Monday, June 24, 2013

24 June 2013

Dear Mom,

i'm glad that you had fun over the last 3 weeks. it sounded to me like you were traveling all over the place.

i did attend the world wide conference last night. did you? it was open to anyone who wanted to attend. anyway when elder Perry spoke he spoke about how missionaries would be doing online work through Mormon.org and Facebook. the Florida Jacksonville mission and a couple of others are/were the testing areas for that.

i just wrote my last letter to President Barry. since he will be going home this weekend. president Craig will be coming in on on Friday sometime. other than that i don't have anything major that i have to talk about. Darien like always is quiet most of the time. we tried to make some noise and put together a community family night but then it rained most of the day so very few people actually came to it. but it turned out alright. in order to find people to teach we have to get creative with ideas. like to go fishing / crabbing and talk with the other fishermen and crabbers. i mean Peter, James, and John were all fishermen. using all of the original and crazy finding ideas we can come up with we don't find a whole lot of people. we found one in this entire week. we are trying to get the local members to do most of it. in accordance with the direction given through the prophet and the quorum of the twelve.

we don't have a lot of missionaries in the area. it just the two of us. the nearest missionaries are in Brunswick which is 20 miles away. beyond them is Jesup is probably the next closest. but i don't really know anymore since some of the area boundaries have changed a little bit. hopefully they will give out new mission maps. we have missionary couples serving in the mission but not anywhere near here that i know of. there aren't any youth in this branch that are preparing to serve right now. maybe in a couple of years.

thank you in advance for sending the care package. i will be looking for it. also good luck for spring in i hope that the publisher will choose her book to publish. that will be exciting.

hope all is well at home, i'm off to go get everything ready for this next big week.

Sincerely,
Elder Ogilvie

Monday, June 17, 2013

17 June 2013

Dear mom,

its been an exciting week here in the Florida Jacksonville mission. i made it to Darien GA alright i don't have a mail box to receive mail at our house. we use a P.O. box

we do have street signs in the main town but they really don't make any sense and they have no real organization to them. there is one section of town that is laid out that has a little but organization.

about the only thing we have to do for p-day is to go fishing and or crabbing, we did that this morning. we caught ten or twelve blue crabs and 5 black tip sharks all about a foot long. apparently they are good eating. i may have to go get a rod and reel its very possible that i will be here a while. fishing is also our main way of finding new people to teach because most of the people we talk to are way more receptive to talking with us when they are fishing or when they see us sitting there fishing.

we have the whole district (us and the 8 missionaries in Brunswick) are going to go try and catch a bunch of blue crab. it should be fun. i dont have any thing big happening right now. i must say that i do love being up here in Darien way more than being in palatka. so far this is the place i like being the most.

the darien area is a small branch of about 50 active members. the cool part is that we actually meet in a church owned and built building. however our chapel and our bball court are one and the same. if we want to play ball in the church we have to take down all the chairs. and if we are holding sacrament meeting we have to set them all back up again. the building is pretty small. but its really a beautiful place to meet.

i absolutely enjoyed receiving the letters from my nephews and nieces. i especially enjoyed jacks.

lila, i miss you too, hope you are having fun

susana, hi i hope you are doing well,

jack, th
 
sorry, i accidentally sent the letter before i was finished,

jack, hey buddy, have fun with you are sisters and family.

hope all is going well back home.

Love,
Elder Ogilvie

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

10 June 2013

Dear Mom,

well, president has decided once again to transfer me. we of course already knew this. i did find out where last night. i will be going to Darien, GA which is another small town about ten miles directly north of Brunswick. (if you are trying to find it on a map like i did last night). it does not appear to be any bigger than Branford was. also my new companion will be Elder Mcfarlene. i will be staying in the Florida Jacksonville mission save it be that i get emergency transferred to the savannah zone in the next two weeks. i will be at the top of what we call the kingsland zone. (right below savannah). right next to the coast save it be some big old islands that make up the Georgia coastline. i will get you the address in the next email i send home.

i can say that i survived a tropical storm that came through Florida this last week. though by time it reached palatka it was just a bunch of separated thunderstorms. there were a couple of times where it was raining hard enough that we really couldn't drive anywhere because we would start to move and the rain would be so bad that the windshield wipers couldn't keep up with the amount of water being poured on the windshield.

we really have been working with our ward leaders in the last two weeks. they have made it really possible to get out to see as many of the less active members that we possibly can. we have also found that there are a lot of members who have moved that never had their records moved. so we have found that there are a bunch of people who have gone flat out missing. the same thing has happened to some of the investigators that we have had to work with too. however we have managed to rescue some of them from completely disappearing in to the darkness.

since about Thursday night we have had another missionary join us in palatka until tomorrow. this of course means that we have been back in companionship's of two. but that also means that we have gone back to sharing the car and riding bicycles every other day. which has meant riding my bike in the rain on more than one occasion.

most of today will be trying to fit everything i have with me in my bags. which i have mostly done by now. i still have a few things left. i don't really have a lot to carry around with me so that makes everything a little bit easier to.

thank you for the messages that the kids sent. it sounds like they are all having fun doing what they want to do. it sounds to me like everyone has been really busy with some kind of summer/scout camp. when did Kendall start gymnastics? that was a little bit surprising.

hey Dylan, i think that is so cool that you are having a lot of fun playing baseball and that you are learning so much. i bet you will be really good at it by time i see you next. keep up the good work. i hope you have a lot of fun at scout camp, i use to love shooting, and archery. they were my favorite scouting activities. i hope you learn all kinds of useful things.

Carter, good luck with making the soccer team i wish you well with that. my companion that sits here now with me brought a soccer ball with him so we have been able to play a little bit. its been a long time since i played i know that now. its actually kind of surprising how big soccer is out here in Florida. more specifically palatka. we actually have a member who has played for a premier league in Liberia. so we got to play soccer with him. i hope you also have a ton of fun with going to scout camp. there are some cool things that you will be able to do.

Kendall, i know i wasn't able to be there to have fun with you and everyone else. but it won't be too long until i see you again. it sounds to me like you have been having loads of fun doing gymnastics. keep having fun and watch out for your big brothers.

i hope you have a good and safe trip home, which ever way you go. i'm sure there will be some kind of fun adventure to be had along the road. see ya'll in august of 2014, its a lot closer than you think it is.

Sincerely
Elder Ogilvie

Monday, June 3, 2013

3 June 2013

Dear Mom,

this has been another exciting adventure in missionary work. the 12th of June is my next transfer date. oh and it is way more than probable that i will get transferred. elder Cockrell will be training this next transfer. so now the guessing game for where i will go now. i am hoping to be staying in the Florida Jacksonville mission. i don't really want to be sent up to the GMM although i do have some of my favorite fellow servants of Christ who will more than likely be sent up there.

being in this trio has been a not so much new as a different experience. some times i like it other times i don't like it. it can be fun some times. other time i don't want anything to do with it. it will be like this for another week at least. hopefully no longer than that.

we have found a whole bunch of new people to teach this week. no one has really started going anywhere yet but hopefully soon. we only really have one baptismal date right now and that one is only hanging on weather or not our baptismal date can come to church this next Sunday. we really aren't running out of things to do. right now we are covering both the Palatka 1st ward and 2nd ward which is requiring us to attend both sacrament meetings so as to make sure we can get everything done that we are suppose to. between the two wards we had 6 non members show up to church which is amazing.

other than transfers there really isn't any thing new going on out here. its starting to get really hot out here to. i hope you are having fun with you grandchildren over the next few days. tell Carter and Dylan, and Kendall i say hello. also tell that to everyone else.

Love and miss you all,
Elder Ogilvie