Flood the Stake with B of M's

This week was absolutely incredible. Elder Birth and I have been able to find TWO elect investigators this week through tracting! We of course have followed up with them already. It's been awesome answering their questions and teachings short and simple gospel principles.

Kevin is one of them. He says he recently moved up here from Anchorage and has talked with missionaries in the past. He informed us on his beliefs. He comes from a Catholic background and attends church services there regularly. Even though he doesn't agree with everything the Catholic church teaches, he sees the imprtance of church so he attends there. He stated to us his desires of a great community, a stronger family, more truths from God, and to learn about our prophet. You can imagine how excited I was to tell him everything. From a strong community, to God revealing his word today. We kept the visit short. We informed him we would return again soon. He even wants to meet a member of our church. We hope to have a member come introduce themself next time we meet. This is so exciting!

Zone conference and Stake conference was this week. This week has seemed to be incredibly busy with meetings.

Elder Birth and I were invited to give a training to all the Bishops and Stake Presidency within the Stake. We invited them to continue to fulfill the stake vision. To flood the stake with the Book of Mormon. We talked about sharing and reading just one or a few verses with the people we give copies to. A lot of people can get scared by the B of M because of how many pages are in the book. The missionary department in SLC has been putting a huge emphasis on sharing and reading simple verses and chapters with nonmembers. We also talked a lot on following up and helping this vision not end with just handing out copies. It was awesome to see how the missionaries are working as one with the stake and ward members in fulfilling our purpose.

Every week seems to get better and better as well as faster and faster.

Elder Ogden

Knocking Doors is Pretty Fun:

Solid week up here in the AK.

We've been keeping busy with some tracting. A lot of the people we're teaching right now have been super busy. Some are on vacations. Others have been jam packed with working two jobs. So we've been able to meet some new people through our tracting efforts. I don't know why but once you get in the grove of knocking doors it actually becomes pretty fun. We certainly run into interesting people.

Daniel Haddox, our recent convert has been taking the new member lessons. He's nine years old and amazes me with how smart he is.

Elder Dunn, one of my previous companions, is now in our zone. It's been fun catching up with him and talking about good times when we served together in Petersburg a year ago. Crazy how fast time flies by.

Have a great day!

Elder Ogden

Moving Hay for Dogs:

Hey. This week was absolutely incredible. I don't have a whole lot of time so here's a quick update. 

The stake put on a talent show this past Saturday night. It was a great event for all the youth in the community. Members and nonmembers were there to participate and enjoy the show. All the missionaries in the zone were ushers. Great way to meet new people.

We've been taking advantage of the warm weather recently by spending as much time going door to door. We've been able to see some great success through our most recent tracting efforts.

All of the missionaries in the zone and all of the missionaries from the language zone helped with service this past week. We spent most of Thursday unloading and moving hay for the upcoming Iditarod. This was my first time helping out with the Iditarod. It's really neat to see how everyone in the community comes together for the love of dog sled racing.

Anyways that all from me. I hope you all have a great week.

Broom sticks are perfectly Balanced:

Solid week out here in Bear Mountain. Elder Birth and I have been busy with meeting new people and continuing to work with the investigators we currently have.

MLC was this past week. All the zone leaders serving outside of Anchorage get to spend the night at the mission home the night before the meeting. It's always fun seeing and catching up with some friends. It's pretty wild how serving in Alaska you never get to meet some missionaries or see friends for months. Some missionaries literally travel a few hundred miles to come particpate in meetings. MLC was inspiring as always.

As a zone we got together and tracted in an area on Saturday Morning. I always love doing these big tracting sessions. It's cool to have a bunch of missionaries come into an area and knock out a neighborhood.

Elder Birth blew my mind this past week. He showed me how most all broom sticks are perfectly balanced. I didn't believe him at first but then he showed me and I couldn't deny it. Maybe some of you already know about that but I didn't so I of course had to take a pic.

 Have a great week.

Elder Ogden

          

                

You always have your eyes peeled serving in Alaska. Moose can sneak up on ya at any time especially when you walk around a corner to knock on someone's door.

Forbidden "Mormon" Jobs??

A great first week of the transfer. Elder Birth is now my offical compaion. We've been keeping busy with part member and over age youth in the ward. Zane continues to amaze me every time we meet with him. Regional stake conference was this past Sunday.

On Wednesday I picked up Elder Birth, my new companion. He's a stud. We came out into the mission together so it's been fun catching up with him. He's from Salt Lake City and was in choir and theatre in high school. We dropped Elder Hunter off at the temple on Wednesday. It's been cool to kill two missionaries in a row. I get to see what it's like finishing a mission and learning from two great guys who know a lot about success.

Recently the mission has been working a lot with part member families and children over the age of eight who have not been baptized. It's kept us missionaries busy with stop bys. Its been cool to see the success from visiting these families. We're starting to teach a few little kids through these efforts. Hopefully we'll see some baptisms soon.

We had another outstanding lesson with Zane. We originally planned on sharing a formal first lesson with him but that changes as he came prepared with a list of questions. We spent a good two and a half hours just answering sincere questions he had written down in His notebook. There was a variety of questions from why do bad things happen to good people and are there any jobs a Mormon is not allowed to have. It's was a thrilling exercise answering those questions.

 Regional stake conference was on Sunday. We traveled to Anchorage to watch the broadcast. It was great hearing from Elder Christofferson and other general authorities.

 Have a great week

Saying goodbye to Elder Hunter

New companion: Elder Birth

Outlook over Eagle Ridge Valley

Meditating feels pretty good:

Super solid week out here in the AK, I'll just give a quick update.

Transfer calls are in. Elder Hunter will he returning home this week. With upcoming transfer I will be serving with Elder Birth. He's a really cool dude. I'm stoked to serve with him. We both came into the mission field in July so it's going to be a party serving with someone I came out with.

We had a lesson with Marty and Monica. We tracted into Monica a few weeks ago and have been in contact ever since. Her husband Marty just returned from a work trip, so we taught them the restoration together for the first time. It was thrilling answering the questions they had. It was definitely a lesson where the spirit was felt.

We're still working with Zane and Daniel and all the other investigators in the area. Due to busy schedules it's been challenging setting up times to meet. With the new transfer I'm looking forward to seeing some baptisms and helping people progress.

This past week we went back to a dude we tracted into. His name is Rich. Rich is a very spiritual man. He likes his yoga, meditation, etc. It's been cool talking with the man about all sorts of things. He's very open to hear what we have to say so we've been teaching him here and there. We even meditated with him for a good while. It was my first time meditating and I have to say it felt pretty good. He even gave us a painting of Jesus afterwards.

Sorry but I have no pictures.

Have a great week,

Elder Ogden

Amazing Chapel Tours:

This week I was able to go tracting on Alma street. We are currently teaching the most elect person ever! Elder Hunter and I have talked in sacrament meeting on missionary work.

This week I was in the Eagle River area. We did a lot of stop bys and a good amount of tracting. We even made it over to track Alma street. That was super cool. It was a really good experience serving with those Elders for a while. I've been really impressed to see all the new missionaries coming into the field recently. They are all studs. It feels like the missionaries and the mission just keep getting better and better as time move on.

A few weeks ago we tracted into a man named Zane. It was incredible being able to teach and testify of the Book of Mormon on his doorstep. A week later we gave him a chapel tour. In that chapel tour he felt the spirit so strong he even began to talk to his friends about the church. Then this past Saturday he brought his friend Robert to do a chapel tour. Not only was that amazing but throughout the entire tour they were both thrilled to hear the answers we gave to their questions. They even wrote down on paper all the principles we taught. Of course we invited them to church. As Zane attended church services he had his Book of Mormon in one hand and a paper with pen in the other. He took note of all the inspiring words he heard during church. It was motivating to me to witness a sincere truth seeker feel of the spirit. It was inspiring to see how much he treasures the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Elder Hunter and I spoke in church. It was really good to see how much Zane cherished the words spoken in church. I know I'm guilty of sometimes thinking about the upcoming week instead of having my mind focused on the talks. Seeing investigators come to church has taught me a great lesson on absorbing all the information the spirit is teaching through the speakers.

Transfer calls are this week. I'll let you know who my next companion is. It will be a bummer to say goodbye to Elder Hunter but he's served an honorable full time mission.

Have a great week,
Elder Ogden

A pic from MLC last week

The fisheye pics 

come from a sweet 

attachment my 

family sent me!