a little shopping, partying and teaching

July 1st

This week was good. Stayed busy! 

I swear, I got more calls from missionaries this week than all the other weeks combined. I was talking on the phone all day! I started to feel like you mom!  

This week I worked a lot on the "hero movie" which is a video that we make each transfer for all the leaving missionaries. It has a bunch of their photos that they sent to me and some other cool stuff as well. It requires a lot of time, but it's still pretty fun to make it! I had fun doing it.

So something pretty cool. In the mall close to our apartment and the mission office, there's a Nike outlet, and they had a sale, but only for this week. If you bought 10 items, they'd take 50% off the price! There were a bunch of missionaries here in the city that took advantage to it! I went with my 2 comps and the assistants and we bought stuff. Elder Brock, one of the assistants, was nice enough to buy all of our stuff and then let us pay him back. I bought a sweet Paris Saint Germain jersey and a Brazil national team jacket. Because of the sale and dollar vs real, it ended up being 40 bucks! They're pretty sweet. 

2 funny stories that happened this week too. The first was about a package that here that we got in the office. It had Elder Vilas Boas's name on it so he assumed that it was for him. Then he saw that it was from Recife, the city where his sister is serving her mission so he got super happy! He opened it up and it had a shirt, a mini umbrella that says "Recife" and some chocolates. He was smiling and taking pics with the shirt on and with the stuff he got. Then he looked at the bottom of the box and saw a letter. He read the first line, and it said "Dear President Scholz". The box was for president and he opened it up and was using the stuff in it! We all started dying laughing even though he got his hopes up for nothing.

Here in Brazil, there's a huge holiday called Sao João, or St John. People also call it Festa Junino or June Party, mainly within the church because St. John is a "Catholic holiday" even though they do the exact same stuff, only trade the name. What they do is get a ton of people together and do a dance called Farro, which is similar to square dancing. They also dress up as farmers and rednecks and there's a lot of food that has peanuts and corn. On Thursday, there was a pretty big party for this going on at the catholic church across the street from our apartment. Elder Vilas Boas and I were talking and then the other elders got home but had a bunch of food in their hands. When we asked where they got it, they said "from the catholics across the street! Go over there and get some too!" They said that as they were getting food everyone stared at them and got away from them as if they were wild animals! We'd already changed, so we just went over there in normal clothes. We got to the door and Elder Vilas Boas said "my friend here is american and he'd like to experience a sao joão party. Can we enter:" the lady said "oh for sure go ahead!" So we walked right into the catholic church! There was a lot of food and people were nice and offering us a bunch. I also thought that this was my chance to not be noticed because i was in normal clothes, but no, people still picked me out. As we were eating, we had something funny happen. We were talking to ourselves and a group of girls passed us and started saying stuff in english to us: "hi! hi hollywood!" I don't even know how they knew i'm american. We didn't tell anyone besides the one lady at the front gate. I asked my comp how they know, and he said that I just seem american. I said that there are still people with light eyes and hair here, and he just laughed and said yeah but you just look american, it's not super hard to tell. So i guess even people who aren't familiar with the missionaries can tell me apart! But anyway, as we were leaving they kept saying hi and after a few times i turned around and said hi back and then they all flipped, it was pretty funny! Not everyday you go to a catholic party, especially as missionary. But it was funny!

Our investigator Fatima is still doing good and still hasn't smoked! She's all set to be baptized next week on friday. Super excited to see that, it'll be awesome. It's always good to see that when your investigators get baptized they're true converts and even though they don't know everything, they know that they have to try. She's a convert for sure!

There's a recent convert that my comps baptized last transfer named Guilherme who's awesome too. He's dating a member, but she's going on a mission here soon and he's 100% supportive. His family is super catholic though. It's his parents and his younger sister. They're super nice people though and will always be welcoming to us. So, we decided to visit them just to see if we could mark a family home evening with them or something. While Elder Summers was doing a split with other missionaries, Elder Vilas Boas and I went over to Guilherme's house to talk to his family. We shared a short message from the Book of Mormon about trusting in God, and it went great. I could feel the Spirit as we taught. President Scholz talks to us a lot about teaching quickly to bring the Spirit, and then once we feel it we need to leave, so that they will feel the difference of when we we're there and after we left. So we did just that! Our message was only 7 mins and then we invited them to do a family night next week and they accepted. It was a great example to me of the power of the Spirit in teaching. As missionaries, we always need to remember that it's the Spirit that teaches and not us, and that's what happened this week. It's going to be different teaching them but if we do our part in letting the Spirit teach they'll be able to get a confirmation that our message is true. 

This week I focused a lot on thoughts during my personal study. Our personal thoughts dictate a lot of how we live, and it's through our thoughts that we are able to be happy or sad with any given situation. In the October 2016 conference (my first weekend in the field) I remember something that President Nelson said: "Latter-day saints has the ability to be happy in ANY situation." I was studying a talk about thoughts by Dean L. Larsen called 'thoughts about thoughts', and something that really stuck out to me was what we can do to always have good, constructive thoughts. Here's a part from it: 

"I’ve heard counsel given with regard to devices that might be used to protect us temporarily from the effects of bad thoughts or evil thoughts. I’ve heard the suggestion that we might sing a song, a phrase from a Latter-day Saint hymn, or recite some poetry or some verses of scripture. But this, in reality, is a defensive stance. One cannot always be on defense against evil thoughts. One must assume the offense. The best way I’ve learned to achieve this is to practice sustained, constructive thinking. That’s an exercise, brothers and sisters, that requires as much training and as much conditioning as the physical endurance required to run a long-distance race. I commend to you this morning the “exercise” of sustained constructive thinking.

As a mission president I traveled great distances over the state of Texas. (You can drive a long way in the state of Texas!) I used to spend many hours traveling alone, going from one missionary meeting or one set of interviews to another in the automobile that was provided for us. There was a lot of time to think, and many thoughts come in a situation of that kind. I discovered that it was a very helpful thing for me (and later very useful) if I used that time to practice organizing talks that I could give, forming associations of scriptural ideas and principles that would be helpful to me in expressing these relationships to others. Some of the best talks you’ll never hear, I gave to myself as I drove from one place to another in southern Texas. I recommend, that process to you. In order to sustain constructive thinking, it’s necessary for us to have something worthwhile to think about, to have in reserve, as it were, some items, some problems, some challenges, to which we can turn our minds, to think our way through to a solution. I’ve discovered in my own life that that’s the best way to obtain inspiration and whatever degree of revelation we are entitled to."

 I'm grateful for this opportunity to be a missionary, and I'm starting to realize that time is going by too fast! It's already the last week of the transfer! Something that nick told me when I was pretty new in the mission is something that his first zone leader told him: that the first 6 months in the mission feel as long as the last 18. It's true! I'm doing my best to take advantage of every day I have out here! 

I love you all.

 pic 1: Me with my last comp, elder naytson

pic 2: a family home evening we did with a recent convert. it was sweet!

pic 3: elder breno, one of the financial secretaries, accidentally spilled the toner from the printer. we were all laughing pretty hard

pic 4: me and the comps!

pic 5: first reunion of the mtc district since the first day in the mission field! way fun to see sister martin and elder cleverly at the same time

I hope you have a great week!

-Elder Odom

Mission Tour- another busy week

June 24th

Okay, another week. 

It was a pretty busy one with mission tour and the interviews that President had with lots of the missionaries this week. Pretty much all of the preparation for these types of things are up to us, so we did a bunch!

We had the mission tour earlier today, which is also our p day. so sadly we pretty much didn't get one! part of the it guess. But we had an area 70 come and speak to us. He talked a lot about being true disciples of Christ and what it means to truly teach repentance. It really made me realize that I have lots to learn! He said that we can't be "part-time disciples", we have to be doing everything. As missionaries, we have the name of the Savior on our chest at all times, and how we act, talk, think, teach, serve, etc. needs to be how the Savior would do it if he were he doing it personally. I started thinking; am i doing my best and using the time I have here to do everything in my reach? There's always more we can do to improve. he said that even after we go home, we cant stop living the standards we learned as missionaries, because we've already taken upon us the name of Christ and need to always let that show through our actions. It was super good! Another really cool thing is that now I'm getting to know all the missionaries. It was my first zone conference/mission tour as the executive, and it was cool to see that I've already gotten to know most of the missionaries. For sure one of the better parts of the calling!

So with our investigator Fatima.... She's been 5 days without smoking!!! After weeks of teaching her and extorting her to do the small and simple things, she finally is making progress. After one of our lessons, she said she felt so bad for smoking that she went to the store the next day and bought nicotine patches to help her stop and they started working right off the bat. We were so pumped to see that she's doing it! She's going to get baptized on the 7th of next month. she's really a convert and understand that baptism is a sacred covenant and wants to be sure that she's ready to follow the promises she'll make once she's baptized. It will be awesome!

okay well i'm running out of time again, but have a good week! I love you guys!!

-Elder Odom

Pizza party, bball, and more secretary stuff

June 17th

Alrighty, so another week! Man the mission goes by quick. It's going by so much quicker here in the mission office too. I was worried that it wouldn't, but I just didn't imagine all the stuff that I'd have to do! I'm pretty busy, but it's good and I'm having lots of fun.

This week I learned a lot about the police stuff. I think I've already mentioned it but that's once of my responsibilities. I have to make sure that everything is in order with visas and that all the foreigners can legally be here. I went to the police station for myself actually and renewed my visa. I'm good and legalized to be here now for the rest of my mission! It's a pretty long process with a lot of steps, but I still have 4 more weeks to learn how to do it so I should be good once elder summers heads home.

This morning we played basketball. We had me, one of my comps, and one of the financial secretaries along with the assistants and president Scholz. So president played ball for BYU... He is in his late 50's but still plays way good. He literally doesn't miss when he shoots, and he's about 6'4"! Not only does he not miss but he makes hard shots too. It's way cool to see how good he still is.

So something really cool that happened this week. We went out looking for new investigators last Thursday using the list of less actives from the ward. We went to a house and it turns out the member moved a long time ago, but we started to talk with the couple that's living there now. we got to know them and then shared a quick message about the importance of being obedient using the scripture in Mosiah. They loved the message and said a bunch of times about how this was exactly what they needed. We went back on Friday and taught the restoration. Again, they really liked it. They accepted the invitation to go to church on Sunday too! Something that I thought about a lot afterward was what they kept saying about how they felt different around us, that we have a "joy" that they need to feel. They never accept visits from other religions, but they felt like they should with us. Its amazing to see how the people the the Lord prepares can feel the spirit that we carry! It also reminded me of the importance of always being worthy of the Spirit, because it was Him that  caught their attention, nothing that we did. We never know how the Lord will use us to touch the lives of others! it was a great experience this week and I'm excited to see their progress!

We did a way cool activity this week too. the ward we're in is kinda slow and the members aren't too motivated, so we decided we need to do a cool activity to get them excited again. So we thought... what does everyone like that would make them come? Well, everyone likes food! In the states we have chili cook offs, but here they don't eat much chili. so we went with pizza! We got a member to hook it up with some crusts and we got them out to people. it was a great turn out! lots of people came and everyone had fun.

This week we also went to a way fancy restaurant with president and the other secretaries. a new missionary got here that went home a year and a half ago and just came back! pretty cool he'd do that after so long! to welcome him president and sister scholz took him there. for sure there are lots of benefits of being in the mission office!

So thats my week. Have a good one and i love you guys!

-Elder Odom

In a Brazilian commercial!

June 10th


Hey everybody back at home, another week down!


This week was just more learning about my responsibilities. I stayed pretty busy! We had the leadership council this week with is when all the zone leaders in the mission come to Ribeirão Preto for a meeting. I got to see some of the other missionaries that I haven’t seen for a long time, that’s one thing that’s super cool about being executive!


Last P day was super fun too. We went to a park and passed the football and Frisbee that the parents sent. It’s been awhile since I’ve thrown a Frisbee but it looks like I still got it! So funny story while we were there. The park we went to is actually really nice and has a bunch of little ponds and stuff. There's also a cliff about 70 feet high that has a pond at the bottom with a little waterfall going off the edge. We thought it would be pretty sweet to go up there and throw the Frisbee and football off the top, so that’s what we did. The problem is when you’re on the ground it doesn’t look that high or far, but when we got up there we realized that it’s actually way farther than we thought! But, we were already up there so we decided to go for it. We had Elder Summers go first with the football. He gave it a good throw, but it didn't even make it close… and it landed right in the middle of the pond. Then it was my turn, and by that point I was kind of nervous that something would happen and I’d get my Frisbee in the water the first day I use it! But I threw it! It went pretty far, but I forgot to angle it downward and so it started to go back toward the water! Luckily, it hit the ground and stopped about 2 inches from the edge, but it didn’t go in. So that left us with the problem of the football that was still floating in the water. After standing at the edge talking about what we should do, Elder Da Cunha (one of the financial secretaries) hiked up his shorts and waded into the water to get it. I was laughing so hard watching him get it! Everyone at the park was looking at us like we were crazy, but you cant really blame them! After he got out he decided that it actually wasn’t that far to throw. He stayed at the bottom the first time the ball was thrown so he didn’t see how far it actually was. So then he went up there to throw it! He tried, but also got it right in the middle of the water which was pretty funny for me. Elder Breno, the other financial sec., went and got it the next time. After that we called it good and went back to do our shopping and stuff. But it was a pretty good first P Day on Saturday! So, I made it in a Brazilian commercial, pretty sick!  You'll see me at the beginning of the commercial throwing the Frisbee!  Click here to see Spence in the Brazilian commercial! 


One thing that is pretty time consuming that ive been doing this week is talking to other missionaries about health and marking doctors visits and stuff. Its crazy how many of those I have to do, I’d never guess! This week with our field work, we had a few good lessons. We were able to find a guy named Fernando at home that we’ve been looking for since I got here. Hes a really nice guy but has one problem that’s kinda tough. He doesn’t believe in repentance, and doesn’t feel bad for smoking or other things that he does. It was a cool lesson that we had. We talked a lot about the Atonement and explained Christ’s role in getting clean from our sins. By the end of the lesson, he actually stopped to think and started to understand why repentance is important, actually necessary. That’s something that we’ve been focusing a lot on here in the mission, teaching repentance. There’re a lot of lessons and topics that we teach as missionaries but in the end it all boils down to if a person will repent or not! If someone understands the importance of repentance, everything else will fall into place. As ive been working on teaching it more, Im starting to understand it better and better myself. One thing that I didn’t do before the mission was use the Atonement every single day, and I should’ve! I can see the difference that it’s making! Speaking of the Atonement, theres an awesome talk that I’ve been studying the last few days called “The Meaning of the word Atonement” by Cleon Skousen. I’ll put the link in here for you guys to check out too: ARTICLE LINK

Kinda cool to be able to do that kind of stuff now working in the office! But, that’s my week. I’m learning ton here and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Although we don’t always have the expected or things hoped for in life, the Lord always knows what kind of experiences we need. Have a good week everyone and enjoy the first week of summer!!

-Elder Odom

First week as mission secretary - enjoying good food

June 3rd

Alright, first week as a member of the mission staff!

It's been a pretty full week and probably was the fastest week in the mission until now. The hours fly by here!

So about my new comps. I'm in a trio right now and their names are Elder Summers and Elder Villas Boas. E. Summers is from Portland and E. Villas Boas is from the southern part of the state of Bahia. They're both really awesome and super easy to get along with. Its pretty funny, on my first day in the mission field it was Elder Summers, Elder O'Neill (my first comp/trainer), and me. He was there to watch me teach my first lesson and I'll be here to watch him teach his last! He's going home at the end of the transfer and I'll be the one to take his place.

In this past week, I've learned a lot! My schedule is much different too. Everyday we wake up, get ready and get to the mission office at 8:00 to study and plan for the day. Then from 10-6 we just work. After that, we go to our proselyting area to teach our investigators and stuff. Because the mission office is kinda far from our area, we get to eat at a restaurant everyday which is pretty sweet. There's this restaurant across the street which we just call "across the street" that we go to pretty much everyday. Its good, classic brazilian food and isn't too expensive either. But every once in a while we go to a nicer restaurant. This week we went to one that was 40 reais which is pretty expensive, but its cool because as a staff missionary you get a ton of money to eat. We had huge hamburgers and at the end I ordered brownie and ice cream. It was the first brownie that I've had since I've been here and it was so good! 

So about what I do now. There are 4 secretaries and each one has a different job; 2 financial secretaries and 2 executive secretaries. I'm executive secretary A. One of the things I do is deal with off all the health on the mission. So whenever a missionary is sick of hurt (which happens A LOT) they call me and I tell them what to do. That includes calling hospitals around the mission and scheduling appointments for them. This eats up a big chunk up my time during the day! I'm also in charge of all the foreigners and their documents. So I have to work with the federal police here and renew visas and stuff. Its a pretty complicated process... I'm glad I still have 5 more weeks to learn! On top of that, I just deal with all the random problems that happen day to day on the mission. Like Elder Summers said "If we listed all the stuff that you have to do, we'd be here all day. You can basically sum it by by saying that you fix all the problems!" So if there's any random thing that needs to be done, it's my job. I also become the official IT guy of the mission. Whenever there's a problem with any sort of technology, it's up to me to fix it. So dad, I know what you mean now when you said that google became your best friend while you were learning how to do all the stuff with computers! President said that here in 5 or 6 months the mission is going to switch out our current computers for better ones and it's going to be me that is going to have to make all that work. So, we'll see how that goes! I'll have to study up a bit before that happens! I never knew how much goes on behind the scenes of in the mission. The secretaries do a ton! There's a lot that I need to learn and I'm going to stay busy during my time here for sure.

So, there you have it. I have to cut it a bit short because I didn't use the alphasmart this week but I'll write more next week! Its super crazy that Ty is done with high school...... It seems like just a month or two ago I was in the middle of my senior year! 

-Elder Odom

Called to be the mission executive secretary!

May 29th

So first I'm gonna talk about this past week. It was a pretty good one to end the transfer!

This week we had the ward talent show, and when it was first planned the stake presidents wife asked us to participate once she learned that Elder Boldrin and I play guitar. So we participated and it was super sick. We had a sweet version of Hotel California that we played and also ended up playing Radioactive because it's a fun song that everybody has heard before. The ward loved it! It was pretty fun to get to play in front of people again, reminded me of the good times back at Rock U! I filmed the songs so I'll send them to you guys, but ill have to do it next week.

The other companionship in our ward baptized a couple and it was really cool. On saturday they had the baptism, and then at night they had their wedding ceremony. It was a pretty big thing so we were there pretty much all day helping them out. We got up early to clean the church before the baptism, then after the baptism we went to the stake presidents house for lunch which was super good, then we went straight back to the church to get ready for the wedding. It was a ton of work! But, it turned out great and they had a lot of fun which is whats important.

With Thammy, it was a good week too. She's awesome! Because of all the stuff that her mom's gone through, shes a little unstable at times. Thammy is only 8 years old (9 in june) but she's the one that takes care of her mom with lots of stuff and talks to her when she needs it. I really cant believe how she turned out so good when she has had such a hard life so far! Its super clear that Heavenly Father put her with her mom because if it wasn't for her, i'm not sure where her mom would be. She's also going to be baptized next month on her birthday which i'm super excited about.

So, for the big news... the transfer. Right now, I'm emailing from the mission office! I was called to be the missions executive secretary! I got the phone call on saturday night. We were helping clean up from the wedding when one of the assistants called me. He told me that i was being transferred to an area called Vila Virginia and that I'd be the new executive on the mission. it was a big surprise! even though i was already thinking that it was probable that i get called, by the end of this last transfer id convinced myself that i wasn't going to be the new executive. So when i got the call I was feeling both excited, sad, nervous, happy, all at the same time. I realized that what you said dad is right, the Lord will give me all the opportunities that I personally need so i don't need to worry about what i think i want, i just need to always trust the Lord will give me whats best for me. So here i am, pretty funny that dwain and i both are in the office now in our missions! It should be a great opportunity to grow. I'm already learning a lot and its only the first day! I'll have lots of responsibilities but it'll be good. 

So that's all i have time for today, I'll talk to you guys next saturday, because that's when my P Day is now! Have a good week!

-Elder Odom

It was cold!

May 22nd

This past week we really focused on finding again. We were able to have success, but sadly it was another hard one for my companion Elder Naytson with his health. Now it's his spine that he says is hurting him. It's crazy how many problems he has, his back, knee, legs, feet, so many things hurt. We had one last doctor visit on Tuesday and they said that his legs are hurting because of his muscles, and the only thing he can do is rest which is hard if you're a missionary. I talked to President about it and he said that he just needs to take as much medicine as he needs to deal with the pain and keep working because if he rested enough to actually make a difference, maybe 2 or 3 weeks, it would be too much time away from the work. He still has 8 months until he goes home, so I don't know what he's gong to do honestly. I personally think that the cause of all of his problems is his weight. He is around 5'5" but is 213 lbs. Your body just cant carry that around all day, and because during his first year on the mission he walked even more, he's feeling the consequences now. But we were still able to find a family and a couple other people to teach, so it was good!

Something funny that happened was we were knocking doors and a guy let us in. We started to talk to him and he started to tell us how he loves Jesus and is catholic and stuff. He said "My sister sent me a video this week and I want to show it to you guys, here watch this" and pulled it up on his phone. My comp and I quickly recognized that it was one of the Bible Videos that our church makes that I've already seen a bunch of times. The only difference is that the end part where it has the church logo was cut out. He was a nice guy but was one of those that try to teach us about Christ and the gospel. I was funny how he used our video to try to do that!

On Friday I had an experience that I've never had before here on the mission. I was cold! It had been raining all day long and at night it only got worse. We were out in the streets looking for an address and the wind was blowing super hard and we were soaking wet. It was the first time I've actually been cold in 9 months! We ended up going to a members house to get out of the rain and she gave us some warm food which was nice. When I got to Brazil, I was in the hottest city in the mission during the hottest months of the year. Now, I'm in the coldest city during the coldest months. Pretty cool! I'm super grateful that I don't have to worry about the heat for at least a little bit longer.

On Saturday we had a pretty cool activity with the ward. Lately the ward has really been focusing on helping the members do their visits, so we came up with the idea to do a training for them to show how to do a good visit. We explained how to prepare, what to do during the visit, and what to do afterward. Then we did a quick demonstration. After we showed a video of President Eyring and Elder Holland talking about the Atonment and how we can't ever give up in our callings and in life because the Savior never did. It brought the Spirit really strong and helped motivate the members that were there. The video is awesome! You can find it here   It's worth watching for sure!

Sunday was pretty cool too. President and Sister Scholz came to our ward to give a fireside, and they even participated in ward council too! He talked about the tools that the members have to help in missionary work. His purpose was  to try and motivate the members a bit into doing more! He did a good job and the members really seemed to like it too. It's always fun getting to see President and Sister Scholz.

That's it though! This week is the last of the transfer, and I'll figure out what happens on Saturday! This transfer went by super fast again, especially because it's only a transfer of 5 weeks. The phrase "The days are long but the weeks fly by" that every missionary says is totally true. Time is going by quicker and quicker! But have a good week and until next week!

-Elder Odom