8 April 2013

dear mom

im sorry you are once again surrounded by snow. its still nice and sunny out here. general conference has been the big highlight of the week. we saw all of the sessions at the chapel here in palatka. we didnt have any of our investigators show up for any of the sessions. they were all either sick or dependant on someone who is sick. we did however see some of palatka 2nds investigators show up for the 2nd session on sunday.(palatka 1&2 share the same building) the missionaries in interlachen had to come watch priesthood session with our ward because their building does not have a satalite dish. the fun thing that happened for priesthood session is that the wards in our area all got together and had a really good bar-b-que right before. i know there were people from atleast 3 different wards.

our mission boundries have not changed yet. they will change in july when we get our new mission president. it is almost certain that we will lose the savannah zone.( the big area at the top of the mission ). i can't say for certain how much of kingsland ( the next one down ) we will lose. we may lose all of it. its still very possible that i could end up in the georgia macon mission in july. only the lord knows.

 

we found out yesterday that with the increase of sister missionaries comming into field. the palatka first ward ( the one i'm in ) will be getting sister missionaries alongside the elders already here. ( elders and sister in the same ward and area.) so now the mission office has us looking for a place to house the sisters. they are suppose to be coming in, the beginning of may. what ever the trasfer date is. so that will be a fun adventure to have over the next week.

 

hope you are doing well at home. have fun at work.

Sincerely,

Elder Ogilvie

1 April 2013

Dear mom

being in palatka is wonderful. my companion has been out two transfers longer than i have. however with the way things are its more like i have 3 companions. since we are around the palatka 2nd elders a lot trading the car back and forth, p-day activities and so forth.

twice now this week has failed at our apartment. all of the plumbing for the complex keeps springing leaks. and our apartment is the only place we can go to do our laundry. the other elders have to come to our place to do theirs to. 4 missionaries 2 machines.

i did get the easter box and it did come on saturday. we were given a lot of candy and chocolate for easter. just like we got alot for christmas. thank you for the candy you sent us. it is much appreciated. this morning we had a member randomly drop by and give us each another huge bowl of easter candy. not to mention the feast that we got invited to yesterday.

we had a wonderful easter program at church, we had the primary sing, and we had either the stake president speak or it was one of his councellor speak, i cant remember which. along with the rest of his family. we also got an investigator who kept promising us that she would come to church and then not come to church. that was the best part of the week.

im glad you have evrything under control back at home. that is really exciting to find out that heidi and john are having their first child. i hope things ware still going well for alex and logan.

why was the boat in the garage? oh and before i forget the mission office needs to know what ward you are in now? the name of the ward and the ward number. your bishop should be able to get that information to you.

thank you for the easter basket hope all is well back home till i send another letter.

Sincerely

Elder Ogilvie

25 March 2013

Dear mom

i have officially moved in at:

(contact me or mom if you need a mailing address - Spring)

its been an exciting adventure to come to a new area. there are actually 4 missionaries serving here. we have to share the car every other day with the elders in the palatka second ward. my companion is elder buhler. and for some unknown reason he reminds me of the charlie brown show. he is pretty fun to be around. because we share the car with the other two elders, we see them every single day. they are both fun to be around two.

the city of palatka is nice. except the drinking water is really nasty. no longer will i have to go shopping at a dollar general for all of my necessities. that is really nice. we get some choices for what to eat at home now.

i really dont mind if you make another plaque. its your choice. if you do though i like Alma 42:31. either way i will still go back to my now old ward to collect the one that was made before i left.

we dont get a whole lot of time to write today because the library limits us to a half hour. even though we get a whole hour & a half by mission standards. we have a family history center here where we would do our emailing but we dont have a key to it like we did in branford.

im glad to here that things are going alright back at home hope you get feeling better soon.

Sincerely
Elder Ogilvie

11 March, 2013

dear mom,

i'm still enjoying what time i have left here in Branford. i now know of an almost absolute certainty that i will be transferred on the 20th of march. that's the next transfer date. i know this because my current companion just got called as a trainer. i don't know if i told you or not but this transfer (the one i'm in right now) is only five weeks long because of everything that is happening with the reorganization of the missions.

nothing too exciting is currently happening. about as exciting as it got was showing up quite randomly (which probably wasn't that random in the lords eyes) to help a couple of ward members do some moving, and again to help a less active member unload a trailer before it got too dark outside, and there was no way that he could unload that trailer by himself, being that he lost both of his legs. a lot of what we do have going on is getting many people over their personal barriers. which requires the help of the bishop more than just us plain old missionaries. more than anything what i saw while being here is the return of a few less active members. now hopefully they will continue to stay active, that's all i can ask for.

its nice to see that the snow back at home is starting to go away. when ever I've talked with anyone about Utah all that gets brought up in the conversation is how much snow there has been and how cold it is out there. i did find out though that there was a day last week where during the whole day, it was colder here than it was there. but that only happened once to my knowledge.

as far as i can think don't have any real need for you to send me anything. my needs have been pretty well taken care of out here. members are very good at both feeding us consistently and taking care of all of our major necessities. the only thing missing is a direct contribution to the work (referrals). its an eternal problem.

beyond all of that though i'm doing alright. i hope things go well for you all back home say hello to Brightyn for me when she arrives.

Sincerely,

Elder Ogilvie

4 March 2013

Dear Mom,

Nothing to exciting here is happening this week. i did teach gospel principles again this week, but only because our ward mission leader got lost while meeting with the bishop. we thought he had entirely disappeared. if all goes well we should have some good news in about two weeks. stake conference will be this week. the stake president wants all the missionaries to sing 'called to serve' in the Saturday night session. we will see how well that goes.

Elder Albertson is from a little town in Idaho. and he has been out one transfer longer than i have. carters birthday will be on the same day that i mark seven months. so that shouldn't be to hard to remember. yes, i do believe that i know McKenna Murphy. ( if she has red hair that's probably her) if not i at least knew a Murphy that was in my singles ward.

stake conference is the only major thing that i know of before general conference. last month was ward conference. now stake. next month is general. i guess that's the pattern for this part of the year. its strange to think that general conference has come around again. October's didn't feel like that long ago.

I hope you have fun with your new grand baby. and i hope all remains well back at home, love you and miss you all

Sincerely,

Elder Ogilvie

25 February 2013

Dear mom,

i have not seen any snow. the only thing i have seen is lots of rain. it rained so bad Saturday night we almost couldn't see the road driving back home. its been about a week since our house turned into a Popsicle. we haven't had any more frozen pipes. they unfroze when the sun came up.

its pretty cool to see that 58 new missions are opening up. i know that at least one of them is reopening. look for the Georgia Maken mission. It was dissolved about two years ago and the Florida Jacksonville Mission got some of the area from that mission. The top half of the FJM use to be part of that mission. the Georgia mission is suppose to open back up in July. and the FJM will lose what originally belonged to Georgia Maken. Any missionaries serving in those areas when the change occurs will likely change missions. that will also happen at the same time president and sister Barry go home. our new Mission president has been called and he will arrive in July as well.

zone conference was this last Thursday. Elder Albertson and I had to drive down there and back just to have our car inspected. i still don't know the results of that that of course assuming that i will ever find out. i also saw some of the members that i knew in Williston. they has driven the missionaries up to zone conference. so i got to say hello to them and find out whats going on down there.

we don't have a whole lot going on up here in Branford right now. we are preparing one young man for baptism just as soon as he can stop drinking sweet tea (which is apparently all the rage down here in the south). I've found more people struggle with tea than coffee out here. Believe it or not the lord knew what he was saying when he said no tea.

i hope dad has fun flying with all of his students down in saint George, and it sounds like Alex has just about everything she will need for when brightyn comes. give champ a hug for me. love and miss you all.

Sincerely

Elder Ogilvie

February 4, 2013

Dear mom

another week is gone. nothing really exciting has happened although it has been one of our better weeks for actually being able to catch people to teach.which has been totally odd because all of our investigators have gotten sick. which means we couldn't go teach them.

we have been working with a lot of less than fully active members as of late. many of whom have not come to church in years. and we found a former investigator who went missing a couple of years ago. whom my companion and his last companion tried to find and couldn't. turns out she moved down the street.

after the excitement of having 7 investigators show up to church last week. we had all of 2 show up this week. one of whom comes to church every other week like clockwork. the other is an unbaptized youth. everyone else was ill. one of our investigators got really sick and cancelled the appointment just before we were about to drive out her way. not ten minutes latter we get a call from her daughter (who lives in Pennsylvania and who just became a member two months ago) telling us to go give our investigator a priesthood blessing. so we did.

we determined that our District mighty prayer's just aren't working for us. but normal prayer works. every time we get together as a district to pray for our investigators. something always prevents that ting we prayed for from coming to pass. example: we pray that an appointment will hold, ten minutes later we get a call cancelling the appointment for... reason. but when we just pray as a companionship. we don't get the extra opposition. and the appointment goes through. i don't understand it, neither does my companion, or our district leader.

but for the most part things are going all right. i will wait for the box to come before i say more.

Sincerely

Elder Ogilvie