Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey guys!!

This week was super fun and we had lots of exciting things!! Thursday was THANKSGIVING!!! Ok similar to fourth of July but I haven't really celebrated a normal Thanksgiving for 6 years because it's not a holiday in England. So that was super fun to have the classic Thanksgiving feast and the Costco pumpkin pie of course. We had dinner at a member's house and it was so fun to get to know their family and friends. They were all so sweet to just let us join their thanksgiving!! We also met up with our zone to play games and chill. That was pretty fun too, especially because I don't know a lot of people in our zone so it was fun getting to know them. 

Also Sister Asper and I COOKED A TURKEY!! When I told my mom I was cooking a turkey she had little faith in me (and I did too because I have no clue how to cook a turkey) lol. But Sister Asper got a recipe from her sister and we cooked the best turkey ever!! It was so yummy and it looked so fancy. I'll put some photos below.

On Saturday it snowed!!! I LOVE THE SNOW!! I thought it wouldn't stick because it's so humid here, but it's doing pretty good. It's like a Christmas miracle already lol. We found lots of new people to teach this week which was exciting. We also had some awesome lessons. 

I just love sharing this gospel with everyone and I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ!! 

Love and miss you all💟

google photos album:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qSs2wNuWwULfC4fY9

Living in Liberty!

Hey guys!!

On Thursday we had transfers and I moved to LIBERTY MISSOURI!! I'm gonna miss my Kansas friends but I'm excited to be here in Missouri. We're right by the Kansas City Temple and Liberty Jail so I feel extra lucky. The first part of the week I said bye to all my friends in Gardner. My friend Nova, who we taught previously, gave me a Bible with my named engraved on it!! I almost started bawling my eyes out and all her kids gave me a ton of drawings and it was so precious. I'll put photos below of me and Nova and Basil her oldest daughter. I also said bye to Staci and our recent convert Earron. They were all so precious and I'm glad I got to see all of them before I left. 

I also had to say bye to Sister Kington and I'm gonna miss her so much!! My new comp is Sister Asper and she's so cool. Being a Sister Training Leader is so fun and I'm excited to get to know the Sisters in the zone better. Our apartment is really fancy and we don't live in our area because there's no apartments there so we just drive there everyday. Finding new people to teach is kinda different here. We're in a pretty wealthy area so sometimes people don't want to talk to us and we just have to keep trying lol. When I came on Thursday we only had one person in our teaching pool but now we have 7 so that's exciting!! We just talked to LITERALLY EVERYONE and even though a lot of people said no, we got the rare few that were interested which made me happy. 

I don't normally do spiritual thoughts at the end of my email but I've been having some really powerful studies lately and I just wanted to talk about the power of the Holy Spirit!! I was reading Alma 5-9 and it talks about Alma'a experiences as a missionary and how hard it was to convert those that had already hardened their hearts and wouldn't listen. As missionaries we get shut down a lot and there's a lot of people that tell us we're wrong. But we just have to do what Alma did, he just straight up testified to them and realized it's the Spirit that's going to change their hearts and they have to choose to listen. It's amazing how no one can argue with a testimony. I've had too many spiritual experiences to deny the Book of Mormon and its changed my life for the better so I'm so grateful I can share it with others. I love sharing this gospel with everyone we meet and seeing how it can bless their lives. The Holy Spirit is what truly helps us gain that testimony and confirm what's true and I'm so grateful for it. 

Love and miss you all!!

-Sister Ogden💟

Also here's a link to Google photos if y'all want to join:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qSs2wNuWwULfC4fY9

Leaving Gardner

Hey guys!!

We found out transfer news on Saturday and I'm leaving Gardner Kansas!! I've been here for 5 months and I've loved being here but I'm so excited to move to a new area. I'm going to be a Sister Training Leader so I'm excited for that! I'm also sad to say bye to everyone here in Gardner though. I said bye to our friend Staci last night😭😭 I taught Staci for 4 months but we stopped teaching her a bit ago because she wasn't progressing. BUT I still love her so much and even though she wasn't progressing towards baptism I still found a new bestie and I'm gonna miss her and her kids.

Sister Kington and I were having a rough day on Thursday because we had to stop teaching a lot of our friends. But then we had this amazing lesson with our friend Natasha and that definitely uplifted our spirits. We also did service for one of our members by chucking hedge balls out of her lawn. In Kansas (probably the whole midwest) we have these big trees that drop hard green bumpy balls and they're everywhere!! Sister Mckendrick did not like them on her lawn so we just went and threw them for 45 minutes. It was so fun to get some of our aggression out lol.

We also had stake conference this week and zone pday which was really fun. I'm sad to leave this area because it's all I've known, but I'm so excited to meet more people in the mission!! I'm also sad to leave Sister Kington because being comps with her has been so much fun, but I know she's going to be amazing at leading out this area!!

Love and miss you all!

5 months & loving it!

Hey guys!!

I made a little shared Google photos album for my mish so join if you want to see my mission experiences!!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qSs2wNuWwULfC4fY9

This week Sister Kington and I were feeling mega bold. Lots of our friends that we're teaching are taking the lessons but not fully committing so we thought we would just straight up ask who was actually interested in progressing towards baptism. We ended up dropping/stopped teaching some friends but we also put 3 friends on date for baptism!! Our friend Tyler came to church on Sunday and it was so awesome. Everyone was so nice and came up to say hi to him!!

On Thursday we were planning for our lessons and when we planned for our friend George we were like "we should just ask him if he wants to be baptized." Literally 5 minutes later he calls us and we asked him and he said yes!! We're so excited for him!

We also made lots of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies this week and that was so yummy. We gave some to our friends and Tyler said he loved them so I'm feeling like a true chef now. We also had interviews with President Sommerfeldt and he was asking if I wanted to stay in Gardner another transfer and I just don't know. I've been here for 5 MONTHS but I love the people here and I love the people we're teaching. I just love being a missionary and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone we meet!!

Love and miss you all!!

2 Amys!!

It suddenly got so cold here and so rainy but we still kept working. We met this guy Curt and we couldn't step too close (because he said his dog would bite) so we were just yelling as we stood there in the pouring rain teaching about Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. Even though we were soaking wet by the end of the day and we were so cold- it was so worth it for JESUS!! We met some awesome people and taught some great lessons. 

We had exchanges this week; I was with Sister Campbell and it was super fun!! We taught this guy Stuart and he looks like an older version of Ross Lynch- he's so funny. We met him in a parking lot and he's already read the Book of Mormon!! Hopefully he continues to learn more and can come to church!

We found lots of new people to teach this week which was so awesome. We also had Zone Conference on Thursday and it was so fun!! I got to see my MTC companion Sister Beach, which is always so fun to catch up!! We learned lots of good things and I'm excited to keep teaching our friends and help them progress!

Also, I'm going to try and explain this crazy miracle that happened. We did blitzes with the Sister training leaders a week ago, so Sister Kington went with another Sister missionary to visit some people previously taught. They found a girl named Amy who was interested in learning more. A week later, we pulled up to her house for our lesson and Sister Kington was like "this isn't the right house." I was like "yeah this is Amy's house, I've literally taught her before and I've come to this house." She was like "idk this doesn't look like the same house I came to last week." It was really dark though so we just knocked on the door. When Amy answered, she was not happy to see us. We definitely woke her up from a nap or something. cause she closed the door before we could even say anything. Anyways, turns out that Sister Kington found the next door neighbor Amy! They went to the wrong house and an Amy just happened to live there and just happened to have also met with missionaries years ago. Nothing is a coincidence though so God definitely placed us in the "other Amy's" path lol. Hopefully that made sense haha.

Love and miss you all!!

Sweet 16!

This week was so much fun!! We found 16 new people to teach, literally miracles straight from God!! On Sunday we had a pretty open afternoon so we just prayed and asked God to lead us to those that are ready to hear the gospel and literally within the next hour we found Nelly, Tracy and Jessica! These three people have truly been prepared by God. Nelly and Tracy are married and the Spirit was so strong as we testified to them about the Book of Mormon! We invited them to pray about the Book of Mormon and they were so down for that. He was like “there’s something different about y’all, you might be right.” We are so excited for them!!

We also did some member blitzes, and they were so fire. We met some interesting people this week and it was super fun. This guy Michael called us for an hour, and it was just him yelling at his cat named "pilgrim marie.” He was super lonely though, so we just listened as we did other work. We also met this guy named Randy who said his wife was Hella from Thor Ragnarok and how he possibly could be Jesus, but he's not sure. He tried giving us this notebook about aliens, but I declined. I was low-key getting creeped out because he followed us for a bit lol.
 
My cousins Kenzie and Haley also came and took us out to lunch!! That was super fun and we got to see her new baby, which is so precious. Anyways, I just love being a missionary and I always say this, but I just love sharing this gospel with others!! The spirit is always so strong when we testify to everyone.
 
Love and miss you all!

Exotic Cats & New Comp.

This week was crazy with transfers and getting a new companion. Sister Bird said bye to lots of members and it was sad but we got some cute photos. I've mentioned our member that breeds exotic cats but we finally got to see her cat house where she keeps all her cats. I've only ever seen the baby kittens so I finally got to see the big ones. They're literally mini cheetahs and they're all so cute. I'll put some photos so you can see them. She was cleaning out the whole cat house so we got to see all of them. I love Melissa she's so funny. 

Transfers were on Thursday and it was sad saying bye to Sister Bird. I had to wait two days for my trainee to get in, so in the mean time I was comps with Sister Wilson. Wednesday night she got bit by a pit bull (long story). Anyways she went to the ER that night but then the day after we started her rabies shots because turns out the dog wasn't up to date on his vaccinations. It was a long day in the hospital but I'm glad Sister Wilson is doing better. 

On Saturday I met my new companion!! Her name is Sister Kington and she's so cute- I already love her. We had some good lessons and we met some nice people. I'm excited for this new transfer it's going to be fun.

Love and miss you all!!