21 January, 2013

Dear mom, & family

our sacrament meeting was also on the topic of missionary work, our speakers were instructed to speak on one of (or part of) a missionary lesson anddid you know that there is a secret 3rd verse to the song "called to serve"? i'll send it to you next week. that was fun to listen to. no i did not speak in church though both of us expected that they would call one of us up at the last minute to replace our ward mission leader whom we had a strong suspicion was going to disappear before sunday and not return for two weeks. we also prepared to teach gospel principles to. suprisingly enough he was there. so we didnt have to do any of that.

we have a few people we are excited about. we have a less active family we are working with, they have a son who is a little older than carter (about 11 years old) who wants to be baptised. they all came to church this last sunday. our only real diffiulty is getting out to mayo FL where they live to actually teach them. we dont have the miles to go out there all the time like we need to. its hard enough when we only have to go to lake city every week. and some times twice in the week. there is also a family of 4 that we got a referal for, that referal came to us from our stake president. and thats only half of the people we have found in the last 3 weeks.

our ward members are amazing. they love to feed us every chance they get. we have had weeks that we have had a dinner appointment almost every night. usually during the last two weeks of the month when they think we are about to starve. we are pretty well fed. addressing anyone by brother or sister (last name here) can get really confusing when about five or six people will turn around and awnser the call. there are alot of people who are related all of whom attend the same ward. most of our ward however has no abillity to take us anywhere. but there are a few who can and will awnser the call for help when we need it.

our apartment is nice. when ever the temperature out side is good at night the house temprature is ok. if it gets cold however. then our house is cold all day. it usually stays pretty clean, though it always needs cleaning when p day comes around. it is totally surounded by grass and trees. there is no real driveway to speak of. mistly its just a worn dirt path where we bring the car in and out from the house. and we are just a little ways down from the Rodeo so we can always hear what is going on over there. its a good place to live when its kept up.

more often than not p-day is so busy with things to do that we dont get out to have a lot of fun. the first one of the month is usually zone p-day so we drive up to lake ciy to be with everyone else in the zone. some members took us to a lbig bar-b-que at another members house today. he had live blue grass music playing. that was an exciting new experience.

yes we are still doing trade offs with other missionaries. i will be going up to live oak with another missionary on wensday. and returning to branford on thursday morning. i've got to do it twice every transfer cycle. once for me and once for my companion. this next wensday is also president interviews. president told me i wouldnt have one for 6 months last time i spoke with him. but because i moved zones the schedule changed so i will be looking forward to that.

im sorry to hear that you are still burried under the cold wet snow. we dont get any of that stuff here. and i sure dont miss it. i know a lot of members who have been out your way recently and they keep telling us how cold it is. though they are probably slightly biased because its normally so warm down here.

love you, keep warm

Sincerely

Elder Ogilvie