Hey guys,
It's been a good week! It started off with a training from President Harris, which has given me a bit of a boost for this week, but I'm sorry to say that apart from that this week has been pretty uneventful.
One thing that's been happening in the past weeks has been an outbreak of wildfires. They're all over the region, and apparently the fire in Talca is the biggest in Chile's history. (click link for news coverage). Argentina, Brasil, and supposedly even France have been helping the Chileans fight the fires. The sky is often full of smoke. With the earthquakes and fires, we often end up thinking of Second Coming scenarios.
The past couple of days, Elder Jorgensen (the 6'6"elder from Arizona he mentioned in past letter who lives in the same casa) has been pretty sick. We're in the same district, and we've done exchanges so that I can stay home and talk to him in English. I've enjoyed the opportunity to just relax for a day.
This week during our training with President, a large portion was devoted to teaching the Doctrine of Christ, which consists of Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. During both the training and my personal interview 3 weeks ago, President Harris really stressed the importance of teaching repentance as a part of this process. Too often missionaries skip straight to Baptism as soon as their investigators start to demonstrate faith, and rob them of the amazing change of heart that comes as a part of the repentance process. Because of this, there are thousands of inactive converts in our mission alone.
Outside of the mission, we sometimes make the same mistake. We look forward to becoming clean by partaking of the sacrament, but we forget to use the gift of repentance. I hope we can all make use of the blessing of repentance a little more in our lives.
Say your prayers,
Read your scriptures,
Go to church,
I love you guys,
Elder Olson
 |
| The smokey skies at least make for beautiful sunsets |
 |
| Elder Haar (thanks to him for all these pictures), Elder ?, and Elder Olson in the flowered hat, eating watermelon to stay cool in the 100 degree heat |
 |
| smoke filling the skies |
NOTE FROM ELDER OLSON's MOM: Elder Olson mentioned that the firefighters in Chile are all volunteers. There is no organized fire fighting department. These people have to take time off of work (often unpaid leave) to go fight the fires for no pay. In addition, agriculture is their main source of industry so these fires are really taking their toll on the people and the country. Please pray for rain and for the wild fires to cease for the Chileans and for the safety of all.
No comments:
Post a Comment