Life is Good and the Gospel is TRUE!

LDS Visitors Center Independence, MO

Another great week out here in the mission field has passed by! 

Some interesting things have happened and here are the highlights!

On Pday, Elder Slesk and I began feeling sick and throughout the week I had a sore throat, a cough, my face swelled, and my lips tripled in size! 

That made it all so much more fun! ;p  

But on Tuesday we had a good lesson with a family that have kids that just got baptized last year. They are all really kind and want to get closer as a family. So we have set up weekly visits with them to try to help in any way that we can. And the kids grandfather passed away this week 

so they are heading out to the funeral this coming week. I hope they are able to stay strong during this time. It has got to be hard for the kids though.  :/  

Later that evening we saw Korinda at the assisted living home! 

She is doing well and I had to wear a sick mask so as not to infect anyone….haha …it was actually kinda fun. 

I don’t think I have ever worn one before! :-D

We shared a message with her about the sacrament and used the Children’s Bible video about the sacrament. If you haven’t seen the Children’s Bible videos you should go watch them on LDS.org ... the kids are adorable!  ;p

Wednesday we had MLC (Mission Leadership Training) which went really well, as does it always. We learned some awesome things and started planning for Friday’s zone training.

Also on Thursday we had a lesson with the Tapasoa family. 

They are doing well, and they were able to come to church this week too! 

They were happy to be coming back. Now that our church time has changed to 9am they are able to make it since this works better with their schedule.

Friday was Zone Training day and we are both still sick! 

But we did all we could to prepare and I thought it went well! Sister Vest, the mission president’s wife, came to our first Zone training (we do two in one day due to the sister missionaries shift at the Visitor Center). The first one went well. We had it at the visitor center and used the beautiful Statue of Christ for part of our training. I trained about a mission wide study that we have been doing, about the Life Of Christ and I shared something I learned when I was reading in Matthew 23:25.

Christ is talking to the Pharisees... telling them how they clean the outside of their cup but the inside is still filthy. 

It made me ponder on how clean my cup is, inside and out. 

Because it truly matters how clean you are on the inside because that is what God looks at and cares about. The outside of the cup is only viewed by man. How clean is your cup?

The training was really well taken by the missionaries!  :)

And Funny thing that happened during the second training!! 

Right before it started, I was looking at some cold medicine that a member had given me called Theraflu (it is like a packet that goes in water)….and one of the sisters offered to warm it up for me. She brought it out to me and I was drinking it during the first part of Zone training. Then about 15 minutes after I drank it I started feeling super drowsy... like I felt I was physically there but only half mentally there!! hahha. It was the weirdest feeling! 

Idk what was in that Theraflu but my body did not like it 

and one of the sister missionaries, that was training with us, was also
sick and she had some and she said she felt the same way! 

So I did my best to give my training while I felt like I was floating in the clouds!  :-D  But I think it went alright!  I’m just
glad Sister Vest wasn’t in attendance to that one!  :-D  

But we survived Zone training day and ended the day with some sweet burritos from Ponchos with Mac! :D

Never too sick to eat!!  :-D

One last cool thing that happened this last week was we had a lesson at the Visitor Center with two of our investigators and 5 of their kids! 

It was so awesome to have such a big family at the visitor center learning about the Gospel. And they all loved it! 

The visitor center is such an awesome place! 

If your ever near Independence, check it out because it is saaaweeeet!! 

…and the sister missionaries there will hook you up!  :)

So as of right now I have almost overcome my sickness, 

and I am happy to be a missionary! 

Life is good and the Gospel is true.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

With love,
Elder Odland