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.
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| Pamela, Elder Olson, Elder Hiatt, Elder Bundy, Elder Moira |
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| Waiting for the bus Mopping up the house |
Walking forever and ever
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