Week 51: Miracles

8/13/17

Kouman ou ye? (Haitian Creole for how are you?)

Hi guys,

I'm doing great down here in Curico.  it's been a solid week. 

We started off with Oreo empanadas and soccer for P day. We were smart enough to delegate the food part this time, so we actually got to play again. Good stuff. 

I've had quite a few chances to practice my creole this week. We have some new Haitian investigators, and I actually gave a baptismal interview to a Haitian. We had to get special permission from President Harris so that we could use our friend Fafu as a translator during the interview.

We had a lot of rain this week. It also happens to have been the week that we both forgot our umbrellas in an investigator's house. We've been practically swimming from lesson to lesson instead of walking (but I haven't gotten sick thanks to all of the vitamins the fam sent! Thanks mom!)

This change we’ve been seeing  big-time miracles as a zone. We’re baptizing (well when I say we I mean they but I like to think that I’m helping somehow) more than we have here in a LONG time. By the end of change possibly 4 times more. We still aren’t quite Brazil, but we’re seeing great improvements. 

On Friday, a convert asked us to give a blessing to his uncle who is currently in an induced coma. He (the convert, Lupo) expressed his faith and asked us to perform a miracle for him. We had to explain to him that we can’t change God’s will to him, but it was cool to see such firm faith in a new convert.

This week some members had family visiting from a city called Portomon (not sure how to spell that) in the south. I don’t know if all southern food is that good, but what they gave us (a kind of salad, fried bread, and salmon with cheese and southern sausage) was awesome. That was the first time I’ve eaten salmon in a year.

Spiritual Thought: Remember to pray always! 3 Nephi 18:15, 18,19,27; 3 Nephi 19:26, 30; 3 Nephi 20:7.

Much love,

Elder Olson

PS- We climbed a hill (and maybe some other stuff)

Note from Elder Olson's Mom: He sent these videos but didn't talk about them. He evidently experienced another earthquake this week but this time was in his 5th floor apartment. I don't think he's ever been in an upper level of a building during an earthquake.

Week 35: Earthquakes and Changes

4/26/2017

Hey everyone,

We're getting down to the end of the transfer down here. We just found out that one of my Zone Leaders is being called as Assistant to the President, so it'll be nice to have a little inside hook up.

We've been having a ton of tremors this last week. The biggest one was a 6.7 earthquake on Monday. We're all ok, it can just be kind of hard to sleep when we wake up in the middle of the night with the floor shaking.

This week we taught an interesting family. The mom was an author, and the Dad is a CrossFit nut. They had a stripper pole, and a 3 foot tall bong/hookah thing in their house , and they spoke English, and the mom's a Buddhist. They're smart and say they'll read, but they lack real intent and desire to learn.

Our super promising investigator with a baptismal date moved north for work for two months without saying anything to us. So that's nice.

We had a training with President last week in Rancagua. He's putting a big emphasis on asking for references from members. The members here in Buin are great about accompanying us, but I'm yet to receive a reference from a member from my own sector. I've gotten a few from investigators though, one of his has a baptismal date now!

President's been changing a lot of the rules. We won't be having Zone meetings anymore, which is a bummer. We'll just be meeting as a District. Also, we can't play soccer in Ward activities with investigators any more, or give English classes without also teaching a PMG (Preach My Gospel) lesson. I get it, but it's still kind of lame.

Love you guys,
Elder Olson

Quote from a personal email: "One of the big lessons I've learned this week is the blessing of sacrifice. As endowed members we covenant to sacrifice whatever God asks us too. The more completely that we keep this law and consecrate ourselves, the more fully that God can bless us."

Note from Mom: Elder Olson also told his little brother the Chileans don't really celebrate Easter down there the way we do up here. They eat a lot of fish as per the Catholic tradition but that's about it. But they were able to share a lot of the #princeofPeace videos from the church and that was really nice.  He told his other brother that right now, Elder Strong, who lives in the same house, buys and shares a lot of sushi with them. He's feeling pretty lucky on that count. He loves sushi. He's fortunate to have such a generous Elder in the house too. :-)

Drinking Chilean Mate

Chilean opening a Mini-Mission Call

Elder Haar and Elder Olson

Buin Zone

Week 11: Earthquakes and Tender Mercies

"Downtown" San Clemente

Elder Olson on the streets of San Clemente

His "healthy diet" as he proudly termed it. He shared this with another Elder. He says most days they eat little and are kind of hungry, but on Pdays they make up for it.

Evangelicals singing in the street

Talca Zone 1 at the last meeting before transfers

Elder Pulla drew this of their zone.

Friends and Fam,

Busy week as always, not a ton has happened since I wrote last, seeing how it's only been 4 days.

I experienced my first earthquake down here this week. The locals called it a tremor, but it was like a 6.4 on the Richter Scale so I'm pretty sure that qualifies as still being an earthquake. It didn't destroy anything in my area, it just totally surprised me. Honestly it was a lot cooler and scarier than I expected.

In my time here I've had a lot of great experiences that have developed my testimony of tender mercies. One of these happened yesterday as we were contacting. After a couple of particularly rude rejections, we were passing a house with an older man on the porch. Old people here are usually the least interested in our message or even conversation, because they're very stuck in their ways. At this point in the day I was tired, hot, and frankly just thinking about how sick I was of my mission work.

When we had almost passed the house we both stopped, and decided to ask for some water. The old man went inside for a moment and afterwords his daughter invited us in for some food and drink, and we were able to share a really awesome message with her. It lifted my spirits more than I can say and I really felt that that visit was a mercy of the Lord.

In other news, I accidentally broke the Word of Wisdom yesterday. Just some coffee in a drink that an investigator made, and very very little at that. We felt bad telling her that we couldn't finish the drink, but we were definitely blessed in the lesson because of our faith.

I love you all, stay righteous

Elder Olson

To his mom: "Everything is going well as can be hoped for, the earthquake surprised me and kind of freaked me out, but I'm totally fine."

To his Dad: "I don't have nearly as much time as I'd like to describe what's going on here. The father of the family still wants to be baptized on the 19th of this month, and I'm praying hard that he can stay on track to meet that goal. The daughter has accepted a date in early december and the son is going to have to as well because he didn't attend this sunday, although I think that wasn't so much his fault, the Dad couldn't come and he didn't want his kids going by themselves. This week has been a little tougher, but I'll happily take the challenge. I'm interested to see what happens with the coming transfer."
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Here's a video someone down there posted to Youtube of their apartment shaking

Here's a copy of an online article about the earthquake

Magnitude 6.4 quake shakes central Chile; no damage, injuries reported

Published November 5, 2016 12:44am
Updated November 5, 2016 8:38am

SANTIAGO - A 6.4-magnitude quake rattled central Chile on Friday, shaking buildings in the capital, but authorities said there were no immediate injuries or damage to infrastructure or mines reported.

Chile's emergency office Onemi called it a "major" seismic event, and said it was evaluating whether any damage had taken place.

The US Geological Survey said the epicenter of the quake was about 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Talca and around 119 miles south of Santiago, at a depth of about 56 miles.

The quake did not meet the requirements to generate a tsunami off the coast, the Chilean navy said.

Most of the copper mines in Chile, the world's biggest copper exporter, are in the north of the country, far from the epicenter.

The main exception is Codelco's El Teniente copper mine, which is located around 50 miles south of Santiago. A Codelco spokeswoman said operations at the mine had not been affected.

Situated on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," Chile runs along a seismic zone where tectonic plates rub up against each other. It is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, and in 1960, was hit by a 9.5-magnitude quake, the strongest in recorded history.

The biggest quake to hit Chile in recent years was an 8.8-magnitude tremor that struck the central-southern region in 2010, triggering a tsunami and killing more than 500 people.

Practice drills are frequent in Chile and builders follow strict construction codes, which help to limit death and destruction when tremors hit. —Reuters

- See more at: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/587593/news/world/magnitude-6-4-quake-shakes-central-chile-no-damage-injuries-reported#sthash.q4xudQRE.dpuf