Hello Everyone! Elder Olson Here.
It is now week one of transfer 11. We haven't actually had the transfers yet but I found them out on Saturday and it looks like I will be staying here in Baquedano. My new companion is named Elder Lee, from Utah (Lindon), he has a little bit more time in the mission than me, but he went up as zone leader... he replaced me in Curico. So he's coming from my old sector to here, so he's following me here. So that's cool. Basically the whole zone changed. Somebody left from every companionship. The new missionaries, there will be one from my group named Elder Pstorius(?), one Hermana Ibert who was in my zone in Curico, those are the ones that are coming that I actually kind of know. The other ones that are coming are all supposed to be really good missionaries though. One thing that is going to be interesting about our zone this change is going to be that we're almost all gringos...so many white people. There are going to be 9 of us from the US, 1 from the Philippines, the people from the Philippines speak English so we kind of count them as gringos, and then Elder Tyce from Brazil and Elder ? from Santiago. So 9 out of the 12 are from the US. So that's kind of weird but it'll be good though.
So Elder Lee, I believe, I don't know...I obviously haven't been his companion before...I think he's really good missionary. I think they kind of gave us a "stacked" zone. I think we're going to have a really good change this change. Looking at the changes, a lot of my group went up as zone leaders this change so now almost all of us are zone leaders at this point. The only one I can think of that's not is my MTC comp Elder Musselman, but he's a branch president in a small branch. So we've all got our lives pretty busy. But it'll be really fun in the leadership council on Thursday, to be able to get together with "the group" and see everybody there.
So this was also a pretty cool week because we did exchanges with the elders from Rengo, which for those of you who don't know, I have family in Rengo. I guess I met them when I was very very young, when I was 2 but I don't remember them. They are my Aunt's parents who live here in Chile. And it was really cool. We went there on exchanges. The address that we had for their house on google maps gave us a slightly different house but we contacted that house and we were like, "Hey we're looking for the Rojas family." And they were like, "Oh yeah, they live right over here. They're actually really good friends of ours." And I was like, "yeah, I'm related to Marianela." And they said, "Oh yeah, Mona changed my diapers." The mom's name was Anna and I think the girl's name was Anita. But I'm not 100% sure. but the Rengo elders have an appointment to go back and teach them. And then we visited with my family there for a minute. We shared a small thought and gave a blessing to my Aunt's mom. It was actually really fun. It was kind of crazy...on their wall they have a picture of a family reunion when I was 2 or 3 yrs old and they came up to Utah to visit and they have that picture on their wall. So there's actually a picture of me on the wall of their house. So it was really cool. It was fun to meet them. So it'll be good to have the missionaries passing by there to help them out as well. So that was a really good experience.
On exchanges, while I was there, Elder ? from the Philippines, we did exchanges together, that was actually the day of Thanksgiving. We had forgot until after lunch one of the sisters reminded us it was Thanksgiving and I was like, "oh yeah." I was glad she reminded us because the first Thanksgiving in the mission I had also forgot that it was Thanksgiving because they don't do anything here. So this time at the end of the night we went and bought a load of Turkey and made turkey sandwiches. So that's just the lunch meat Turkey but it was something, it was good.
While we were together we put a baptismal date for two of their investigators who are super receptive and those were actually the first baptismal dates that that sector has had this entire transfer so it's good they can have something to work with now. So while we were on intercambios Elder Davis here in our sector with the other Elder, they found a couple new people and they put a baptismal date also with one of our investigators who's been really really stubborn about committing so it was really cool that he committed to baptism. They've come to church twice, his name is Victor, his wife is like reactivating, she was less active, She's at the point where she's starting to do some things she needs to do. But she's reactivated and its really cool. But he's still more or less interested. But he's come to church a few times and he listens to us but he hasn't had any real hunger for the gospel. Typical Chilean person down here. But he's read a little bit, prayed a little bit and hopefully he'll keep progressing. He's better than some investigators and I'm really excited to work with him. I really would like to get him baptized. As I would about any investigator.
On Friday, we had a couple new investigators. One of them was a buddhist husband of a less active returned missionary. So that was kind of interesting. He has an alter and everything like that. There's a weird amount of Buddhists here. I didn't think there would be Buddhists at all in Chile. There's not like a ton but I've met quite a few. And it's kind of interesting. I didn't expect that when I was coming. We taught them. She really liked the church but her and her partner, they aren't married, well she doesn't feel comfortable going to church because she feels guilty about that. And they won't get married because Chile has some wonderful laws that make it a lot easier to be NOT married. As in, single moms get their own house given to them. So she's waiting for the government to give her this house even though she lives with her partner, boyfriend, she counts as a single mom because she's not married so she's waiting for the government to give her a house and the government gives like payments and stuff like that. So it really doesn't help motivate people to want to be married. It's obviously not great for a family based society. So that's a problem we run into a lot here, because there are more benefits to being single than for being married. So that can be kind of a pain.
Saturday we had some pretty cool new investigators as well. There's one that's a couple that's gone through some tough stuff. The wife is struggling with mental challenges, illness I suppose, depression and such. Especially the husband is really really receptive. He really wants us to help. he's looking for this chance to fix their life. He wants to do that with God and that's the best way to do it.
Yesterday we had a new investigator named Bob. We were writing home on PDay in the cyber the place where we write, this Haitian comes over and he sees us and I don't know but maybe a sister missionary told him to come talk to us but he comes over and starts talking to us through the open window which is right in front of our computers. He started talking to us in English and we find out he went to church up in Buin a few months ago and he's like, "Yeah we can meet up." So yesterday we met up and it was really cool.He's really really driven. He's like, "I didn't leave my country just to waste my time." He has a lot of plans, studying, trying to start his own business and stuff. So it's cool that he's doing all that.
Elder Davis is going to a tiny branch outside of Curico just outside of my old zone, so that'll be fun for him. Elder Lee my new companion also has a change more than me in the mission. So I still have not had a companion younger than me in the mission. Which is kind of weird. I don't know, different. I guess I've been a zone leader for quite some time so I guess it makes sense. It's interesting.
This morning we got up early to study so we'd have time to clean up the yard. We mowed the yard with a weed whacker. It looks way better now. There were a TON of large spiders and Earwigs. They are EVERYWHERE EVERYWHERE EVERYWHERE. They come into the house, like my bathroom for example, I found one on the toilet paper the other day, find them on the walls the ceiling, sometimes they get into the kitchen quite a bit. It's fun. We've already gone through a whole can of RAID the past couple days in like the last week. But yeah I cleaned it up.
But I really wanted to thank you guys. I don't know...maybe more of you listen to my letters than I thought, or maybe those of you who did pray, prayed with a lot of faith, because I really felt like you guys were praying for me this week. Two weeks ago was really hard but this week was a GOOD week. I'm really really grateful for that because it wasn't for anything that WE did differently. But it came out way better and it showed in our spirits, our excitement, it showed in the numbers, the people and the type of people we found this week. So thank you for your prayers so keep on praying for me and our investigators. I appreciate it. I love you guys and hope you are all doing well.
Take care. Adios!
