week 62:Food Poisoning & Elder Bragg of the Seventy

TRANSCRIPTION FROM AUDIO LETTER:

Hi gang,
This is Elder Olson. So this week was pretty interesting. We met a dragon. His name is Phil. But he's not that nice. But we're also finding many new leprechaun investigators. But I think the red one is going to progress. Also, I saw a dog today. It was pretty interesting.

Alright, Hi everyone, THIS is Elder Olson.

That was Elder Davis talking to you. He's not doing too well. He's stuck in bed. So we're here at the house. Elder Davis is sick. Actually the other missionaries in our Branch are also sick. And Basically half of the mission is sick. I talked with Elder Robinson last night and he said there are over 70 missionaries who are sick and there are still more calling in. We had a conference with a Seventy, Elder Bragg, on Friday (and Saturday) and people have been getting food poisoning from the food we ate afterward. They thought it was just the south half of the mission because they had their conference first. But it looks like it's gonna be everybody, well not everybody, but a lot of people on both halves of the mission...not just people in the south half. One of those people is my comp, Elder Davis, who's got the double headed dragon, poor guy. I'm praying I don't get sick. I haven't gotten sick up to this point. I felt a little weird, but I think I'm not going to get sick as in stuck in bed or the bathroom sick.

But this week has been a pretty good week. It's been a loooong week. It feels like we've done so much stuff but it's only been a week.

We started off, on P-day, we had to go and do a choir practice because my companion and I sang in/we did a little musical number during the visit for Elder Bragg. After that we did normal P-day: write home, buy things, get home as quick as we could.

And then during the week, on Tuesday we had a lesson with a family we've been teaching for a while.  They've been receiving the missionaries for quite some time. We decided to leave them. It's kind of sad. It's sad to leave, to stop teaching a family, but they just weren't progressing or keeping their commitments. Then we had to go stay at the assistant's/secretary's house again because last week, I think I mentioned it in my last letter, we had to go do the same thing... stay in their house the night before, get up at 6 in the morning and go do stuff for Elder Davis's Visa, but last week it totally failed and we weren't able to do it. So this week we had to do it again and this week it worked. We still had to get up at 6 in the morning and I had to go save a spot with one of the other companions of one of the other missionaries in the Chilean FBI and we were waiting there about 4-5 hours, no it was 3 hours there and then another 3 after that before we got all the stuff done there. Then we had to go to another place and do some other stuff there...basically we were waiting around for a long time. I got to practice my Portuguese a little bit though because I was waiting with Elder Alcara? from Brazil. Everything was alright. (he says a phrase in Portuguese on the recording) Learning a little bit.

Wednesday was pretty normal. We had a lesson with the assistants that afternoon. We asked them to come with us because One of them, Elder Covey, had contacted this girl, and we started teaching her. And so invited him to come because their sector is pretty close to ours, to accompany us to a lesson so he could have the opportunity to teach her as well and also we needed somebody to come with us to the lesson. It's hard to get members to come with us a lot of the time here. But the lesson went awesome. It was great. She would've accepted a baptismal date but she lives with her boyfriend on the weekends. So can't accept the baptismal date yet. We have to talk about how that's not allowed before she's allowed to actually  get baptized. But she's really good. And she understands REALLY well and I really hope she progresses.

We also this week, on Thursday I believe, we had a lesson with the kid, Jose Ignacio, the soccer player who was a self reference to the church. I can't remember exactly how much I told you about him. But we're teaching him and his family. He's 17. So him and his parents and his younger siblings. But they're also really awesome. They have a lot of desire to learn more. They had promised us last night that they were going to go to church today, and they didn't. I guess I should know better at this point to believe people when they tell me they are going to go to church the next day but that's what happened. So that was kind of a bummer. We were really excited to see them. We actually dragged Elder Davis out there to sacrament meeting even though he's very sick...he wanted to come too...because we wanted to accompany the investigators. But then they didn't get there, and none of our investigators who had committed to come to church came to church. I think it was because it was kind of cold this morning so I think they all got up, looked outside and decided to stay in bed. And we also had a lesson this week with Alejandro, who we found contacting. He's super super receptive. He had a friend who was a doctor who invited him to come to church one time. He came to church and he thought, hey this is really awesome, and then the doctor moved to Argentina so he was too embarrassed to keep coming to church by himself so he didn't. But we contacted him one day and he was like, "ah yeah, I went to your church. I loved it. I've been waiting for you guys because I wanted to come back but I was too nervous to do it myself." So he came to church two weeks ago now, but he didn't come last week because he had to work and this week I don't know what happened and he also did not come today, which was a bummer.

On Friday we had the meeting with Elder Mark A Bragg of the quorum of the 70. He spoke in April conference of this year and his talk was called, "Brighter and brighter, until the perfect day." It was cool to be able to talk with him. In the morning he came and we actually had a special meeting with him first, a small meeting with all the zone leaders, district leaders and the Hermana leaders, so basically mission leadership and Elder Bragg. So that was pretty good. It was kind of short. More like a testimony meeting than anything. He talked to us a little bit about the importance of being an example as leaders. And then after that we had  the actual conference. I felt like I was kind of off to a slow start. I wasn't really...I'm sure it was me...I was having a hard time finding anything I felt applicable to myself. Obviously I'm not perfect but there was a lot of things I felt like I had already heard a million times. But as it progressed and went on I learned A LOT. It was awesome. It was a really good experience. One of the things he promised us, that was very similar to something President promised us a little while ago, ....and he said this as in, "I'm gonna make you guys a promise and here's the promise...if you guys begin to talk with everybody, like everybody in the street, you will triple the number of investigators you have and double the baptisms." So that was cool, because it was a very firm promise. It wasn't like "you will have maybe some more baptisms if you talk with everybody." It was "you will DOUBLE your baptisms and TRIPLE your investigators." So that was cool. That went along with my goal personally and the goal of our companionship to contact 20 people a day. We only actually had one normal day where we were able to go out and do things like we should be able to do and on that day we met the goal, we contacted like 24. Then yesterday we had an almost normal day, we had to do weekly planning and Elder Davis got sick at the end of the day, but we still contacted about 15 people. I want to keep it above 10 when we have other stuff and 20 or more when we don't have anything to do. On those days we did pretty well. We tried to talk to the taxi drivers when they took us places and tried to talk to everybody. It can be tough to find the opportunity but it's really just about opening your mouth.

We had a lesson with a person we contacted in the street just a couple of days ago. We had walked by him and he said, "Hello, Elder." And we're like, oh he knows we're elders. So we ran over to him and were like, stop stop. And we made hims stop and talked to him for a minute. He actually spoke English. He learned English playing video games and listening to music. There are actually quite a few people who learn that way. But he speaks really well. Couple days later, we were actually able to have a lesson with him. So that was cool. He's very..., well he's smart, so that makes him not quite as teachable. He 's not argumentative but he still is pretty fixed in his views. I would like to see him progress as well. He reminds me of the atheist investigator that we had in Curico.

So that is my week. But also today we are going to have interviews with President in the evening. It should be interesting. It doesn't sound like anyone else in our zone is sick except for the ones in our branch, and I'm fine, I'm not sick at all. But we're going to have to do a training there. I don't know how we're going to do that while President is doing interviews because my companion is very sick. I may have to do it myself while my companion hides in the bathroom, I'm not a 100% sure. I think he'll probably be able to compose himself long enough to do the training part. So that's what we're going to be doing today.

But to end, I want to leave you with a small spiritual thought from Elder Bragg's talk in that general conference. It was a pretty good talk. I liked it. He speaks about light and hope more than anything. Light as in Hope. There are a lot of ways we can define Light in our lives. One of the most common gospel definitions is knowledge and truth. But he talks about the hope that comes with light the church, the gospel, the light of Christ.

Now, with all the happiness that will come to us as we more fully understand the Light of Christ, it will not match the joy that we feel when we see the Light of Christ working in others: family, friends, and even complete strangers....May we see the Light of Christ in others constantly and help them see it in themselves. ---Elder Bragg

I know that Elder Bragg is a representative of God. And I know that President Harris here in our mission is also a representative of God. And they are called to the positions they are in and they are guided by the Holy Ghost to be able to address our needs and to lead us. I also know that sharing the light we have with other people will help our light to grow. And when our light grows, we will be able to give more light to others, and increase their happiness and our own.

Thank you guys, love you tons, take care, 

Elder Olson

The gang is back together. My MTC/CCM missionaries

my buddy Elder Haar and Me

week 61: Sick Comp & Tender Mercies

Hey all,

Sorry for not doing a voice thing.

So, after transfers this has still been a pretty busy week. My bike pedal arm broke while I was riding so we are temporarily stuck to missionary work the old old fashioned way (walking). I am starting to lose weight here though (about 10 pounds, 50% because of the gym and 50% because of the size of our lunches).

On Wed. we had to go stay with my man E' Robinson in the office house bc E Davis had to do stuff for his Visa. In the end it didn't work out and we're doing it again tomorrow. After that E Davis got sick and we were stuck in the house all day. I took advantage of the time to write a spanish version of "Be Still My Soul" and clean the house again. I think my overall cleanliness as a human being has gone up about 100 points during the mission.

A lot of you guys asked me about Camilo (the wal mart water bottle flower guy). We've passed by but he hasn't been home.

The other day we had a lunch appointment fall and some members gave us last minute lunch. Tender mercies.

We had Leadership Council on Saturday. We set a goal for 35 baptisms in November, and 70 before new years. We also saw the new Christmas iniciative video which is exciting...

I am currently working on my meekness, which I am defining as humility + patience, two Christlike atributes which I wouldn't consider personal strong points. I'm loving what I'm learning.

Also in our meeting President told us that if we contact 10-20 people a day we will baptize 1-3 people a month. I am going to contact 20 people every day of this change that we don't have meetings. Help me with this! Please ask me how I'm doing with my contacting goal every once in a while.

We have a conference with Elder Bragg of the 70 this Friday (see genconf april 2017). We'll have a special leadership meeting beforehand, and I'll be singing in a small choir for a musical number. Should be fun!

Love you all!

Elder Olson

Neighbor likes to rock out...makes for interesting study time

Week 60: Normal but good

Alright everyone, this is going to be a quick recording because I had no time to do a recording again. I guess that was because today we had transfers. We did it a little different this change. We did it on our Pday instead of on Tuesday I think just because of the day that all the new missionaries were getting here to the mission.

So right now we are in the cyber, writing, and seeing as how I had forgotten to send a recording last week I'm gonna get a short one in this week.

We got the changes this last weekend and I am staying in Baquedano with Elder Davis, which is awesome because he's a good comp. I can definitely be alright here another change. It'll be good. Which probably means, well you never know, but I could be here another two changes because he could leave and I could stay but you never know in the end I guess.

Almost our whole zone stayed basically the same. Only one elder left, an Argentinian, Elder Ginardo?. And one of my buds from my zone at the beginning of my mission, Elder Tias, from Brazil, is coming up, well he got here this morning. But other than that, all the other missionaries in the zone remained exactly the same. So that'll be good. It'll be more of the same thing this exchange.

This was a good week. There was this reference that we got this last Sunday that I mentioned last week. We had the visit with him...it was great. We had one visit with him and then another visit during the week with his whole family. He accepted a baptismal date right away and is super receptive..ready to change. But he didn't come to church. His whole family had promised to come to church, they seemed really really excited about it but then they didn't answer the phone and didn't come to church. Not exactly sure what happened there. We're going to have to keep calling them and seeing what's up. But it's the first week. And it's not a super common thing for people here to attend church in their first week as an investigator.

Although, we did have another one, his name is Alejandro, who came to church just the first hour but he loved it and he said he was going to bring his family next week. So we're excited about that.

Apart from that...

The week's been pretty normal but a good week. We cleaned the house a bit more, that was good and actually got things straightened out. We changed the furniture from where it was so everything's a little more open. We got things swept out from underneath so that was all good.

Also, we were supposed to have a branch council meeting on Sunday so we got up early and we get there and (the recording went really muffled here but he may have said..."found out it was cancelled so that was nice.")

Apart from that, it's been a good week but the last week of changes is always kind of a weird week (muffled recording again) as missionaries we try not to talk about it and keep our minds focused but for me I always end up thinking about it.

(he asks himself, did anything else interesting happen this week?) We got all our goals as a zone which was good. It's the first week of the change that we made all our goals as a zone, so that was awesome.

Also today we're making our zone souvenir which is kind of a common thing but it's usually a t-shirt or something. I've done a hat I got a picture of a couple changes ago. But this time we got slippers, which I'll try to get a picture of, I'll try not to forget. We just picked them up this morning. The slippers are AWESOME! They turned out really good. They're not the best quality, but they turned out to be 2800 pesos which is super cheap, which is like $4...like max $4. So they're awesome. They turned out really pretty. That's kind of cool. I've always wanted to do the slippers. We were going to put President's face on the slippers, but I didn't want President watching me from inside the house always, that's kind of a little creepy, so we didn't put the President's face on them. We were going to put our own faces on them but didn't know how stoked the zone would be about that so we didn't do it. But yeah. It's been a fun week.

(he turns to his comp and asks, did anything else happen, comp?)

So, my companion and I drink an interesting amount of Mate' and so this week we bought a HUGE thermos which we fill with hot water and sugar, which is great for us, and then today for the changes we had to be in the terminal, we had to Wait in the terminal for like 4 hours. So we brought the thermos and the Mate' to the terminal and we got to sit there just drinking Mate' for the 4 hours. So that was kind of fun, it was different.

Apart from that it's all been pretty normal. Hopefully I have some more interesting stuff to tell you next week.

Oh, also something else that's pretty cool, this change a Seventy is coming to the mission. His name is Mark Bragg if I'm not mistaken. He spoke in general conference, not this past session but in October, not October, April. He spoke on (I think it was on) "Brighter and Brighter until the perfect day." I have it and I've listened to it but I don't remember it very well. So that'll be exciting to finally have a general authority down here. I saw my cousin in London shaking D. Todd Christofferson's hand and Elder Holland's hand and the rest of us down here are like, oh that's kind of nice. And when President Nelson came down to Chile he went Santiago and the Santiago missions and then he jumped our mission and went to the mission right below us. He went on both sides of us but didn't come to our mission so that was kind of... nice.... haha. But we're getting somebody so that will be kind of fun, something different.

So I hope you guys are all doing well. I'm here in the cyber and I saw the family just got a puppy. I bet you're excited about that. But I love you guys, take care! Bye!

rickety fan...it's so hot here!

singing a hymn with Elder Davis...We're no David Archuleta

week 59: God directs us

Bonswa, kouman ou ye?

Sorry I forgot to do a recording again, whoops! Time management is a skill I'm still working on.

But hey this was a great week. We found a ton of news this week! Some of those were in a house full of haitians. My comp was inspired to start learning creole, so I've had some opportunities to practice! Fun stuff.

This week we went to get an emergency water supply from wal-mart on an odd prompting we had. As we were leaving the store with 40 liters of water a guy pulled up in a car and offered a ride if we could drop flowers off at his co-workers girlfriend's house for him (long story). The girlfriend was super excited and we got the guy's number and address and we have plans to teach him. I think God guided us into that situation.

In other news, changes are this week! I'll let you know how it goes. Maybe I'll go train in a whitewash. That'd be fun.

Yesterday we had a new investigator who had attended church with a friend years ago and really wants to attend again but feels nervous to go. He has some real potential. Also we got a referral from Mormon.org who had a dream that he needed to become a Mormon. I'll let you all know how the appointment goes! But the moral of the story is share the gospel with your friends and one day they could find their way to the missionaries.

Love you guys take care!

Elder Olson

Chile in one picture

The name of this pepper is a swear word

week 58: See Others As God Sees Them

Transcription of Audio Letter.

October 2, 2017

Hi guys, Elder Olson here. Trying to get my recording done nice and early here. Today is week 5? week 5 in transfer number 9. Wow! This transfer's really been flying by.

Well it's been a SUPER busy week...an incredibly busy week. We had meetings every day, except for...no Thursday we still had meetings. We've seriously had meetings every day this week...unless you count P-day. We started off last Tuesday, we had a meeting with the District to watch the General Women's Session of Conference. It was really good. I'll save all my sexist jokes, seeings as how I'm a representative of the church and all that, but... it was good. I learned a lot and I really enjoyed it.

Wednesday we had our zone conference. We talked A LOT about the Book of Mormon. It has really been a big focus in the mission recently, especially this transfer. We've been trying to find new ways to use the Book of Mormon, to use it more effectively, to use it better in our teaching, to use it to find people and really just take advantage of this tool that we have because more than once the prophets have told us that the most powerful tool, along with the Holy Ghost, that we have as missionaries, is to convert people through the Book of Mormon. That's true for a mountain of reasons...I guess that doesn't make sense anyway... but haha for a lot of reasons. But mainly because it's the key to our religion. It's a really powerful tool and we need to use it better. So that was good. We had that part of the zone conference...so that was with President and the Assistants.  Then (with the zone) my companion and I we did a practice and a demonstration and we talked about how we could get people to better read because a lot of times we give people the book to read and they say they're gonna read it, but then they don't. So the trick is really verifying and making sure that they read. That went well. We were up LATE the night before practicing. Luckily the practice and everything went really well. My companion and I were really coordinated. It just went well overall.

Then Thursday we had almost a normal day. Well, we had a normal day but we had our mission leader coordination meeting with the ward mission leader that night, which was really good. Our ward mission leader here is FANTASTIC. He's probably the best mission leader I've had in my mission. He's the only one that I've had that actually coordinates the visits so members will be with us. So we can call him and be like, "hey, on Thursday we have this appointment with this person and we need a member to accompany us at that time...preferably an Hermana from the Relief Society or something like that." And he helps us out there and he's normally able to get the person in that time which is a huge help for use to not have to be calling a million people searching for somebody to do that. And that's really the mission leader's responsibility so it's good to have somebody who's actually doing what he's supposed to do.

And then on Friday we had what's called a capital abierta, which is an open chapel in Rengo, where my family's from. It was cool. It's a big ward. It's probably one of the bigger ones in the stake...if not the biggest it's one of the biggest. It came out really well despite the fact that we had a couple miscommunications about timing and about the number of missionaries that were going to be able to attend. We got together as almost the whole zone. We got everything set up on time. Then basically what it is , is like a tour of the Chapel. But at the same time it's more of talking about what we believe. The sister missionaries go through doing rounds of this tour with people coming in off the street. And they talk about first, our belief in Jesus Christ, and then they give like a super basic version of the missionary lessons and then there are a couple missionaries dressed in white in the baptismal font teaching about baptism and then the groups go through to each organization individually. The organization presents like two minutes about what the organization does. And then at the end we wait with Books of Mormon and pamphlets and we get references...or referrals...I guess is what they call them. My friend didn't know what references were the other day and I didn't know how to explain them. Referrals. Anyway, so that went really well. We brought in quite a few people off the street.  I also thought it was a really good opportunity to show some of the newer missionaries how we should be talking with everybody. During the open chapel especially, if there was somebody riding their bike on the other side of the road, my companion or I would run over to the other side of the road and stop the guy on his bike and talk to him about the chapel and invite him in. I think that's something that's not super common to see in our mission culture and so it was really good for the newer people because we have a lot of trainees in our zone...to see that and see that example.

It was also kind of cool because I found out a couple things with my family. I met one of my Aunt Marianela's cousins, her name's Valeska. She was there working in the open chapel. I also found out one of my cousins had been on a date with the wife of our ward mission leader here in Baquedano. So that's kind of funny. Just the connection that my family has to this area is kind of cool.

Then Saturday and Sunday we had general conference, so we went to the stake center in the center of Rancagua to watch it. Which was cool. It was good to have the opportunity to get together with all the other gringo missionaries in Rancagua and talk about and watch the general conference together. A lot of themes really stood out to me. I had several questions that I went into the conference...well with three questions, looking specifically for those answers and I found probably more than ten answers for each one of those questions. Because they weren't just like yes or no questions, they were more in depth. But I found a lot of answers and a lot of things that will really help me.

So one of the themes from general conference that I noticed that I really liked was the importance of seeing the divine potential in ourselves and in others. In Women's conference that was especially a theme and I feel like it's always a theme in Women's Conference from what I've seen, but I felt like it was a theme in other sessions as well...that we need to recognize that we are children of God, that we have the potential to become like him, but I think at least as important is that we realize that others have that same potential. To think "how does God feel about the way I'm treating His children? Is he happy about the way I'm treating his children? And really loving them and seeing their potential even when they HAVE WEAKNESSES? It's okay because we all have weaknesses and they have just as much of a right to move on from those weaknesses as you or I do." So I really liked that theme. I also saw that more than once when talking about local leaders. Here in Chile in particular, a common problem that I notice is quite a few people that don't support their leaders. Who have a branch president or a bishop and say basically that they don't do anything or that they aren't fulfilling their calling. But even IF that is true, saying that about that person is not going to help. That's not sustaining your leaders, that's not really seeing them as children of God. And the only way that we're gonna help the situation is if we help sustain them, if we do what they ask, if we magnify our callings or our priesthood or family responsibilities to the max...as much as we can. So I really enjoyed that and I really hope that people, including myself, can take that to heart and be examples of that kind of charity...seeing other people as God sees them.

It's been a good week. It's been a busy week. With all these meetings, we had a total of probably a total of 8-10 hours to proselyte, which is basically one day of work. But it turned out well and it was definitely worth it to have all of these experiences this week.

I want to share a short testimony with you that I know that God leads this church through prophets, through Thomas S. Monson in our time, and through the apostles that are supporting him especially in this moment that he is passing through difficulties with his health. I know that they receive revelation and that they are called of God. If we apply what they teach us in our lives, then we will be happier and have more success in our lives, the kind of success that is lasting and a more eternal success.

Also with all the messages about the Book of Mormon, I would just like to share my testimony as well that the Book of Mormon is true and that if we read it every day and meditate and ponder its precepts, we WILL come closer to God. We will come closer to him by doing this than we could ever come by applying the principles in any other book. I know it's true. And it was a long process for me, even though it was quite a while ago before my mission, to find that out for myself that the Book of Mormon is true. But when I really put in my part, and was sincere, I got my answer. I know that that book is the word of God.

I want you guys to know that and that I love you guys. I hope everything is well back home. I hope nobody's died from Hurricanes or Korea because that's what everybody talks about down here. Take care, have a good week!

Bye, Bye!

Meeting Aunt Marianela's cousin, Valeska

"Food Tasty" food truck :-)

Elder Davis "mowing" the missionary's lawn