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 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