Week 88: Crazy Story & Service Sanctifies

April 30, 2018 (transcription from Audio letter)

Alright, This is week 5 of transfer 14. Elder Olson here. And this week I've got a story for you guys.

So this Tuesday we had quite the little adventure. It started actually with P-day and our trip down to Curico. The man I sat next to on the bus on the ride down I ended up talking with him a little bit about how we were missionaries and what we do and I got his phone number and a little bit about where he lived to be able to go and visit him. And we decided the next day in the afternoon we would pass by his house to give him a visit. We knew he lived kind of out in the country a little bit, about 10 minutes in bus from Licantén, but from what he told us, he lived pretty close to the bus stop and it'd be pretty easy to pass by him. So we called him and he was like, "yeah you just get off here and you follow a little dirt road and my house is at the end there." And we were like, "great." So we wait for a little while. We finally find the bus. The bus drops us off there. First we call him and we were like, "Alright, so what's the dirt road like?" We saw this one dirt road that had a sign from the city government there like talking about a construction project so we asked him if it was like that road and he was like, "yeah." And so we followed it and we got to the end and like asked some people if they knew him and nobody knew him there and we called him and he was like, "No no no. It's not that one. It's this other one at this other bus stop." So we walked about 5-10 minutes to this other bus stop and started walking down this dirt road and we called at one of the houses there and talked to one of his neighbors and we told him that we were looking for Guillermo and he was like, "Oh yeah, you guys are going to go walking though? He lives about an hour from here walking." And we were like "WHAT?" We did not sign up for that. So we started walking a little bit. We called him (Guillermo) and he said it was like 5 minutes walking. And so that's a pretty big contrast from an hour to 5 minutes so we thought maybe it was a mistake by the first guy. So we talked to another neighbor who was like, "Nah it's about 25 minutes from here walking." And so we really had NO idea how far his house was. 

And so we walked a little ways down this dirt road and it was super pretty out the middle of NOWHERE. And we get up there and my companion started getting a little bit worried, haha, that we were going to get robbed or something just cause there was NOBODY around and so he went and hid his bag in some bushes and we kept on walking there. We finally, well we made it a little ways and we saw this little house and I was like, "Alright, we should be getting pretty close here. Let's see if somebody here knows where he is. So we walk up to the house, this one little wood shack. And on a mattress on the ground outside of the house, there was a guy drinking a can of beer, this little man. He was not wearing shoes. His shirt was open. And he's got this nice little mustache. And we're like, "Hey, do you know where Guillermo lives?" And he come up to us and he's like, "NAh, I'm just drinking a little bit of beer." And we're like, "Yeah, we can see that. But do you know where Guillermo lives?" And he was like, "Yeah he lives close. You know what? I'll take you to his house." We're like..."Oooookay." So he goes and he puts on some sandals and he goes into his little wood shack and comes out holding a slingshot and with something tucked into the front of his shirt and a bulge in the front of his pants. And you could see just under his shirt, and he pats it and he was like, "I never leave my house unarmed." And so I assumed that he had a gun there, that he had a little pistol. 

So yeah, we've got this guy, super drunk, can barely walk straight. His name was Humberto and he's got a pistol in the front of his pants. So I'm ready to tackle at any moment because he seems pretty crazy. I was a little worried that he was gonna pull out the gun. And he's like, "Alright. I'll take you to his house." And he starts just walking through the forest up this side of the hill. There was KIND of a little path, but not really anything. And it got to the point where there was no path. And he stopped and tried to shoot a bird with his sling-shot and breaks his sling shot. And so we are going and walking about 5 minutes up there, just following this little drunk guy, talking to him. And we get up into this clearing and it's just this beautiful little spot on top of this hill. It's really pretty there. And we like jumped a barbed wire fence and there was a little like mud shack out in the middle of this clearing. And he was like, "Alright. This is where Guillermo lives." And he goes over and he hops another fence. We follow him and he's like "GUILLERMO!" He's like calling for him and he goes over and there's some boots like in a bucket of water just floating around and he just kind of like looks at them and he picks up one of the boots and just like throws it at the house. And we look for Guillermo and he's not in the house but there's like a fire going and we're not really sure what's going on. So we call him again because we finally had cell reception again because we were back up on the top of the hill. Surprisingly. I was really surprised we had reception there. So we get up on top and we call him and he answers and is like, "Ah yeah. I'll be right there." And he comes out from like behind the house and he's like putting on his belt. I'm pretty sure he was peeing just back behind the house because I don't think he has anywhere else to use the bathroom. 

And so, then we had a little lesson there. The drunk guy wanted to stay for the lesson. Which was kind of messy for us, kind of hard to have the spirit. I got after him actually during the lesson and told him to stop swearing because it was SOOOO much. He started talking about one of the old Dictators named Pirochet that took over the country back in the day and how he was so happy that Pirochet went to prison and well he said a lot of really awful things actually. So we got him to calm down a little bit after I got after him, he stopped swearing til the end of the lesson so that was good. He still talked about a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with anything but we were able to kind of go with the lesson a little bit. The other guy was really interested. Guillermo, the other guy. I don't know...He was really interested but doesn't seem super willing to act. For our next visit, he comes down to Licanten sometimes to work, so we are just going to meet up with him here in the chapel. Our chapel here is right next to a Liquor store. He works in the liquor store.

Oh. Hold on. (SMACK sound in the background). Spider on the wall.

And so hopefully we can organize it that right before he goes into work or right after he'll come over to the chapel and we'll teach him a little lesson. Because it's not worth the hour trip to get to his "house" to teach him up there. And so yeah, we finished the lesson and we started going back down the hill and Humberto, drunk friend, is talking to us. Invites us to go get a drink with him. And we cross a araña pollito, which means "A little chicken spider", which are the tarantulas around here. They're pretty common. I've seen quite a few. Like 4 or 5 in my mission. But my companion hadn't seen one before. And the guys up there, the ones who live out in the campo, the little drunk guy, and Guillermo, they started playing with it. So we got some pictures of that and some other pictures of the little clearing where Guillermo lives. And on the way back down, the little drunk guy was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go run and grab"...he was going to a little shop down by the bus stop "and get some more wine." And he was like, "But oh, I can't have this down there." And he reaches under his shirt to pull out his weapon that he's had hiding there this whole time. And he pulls it out and it was just this huge knife. Like a normal kitchen knife, you know, one of the big ones. Haha. And it was just super random. I have no idea why he carried that the whole time. But he was like, "Yeah, I never leave home unarmed." So then he throws that off into the bushes and he just CHUCKS it as hard as he can off into the trees. Haha. And he's like "Yeah, I know where it fell." And then he walked us down to the bus stop. So that was quite the experience we had on Tuesday. Something a little different. I was glad to have a little change of routine. I thought it was pretty fun. Definitely NOT going to do it again because it was a LOT more time than we expected. But it was a really pretty place. 

Then on Wednesday, we had interviews with President (Harris). We went down a little early and ate lunch with the Zone Leaders and with a member. And then we went and had interviews, which went really well. I think it gave my companion a little bit of ...it encouraged him a little bit to work, I think. Got him kind of excited for his last couple of weeks. It didn't last super long but...  but it was good. 

We also had Stake conference on Saturday night and on Sunday. We had just a general session on Saturday night and then on Sunday morning we had a priesthood session with the priesthood and relief society presidencies. We talked about ministering and then new priesthood quorums. It was really good. Our mission president gave a little bit of training I guess like how he would do the interviews and the other meetings. And then in the afternoon session, he talked about how we are sanctified through our service. He shared an awesome experience about how, I think it was while he was stake president, he was assigned to home teach a man who had a lot of problems with alcohol and tobacco. He was a convert to the church but just came from a really tough lifestyle and fell back into that lifestyle. So he was abusive with his family, ended up getting divorced and President Harris just tried so hard. They'd go over and read the Book of Mormon with him. They'd invite him to Family Home Evening, just go over, pass by and see how he was and do all kinds of service. When they were having problems in the family, his family would take care of the other family's children and so those kids lived with President Harris's family for weeks at a time. And just really did everything he could to serve this man and his family. And while he was doing that, the man got remarried and for a while it was fine. And President Harris, since he was the stake president, he was a minister, he was the one who performed the marriage for them, you know a civil marriage. But then after a little while, it ended up in the same way. More problems with abuse. And the man ended up in prison. One of the kids as well. And president Harris would go by and visit him in prison. And he was still assigned to home teach him right up until President Harris was assigned to come serve in this mission. And this man, never changed. And President Harris talked about how even though that man never changed, how President Harris was sanctified through that experience and how it made President Harris a better person. That's probably, I think, the reason that God has us serve. He has us serve in part to be instruments in His hands, you know, to accomplish his work. But He could accomplish His work himself. But the rest of us, by being those instruments and by allowing God to work through us, we can obtain a remission of our sins by keeping our covenants. And also that service is a part of making restitution in the repentance process and it helps us to develop charity and hope and those Christlike attributes that we really need to become like our Heavenly Father. So that service sanctifies us.

Yeah, this recording has gone a little long. But I know that those things are true. And I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and He calls us to serve because it makes us better and I've seen that a lot as a missionary. 

I love you guys. Hope you're all having a good week. Take care!

Elder Olson

60 cm completo

I made a perfect pizza.

Aventuras en la selva (Adventures in the jungle)

One of the many dirt roads we walked

and we walked and walked and walked

The drunk guy, Humberto, and my comp, on our hike

view of the clearing

araña pollito

Guillermo playing with the spider

Look for Humberto's concealed weapon

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 44: Lots of Rain!

Hello, (I learned out to say hello in dutch this week but I forgot)

It's been a rainy week down here in Curico. It's rained more than half of this week, and it's still going strong today. The not-so-fun part of that is taking the 15 minute walk to get to our sector. I'm definitely grateful for my rain boots.

The canal systems aren't too fantastic down here. A lot of the roads are in such deep water that cars can't use them. I'm grateful to be in a 5th story apartment to avoid flooding. My Filipino friend (former housemate) Elder Belayro wasn't so lucky though. We saw their sector on the news in a member's house. I called them, and it sounds like their house is filled with water and they're looking for a new one. This week we were also in a house teaching when suddenly we heard a band and water began to drip down the walls and fall through the ceiling. We were there another hour helping fix their roof and dry their things.

On top of the rain, we've had trainings to give, interviews with President, exchanges to do and lots of service. We've had almost no time to go out to the sector which is a bit of a bummer.

On Saturday, we did 3 services. We hauled a lot of huge, soaked logs. The wheelbarrow broke under the weight, so we would load them up on our shoulders and carry them the 2 blocks to the less-active member's house. My shoulders are still super bruised.

Luckily we actually have weights here in our apartment so my exercise has leveled up a little bit.

I had a weird experience in the ghetto on exchanges this past Thursday. We ran into a drunk girl and her boyfriend fighting. She ran over to us asking for help. We were worried that he was going to hit her, so we talked them down. I was basically running in circles the whole time trying to get away from the girl who kept trying to hold my arm or hand and was too drunk to understand the word "no." Eventually, we got the two of them in their houses without calling the cops.

It's been a crazy week. I'm a bit stressed but I feel good and I'm sure things will calm down soon.

Pray and read your scriptures!

Love,
Elder Olson

Wall Mural along the street

Mate (the drink) in an apple

Elder Heap and Elder Olson...Companions