Open your arms, Look up, and Receive the Love and Blessings God has for You.

The Missouri Independence Mission is basically the best place ever!

We had a lot of cool things happen this week and we were able to meet
with a lot of our investigators.

Brian is doing awesome! We were able to meet with him and establish
some of his expectations. He is such a humble guy and willing to
learn. During one of the prayers he said, he is thankful for being
humble and that he is ready to learn. He really wants to start reading
the Book of Mormon and learn what we believe.

I'm excited to see where it goes with him!

We also met with Al again this week, and he is continuing to read the
Book of Mormon fairly quickly! He has now made it to 1 Nephi Chapter 13. 

He retains so much from his studies, it is awesome! 

We have been focusing on helping him see the spiritual side of things and

not necessarily just the historical side. 

He has some awesome questions and it gives us awesome things 

to focus our studies on!

We did some service for this Lady we are meeting with, her name is
Thu. We had a couple from the ward come and help us make

these cards for kids with special needs. 

It was a lot of fun to just sit down, chat and make the cards! 

And the members that joined us had a great
time getting to know Thu. Thu was very grateful for the service and we
are going to continue meeting with her to teach her more

about the church:).

One day this week we tried a potential and no one answered so we
were looking around outside and wondering where we should go. 

We felt like we should try this one house that was a little rundown but still
looked like someone lived in it. So we go up and knock on the door and
for a moment we saw someone inside but he didn't come to the door. 

We figured he wasn't going to answer... until we heard a door slam in the
back yard and he came walking around to where we were. 

We were able to talk with him for a little bit and when I asked him, 

"do you attend a church around here?" 

He responded, "Yeah, the Latter Day Saints church up in Liberty." 

Haha   So, come to find out, he had been taking
the discussions from the missionaries up in liberty until he moved
to our ward and the missionaries lost contact with them. 

And now, a year later, we were able to stumble across their path again! 

They both want to be baptized but have a few things they have to work through. I hope that they keep on pushing through and reach their goals!

I'm so grateful that the Lord is mindful of his children and leads us
to them. It's so exciting to hear stories about people in need of
the gospel and receive it just in the nick of time.

The gospel is such a wonderful thing, 

we just truly have to open our hearts to it. 

After many experiences, 

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and he truly did restore his church. 

He has so much love for us and all we have to do is accept it. 

Open your arms, look up and receive the
love and blessings God has in store for you!

Have a blessed week everyone!:)

With Love, Elder Odland

SERVICE:  Ripping out old carpet at the local Presbyterian Church