The Mission is Full of Things So Very Valuable in Life!

Elder Odland with Melissa's Uncle

This week was pretty great! I love it here in Liberty. The members in my new ward are awesome!

Most of them are Medical students, so they are pretty busy, but they are very missionary minded! That makes our job a lot easier haha.

This week we had a sweet experience down at the Independence Visitor Center! Well actually had two experiences! The first one; we took Mr. and Mrs. Moss through the presentation of "God's Plan". It went super well! 

I love how that presentation focuses on the importance of families and how they can be together for eternity. 

Mrs. Moss said she would do anything to have that in her life. 

They both really felt the Spirit and she said she would like to be baptized!

Elders Anderson and Odland with the Moss'

The second experience we had was somewhat similar, but we went down to the Visitors Center in Independence with Melissa. She is a niece of a member in our ward. We took her through "God's Plan" as well, and she too wants to be baptized. But her mom right now isn't feeling it. She is catholic and is pretty solid in her church. So we will have to continue to work with them. Melissa comes to church with her uncle a lot and she loves it. 

So in time I think her mom will let her join:).

Also this week we had a nice Valentine's Day dinner! 

I took my date out to dinner... haha yeah that didn't happen.  :-D

 But! We did go to these sweet members home! Their name is the Edwards and they are a recently married couple that is super nice! 

We had a blast talking about funny/weird mission experiences as we ate yummy homemade pizza. It was a lot of fun! And sister Edwards also made some delicious chocolate cake! So it was a great
Valentines day and I'm glad that they were willing to spend it with us!:)

I wish I could tell you about all the people we were able to talk with this week but I'd have to make it into a novel! haha. 

The mission is definitely full of things so valuable in life. 

And being transferred to the North Kansas City ward has made me realize that this could be my last area, and I want to make the best of the time I have left. I know I still have plenty of time to do some sweet stuff, 

but time is so very valuable. 

I hope I am able to continue to use it to the best of my ability!:)

I hope you are all having a sweet beginning to your week! And keep on
keeping on! I'll talk to you all again soon!

With Love,

Elder Odland

I was Transferred to Liberty! I am SO Blessed.

My New companion...Elder Anderson from California

So we had transfers this week, anddddd I definitely wasn't planning on
being transferred buuttt I was transferred! 

I am now serving in the North Kansas City ward up in Liberty, MO! 

So I basically moved 20 minutes north. 

But now I am really close to the Historic Liberty Jail! 

I am definitely so blessed! 

I got to serve near the Independence Visitor Center and now the Liberty Jail! 

And also the Kansas City Temple is in my new area! 

How cool is that! 

Also my new companion is Elder Anderson from Northern California! 

He has been out for about 10 1/2 months now:). He is a really nice guy and we get along really well! 

This transfer will definitely be a good one!:) 

Saying Good-bye

Elders Blake and Odland  ...  Sisters Crocket and Wilkey

I also got to see some awesome friends at transfers and had to see some of the coolest
people I've met on the mission, go home  :(. 

It's so weird to see them go, but I guess life moves on for each of us. 

You will be missed in the M.I.M! 

And these sisters that are going home came out at the same time
as I did... so that's just a little weird to think about haha :p 

I've gotta make the best out of these last 6 months that are in front of me!

I will miss you Murphy

and I'll miss Gary

and I'll miss the Johnston Family

and I'll miss Josh

and I'll miss Pres Cato

and ALL the many wonderful people I have met over the past few months.

I wish I could have gotten pictures of each and every one of you.

The first few days here have been really good! 

We got to visit a lot of members and I feel very welcome here! There are so many nice
members here and there is a medical school right here in our ward. 

So there are a ton of college age people! Especially young families, I
don't think I have seen so many little kids at church in my life
hahaha  ;p

We met this sweet part member family this week, the missionaries have
worked with them in the past but we are going to be working with them
a lot more! And we have plans to go to the visitor center with them this
week! There is so much potential in this area. I love it!

Sunday night a member was in the hospital so we went down with another
member to give her a blessing. We were able to find the place just
fine and give her a blessing that she really appreciated. But then as
we were walking out that's when the interesting stuff happened haha.
Right when we get to the exit door there is this guy that security is telling to leave and he is 

just cussing them out as he leaves. 

So we are like okay we will wait inside for a minute while that guy leaves and cools off. 

And I then start talking to this guy that is chilling in
there and I go to give him a picture of Christ and he says, "I've got that, That's me." 

As he shows me a necklace that says Christ on it. 

And then he hands the picture back to me. But then I handed it back to him
showing him the back side that had the Articles of Faith on it and
invited him to read some of it. He was then like, "I wrote this." Haha
so that's when we thought it was time to leave! 

As we were leaving, the guy that was cussing the cops out started looking at us and started
cussing us out... so we took a little short cut back to our car
through some grass and scenery so we didn't have to cross his path. 

And in the end we got out safe and sound hahah;p 

Truman hospital is a pretty interesting place! It's like smack in the middle of Kansas City,
so that's why it's a little knarly!

But things here are going great! Liberty is a great place to be and we
have some awesome plans for today! We are going to go to Kansas City
Joes BBQ with the whole zone and then go to Union Station and the WW1 Museum!

It's gonna be saweeeeet! 

Hope you are all having a great Monday! 

Love you all and
Talk to ya again soon!

- Elder Odland

I Love the Gospel and the Strength it Brings into Our Lives

We had MLC this week and it was awesome! 

The topic that stood out to me the most was about the desires of our hearts and how we are here to work on molding them to the will of God. 

At zone training we had a sweet activity where we tried to help each missionary know 

how much they are loved and appreciated. 

We had each of the parents of all the missionaries in the zone  to send us a letter of appreciation 

for their missionaries. 

 We had them read their letters and there were many tears shed, but there was so much love in that room. Just watching them read their letters made me tear up! 

President and Sister Vest came to our zone training and we made them some cards as well. 

It all went super well! 

I love it when we have these meetings and are all edified together. 

The spirit was so strong there and I was definitely invigorated to go and do the Lord's work! 

We also had a great appointment with James and Sivita this week! 

We went up to the visitor center and watched the movie, 

"Joseph Smith The prophet of the Restoration". 

It was such a good movie. It's so well done and the spirit was so strong! 

If you haven't seen it recently, definitely go watch it! 

There's no way you can watch it and not believe that it is true. 

Joseph was such a great example of happy perseverance. I hope I can be half of the man that he was and IS. I love the gospel and the strength it brings into our lives. 

            As I was preparing my training this week I read an awesome quote from one of my favorite talks, "Each assertion of a righteous desire, each act of service, and each act of worship, however small and incremental, adds to our spiritual momentum. Like Newton’s Second Law, there is a transmitting of acceleration as well as a contagiousness associated with even the small acts of goodness. Fortunately for us, our loving Lord will work with us, “even if [we] can [do] no more than desire to believe,” providing we will “let this desire work in [us]” (Alma 32:27). Therefore, declared President Joseph F. Smith, “the education then of our desires is one of far-reaching importance to our happiness in life” (Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. [1939], 297). Such education can lead to sanctification until, said President Brigham Young, “holy desires produce corresponding outward works” 

(in Journal of Discourses, 6:170). 

Only by educating and training our desires can they become our allies instead of our enemies! 

"(According to the desire of our hearts)"

            I love this principle of, training our desires so that they are our allies, because most of the time we are the victims of our own wrong desires. As we do things that are against the will of God they begin to be habits and then we continually desire those things. But if we do things that are righteous and we pursue righteous things, then our desires will change. They will then be our allies. I’m grateful for my mission and the opportunity it has given me to train my desires to be focused on more important things. There is so much out there to distract us, but its our choice 

whether we hold onto those things. 

This week we have transfers, so fingers crossed I stay here in Raytown. But I will let you all know what happens next week! But whatever happens will be sweet! 

Hope you all have a wonderful week and keep lifting others :).

With Love,  Elder Odland

"What We Insistently Desire over time, is what we will Eventually Become and what we will Receive in Eternity."

I Love Service Projects

Something I have really been pondering this last week is the topic of the true desire of our hearts and how that effects who we become.

About 6 months ago, sister Crockett, out in Olathe, gave a training on this topic at zone training and I’m pretty sure I’ve gone over those notes like 10 times 

this past week alone! 

"What we insistently desire, over time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity." 

What happens in our life is because of the desire of our hearts, if we truly desire something we will do what is sufficient to achieve our desire. 

Our Heavenly Father wants to bless us, but we just need to do our part by praying, asking and acting. 

(Check out Alma 29:4-5)

This week was a nice exciting week! We had some great changes that

came to our missionary life!

So this week we had zone conference where we watched another world wide mission broadcast!  They taught us some awesome stuff and changed a lot of things that affect our day to day missionary life.

Now we have a lot more flexibility with our daily schedule, so instead of being told exactly when to do things, you can make a schedule that best fits you. 

There are still things you must do each day, like study and plan, but you have the option to do it during a time that best fits! 

I am so happy for this change because that old schedule was wearing on me. 

But now it’s awesome, we wake up at 6am and have personal study and plan a little and then we go workout at 7:30.

It works with my body soo much better and I get such a better workout now :D

They also changed the indicators that we report so now we only report on baptisms, people coming to church, new people we begin teaching, 

and people with a baptism date. 

I think this is an awesome change because we will get missionaries to work out of motivation  to truly help people and not just get numbers. 

So, I’m super excited with these changes. 

It's taking a little bit of getting used to but it’s great!

Kimberly, the lady we met last week and who also came to church, is doing well!  More things in her life are going wrong but she is staying strong spiritually. 

She is beginning to recognize the promptings of the spirit more in her life and she knows that he is telling her when she is doing something that she shouldn't. She has such a sincere desire to change and progress. It has been hard to meet with her frequently this week because she has had a lot of work come up.

But she keeps in touch with us daily which is all a missionary can ask for haha. 

I’m super excited to continue meeting with her!

This sunday we are starting something new with our ward! 

We got those wrist bands that you get from like a skate rink or trampoline park and we gave each member one to put names of people that they would like to pray for. And the purpose of doing this is so that they will be able to see the names of real people that they can 

pray for and help throughout the week. 

The ward really liked it and we will see how it evolves!:D

Everything is going great! I’m having fun and am enjoying our new

pday schedule which starts at 8am instead of the usual 10am. 

More time more fun!:D

Hope your week is awesome.

With Love, Elder Odland

He Loves You and Wants You to have Faith Building Spiritual Experiences.

Our NEW Investigator!!  :-D

This week I was really able to feel Heavenly Father's love. 

I am so grateful for the experiences that we had this week. My email this week
is going to be focused on someone that came into the picture this week
and was definitely a blessing to me and Elder Slesk.

On Wednesday we get a referral from a member in another stake and her
friend was going through a really hard time and said she wanted to
meet with some missionaries. So we call the member's friend and she
sets up a time to meet with us in about 2 hours at the visitor center.
We met with her at the visitor center and she has gone through so
much. Just a brief overview; her mom passed away last week, her aunt
died recently, her son got shot (is okay though), her house had burnt
down a month ago and her utilities have been shut off. 

She had hit rock bottom and said that she is ready to just give it all up. 

We took her through a presentation at the Visitor center about God's plan for
us and she broke down and really opened up to us. 

She was really able to feel the spirit and feel a little bit of hope in her life.
I also truly feel like Heavenly Father was watching over her and brought her to us. 

And I truly needed this experience and needed her.

It's amazing how you can feel how much Heavenly Father loves his children. 

I had only known her for like an hour but felt such so much
love towards her and a desire to help. And I truly needed that.
She wanted to meet the next day and talk some more. So we met back up
at the visitor center the next day and had a great lesson were we
showed her the Mormon Message called "Mountains To Climb". It really
touched her and helped her know that she can make it through her
trials. It was a great discussion and she really wanted to come to church.

So Sunday came around and she came for all 3 hours, and all the talks
and lessons were exactly what she needed! It was so amazing how
everything worked out. She truly was touched and is ready to learn more.

I'm so grateful for how much Heavenly Father comforts his children. He
loves each and every one of us and he wants us to have Joy. And in
order for us to know true joy we have to experience trails. 

Trails last but a moment and when we focus on our Savior we can find Joy in all things. 

If we focus on our inconvenient situations we wont be able
to find joy, but through the savior we can lift ourselves. 

"We are not earthly beings having a spiritual experience, but we are Spiritual
Beings here having an earthly experience" (Brother Townsend).

Always remember that you are a Child of God. He loves you and wants you to
have faith building spiritual experiences.
I'm so grateful for the experiences I have had on my mission and I pray
that I may continue to refine myself to be an effective tool in the
hands of our Heavenly Father.

 I hope you
all have an amazing week and seek spiritual experiences!
They will uplift you and fill your cup.
Life is good in the M.I.M. (Missouri Independence Mission)
Love, Elder Odland 

Ellsworth, Maine to Raytown, Missouri

Elder Odland and Elder Vanway

Hey...to all my friends from the Ellsworth, Maine.

Do you remember Elder Vanway who served as a missionary there.

He taught my Sunday School class almost 2 years ago!!

Well he just got home from his mission....his home is where I am currently serving!

What a small world.

I know Heavenly Father is Aware of Our Situation

I had another great week out here in Raytown :). We got to start off

the week with interviews with President Vest, which went very well!

And then went out, with a member, and ate some Square Pizza out on the

Independence Square. The food was super good and it also was Elder

Slesk's Birthday!! So the member got him some chocolates and a card! 

Sweet. :)

Happy Birthday Elder Slesk.

Wednesday we went to two district meetings and they were both super

awesome! They helped me see what I needed to work on and also helped

me feel as though I have been doing things right. 

One of the district leaders had

the missionaries share things they liked about zone training and it

was really cool to see that the trainings Elder Slesk and I gave were

able to bless the lives of the missionaries in so many different ways:). 

It’s so awesome to have the opportunity to help others, and in

the process it helps me. I’m so grateful for the lessons that I've been

able to learn and that I am still learning. 

I know that Heavenly Father is fully aware of our situations 

and knows what we need. 

He puts us in situations that teach us the skills and lessons that we 

need. And through that process he gives us chances to
bless others with those skills we develope. Heavenly Father is so
personable to us, sometimes the hardest part is recognizing that.
He truly does know you, and he's made a plan for you!

On Sunday, there was a potential ice storm and church throughout the
stake was cancelled. So, we wanted to try to do something for the
missionaries. So, we got permission from President Vest to give the
Sacrament to all of the missionaries. We held a mini Sacrament meeting
for all the missionaries in the zone! It was pretty cool! We had a few
talks and also a cool musical number by some of the elders.
It was a really spiritual meeting!
I wish we could do this every week.

Hope you have a great week.
With Love, Elder Odland

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

New Year 2017 and New Companion

Elder Odland and his new companion Elder Slesk

Sooo we had transfers this last week and Elder Kelly got shipped off to Lenexa and my new companion is Elder Slesk.  :D    He is a really cool guy from Washington state! 

I've never served with anyone from Washington haha ;p  But he is really cool and 

I’m looking forward to this transfer!

Elder Slesk had a family from his past area that was sealed in the Temple this past Friday! 

So I got to go to the temple with them and see the sealing! 

It was so awesome! 

The temple president did an awesome job during the sealing which really invited the spirit. 

I hope my sealing is an awesome spiritual experience like that!  :D.

I hope you all had a wonderful New Years! 

Ours was pretty fun! 

We had Tony come out with us for about 2 hours! He is a pretty cool kid. 

He's preparing to go on a mission in the summer so we are giving him all the practice we can!  :)    But we met two new people that day and were able to teach them about some sweet things.

 So Hopefully we will be able to go back and meet with them again! 

We also had a lesson with James and Sivita. They really want to learn more and find out whether or not the Book of Mormon is true, but they just haven't been reading it lately.
Hopefully this week they will find an answer  :).   

After our lesson, we got a call from the Theime family saying they have a bunch of spare food 

and want us to come over to eat some of it!  ;p   and of course we couldn't turn down free food! haha, so we went over and enjoyed some yummy food and sparkling cider! 

It was a good little New Year's Eve party.  :D.

On the day of transfers a member took us out to lunch and took us to Big T's Barbecue. 

It was soooo good! I pounded soo much food haha I was stuffed! 

And then afterwards he took us past the Union station and let us run in real quick to look around! 

It was so cool inside! And it is huge! So, I got a few pictures in there then he showed us a couple other cool things and then finished the trip off with Christopher Elbow... which is a chocolate store. And its like super expensive chocolate! The pieces of chocolate that you could choose looked like little glass pieces of art! And they tasted amazingggg! But 12 pieces
of the chocolate cost as much as the big BBQ dinner we had just prior... It was insane! 

But delicious haha:)

Overall this week has been great! 

Change is good and it keeps me on my toes! I hope you all have made some sweet goals for 2017, because I know some awesome things are going to come this year!

Keep on lovin life!

Elder Odland

HAPPY to BE a MISSIONARY

Christmas Skyping with the Family

This week has been really fun! 

We were able to meet with some members this week and they 

are always so awesome to us! 

We had some delicious desert at the Moananu's house on Christmas Eve :D. They are a super nice family that we visit each week.
A lot of our lessons that we had scheduled this week fell through but 

I feel like we were still able to have an enjoyable week:). 

I went on two exchanges this week and had an awesome time with 

Elder Haderlie and Elder Fowlks. 

Elder Haderlie and I spent a lot of time contacting some
potential people to teach that they had in their area book, and we
ended up looking all through downtown Kansas City. 

It was pretty fun!
I got along really well with Elder Haderlie making it a nice relaxing
exchange. :)  Elder Fowlks and I had a great time in our area as well. 

We tried to see a bunch of people with a member named Josh. 

No one was home that day... or at least they weren't answering.  :-D 

But near the end of the day we had an awesome dinner 

with the Andrade Family!! 

They came up to Raytown bearing gifts and took us to Applebees! 

It was so nice of them and I had such a great time! 

It was the best to see them again!  :) 

They are one of those families that I will never forget! 

Andrade Family

That day we also went and visited someone in the hospital 

that was having some problems and thought she would be 

in the hospital for Christmas.

But we went over and shared a message with her and gave her a blessing 

and she was actually able to make it home on Christmas Eve! 

She was so happy to be home for Christmas!  :)

Johnston Family

Christmas morning we had an awesome breakfast at the Johnston's home!
The sister missionaries came too and we all had a great time! 

They gave us all gifts that we opened there. 

I got some sweet batman socks and a neat tie! Haha. 

The ward here has treated us so well, especially during the holidays. :D  

After breakfast we went up to church and had probably one
of the best Sunday services that I have been to! 

There was a lot of musical performances and the spirit was very strong. :) 

And then we got a few more assorted gifts from other members!

I don’t know where I would be
without all of the kind people out here. It definitely makes the time
away from home a lot easier.  :)
I am definitely happy to be a missionary! 

Being able to help people and put a smile on someone's face 

is honestly the best.

And I was able to Skype my parents yesterday and 

that was the cherry on top of my week! 

I love and appreciate my family so much. 

They give me strength and motivation, I love and care for them so much! 

And next Christmas we will have a blast celebrating together.  :D

I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas and are 

looking forward to this new year! 

Great things are to come! 

Cuídense!

With Love, Elder Odland