Week 71: Happy New Year!

January 1, 2018 (Transcription from Audio Letter)

Hey everyone, Happy New Year!

This is week 6 of transfer 11 and the first day of 2018!

So it's been two weeks since I've been able to write or send anything so this is going to be kind of a recording to catch up on everything that I haven't been able to talk about all that much. 

Starting off with last week, (the week leading up to Christmas) we had a lot of activities and things like that for Christmas with the Branch and with the Stake. We sang in a couple of Stake Choirs. We helped out in a branch devotional as well. I think I may have mentioned they asked me to be the angel in the devotional. So that was...that was fun.

Then on the Tuesday before Christmas, we went to a central plaza and we sang songs for everybody. There were actually a lot of people there. I was really impressed. A lot of members and then people who weren't members stopped to watch and listen. So that was cool. We got there early to help blow up helium balloons and then they handed out balloons with a card for Light the World to everyone and then everybody let them go at the same time at the end. So that went pretty well.

So after that, that weekend, Jorge got baptized! Wahoo! I'm super super excited about that. He is great. He's still doing great. He was baptized on the 23rd right before Christmas. He was baptized by a member, Hermano Torres. It was a pretty small little service but it went well. There were probably about 3 families of members, maybe a total of 16 people there at his baptism and it was really spiritual, at least for me. I felt the spirit pretty strongly, so I enjoyed having that experience and it went well. The brother that was baptizing him, he... I think Jorge kind of went limp when he went under the water, he was kind of expecting the member to kind of pull him out. And Jorge's not THAT big but not a small guy either, and the member was recovering from a car accident and so his arm strength isn't all that good. We were actually kind of worried that he wasn't going to be able to do the baptizing. But with a loud grunt and a lot of visible effort, the member got him up out of the water. So that was good. It all went well. hahaha. And then the day after there was the confirmation on the 24th. And we just had a short little sacrament meeting with a primary program and my companion and I were able to participate in the confirmation with the Branch President. 

The primary program was great. I also felt the spirit watching that. I enjoyed it. And then that night (December 24th), we first talked with our families and then we had dinner with our Branch President and his wife and also with Jorge which we were really grateful for. We were trying to look for somebody to invite him and if not we were going to go eat with him because he is separated from his wife and he lives by himself so we were looking for a way to help him have a merrier Christmas. I think he had a good time.

Here in Chile, Christmas is a little different. Everybody opens their presents at midnight instead of waiting til the morning. So there's a bunch of parties and everybody's out until midnight on Christmas eve and then they open all their presents and they're like, "yeah cool" and then they're up until like 2 or 3 in the morning and then they go to  bed and then the 25th Christmas day is like nothing for them. They don't go to work but they don't really do anything else either. They maybe sit around in their house, maybe have another dinner, maybe they'll go out but it's just kind of like any other holiday, not all that special, from what I have seen, from what I understand.

So we were there, not until midnight, only til 10. All the members were surprised, especially the returned missionaries, because most of them had received permission from their mission presidents when they'd been serving but we did not have permission to stay out later for new years or for Christmas. 

So during the week, we had a good week, we found a lot of new people. We talked with a lot of people in the street and we just kept finding and finding and finding a lot of new investigators, so that was really cool. We found almost 2 new investigators every day. So that was pretty cool. 

We also did a couple...I don't know if they're called splits or divisions...in Spanish they're called exchanges basically...intercambios. Where one companion goes to another sector with another missionary and the other missionary comes to our sector, our area. So we did that twice. I left both times. I went to be able to accommodate for the schedule and for the missionaries that we had. So I went to Donihue on Wednesday. I was there with Elder Rogers who I've known for a long time. I saw him start his mission in Buin and now have been his zone leader for 3 changes here in Rancagua. So I've gotten to know him pretty well. So that was good. He's a great missionary. Oh also that day, we had some lessons with some Hatians. Elder Rogers speaks very very very well, Creole/Hatian. And so I got to practice my Creole a little bit. I was able to understand probably about half of everything that was going on. I was able to explain what the book of mormon is and some very basic stuff and introduce myself and ask them a couple basic questions about themselves. But I understood quite a bit actually of the Creole so I was very very excited about that. That's a talent that I haven't been able to develop all that much. Not a lot of missionaries do. Elder Rogers is definitely the best in the whole mission as far as I know, at speaking Creole. But that's a talent I would like to develop a little bit more.

On wednesday we went straight from Donihue, came back to the house and I grabbed some other clothes and then went straight back out to Rengo to do intercambios. I was with Elder Pistorius there, one of the people from my district in the MTC. So that was really cool. He's also a great guy. Him and his companion are great missionaries. We really enjoy having them in the zone. We tried passing by my Aunt's family's house to see how they're doing but they weren't home. But it was still cool to be able to go on intercambios there. I like Rengo in general and we were able to have some good lessons as well. We were in lessons basically the whole time and then we were in their ward council meeting so we were pretty busy that whole day.

Then this weekend we did some stuff for new years, new year's eve. But let me see, I don't want to skip anything here. Nah, everything's been pretty normal, just still working our hardest.

We have a kind of new investigator named Eileen. We found her in probably the third week of this change. She is the cousin of a member from a little town outside of Rancagua. Her cousin is a returned missionary. Her mom is a less active member. And she is not a member. She's 18. She has a son who's like a year and a half old and they live there, the 3 of them. She listened to the missionaries before and she really really really wants to get baptized. She's super excited about it. She almost got baptized with the other missionaries but her son got sick and she is worried about taking him to church and there were some other complications. So we still have been teaching her. We visited her twice and so we're still not 100% sure what happened the other time. The other missionaries didn't leave a very good record of why they stopped teaching her. But she seems to have a lot of potential. She came to church this week which was awesome. Also members brought 2 other investigators to church this week so that was awesome. It's not common to have members bring people to church so that was a nice change. So that was cool. Eileen now has a baptismal date for the 3rd of February so we're going to be working with her and praying for her. 

Last night for new year's eve, we worked for a while, had some lessons and then we had some appointments that a member was going to accompany us to, so we went and passed by a couple other investigators and then we went with that member to have dinner and share with his family. He has some...well his son is less active and his kids are all less active...most of them don't live with him but his youngest son lives with him. And his daughter drove down from Santiago with her boyfriend as well. So that was really fun. It was a good dinner. We had some BBQ and were back in the house by 10 as normal. 

Our zone had a great week as far as numbers were concerned. We were really excited for them to see a lot of the progress. There are a lot of investigators that I think have a lot of potential. We should be having, well I would say 1 baptism this week, we COULD have more, but we will have another baptism this week which will meet our...if we have that baptism...we will meet our goals for baptisms for the change. We already met our goals for the month of December, but if we're going to meet our goal for the change, we need 1 more this week. And then hopefully we can keep elevating the zone a little bit at a time. But it's been really good. The zone's been really stable. We haven't had any weeks that we were just like, "oh this week was a tough week" where the numbers just drop a lot. It was just a really good change.

I'm still enjoying being with my comp, Elder Lee. We'll find out changes this week. I have NO idea what's going to happen. I've been here for 3 changes already. So the most logical thing I think would be for me to leave but I could definitely stay with Elder Lee another change because we get along great and we are having success in the sector and in the zone. Elder Lee could also leave, you never know. But we'll find out probably Saturday. We also have exchanges/splits with the assistants tomorrow so that'll be fun. 

I want also, for a spiritual thought, I was thinking about a talk from Elder Holland he gave at BYU for New Year's, I don't know what year, but he talks about a scripture in Luke...I don't want to say the reference in case I'm wrong...I think it's either Luke 9 or 19 verse 32 which says "Remember Lot's wife." (it's actually Luke 17:32) That's like the whole scripture. But the idea is that Lot's wife, well Lot and his family were commanded to leave Soddom and Gommorah, that one is in Genesis 19 I believe, and they kind of dallied a little they kind of lagged behind, took their time, and then they kind of left running from the city and Lot's wife looked back and they had been commanded NOT to look back...to look not behind you. She was turned into a pillar of salt. So Elder Holland talks a lot about why she would be turned into a pillar of salt just from looking back. With the new year, we have an opportunity to look forward a lot more than looking back. The problem isn't the look back because we can learn a lot of things from the past, but he illustrates, or at least the point I get is that we should not look back longing to be in the past, like wishing we were in another time. Just enjoying where we are now and enjoying the hope of an even better future.

So I hope you guys all made it this far in the recording...I know this one was a little long. But I want to wish you a happy new year and I hope everybody is doing well. I love you. Take care!

Elder Olson

Elder Olson "helping" fill balloons at the plaza

Elder Lee, Jorge, Hermano Torres, Elder Olson

Elder Olson on Christmas Day 

Elder Olson and Elder Lee shared a "talent" at the Zone's Christmas Day gathering

Elder Shumway and Elder ? show their "Talent"...Elder Olson couldn't handle staying to record the end...sorry

 Elder Olson's reaction to Elder Shumway's talent

Huge moth under the glass, it was flying around the shower

Countryside

Elder Rogers and Elder Olson in Donihue

The District 

week 61: Sick Comp & Tender Mercies

Hey all,

Sorry for not doing a voice thing.

So, after transfers this has still been a pretty busy week. My bike pedal arm broke while I was riding so we are temporarily stuck to missionary work the old old fashioned way (walking). I am starting to lose weight here though (about 10 pounds, 50% because of the gym and 50% because of the size of our lunches).

On Wed. we had to go stay with my man E' Robinson in the office house bc E Davis had to do stuff for his Visa. In the end it didn't work out and we're doing it again tomorrow. After that E Davis got sick and we were stuck in the house all day. I took advantage of the time to write a spanish version of "Be Still My Soul" and clean the house again. I think my overall cleanliness as a human being has gone up about 100 points during the mission.

A lot of you guys asked me about Camilo (the wal mart water bottle flower guy). We've passed by but he hasn't been home.

The other day we had a lunch appointment fall and some members gave us last minute lunch. Tender mercies.

We had Leadership Council on Saturday. We set a goal for 35 baptisms in November, and 70 before new years. We also saw the new Christmas iniciative video which is exciting...

I am currently working on my meekness, which I am defining as humility + patience, two Christlike atributes which I wouldn't consider personal strong points. I'm loving what I'm learning.

Also in our meeting President told us that if we contact 10-20 people a day we will baptize 1-3 people a month. I am going to contact 20 people every day of this change that we don't have meetings. Help me with this! Please ask me how I'm doing with my contacting goal every once in a while.

We have a conference with Elder Bragg of the 70 this Friday (see genconf april 2017). We'll have a special leadership meeting beforehand, and I'll be singing in a small choir for a musical number. Should be fun!

Love you all!

Elder Olson

Neighbor likes to rock out...makes for interesting study time

Week 60: Normal but good

Alright everyone, this is going to be a quick recording because I had no time to do a recording again. I guess that was because today we had transfers. We did it a little different this change. We did it on our Pday instead of on Tuesday I think just because of the day that all the new missionaries were getting here to the mission.

So right now we are in the cyber, writing, and seeing as how I had forgotten to send a recording last week I'm gonna get a short one in this week.

We got the changes this last weekend and I am staying in Baquedano with Elder Davis, which is awesome because he's a good comp. I can definitely be alright here another change. It'll be good. Which probably means, well you never know, but I could be here another two changes because he could leave and I could stay but you never know in the end I guess.

Almost our whole zone stayed basically the same. Only one elder left, an Argentinian, Elder Ginardo?. And one of my buds from my zone at the beginning of my mission, Elder Tias, from Brazil, is coming up, well he got here this morning. But other than that, all the other missionaries in the zone remained exactly the same. So that'll be good. It'll be more of the same thing this exchange.

This was a good week. There was this reference that we got this last Sunday that I mentioned last week. We had the visit with him...it was great. We had one visit with him and then another visit during the week with his whole family. He accepted a baptismal date right away and is super receptive..ready to change. But he didn't come to church. His whole family had promised to come to church, they seemed really really excited about it but then they didn't answer the phone and didn't come to church. Not exactly sure what happened there. We're going to have to keep calling them and seeing what's up. But it's the first week. And it's not a super common thing for people here to attend church in their first week as an investigator.

Although, we did have another one, his name is Alejandro, who came to church just the first hour but he loved it and he said he was going to bring his family next week. So we're excited about that.

Apart from that...

The week's been pretty normal but a good week. We cleaned the house a bit more, that was good and actually got things straightened out. We changed the furniture from where it was so everything's a little more open. We got things swept out from underneath so that was all good.

Also, we were supposed to have a branch council meeting on Sunday so we got up early and we get there and (the recording went really muffled here but he may have said..."found out it was cancelled so that was nice.")

Apart from that, it's been a good week but the last week of changes is always kind of a weird week (muffled recording again) as missionaries we try not to talk about it and keep our minds focused but for me I always end up thinking about it.

(he asks himself, did anything else interesting happen this week?) We got all our goals as a zone which was good. It's the first week of the change that we made all our goals as a zone, so that was awesome.

Also today we're making our zone souvenir which is kind of a common thing but it's usually a t-shirt or something. I've done a hat I got a picture of a couple changes ago. But this time we got slippers, which I'll try to get a picture of, I'll try not to forget. We just picked them up this morning. The slippers are AWESOME! They turned out really good. They're not the best quality, but they turned out to be 2800 pesos which is super cheap, which is like $4...like max $4. So they're awesome. They turned out really pretty. That's kind of cool. I've always wanted to do the slippers. We were going to put President's face on the slippers, but I didn't want President watching me from inside the house always, that's kind of a little creepy, so we didn't put the President's face on them. We were going to put our own faces on them but didn't know how stoked the zone would be about that so we didn't do it. But yeah. It's been a fun week.

(he turns to his comp and asks, did anything else happen, comp?)

So, my companion and I drink an interesting amount of Mate' and so this week we bought a HUGE thermos which we fill with hot water and sugar, which is great for us, and then today for the changes we had to be in the terminal, we had to Wait in the terminal for like 4 hours. So we brought the thermos and the Mate' to the terminal and we got to sit there just drinking Mate' for the 4 hours. So that was kind of fun, it was different.

Apart from that it's all been pretty normal. Hopefully I have some more interesting stuff to tell you next week.

Oh, also something else that's pretty cool, this change a Seventy is coming to the mission. His name is Mark Bragg if I'm not mistaken. He spoke in general conference, not this past session but in October, not October, April. He spoke on (I think it was on) "Brighter and Brighter until the perfect day." I have it and I've listened to it but I don't remember it very well. So that'll be exciting to finally have a general authority down here. I saw my cousin in London shaking D. Todd Christofferson's hand and Elder Holland's hand and the rest of us down here are like, oh that's kind of nice. And when President Nelson came down to Chile he went Santiago and the Santiago missions and then he jumped our mission and went to the mission right below us. He went on both sides of us but didn't come to our mission so that was kind of... nice.... haha. But we're getting somebody so that will be kind of fun, something different.

So I hope you guys are all doing well. I'm here in the cyber and I saw the family just got a puppy. I bet you're excited about that. But I love you guys, take care! Bye!

rickety fan...it's so hot here!

singing a hymn with Elder Davis...We're no David Archuleta

week 59: God directs us

Bonswa, kouman ou ye?

Sorry I forgot to do a recording again, whoops! Time management is a skill I'm still working on.

But hey this was a great week. We found a ton of news this week! Some of those were in a house full of haitians. My comp was inspired to start learning creole, so I've had some opportunities to practice! Fun stuff.

This week we went to get an emergency water supply from wal-mart on an odd prompting we had. As we were leaving the store with 40 liters of water a guy pulled up in a car and offered a ride if we could drop flowers off at his co-workers girlfriend's house for him (long story). The girlfriend was super excited and we got the guy's number and address and we have plans to teach him. I think God guided us into that situation.

In other news, changes are this week! I'll let you know how it goes. Maybe I'll go train in a whitewash. That'd be fun.

Yesterday we had a new investigator who had attended church with a friend years ago and really wants to attend again but feels nervous to go. He has some real potential. Also we got a referral from Mormon.org who had a dream that he needed to become a Mormon. I'll let you all know how the appointment goes! But the moral of the story is share the gospel with your friends and one day they could find their way to the missionaries.

Love you guys take care!

Elder Olson

Chile in one picture

The name of this pepper is a swear word

week 56: Prepare for General Conference

9/20/17

Everyone,

Wow, I can't believe it's already conference season. I forgot to mention anything in my short recording, but I just want to say how grateful I am for the opportunity to listen to God's word for us in our time specifically. Few people know about this opportunity and even fewer take advantage of it.

Thomas S Monson is a prophet of God.

He knows the way.

Love you guys.

Elder Olson

(Audio Letter transcription...)

Hey everyone Elder Olson here, this is week 3 of my 9th transfer here in the Mision Chile Rancagua. Right now I'm on the bus going to intercambios, it's Wednesday morning right now. We're going to go to exchanges I think it's called. We're going to go do intercambios with the elders from Rengo, which is the city where my Aunt Marianela is from if I'm not mistaken. I forgot to mention that they were in my zone. I don't know how I forgot to mention that. But yeah, so...gonna maybe run into some family down here, you never know. We'll see if I can find em down here.

It's been a good week. We started off the week with interviews with President which went really well. We gave a training to the zone which also went really well...it was kind of a longer one because the interviews always go long. But it was good. I think everybody liked it and I think it kind of motivated everybody a little bit which is good.

Also this week the big deal was dios de ocho, the 18th of September, which is basically like the 4th of July for us, but here they celebrate it a little differently. Basically they just all get drunk and that's about all. No...the food kind of changes. A lot of seasonal foods for the 18th here. They make a lot of empanadas and BBQ, like Chilean BBQ, not American. And a couple types of drinks they make only at this time of year as well. So that was kind of cool to see the culture. They do a lot more dancing, the Cueca. Cueca is like the national dance here. It wasn't really a joke about the drinking. They all use it as kind of an excuse to drink. I'll see if I can send a video of the drunk people in the street. (it was too dark) We see a lot of drunk people just passed out in the road asleep. So that's kind of fun, kind of interesting and different. I don't see a whole of of that kind of thing in Utah. 

So we had some members invite us to eat lunch with them. We ate a lot of food. More than one member invited us to eat with them. And it was on Pday so we kind of took advantage there. We also cut the front lawn which was nice. But it was kind of a pain because you have to do it with a weed whacker instead of a lawn mower. It makes me feel more Chilean cutting it with a weed whacker. It's not much of a lawn but it was just waaaa-ay too long. We've been cleaning the house bit by bit. So we did that in the morning and then had to run to the chapel to pass the zone numbers and then after that we went and ate lunch with some members. I feel like we did something else too but I can't remember what we did. Then we ended up eating with some other members and then we went out to work like normal in the evening. We have to go in a little bit early this whole last weekend because it is a little bit more dangerous supposedly with all the inebriated people out in the streets. But for me all the drunk people just mean more people shouting "HEL-LO, Hel-lo!" in English so it was kind of fun.

So that's the majority of what's happened this week.

We have a couple of investigators that are progressing pretty well. One is named Francisco, he's a kid, he's about 11, he has a baptismal date for Nov. 11th, that's further out then it would need to be but that's because he's pretty much alone. His family is made up of less active members. But he reads the book of mormon and comes to church himself, and he loves it. But we've gotta make sure that's he's not just gonna get baptized and then stop coming... it's really difficult because he doesn't have that support system. It just makes me really grateful for the support I had from my family. And then we have some others...a father son named Filipe and Filipe, they both have the same name. They've also come to church a couple weeks now. And they also have a baptismal date for the middle of October. They've got a good chance of getting baptized. The dad just really needs to...well we haven't gone over the word of wisdom with him yet. We were focused on getting him to church and now he's started attending, we're going to teach him the word of wisdom and help him quit his smoking. It's an addiction I guess but it's not a huge problem for him either. It's one or two every couple of days. It really shouldn't be all that tough for him to just leave it.

So since I'm on the bus, I hadn't really prepared a spiritual thought to share with you guys so this is going to be a short one. We had a short time to write today. I don't know if you can hear all the country music in the background... 

But love you tons. Have a good week. Talk to you later!

Elder Davis trying Mate

Mate Adventures

Cueca Dance

week 54: Goodbye Curico! If you want a thing bad enough

9/4/2017

Hello, Friends, Family, Beautiful People of the United States of America,

This is Elder Olson coming at you from the beautiful Curico Chile Alameda Ward. It's a beautiful morning looking out the window here. Well I honestly can't see much because the sky's full of chimney smoke but that's okay. It's still a beautiful day for a BBQ. We're going to go have a farewell BBQ with one of our investigators because...I am leaving. I am leaving Curico. We got the transfers on Saturday night. We got them super late because the assistants changed the password to our account, well to all the zone leaders' accounts, because a lot of zone leaders and other people try to get the transfers early and so we ended up getting them super late but it all worked out ok.

So I will be leaving Curico after just 2 changes here, I thought I would be here a little longer. But that's ok. I'll be headed to Rancagua to a ward that's called Bacadal(?). I'll be with Elder Davis there. I'm gonna be a zone leader gain there. So that'll be fun. I HOPE we can do the same thing there as we did here because we had a TON of success here this last change. It was awesome! A lot of success in the sector, a lot of success in the zone. In the sector we have at least 2 definite baptisms in the next change and at least 2 or 3 that are probable. I'm kind of sad that I won't be able to see them but I am really stoked that I'll be leaving here on a high note.

So this last week we've been teaching Roberto. I think I mentioned him last week. He's an atheist we found at 9:30 at night last Saturday and he came to church Sunday. We've been teaching him through the week and he came to church again yesterday. And he's awesome. We've been teaching him and he has a lot of questions but he's really sincere with his questions. You get a lot of people who just want to fight about philosophy or who want to Bible Bash or who knows, but he's really sincere and he actually wants to know. And when we explain something and it makes sense to him,  he's like, "Ok yeah, that's cool. I understand that." And so that's been really cool. And we've seen some progress with him this week. He reads everything we give him right away and then he's like, without even looking at the book, "I've got questions about verse 27, verse 32 and 33 and he really understands what we're talking about. That's not something that I'm really used to. It's awesome. I love that. And this week he prayed for the first time. I don't know if it was the first time in his LIFE...I doubt it. But it was his first time with us and we've invited him to pray before and he was like, "No. I'll read, I'll come to church to learn more but I'm not gonna pray to somebody who doesn't exist." And we talked a lot about faith...about hope in things which are not seen which are true and a lot about how action is part of that faith. Really faith is everything as far as missionary work is concerned. So this last lesson we had with him, we invited him to baptism and he rejected us but he did accept the invitation to pray at the end. And he didn't say that he'd NEVER be baptized but he didn't accept a date. He accepted the lighter invitation, that if you pray and read and you feel that these things are true, would you be baptized. And he said, "Yeah, if I think it's true, then yeah I'll be baptized." So it's something but a little bit at a time. Despacito. (I don't know if that song's super popular up there...I think it would be because there's a Justin Bieber version that's going around here now as well. But that song's been really popular here for a while).

This weekend we were doing some farewells, well last night more than anything, with one of the families that's been really great to me here. This ward is definitely one that I want to visit again at some point because it's been a lot of fun here, even though I've only had a short time. We had a good FHE yesterday with these converts about not being afraid to stand alone. We watched that video with President Monson and the Navy which is awesome.

Apart from that, this change we've had this goal of finding 7 new investigators a week. I mean you can't compare with other missions, whether that's a lot or a little compared to other places but here that's a lot. That's not something that I've ever seen any other sector do, to find one new investigator for every day of the week of the change, or the whole transfer. But WE DID IT, and we did it a week early. We found 13 in one week and 8 the next so that made it like an extra 7 so in week 5 we'd already met our goal. And that put us at 42 for the change so we were like, "alright, we've gotta find 8 in the next week instead of 7 because if find just 7 in the next week it'll only be 49 and it's not as cool. You've gotta get 50. So we worked a lot to get those new investigators this week and we got to Sunday and we only had 4 new. And we were pretty desperate going everywhere we could think of to look for "news." We contacted for a little while and nothing. We were going by "futures" and no one was home. Everyone leaves their house on Sunday. At the end of the day, it was literally the last minute. We had an appointment for that FHE (talked about before) at 8 and it was probably like 7:45-7:50 we passed by this house with some Hatians that we'd passed by before and there were a couple of them that speak Spanish...I mean even though I'm basically a pro at Creole, I'm not really actually that pro...I can introduce myself and tell them I speak a little bit of Creole and that's about it.  But we got there and knocked on the door and nobody was there. So we call them but their phone cuts out, we can't hear them, we have no idea where they're at. We call them a couple times. But nothing. Nobody's there. It's a young married couple there in that house with a bunch of other Hatians who live there as well, but the young married couple speak better spanish. But right when we...we were knocking for like 5 minutes...when we were leaving, I said a silent prayer while my companion was on the phone. I was like, "we need these 4 news to meet our goal and I know that it's possible and you can help us." And right when I finished saying the prayer, they pulled up in a car...the married couple got dropped off and they were like, "hey come in!" and when we went in there were 2 of their friends who were just kind of kicking around not doing anything. So we invited them to listen too so then we had our 4. It was 4 exactly. It was exactly what we needed to meet our goal. That was a nice little miracle.

We also had a TON of people in sacrament meeting. I haven't had that many people in sacrament meeting in my whole mission. We had a bunch of baptismal dates as well. It's been awesome.

Earlier in the week I broke one of the axels on my bike's back wheel so we were on foot again for a little while...which is...well it's a pretty long walk. Not as far as Buin, but it's still pretty far.

I wanted to share something I read a little while ago but I love it, about goals. I really want to testify about the power of goal setting, because that was the way we had so much success during this change. By setting goals and saying, "We're not giving up until we meet this goal." And it's a poem I found in one of the talks that I have that I read. It's called, "If you want a thing bad enough." (altered to match the real version found from multiple sites online)

“If you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it,
to work day and night for it,
to give up your time,
your peace and your sleep for it…

if all that you dream and scheme is about it,
and life seems useless and worthless without it…

if you gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it
and lose all your terror of the opposition for it…

if you simply go after that thing you want
with all of your capacity, strength and sagacity,
faith, hope and confidence and stern pertinacity…

if neither cold, poverty, famine, nor gout,
sickness nor pain, of body and brain,
can keep you away from the thing that you want…

if dogged and grim you beseech and beset it,
with the help of God, you will get it!”
---Les Brown

Really that's true. I've always firmly believed in that. If we want something bad enough, we'll get it. It's really just a matter of becoming motivated enough to put in the WORK. Really no matter what it is, it's just a matter of work and how much we are willing to give to achieve it. That's especially true with missionary work or anything in the gospel. Only when we have our will aligned with the will of God. When our desire is the same as God's desires, when we want what He wants, we will get it almost every time. God might try our patience, he may make us wait for it, or maybe we'll screw up and that's ok, but really when have a righteous desire and exercise faith to achieve that righteous desire and it's according to the will of God, we WILL get it. And we can't make the excuse of "oh maybe it's not God's will, not what He wanted..." if it's a righteous desire we have to go at it with everything we've got and that's when we will get it. And I'm really excited to apply that in the new sector this change. I'm really hoping this sector wasn't a "one-hit-wonder" and that I'll get to this new sector and everything will just go to dirt, but by really applying this we'll have success there. And I'm super excited to have a chance to do that.

I want to let you all know that I love you and I think about you guys. I love you. I know the church is true. Read your scriptures. Pray. Go to church. Have family home evening. Do all the stuff you know you should do. I love ya. Take Care!

Freaky Elevator

inside freaky elevator

drum corps

Curico Alameda District

hmmmm what's up with my haircut, Sister?

Milanesa

Goodbye BBQ

Goodbye Familia Ruz and friends

week 53: Finding New Investigators - even if they are sneaky

(Elder Olson's Mom's transcription of his audio letter)

Alright, Elder Olson here. This is the 28th of August 2017, just so I can keep track of the dates here.

This week has been crazy. It's been really long. We've had a lot of stuff to do this week. A lot of really crazy stuff has happened.

Well we'll start at the beginning. Monday was awesome. Pday. We went and got a class at a Juijitsu gym, which was pretty sweet. We got special permission from President to be able to do it because normally they don't let us take the zone places to do activities. WE took the zone over there. We have a hookup over there with a guy named Cristobal. We contacted him and he came out in his "I like Weed" shirt and he's like, "Ah yeah, I like to do martial arts," and I was like, " Me too. Sweet!" And then there we go. We found out that their gym is right next door to the chapel. And they let us come and they opened the gym in the middle of the day especially for us to let us do a free class. The owner of the gym actually studied at the University of Utah. He spoke English and was really chill. So that was really fun. A great way to start off the week. Nobody got tooooooo hurt. My comp did end up asking for a blessing for his arm because we practiced arm bars. But I think he's doing alright now.

So this week we did exchanges twice. Once with another sector here in Curico, in the ghetto. It's called (?). Then the other day we did them in (Molina?) which is a little pueblo outside Curico. So nothing all that special happened during the exchanges. It was good I finally got to go to a different sector. Normally, I stay here in the sector during exchanges because I know our sector better, so my companion who doesn't know the sector goes. But this last week I got to go down to (?) and do exchanges there. I forgot my towel and a change of clothes and pajamas and a toothbrush all that because we had to go out to Molina(?) early in the morning and did the exchanges back to back and I forgot all that stuff. So I got to "sleep in my tie" type of thing on the exchanges. So that was neat.

This week we found a TON of new people. We found a lot. We found 13 new investigators this week. Which is not a common thing. It's not unheard of but it's not common either. We've already found a new investigator for every day in this change. And that was our goal. We made our goal a week early. So that's cool. But we're going to have keep working hard this week to not let it get to us that it's the end of change...that we've already met the goal...We want to keep that success going. We want to start of the next one strong.

The changes are going to be this week. We find out on...well we'll probably find out early, because my companion will ask one of his friends in the office...but we should be finding out Saturday. So we'll see when we actually know. But honestly I think that I'm gonna be staying here with Elder Guadiglia. Because it's gone really well for us and I think one of the only reasons they'd take me out of Alameda right now is to put me in as a secretary. And rumor has it that somebody else is going to be a secretary. So I should be safe from being a secretary. Don't know if I really WANT to stay another change. For me I like to go to different sectors. But it's okay. If I'm gonna be left in a place, it's a good ward, a really good ward so I won't be too bummed out about it if I stay.

Other interesting things that happened...

This week we talked the Bishop and he was like,"Yeah we've this member who's got a daughter who's 10 years old who's not a member, who's been coming to church for the last few weeks and she wants to get baptized." And we were like, "Oh that's cool." So we went and talked to them and we set a baptismal date right away and she's for sure going to get baptized and we thought we were going to get away with getting her baptized this sunday but some of her family won't be able to make it out that day so she's going to be baptized on the 17th of September. That was nice. A nice little baptism we don't have to work for. Not quite as satisfying but nice that we are able to help there.

On Saturday, late at night, just about time to get home, well 9:20 and we need to be in the house between 9:30-10:00, we were out contacting and not really having much success but at 9:20 we said a prayer, it's the end of the night, we've gotta find somebody. But then we weren't finding anyone and started heading home and I was like, "No. We've gotta find someone." So we started contacting again. Literally the last house we said we were going to contact, we contacted it and this guy came out, and he was super nice, super excited. He said, "Yeah come in. No worries." So we started talking to him. His name's Roberto, he's an atheist, and he's super smart.  He's a mechanic, well he works in part as a mechanic, he's an engineering student right now. That was 9:20 on Saturday night. He committed to come to church and the next day he came to church. Normally we visit with people 5 times and they have to commit, "YEAH! I'm for SURE coming to church this sunday. I'm for sure coming." Normally they have to say that about on 4-5 separate occasions for them to really mean it. But this guy said he'd come to church and he came to church. So that was really awesome! He's good. We've got high hopes for him. But he's hesitant to pray because he doesn't believe there's a god. He said, "yeah I'll come to church and I'll read the book," and he liked church but that step of humility that he's gonna have to take to admit that maybe there is a God, and pray and ask for an answer is gonna be kind of an obstacle for him. But it is ABSOLUTELY necessary for him to do to get an answer. You're never going to get an answer if you don't ask. So we're going to have to help him recognize the spiritual experiences he HAS had or is GOING to have as we work with him so that he can kind of open his mind to the fact that there is a god. We're excited to work with him.

We also found another investigator and her name is Pia. She had a baptismal date for the second week of this change and...we lost her. My companion still hadn't met her. We hadn't found her all this change. She hadn't been answering us and she actually moved houses and we got in contact with her again and she was excited and we taught her a lesson about the Sabbath, about keeping it holy and she came to church. Which until now had been one of her biggest difficulties the last time we were teaching her. So that was awesome that she was able to take that step right away as soon as we found her again.

Also this week we found a lady named Rose who seems kind of crazy and I think may be a pathological liar, but she accepted a baptismal date. She was actually baptized 10 years ago but never confirmed. I feel like she may have just never come to the sacrament meeting after being baptized. Not exactly sure what happened there. But we're going to try to work with her again. She was a reference so we'll see if we can help her. But she's told us she was going to be at her house or going to come to church like 10 times but she's not doing it sooooo....   Well one time, she told us she wasn't in her house and we went to her house and called her and she said she wasn't in her house so we were thinking about where else we were going to contact as our plan b and she just walks out onto her front porch and she didn't see us. Then she came out and walked almost right past us and we were like, "Oh hey, remember when you told us you weren't here like 20 seconds ago?" Ha. That's cool. But hopefully we'll be able to help her out.

This week i began ponderizing a scripture (I think that was a thing from general conference in 2015, memorizing and pondering a scripture) and I'm doing it in spanish but I'll send you a picture of my study journal and what I'm doing for that. I'm studying 2 Nephi 2:25-27 to kind of mix things up with my scripture study.

So yeah. I'm excited for changes this week. We'll see what happens. I'm really hoping somebody from my group, somebody I'm tight with, will come down to my zone. I'm kind of lonely a little bit. Not too bad. It'd be nice to have one of my friends from the beginning of the mission like Elder Haar, Elder Robinson or Elder Mussleman come down here to Curico, that'd be sweet. But if not, that's cool. I'll keep working like a boss Like I should be.

Love everyone. Take care.

From our apt... The world is beautiful right?

Intercambios con Elder Steenblik

you can take the people out of the flayte but you cant take the flayte out of the people

trying fidgit spinner tricks 

a pic for my little brother of my fidgit spinner

my comp asked for food when we were contacting

and then we made jam

A little bit of ponderizing yesterday.

Week 36: Changes

May 1, 2017

Family and Friends,

It's been a week of pure farewells here in Buin. We had five missionaries finishing the mission last week. We had a farewell, or two, for Elder Strong here in our branch, and we sent him off Friday morning.

On Saturday, we got the transfers. Elder Terrazas will be going down to Santa Cruz, a smaller zone (In terms of active members) out in the country. My new companion is Elder Villegas ("ll" makes a "y" sound) from Columbia. He's coming out of the office where he's been a Mission Secretary for the last few changes.

I've also been assigned to be a District Leader here in Buin. It'll be interesting adjusting to my new responsibilities.

The transfers meant more farewells, and seeing how Elder Terrazas was here for 6 months, there were a lot of people to say goodbye to.

I don't know if I ever mentioned how much Sushi we ate the last change. It was A LOT. At least three times a week, for six weeks. Sadly, without Elder Strong's deep pockets and Elder Terrazas' sushi addiction, I don't think we'll be eating quite as much next change.

Yesterday we went to Buin Zoo, which was open for the first time on a P-Day thanks to Labor Day. It was a bit small, but it was great to go. They had a massive white tiger, but I couldn't get a good picture of it.

When the Sisters in my district gave me their call-in report yesterday, I was really impressed by their work in their sector. I asked what they'd been applying that had been making such a difference in the success of their sector, and they told me it was thanks to their commitment to follow the first impressions of the Spirit. Elder Rasband gave a great talk on that topic in General Conference in April. I've learn a lot about the importance of listening to the Spirit and following its promptings.

Love you guys,
Elder Olson

Elder Strong and Elder Olson

Elder Olson and Elder Thomson (and Elder Haar with a walk through in the background)

On the way to the Buin Zoo...getting chilly and wetter now that Fall is in full force down there

Heading into the Buin Zoo

He found Utah...almost