week 79: Lost in the country

February 26, 2018 (transcription from audio file)

Hey everyone, Elder Olson here, this week 2 of transfer 13. 

Alright. So this week has been super good. At the beginning of the week nothing super crazy happened. We had changes here, and everything stays the same for us here in Licantén. Our district, the only person that changed was Elder Crompton left and Elder Rogers followed me down from Rancagua. So it's really cool to see him again. Really cool guy. Love that guy. 

Let's see.

So on Wednesday we had a meeting to set goals and plans as a zone. It's starting to get pretty old...the meeting...after having done it for quite a few changes now. They started it 5 or 6 changes ago. It's super important, but man, I had a hard time staying awake in that one. But it was really good and we as a district set some goals that I think are going to challenge us a lot. But we are already, judging from the first week this transfer, it looks like we are on track to smash our goals this change so I'm pretty excited about that. And then on Friday morning we had to go down to Curico to do stuff for my second Carnet. A Carnet is like the identity you have down here, like the personal id. So I had to get that stuff done because I need a second one so when I go home, they let me on the plane. So yeah, that was good. 

And then that night I had to do a baptismal interview for a couple of Elders in my district. And then the next morning, I had a leadership meeting, so we just stayed there in Curico all that day. We went and got lunch. We went and visited one of my converts, well not my convert, a recent convert from Curico who is a good friend of mine. It was good to see them. So that was cool. And then in the afternoon, we went back over to the house of the Elders down there in Curico to do splits with them. I went in a Trio with Elders Bundy and Moira, the other elders in the district, and we send my companion Elder Hiatt with the Zone leaders for some lessons that they had that day as well. So that was really fun. It was lame to lose a couple days in our sector. I guess it was a day and a half, but still. But it was still really good to be able to do splits with them. And then the baptismal interview, the investigator who was getting baptized, he wasn't able to make it down for the interview at the time that they'd planned, so we had to do it in the morning on the day of his baptism. But that was good. I love being able to participate in baptismal interviews. I think it's really cool to be able to have some one on one time with an investigator who is about to get baptized and hear a little bit more about their conversion and what they, I don't know, what they're going through as they're preparing to be baptized. So that went really well. He was baptized later that night after we left.

After that, we came back up to Hualañé, the other town that's up here by Licantén. In Hualañé, we had a lesson with a really cool Atheist who speaks English. A really good guy. I feel like I've met a lot of people in the mission, just like him. Like everybody who speaks English that I've met is either a Mormon or an Atheist. But it was cool to talk to him, get to know him a little better. He has some pretty different views. 

On Sunday, we had church, and in the third hour of church...so I normally give our class in the second hour, for gospel principles, and then in the third hour we had a combined meeting with the youth, the priesthood and the relief society, talking about an open chapel...kind of chapel tour we do here in the area that we are going to be doing this next month on March 10th. So my companion and I had the chance to present that to the branch. And so that was really good. It's gonna be kind of a different kind of open chapel because we don't have an actual chapel, we have a house, but we are still going to do a little tour, talk about the different organizations, and we're going to have some help from our district. Some missionaries are going to come up to help us out. So it should be fun. It'll be really cool. They responded to it really well. The training went great.

THEN...

We got home from church to find our house flooded. It was full of...well the main room and the kitchen were all just covered with water...the floors and anything that was on the floor. Luckily that wasn't too much stuff. And it had entered into our bedroom and a little bit into our office and it had filled the bathroom as well with water. So we cut the water. Luckily the neighbor wasn't in working that day. They are a dental clinic but they sometimes they take appointments on Sundays as well, but I was really glad they weren't there because the only way to cut our water is to cut their water as well. So we were able to cut the water and dry out all of the house. A flexible tube under the sink had torn while we were at church. I don't know how. I called our Elder's quorum president, who's Pamela's dad (she's the girl who just got baptized). Her dad knows a lot about that kind of stuff. He built his own house and so he was able to help us out with that. That night the owner brought us a replacement part and we put it on. So we got our stuff kind of cleaned out and dried out. Because of all that, we weren't able to make it to our lunch on time, so the Elder's quorum president gave us lunch as well which was nice of him. It was really great.

Then we went out to an appointment with a girl we had named Nurila(sp?). She was somebody that we contacted in the town square here in Licantén a couple days ago, and we set an appointment for Sunday afternoon. She lives about an hour by bus from Licantén. So it was pretty far. But she seemed really receptive. She told us that she was going to invite her family and the people that lived with them to listen as well and we were able to confirm it by phone, so we figured it was worth the effort to make it out there. But we waited for a while to find a bus. The first one passed by and was full. So we got on the second one we found, but that one went to Talca and didn't pass by exactly where we needed to go. Well when we got on, we asked the bus driver and he said it did, but it left us about 6km from where we needed to go. But we weren't sure exactly how far it was. So we started walking. We walked about a mile and decided that we were still pretty far so we'd wait for the bus. So we waited for a while, tried to hitchhike, because it had been a long time. But finally a bus passed and we were able to take it the last 5 minutes on bus to where we needed to go. Then we got there and had a GREAT lesson. She invited her neighbors. Her neighbors had been waiting there, because we got there late (because of the bus), but her neighbors had come over specifically to listen to us and were waiting there for that as well. And she also had some Haitians who lived in her house working for her and her husband. So we had a lesson with her, her neighbors, her daughter, and one of the Haitians. So that was really cool and they received it really well. That whole experience was kind of what I thought the mission would be like...walking for forever in the middle of nowhere to somebody who really wanted to hear the gospel and who was really receptive. And so it was kind of neat to have that experience. So that was really good. The lesson went really well. So we got out and we had a little bit over an hour left before the time we needed to be in the house so we figured we had some time to wait for the bus and then the hour bus ride. Then we waited for the bus for at least an hour that we were standing there. Luckily our Haitian friend who had listened to us...his name is Walter...he came out and stood with us the whole time waiting for the bus. Super nice guy. I got to practice my Creole for a little bit with him because he didn't speak much spanish. Finally, after an hour, at the time we should've been getting in the house, the bus passed by and we took the hour bus ride back to the house, standing up. And then on the ride back, the bus door broke and they had to pull over and the bus door was just stuck open and we were stuck for like ten minutes trying to fix the bus door. But finally they got it kind of fixed. They still had to kind of like lift it and pull it every time they wanted to shut it. But they got it mostly fixed, so we were able to get home, safe and sound. So that was, I don't know, a really cool experience. It was fun ;-)

That's about it for what happened this week. But to give you guys kind of a spiritual thought...I was listening to an old BYU talk by Mark Peterson, I think was his name, about the restoration. And it was really cool to listen to that and think about it and I thought a lot about how we are still IN the restoration, how the restoration is STILL going on. So we have a lot of work to do to get the world ready for the second coming of Christ. It's been cool this week, I've listened to a lot of missionary work themed talks, and a lot have talked about other countries, like China, India, Russia, places where it's been hard to establish the gospel. So it was cool to be able to hear about the miracles that have happened to prepare those places to receive the gospel. And I know that the Lord is guiding this work and he's preparing the whole world to receive the message that we are sharing with the people. 

So, I hope everybody is doing good. Love you guys, take care. Have a nice week. Bye!

Elder Olson

PAMELA's BAPTISM last week.

Pamela, Elder Olson, Elder Hiatt, Elder Bundy, Elder Moira

Waiting for the bus

Mopping up the house

Walking forever and ever

week 78: Elder Christofferson's visit and Pamela's Baptism

February 19, 2018 (transcription from audio file)

Hey everyone, Elder Olson here, this week 1 of transfer 13. Wow!

So this week has been really good. It's been really cool. 

We started off on Tuesday going to Rancagua. We had a big meeting with the whole mission because it was one of the only opportunities we were going to have to get the whole mission together because of the Christofferson meeting. So we all went up to Rancagua and we had a big meeting with everybody in the mission which was really cool. It was fun to see a lot my friends there. It was good to talk with Elder Rogers, and well Elder Lee who was my last companion and his companion is Elder Rogers who was in our zone before. They have been in my other sector in Baquedano. And it's been crazy. 

They told me about a lot of the success they've been having there. And it looked like four of the investigators that we had, two I found with Elder Davis and two we found with Elder Lee, four of them were baptized in these last couple weeks which is incredible. I'm not quite sure which ones I've mentioned. I know I've mentioned Alejandro. He used to be doing really well at one point and then we left and so for a little while he didn't get anything but they started teaching him again. And they baptized Aileen who we found in a really cool way. Her cousin contacted us on the street and said "Oh look, I'm a member from this other town and my cousin lives right over here. Talk to her." And she ended up getting baptized. And then Victor, who I don't think I really ever mentioned, he was an investigator who was progressing really slowly, but I had a lot of hope for him and he finally did it. His wife was the first person we contacted with Elder Davis on that first day in that sector. We contacted his wife in the street and found out she was a less active member. And in our time there, she started going to church, started paying her tithing, she was there every week. He came 4 or 5 times to church but was progressing really slowly. But finally overcame some word of wisdom difficulties and was baptized. So I'm super excited for him. And then the last one is named Juan Diego. Who is a Columbian who moved to come down with his girlfriend here in Chile. So they were all baptized this last change, which I was super excited to hear about. It's really cool to see how much fruit came from all of our work there in that sector. I probably worked harder there than I had, well I worked pretty hard my whole mission, but I really tried to give it my all there and they saw results because of that. And we saw some while I was there with Jorge so that was really cool to hear about.

And then on Tuesday night we went and we slept in the house of some members in Rancagua which was different. That's not something that happens very often. That basically never happens. So we slept in the house of some members in the Tupahue Stake in the Los (?) Ward. A less active member offered his house for us to stay there so we would be ready to go to the training in the south of Santiago on the next day. So then the next day we got up there, we got to the church at seven in the morning and then we went up to Santiago and had the meeting with Elder Christofferson and Elder Bragg, the seventy who's in our area presidency who came a couple months ago. And it was cool to hear from them. My favorite part I think was hearing Elder Christofferson's testimony about president Nelson. It was just a very powerful testimony from someone who knows President Nelson very well. So it was a testimony builder for me to hear that. I know President Nelson is a prophet of God. And I know that Elder Christofferson is an apostle and that he has keys for his calling and he is called of God. He's no ordinary man. So I got to shake his hand and everything. We had a short meeting with him...about 2 hours. It wasn't really focused on any particular theme. I would say it was kind of on general missionary work. Maybe if I went back and listened to it again I'd find a theme for it. Talked also quite a bit about worthiness and having the spirit. That's something very important for all missionaries to understand. 

The day after that we went down to Rancagua and had the 5 weeks training for the trainers and trainees, which was really cool. It was short and sweet. I really liked it. I kind of just made a little list of things that I could improve. The big thing that I got out of all of the meetings we had this week is that we need to read the Book of Mormon more. That's something that the Church is stressing a lot and our mission had been stressing a lot for a long time. Teaching out of the Book of Mormon.

We had a good experience with that this week, reading through a chapter with an investigator and teaching the lesson out of the chapter. It's not the first time I've done that but it went VERY smoothly and the spirit was VERY strong. It was a really positive experience. So it's kind of a testimony that we should use the Book of Mormon as much as possible in all lessons. And we should help our investigators gain a personal testimony of the Book of Mormon. 

On Friday we had a baptismal interview with Pamela. She did great. She was very ready. The interview lasted in total about twenty minutes which was so short. Normally they last about an hour. So the fact that it was so short kind of surprised us. But yeah, she was excited. And then she actually asked ME to baptize her. I was a little surprised. I was assuming that her dad was going to baptize her, and I suggested that her dad should baptize her. But she wanted her dad to confirm her and she wanted me to baptize her. So that was a cool experience. That was something that until now on my mission I hadn't had that opportunity so it was really cool to be the one performing the ordinance. It was just a positive, it was a good, experience. She's very, I don't know, logical about things. She's not very sentimental. But when the baptismal service finished she got pretty emotional for one of the first times that I've seen. So it was pretty cool to see that she was touched in some way by the baptismal service. Then she was confirmed on Sunday without any problems. So we are super excited for her. She's great. 

This week we also set a baptismal date with a Haitian named Justin...well close to Justin, we'll call him Justin. He speaks SOME Spanish. The ward has been SUPER welcoming to him and this other Haitian, who are basically the only Haitians in Licantén. It's such a small town. They've been super welcoming. There had been a miscommunication. They thought he didn't have a bed to sleep on so some of the members, without us having talked to them or anything, they went and found a bed for him and had taken it to his house. In the end it was something to do with blankets that he had actually needed. But he had misunderstood them because his Spanish is not fantastic. But it's not bad either. It's pretty good as far as Haitians go. Especially because he only had a couple months here in Chile. I think he said he only had 2 or 3, but less than 6 months here so I was impressed with the Spanish he does know for having only a little time here. And he's already come to Self-Reliance classes, he's come to church twice, so his baptismal date is for the 24th of March. We put it a little further out to make sure he'll be able to understand the doctrine and really make sure he's able to understand what he's doing before he gets baptized. So it's not just something that we kind of push him into. And so if we or he feels like he's ready before that, he can get baptized earlier. So we're excited for him. It's been cool to practice my Creole. I'm pretty sure I've gotten better. I'm pretty happy with that. I've been practicing a bunch with him in our lessons.

Also this week they told us about transfers. So it looks like I'm going to be staying here in Licantén and Elder Hiatt will also be staying here with me. We'll be together another change, which will be super fun. We're pretty excited about that. He's a good guy.

Elder Crompton is being changed, he's one of my good friends from the MTC, but he's going to a sector that's out in another district in a small branch. And Elder Rogers, who had replaced me in our last sector, came down here with me, to be companions with our Zone Leader, Elder Tyce. Our Zone now, a lot of us, are the same ones that were in my zone in Rancagua. Which is cool. A lot of good missionaries. It's a lot of fun.

So yeah, I think that's about it. I hope you all are doing good. I hope you all are taking advantage of the gift that we have in the Book of Mormon and one thing that Elder Bragg said was to find a scripture about Christ and his sacrifice that helps us to feel even more love for Him. I can't remember the ONE that I had decided was MINE. The scripture that most made me feel that. But I really love 1 Nephi 19:9 (I believe) which says, "And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge Him to be a thing of naught. Wherefore, they scourge Him and He suffereth it. And they smite Him, and He suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon Him and He suffereth it because of his loving kindness and long suffering towards the children of men."  I really like that scripture and I think it shows Christ's love for us and his patience with us when we are imperfect. Elder Hiatt also wants me to tell you that it's his favorite scripture as well. He loves it so much :-). 

Well, Love you guys. Hope you're all having a good week. Ciao!

Elder Olson

Sleeping in a members house...Their dogs wiped themselves on E Hiatt`s bed :)

Most of our group that goes home together, minus sisters and some latinos. We're 29 in total.

Another angle of the same group.

Chicken Fight!

week 77: Interesting Investigator and Being Holy

February 12, 2018 (transcription from audio file)

Hey everyone, this is transfer 12 week 6. 

We are already coming to the end of the transfers. Pretty crazy.

This week was good, we started off on Wednesday doing exchanges with the Zone leaders. I went with Elder Tyce in Curico and Elder Hiatt got to practice leading the sector here in Licantén. It was good, kind of just a really normal exchange. As far as being with Elder Tyce, we were talking about it and we've been in the same zone in at least 4 different zones during our mission. We've been together a lot of the time. I was his zone leader for four changes now he's taking a turn being my zone leader. So fun stuff, being able to hang out with him. 

It's funny, in their house there are 4 elders there and they drink A LOT of Maté, all four of them. Our district has a cold Maté habit. We drink a lot of it with juice. It's pretty good. So that day, the morning of our second day of the exchange, we taught a Columbian investigator who was progressing really well and it was looking like he was going to get baptized but he doesn't feel ready to be baptized yet and they weren't sure why. So we had a lesson with him. It was really good. But he doesn't want to be baptized because he says he needs to go back to Columbia and fix some things in his life. And we thought it was just his girlfriend that he left there in Columbia and he needed to figure some stuff out so he could live the law of chastity. But I talked to the Zone Leaders yesterday, and it looks like he talked to them after church and he kind of let them know why he felt like he couldn't get baptized. And he has been telling them he works in a bakery. But he doesn't work in a bakery, he works as a hit man, basically. The loan sharks who lend people money, they hire him to go beat people up and so that is what is keeping him from being baptized. Luckily he didn't keep lying to them and he told them before instead of just thinking he was fine in getting baptized, he knows what he is doing is wrong. But that is a pretty hard process to go through for the repentance of a sin like that. It is very illegal and he'd probably have to turn himself in or confess to the cops. So the Zone Leaders were pretty heart broken about that one. He's a super nice guy. Super nice guy. We were pretty surprised when we heard about that. So yeah, that was interesting.

On Saturday this week we went and did a service project for Pamela's Dad. His name is Willy. He's the Elder's quorum president. We took out a bunch of his grass and helped him put in a fence on the side of his house...like help him dig holes and put in the wooden posts where he's going to put a barbed wire fence. So that was fun. It was some good work. And then we had a lesson with Pamela. It looks like she's going to get baptized on this next Saturday, which we are pretty excited about. She really wants to and she's been keeping her commitments so far. She's been keeping the word of wisdom and yeah we are just missing like one more visit and then the baptismal interview. We'll see. But she's doing really good. So keep her in your prayers please. Pray for her to be baptized this week. We are really hopeful for her.

Today, for Pday we came out to this little bridge and cultural center that we've seen on our way back from the little country sector where we come out to work sometimes. So we came out here to see the bridge. It's really cool. It's a really pretty place. They have a little cultural center that is a tribute to some author, who...not really sure who exactly he is or why they have this place to him. They have a little museum but it doesn't say much about him.  It talks more about the culture here in this part of the valley and it has some old hand woven stuff. One of the things that's kind of cool here is that the woven stuff that they've worn here for a long time, they still have it. They make it differently now. It's not quite as long of a process. And it's kind of expensive to get it but it's pretty common here to wear these poncho type of clothing. So it's pretty cool to be able to see that. 

So it's super pretty out here. We've been hanging out here all day. We did clean the house this morning. I built some shelves, put together some shelves. (sorry, getting on the bus). That's about it I think. This week are going to have the visit from Elder Christofferson. We are going up to Santiago on Wednesday. On Tuesday we are going to have a meeting with the whole mission so it'll be good to see my buds. It'll be the first time I'll have seen everybody in my whole group in a long time.

So this morning to prepare spiritually for the meeting with Elder Christofferson, we listen to and read the talk from Elder Christofferson this last conference, which I think is called "The Living Bread Which Came Down From Heaven." It talked a lot about the sacrament and our quest I guess, our search for holiness. And he talked a lot about trying to bring holiness into our every day lives and make ourselves more holy. I really liked the example he talks about with the pioneers and the early saints who put "Holiness to the Lord" on a lot of their everyday items. So that's pretty cool. One of the things that's also cool, in Spanish is that the word for holiness and the word for saints is basically the same. The word for holiness is santidad and the word for saint is santos. And so it's kind of just a reminder that who are is, we are supposed to be holy as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

(sorry. Getting off the bus now)

So yeah, that's all. I hope you guys are having a good week. Love you tons. Take care. Bye!

Elder Olson

ADDED NOTE: Elder Olson also told us his Mission President's Wife brought a keyboard to their apartment so he could practice. He now plays the piano for the Branch's Sacrament Meetings. He said, "I make a lot of mistakes, but that's ok. :-)"

He also said...

"I've gotta keep up on fruits and vegetables and start cutting out bread though. These last few months are called "sexy six" here. I did put up 200 lbs on the bench this week though! I should have put that in my letter. I've still got it. E Hiatt and I have done some cleans and thrusters as well trying to work in a bit of crossfit."

week 76: I saw the Ocean

February 5, 2018 (transcription from audio file)

Hey guys, this is week 5 of transfer 12. Today's gonna be a short one. We just got back from a trip to a Lake called Lake Vichuquen and the beach. So we're heading to the library right now to write and Licantén is pretty small so it's a short walk. But it's been a good week.

Earlier in the week we found a lot of new investigators. We went out with the Branch President and he helped us. He brought us some references. He knows just about everybody in this town because he works in the bank and it's the only bank for about two hours. I think I may have mentioned that. So yeah, he knows a lot of people so we just show up at people's houses and he talks to them for a minute and they're like, "Oh, Juan, so good to see you. Come on in." And they just invite him on in, and we go in with him and share something and it's great. It's really great to be able to work with the members. It helps a lot. A LOT! We found a family, two families, of less active members who were baptized about twenty years ago. There were some missionaries who just baptized a LOT of people in that time but none of them stayed active. 

But then, Wednesday we went down to Curico for district meeting. Then after lunch we had a meeting for the District leaders, the Zone leaders and the sister leaders...a little leadership meeting. And then we did splits. We went in the sector of the Elders there in Bombero Garrido, one of the sectors in Curico, and so I went with Elder Mora, who's Brazilian, he's pretty new in the mission...he got here with Elder Hiatt. And Elder Hiatt went with his companion Elder Bundy from Nevada. So we worked there all afternoon and in the night we ate Sushita which is sushi wrapped in pizza. Pretty awesome idea.

On Thursday we had Zone conference, so we stayed the night there because it's like a two hour drive to Curico from Licantén. Other than that the week has been good.

We found a new investigator a couple weeks ago who's really awesome. He's intelligent and receptive. He's a single dad. He's divorce and has his daughter on Tuesdays during the week. And he accepted a baptismal date this week for the 17th of March. He seems pretty excited to read and pray and get his answers. He understood really well.

And that is about it. I'll send you some pictures from the week. We are in the library now. Take care, I hope everything is going good back home. Love you guys. Bye!

Elder Olson and Elder Hiatt at Lake Vichuquen

From the Lago

Accessible almost exclusively through rich people's backyards. They were nice and let us take pics tho

Elder Olson says, "my "son" makes me look short"