Grateful to be a Missionary! (Oct 6)

My favorite weekend of the year is definitely General Conference! Love being able to hear from our prophet and apostles the things that Heavenly Father knows we need to hear. :) Super cool hearing Allan F. Packer speak after meeting him in person and shaking his hand just two weeks ago! I feel so special ;) hahah

This week we had the awesome opportunity to help with a community service project from Wednesday to Friday helping build a playground! Man, I did not know how much work it took to build one of those things. We had to dig all the holes for the poles to go in and screw in all the bolts and connect all the pieces together and make sure they were perfect and got to pour cement! And of course this week decided to be really cold and we had to be outside all day building this thing. Let's just say I don't think I am ready for winter quite yet.. :)

Thang, our investigator, fed us real authentic Chinese food! We made spring rolls with real rice paper that is a hard circle but you have to soak it in hot water and it'll soften. Then we had rice noodles, shrimp, lettuce and pork. It was super good! This is as close to "foreign food" that we get  here in Canada! haha

It was cool to hear them announce at conference that there are over 88,000 missionaries serving around the world right now. I am so very grateful that I am one of those missionaries. I absolutely love being a missionary and being able to meet so many amazing people and share this beautiful gospel with everyone. I hope you all have a good week! Love ya!

Love,

Sister O'Dell

Sister O'Dell with her birthday cake that a member made for her!

Sister O'Dell and Sister Oplin on "trunky hill." Sister O'Dell said, "This hill is by an airport and missionaries would sit on it and watch the airplanes take off and land. Trunky is a term we use when you are about to go home and people ask are you getting trunky? Like ready to pack your "trunk" or bags and go home kinda thing haha."

"Trunky Hill"

I'm Getting Old Guys. (Sep 29)

Well guys...apparently when it's your birthday you become one year older so I guess that makes me 20 now? So weird! Super awesome having a birthday as a missionary by the way. :)

This week we had a zone conference and an apostle from the 70 came and talked to us, Elder Packer (Boyd K. Packer's son). Such a cool and spiritual experience being able to hear from him. My companion and I got to sing with a few other missionaries during the conference as a special musical number. We sang "More Holiness Give Me". So amazing!

I had my first experience traveling around on buses! And boy was that an experience. haha we kept getting off on the wrong stops and couldn't find the right bus to take us to where we wanted to go! We were literally on different  buses all day. Oh and our dinner cancelled on us last minute but thankfully she gave us money so we went to Applebee's. The highlight of my day was when we went to pay we were told that someone had already paid for us. :) How sweet is that?! I just love people. :)

I hope you all have a super fantastic week! Love ya!

Love,

Sister O'Dell

Sister O'Dell went on exchanges with Sister Christensen who is a training leader. They got yummy crepes too :)

Sister O'Dell is the cutest!!!

Birthday Surprise!

Birthday card that Sister Oplin made that everyone signed for Sister O'Dell!

20th Birthday!!!

The Birthday girl!!

I Love to Serve Others! (Sep 22)

 Totally becoming a pro at this whole bike riding thing in a skirt....I hope hahah. This week we got to help out in Calgary's annual food drive!! They had millions of boxes and they had the cars lined up and we would grab the bags of food from their car and put it into the boxes. It was awesome to see how much food was being donated and it was fun being able to help out with my zone!! Later that day we got to do more service! You know it's been a great day when you only had to wear a skirt for like 2 hours because the rest of the day you were busy doing service!!

    We had a lesson with Thang this week and read with him in Alma 36. This is when Alma is telling his son Helaman about his conversion and repenting. Thang has had trouble trying to forgive himself from the past and when he read this story he just started to cry because it really hit home for him. The spirit was so strong in that room. I am so grateful to be serving a mission and that I am able to tell people that there is hope and they don't have to continue to live in misery. The gospel brings so much happiness and peace. I love it so much!!!

    I hope you all continue to be missionary yourselves and share this amazing and true gospel! Love you all and have a great week. :)

Love,

Sister O'Dell

Sister O'Dell and Sister Oplin

Downtown findings!

The perfect bench for Sister O'Dell. She LOVES cows!!!

The house Sister O'Dell and her companion are living in.

Food Drive!

Beautiful fall trees!

Look what Sister O'Dell found! ARIZONA!!