Wazzzgood??? So before I get started with what happened this week let me
teach you some Oklahoma lingo! So here in Oklahoma you don't say "when I was..."
you say "whenever I was..." They never say when! For example one person was
saying, "Whenever I was baptized in 1990..." So yeah that's the thing I've really
been noticing, and it's going to take some getting used to...
So we had a couple really amazing experiences this week! The first bit of
big news is the Blanchard area is getting split! So now Blanchard will only cover
Blanchard, Washington, and Dibble. So yeah, that will be nice! We just never
could make it out to Newcastle because it's just so far out! But since we'll
have about 215 missionaries in this mission next transfer they're opening 5-7
areas to put them all! To give you a perspective of the growth of this mission,
there were about 115 missionaries in Oklahoma City last year before the
announcement. So yeah, things are beginning to happen here! But we did some
apartment searching for the Newcastle missionaries, and spent quite a bit of
time figuring out a fair split between the two areas with our Branch President.
The new missionaries will be coming in on October 2 so we're kinda in a rush
trying to get things ready for them!
Yesterday at church we had an amazing experience! So we were in Branch
Council, and when we get out and walk into the chapel to get ready for sacrament
meeting we saw the Linadas (previously referred to as the Spanish Family) family
sitting there! All 5 of them! It was so exciting! Some background with them, they
are from El Salvador, and their names are Carmine (the mom), Jugo (dad), Juan
(20 year old son), Abigail (16 year old daughter) and Moses (my guess is a 5
year old boy). He has down syndrome and is the cutest kid ever! All of them
except the father had been taught the first lesson, and they accepted baptism,
but they wanted to check with the father first before they continue. So they
talked to Jugo and he said he wanted to read the Book of Mormon before they
continued. So about 3 weeks ago we got him a Spanish Book of Mormon. He's a
truck driver for Walmart, so he's gone a ton. Well we found out he had been
reading, so we had our Branch Mission Leader (who's from El Salvador as well!!!)
invite them to church on Saturday. Well he did, and sure enough they showed up!
They all went home after the first hour because Jugo had gotten home from work
at 2 in the morning (church starts at 9:30 so we were thrilled he came anyways!)
so he was going to go back and take a nap, except Abigail stayed and went to Young Women and loved it! So that was really cool as well! Then after the
Sagastizados (the Branch mission leader's family) invited them over to lunch and
us as well. So we went and had lunch with them and just got to know them and be
around them! It was so cool! They gave us a ride back to our place because we
were on the way, and on the way home we asked Jugo about how his reading was
going. He said he was already in Alma, and that he really likes it! He said he
can't stop reading it, and every chance he gets he reads! I get chills just even
writing about it!!!!!!!!! The Book of Mormon is just so powerful!!! Anyways he
said he always wondered how people got across the ocean from the middle east to
the Americas, and now he knows! But he also said, "Anytime you guys want call us
and you can come eat dinner with us. Just let us know! And I want you guys to
teach my family the word of God!" We're soooo excited! That means we get to
teach them AND eat Papusas with them! We can't wait!
After that we went to eat at a member's house (the Dills) for dinner. The
Dills invited another family, the Andersons. The Andersons have 2 little kids
and one of them was so cute! I guess he keeps bugging President Nelson to let
him sing in sacrament meeting. So we asked him what song he would sing, and he
said, "Jesus loves me!" So we asked him to sing it for us and his face got all
serious and he sang it for us. haha and then later we were talking to them about
their missionary work and we got into a conversation about it, and he raised his
hand and after like 3 minutes we finally "called" on him haha and he said, "Why
don't I get to talk but you guys get to?" So we said, "Ok. What do you want to
say?" And he said, "I know that Jesus watches me when I sleep, and Jesus watches
me when I'm alive, and I remember when I was in my mommy's tummy and I saw him!
And he also stops my dad from getting boo boos, and watches my boo boos when I
sleep.... I LOVE JESUS!!!!!!" And he jumped in the air haha it was so cute! It
was such a powerful testimony though!
So that was pretty much my week. I played a fun game with the Pitmons last
night! We played a dice game called "Shut the Box" That was such a fun game! She
said she'll order me one, so we'll see maybe I'll get to show you!
Well, we gotta get going. But life here is great! I'm so excited to see
things happen in this branch! People are ready for the fullness of the
gospel!
Thank you all so much for the support!
Love you so much!
Elder Ott
PS Elder Owen and I are still running every morning! I'm staying in shape
the best I can- don't worry!
No comments:
Post a Comment