Monday, July 30, 2018 (transcription from Audio letter)
Hey everyone, Elder Olson here. This is week 6 of transfer 16.
Made sure to definitely get an audio recorded this week because...
this will probably be the last week that I'll be writing!
Kind of crazy! Kind of exciting! Super exciting!
It's been a pretty good week. We've been working super super hard.
Well first off I want to wish a happy birthday to my little brother Archer and my Grandma Hansen, Grannie. Hope you guys are doing well. Hope you guys had a good birthday this last weekend.
On Tuesday we did exchanges with the Elders of Hospital. I was with Elder ? from Ecuador. It was fun. He's a good missionary. It was kind of funny to see him play with the dogs. He is just super, has NO fear at all of the dogs and just loves to play with them. So he'll just go up and start playing with them but he's super rough with them. Haha. He starts almost punching them in the face and they'll get kind of mad at him and they'll kind of nip at him but he'll keep hitting on them but like playing with them and he gets them to chase him around. I thought that was pretty funny. Kind of crazy. He picked one dog up and "threw" it, so that was something a little different. People in general don't play with the dogs like that. But we had a good day that day...pretty standard, I guess. We found a couple new friends to teach so that was good.
On Wednesday, again just basically another day of work. We went to subway for lunch because they passed us money to eat so that was great. Afterwards we had district council in the afternoon. That was pretty normal. Our district does our District councils in English when I'm there because everyone in our district, well we are 4 gringos and an Argentino and my companion, but the Argentino was in the office so he speaks English. And so we do the class in English on the days I'm in our district class. And then my companion and I teach a membership class on those days we have the district class.
On Thursday we had zone councils in Rancagua. We were going to take the train but it left at like 7:30 in the morning and we didn't make it that early in the morning.And we were going to take the train back but it was kind of late so we just had to take the bus. The guy who sold us our bus tickets in the terminal...they have a guy selling tickets calling out "Santiago, Santiago, Santiago!" and we went to him for the tickets and they ask you about 1500 times if you are going to that place and so we bought tickets from one of them because it's a lot faster, because if you go in the line you'll end up having to wait 20 minutes to half an hour to rent a bus. But the guy selling the tickets sold way more tickets than they had seats on the bus so I got to stand. But it was a short ride. Once I had to stand for a two hour ride from Licanten to Curico in a tiny little bus...THAT was the worst! But from Rancagua to Buin it's like 40 minutes so it wasn't a big deal. But it was good. We talked about the Restoration at the training. Nothing too crazy. It was all pretty...it was just good. It was mostly stuff that I've heard before. My companion and I had to do a demonstration of how to contact and get to know people during the contact and not just walk up to them and say "hey, we're representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we would like to share a message with you," which happens a little too often. And so, we taught a little bit about how to go up to the person and get to know them and have a conversation while contacting them and then relating the conversation to the gospel. That went super well. It seemed like everybody liked the presentation.
And then on Friday, we had a couple of baptismal interviews, one we had to go to (?) for and then another one here in Buin. That was good. We had a goal as a zone, I'm pretty sure I mentioned it, of 15 baptisms for the change. That's high. When we set that goal...I've never seen a zone do that many baptisms in one transfer here in the mission. Our goal for the mission was 50 baptisms. So 14 is more than a third of the baptisms for the mission which are in the zone. Which is kind of a high goal, but WE DID IT! We were blessed to be able to achieve that goal. By the beginning of the week we had 11 people baptized and 3 more people with baptismal dates for this last weekend. So we need all of those three people to get baptized on their baptismal date or we weren't going to get our goal. And we found out on Tuesday, that one of them might not be able to, well had a work conflict and was going to have to push the baptismal date back a week, and so we weren't going to get it, but be so close. So we sent out a message to the zone with the names of the people and their baptismal date asking them to pray for them to make that baptismal date. And in the end, on Thursday night, she found out she wasn't going to have the work conflict. So we did the baptismal interview on Saturday morning and on Saturday she was baptized with the others. Then on Saturday night, I did the baptismal interview for a guy from the Dominican Republic. He's super cool. He was just a really really prepared guy. So he got baptized. He's a very impressive guy. We are hoping to get the missionaries to his wife and kids in the Dominican Republic as soon as possible.
That is pretty much our week.
So I'm super excited that we met the goals. I also gave my final testimony in Zone conference and then also in church on Sunday.
This week, we should get some farewells in. Don't think there will be too many, but on Friday morning, there's this one guy named Jamie, (who I've mentioned before, we went to lunch a couple weeks ago) who just does so much for the missionaries. So on Friday morning we are going to go eat breakfast with him. And on Friday, I'M GOING TO GO TO THE TEMPLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 2 YEARS! And then on Saturday, do basically nothing, haha. Well we have a self reliance class at night but during the day we don't have anything. The President will be doing final interviews all that day, but mine isn't until Monday afternoon. My interview is going to be the very last of the 29 people who are leaving so that's...nice. But at 3'oclock in the afternoon on Monday is my final interview and then on Monday night we go to the airport and they drive us up to the airport and we fly home! THAT'S CRAZY! My flight goes from Santiago to Dallas and then I have about a 2 hour layover. And then from Dallas to Utah. I think most of the gringos are going through Dallas and then to America to spread out. But I've got some Elders here who are friends and we'll be able to hang out at the airport and then our flight gets in to Dallas at 5 in the morning I think and then our flight leaves from Dallas to Utah if I'm not mistaken, I dont have the information right in front of me at about 8:30 from Dallas to Utah and get to Salt lake about 10:00 in the morning (note: Elder Olson is wrong here...his flight arrives at 11am in Salt Lake, American Airlines 1541). So yeah! That's what's going to be happening this week.
Who knows...maybe I'll send another recording but I don't know if I'll...well, I'll probably get on at some point this next Monday, but if I don't, I just wanted to kind of close with a spiritual thought from the Scripture that's written on my plaque that we hung up in my home ward. It's Jacob 5:71-72. Here we go. It says, let's see, to give some context, this is in the famous Vineyard Parable where the Lord of the Vineyard representing our Heavenly Father, he and his servant, who I assume to represent Jesus Christ, they go out and they work in the vineyard and take care of all the trees in the vineyard. And basically they work and they work and they work and sometimes the vineyard produces fruit and sometimes it doesn't. The vineyard is the world and in a way we are the trees but in this verse we are also seen in another way. And there's a lot deeper symbolism about specific trees and specific branches of the tree. But I love verses 71 and 72 which say,
71 And the Lord of the vineyard said unto them: Go to, and labor in the vineyard, with your might. For behold, this is the last time that I shall nourish my vineyard; for the end is nigh at hand, and the season speedily cometh; and if ye labor with your might with me ye shall have joy in the fruit which I shall lay up unto myself against the time which will soon come.
72 And it came to pass that the servants did go and labor with their mights; and the Lord of the vineyard labored also with them; and they did obey the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard in all things.
I know that in my time that i've been blessed to serve in the mission, that I have been blessed to be one of those servants who has been able to go and labor with my might and I know that the Lord of the vineyard also labored with me. So I just wanted to share that with you guys and thank you for all of the support you've shown me, especially, obviously, my family, over these last two years.
I hope you guys are all doing well. And I'LL SEE YOU ALL VERY SOON! Have a good one!
Elder Olson
(Note: I am assuming this is the video Elder Olson and his companion showed on their Pday activity "MTC CRIBS" last week where they all showed videos of their apartments. And these two obviously put in some inside jokes via the pictures taped everywhere. I would love a translation of the video but we'll just have to wait til he gets home next week for more explanation)
(This is Elder Olson's zone singing the Spanish translation of the song Savior Redeemer of My Soul which was written by Jenny Oaks Baker )
(Here is the original video for the song if you want to listen to it in English. It's beautiful and moving)
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