienced on the mission, especially the hard moments. I'm grateful for knowing that I can always trust in the Lord and knowing that it will turn out okay in the end. And I'm especially grateful for the opportunity He gave me to serve a mission and be His representative, they really are the best 2 years! Once again, thank you all for everything! And well, see you soon!
Elder Odom
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