Monday, June 11, 2018 (transcription from Audio letter)
What's up, Guys? Here's Elder Olson (Elder Olson's companion says this)
Hey everybody, this is Elder Olson here. We're on week 5 of transfer 15 and it's been a good week. A lot of stuff has happened at least so I've got a lot to talk about, so that's good.
So, last wednesday, we went down to Curico for the district class and we ended up staying there that night. We did splits with the Zone Leaders because the next day on Thursday we had a Zone Conference. So I was with Elder Halverson from Texas and we had a pretty good day. We got to have a couple lessons, one with a recent convert who's like 80 yrs old, so that was neat. And then another one with some Hatians. So I got to practice my Creole a little bit so that was fun. I think I impressed Elder Halverson with my Creole abilities. So that night, we went and got 60 cm completos (which is about 24 inches) it's really long. So we got these giant completos and we had a little group dinner there in the house. And the next day was zone conference and it was AWESOME! It was probably my favorite zone conference we've had in a while. It was all focused on the Holy Ghost and having the spirit in our teaching and with us throughout the day, things we can do to avoid offending the spirit, things we can do to invite the spirit. We talked a lot about prayers of faith, which I've kind of been thinking about quite a bit this change. I've been thinking that I need to find a way to improve my prayers a little bit and the idea came during the Zone Conference to keep a small notebook with me, especially while I'm praying. So I have a little notebook by my bed for when I'm saying my prayers at night and first thing in the morning. Also, I started turning on the lights in the morning before saying my morning prayers to avoid falling asleep. And yeah, so the little notebook is to write down impressions and things I need to do that day or the next day according to what I feel during my prayers. So that's been great. I feel like my prayers are a lot more productive. I feel like they are more genuine and sincere, Also because I'm more genuinely looking for answers and it feels a lot more like a conversation. Maybe that's not something for everybody but it's something that I've found is working for me. And we got to hear the final testimonies of a couple Elders who are from the missionary group right before me. So that was pretty cool. One of them, Elder Christensen, I really admire, he's a really good missionary. And well, they're both great missionaries, Elder Christensen and Elder Pollard are their names. Really great guys, really good missionaries. I admire them a lot.
So we left the Zone Conference with a lot of energy and a lot of enthusiasm to work. The next day we went crazy contacting. The week as a whole was kind of tough as far as visits are concerned. We did not get into a lot of houses this week. But we really pushed ourselves with talking to people in the street. On friday, the day after zone conference, we talked with exactly 50 people in the street which was a lot more than I've done before, than either of us have done before. We kind of took advantage of not having a lot of time in houses to talk to as many people as we could.
And then on Saturday it started raining, just POURING. All of Saturday and Sunday and then most of today, Monday, it's been raining pretty hard. Now it's about 4 oclock in the afternoon and it's finally cleared up. But on Saturday, it was just coming down. With all that rain, the zone leaders sent us a text and challenged us to contact a certain number of people in the morning and I'm not one to back down from a challenge so in the rain, we worked really hard to try to talk to as many people as we could. And we ended up beating the challenge that they'd given us and we had a funny contact there. We needed 5 more people to get to our goal, and it was almost time to go to lunch, and waiting for the bus, there was this group of seven 18 year old girls, all together, all talking, and I talked to my comp and was like hey let's go contact that group of girls. And he was kind of a little nervous I think. He's kind of more of a chiller guy, and so it was kind of funny because we went over and started talking to them and they were like, "Oh wow, you're from other countries..." But in the middle of the contact, I went to pass the contact (I guess) I kind of stopped talking and looked to my comp and he was pretty nervous, he just looked at me like, "I don't really know what to say." It was kind of funny. He's such a good guy. But yeah, he was just really nervous to talk to all these girls all together in this big group. So then we finished the contact and gave them all cards and they kind of ran away to get on the bus. But yeah, we got our goal.
So we went to lunch, and the member we had lunch with had us change into other clothes he lent us...some pants, another shirt to my comp,...because we were just soaking wet. We were walking with umbrellas and stuff but it was really really windy. (hold on I've got these kids talking in English right behind me...distracting me). Like I've got rain gear and everything is great. The only thing that's funny is, I've got these boots, which I'm super glad I brought, but I end up with this super soaked area from the bottom of my coat, from my mid thigh level to the middle of my shin. So that whole knee area is just soaking wet. But we left our pants and jackets and stuff by the stove and I was able to dry off without any problem. (But it is just really kind of funny how we got here just in time because there are like 15 kids who just got in the library trying to use the computers) But the member was just so concerned that we needed to be dry and warm. It was just really nice. He's a really good guy.
Then that night, we had some visits in Hualane. We had one with an investigator who we visited a while ago when I was with Elder Hiatt, and honestly, well she was living with her boyfriend so it was a really difficult situation for her to be able to progress. So we hadn't visited her for a long time because it really just didn't seem possible for her to be able to progress. She didn't have a way to get to church and the fact that she was living with her boyfriend and all that and some other difficulties. But we passed by and we found out that now she's NOT living with her boyfriend and there's a lot more opportunity for her to progress and she actually opened up to us about some problems that she has including a gambling addiction. So it turned out to be a great lesson. And I think a lot of that had to do with us asking and actually listening to her and doing our best to listen the best we could.
Last night, we were having another kind of tough day, all of our sitas fell through, it was pouring rain, walking around trying to find everybody we can in the street, contacting houses, passing by potential investigators and at the end of the night we said a prayer and felt basically that we should go to this dirt road on the opposite side of the sector. I was worried that it was a waste of time and that it was kind of just my natural man trying to kill time, I guess. So I was worried that it wasn't inspiration but basically we followed the prompting. We got over there, talked to everybody on the way, and there was this kid coming out of his house, he's like 21, but we talked to him and he's actually the cousin of the only missionary serving right now from Licanten. And he was just soooo so interested. He had two weeks here in Licanten. He's from Santiago. And he was asking us about what it takes to be a missionary and all that. But I've never seen anyone so excited to be given a Book of Mormon, so it was cool!
And that's about it. I want to share more with you guys but we're here in the library now and there's all these kids. So it looks like we're going to have a little less time to write today because we're going to get kicked off.
But I hope you all have a good week. Love you all. Bye!
Elder Olson
Made Tacos with my comp
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| My face after last Pday #hottestmissionary (he ran out of time this week to explain this pic further...have to wait for the next letter) |
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