Hey guys, this is week 5 of transfer 12. Today's gonna be a short one. We just got back from a trip to a Lake called Lake Vichuquen and the beach. So we're heading to the library right now to write and Licantén is pretty small so it's a short walk. But it's been a good week.
Earlier in the week we found a lot of new investigators. We went out with the Branch President and he helped us. He brought us some references. He knows just about everybody in this town because he works in the bank and it's the only bank for about two hours. I think I may have mentioned that. So yeah, he knows a lot of people so we just show up at people's houses and he talks to them for a minute and they're like, "Oh, Juan, so good to see you. Come on in." And they just invite him on in, and we go in with him and share something and it's great. It's really great to be able to work with the members. It helps a lot. A LOT! We found a family, two families, of less active members who were baptized about twenty years ago. There were some missionaries who just baptized a LOT of people in that time but none of them stayed active.
But then, Wednesday we went down to Curico for district meeting. Then after lunch we had a meeting for the District leaders, the Zone leaders and the sister leaders...a little leadership meeting. And then we did splits. We went in the sector of the Elders there in Bombero Garrido, one of the sectors in Curico, and so I went with Elder Mora, who's Brazilian, he's pretty new in the mission...he got here with Elder Hiatt. And Elder Hiatt went with his companion Elder Bundy from Nevada. So we worked there all afternoon and in the night we ate Sushita which is sushi wrapped in pizza. Pretty awesome idea.
On Thursday we had Zone conference, so we stayed the night there because it's like a two hour drive to Curico from Licantén. Other than that the week has been good.
We found a new investigator a couple weeks ago who's really awesome. He's intelligent and receptive. He's a single dad. He's divorce and has his daughter on Tuesdays during the week. And he accepted a baptismal date this week for the 17th of March. He seems pretty excited to read and pray and get his answers. He understood really well.
And that is about it. I'll send you some pictures from the week. We are in the library now. Take care, I hope everything is going good back home. Love you guys. Bye!
Elder Olson and Elder Hiatt at Lake Vichuquen
From the Lago
Accessible almost exclusively through rich people's backyards. They were nice and let us take pics tho
Hey everyone, Elder Olson here, this week 6 of transfer 10. This week's been a tougher week to be honest. We had a lot of appointments planned out with a lot of investigators. We had some high goals and a lot of plans. We expected to have a pretty full week. But in the end, all of our appointments fell, the whole week, every day, every single appointment fell except for I think 3 appointments in the whole week didn't fall. It was tough. It was kind of a tough time in the companionship for both of us I'd say not because we didn't get along but because the sector was just tough this week.
But it really hasn't been too bad.
On Wednesday we did exchanges with Elder Tyce and Elder {?} in Requinoa. So my first exchange in the mission I went on, I had like 3 days in the mission, and Elder Haar and Elder Tyce and I were in a trio and we were both super new. Elder Haar didn't speak any Spanish and I spoke hardly any Spanish and Elder Tyce still spoke Portuguese and Spanish mixed together so we could hardly understand each other. But we had a blast anyway. And I had Elder Tyce in my last zone in Curico as well but we never had a chance to do an exchange together. So We finally were able to an exchange together on Wednesday of this week. So that was fun. We found a ton of new people. We set a baptismal date with one of their investigators. Their investigator has a problem smoking. His name's Felipe. He's come to church a lot of times. They have a really well Fellowship I think the word is in English. they're really good. We also practiced some Spanish Freestyle rapping. Elder Tyce is a Thug, hahaha. He's a good guy. Really into Rap and that kind of stuff though.
In the week, the most interesting thing was that we had an open chapel, a tour, at a church in Doñihue one of the little country towns in our zone. Really pretty spot. But that was really tough as well. Mostly for the other Elders ofDoñihue. They'd been prepping it all week. They had everything set up. They'd invited a bunch of people and all that. And then only 2 people came to the tour. One of them was an investigator they already had and the other was an investigator we contacted in the street who it was actually kind of a miracle almost because she was coming by on a bike right in front of the church and I stop her and start talking to her and I'm like, "Yeah, we're having a tour of the chapel here. I would love to show you a little bit about what we believe and how the building is and all that." So she's thinking about it and then gets a phone call and she's on it for like 5 minutes and I'm waiting there patiently and then she finally gets off the phone and before I say anything she's like, "Yeah, ok. I'll take a look." So she went through and we were able to get her information so the elders can teach her later. But she was the only one who went through off of the contacts which was crazy because we contacted quite a few people around a little less than 40 people in the street in front of the chapel. But Doñihue is a tougher place. It's really small. They're all old catholic people who live there. It's tough. And also the street where the chapel is doesn't have a lot of traffic. We sent other people to other parts of the city trying to get people there but it didn't result into much in the end. But that is alright because that night we all got a baptism in the zone. The Elders of Requinoa had a baptism of a Hatian. So that was pretty cool. That was pretty much our week. I'm just kind of hanging in there. We took a good look at what we haven't been doing that we ought to do so we can step it up in the sector this week cause it's been a tough week. But we've just gotta keep on keeping on. Church yesterday was really good. The branch presidency spoke. One of the talks that called my attention was really good. It was talking about, well all three meetings yesterday were focused on home teaching, visiting teaching and caring for each other as members of the church. It reminds me of Mosiah 18 how as part of the baptismal covenant we promise to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort and how we've all promised to do that when we were baptized. So that's something that I continually want to improve on...looking for those service opportunities for other people and I hope you guys can all look for those service opportunities as well. As far as our contact goal, we've been doing pretty well. We had a few days where we contacted 20 or more and a few days where we contacted between 10-15. In general we've gotten more than 10 contacts every day even when the schedules have been very busy running back and forth from place to place. We've been talking to people on the way. I really appreciate your prayers for us this week especially because we're coming to the end of the change. We're going to find out transfers this Saturday so that'll be interesting. It's pretty unlikely that Elder Davis and I would stay together another change. You never know, but it's pretty likely that one of us will go. Probably him because he has more time in the sector. But we'll see what happens. So if you guys could just pray for us that we will be able to find new people to teach and also be able to get investigators into the sacrament meeting because it's been a couple weeks since we've gotten anyone there. Love you guys. Really appreciate you and hope you're all doing well. Take care! Elder Olson
Hope you're all doing well. I didn't do an audio because we've been moving at a million miles an hour so sorry about that.
Haha I think this week God has been helping me develop my long-suffering. That's not to say that it was too bad, but we had A LOT of appointments fall through. 2 out of our 7 baptismal dates fell as well, Felipe and Felipe, more on them in a minute.
Mwen vle kapab pale creole! While on intercambios I took E Rogers from Fresno to see our Haitian investigators. He speaks almost fluent creole, because when we were in the same zone in buin almost all of their investigators were Haitians. I understood about 40% of the lesson, which is actually not bad! I need to practice more though.
As a mission we've implemented a new referral system that I dont know if I mentioned. Basically whenever anybody in our zone receives a reference it becomes the responsibility of my companion and I to track and verify the teaching of those referrals. It's a lot of extra homework for Elder Davis and I.
All of our appointmebnts falling this week was in a way a blessing. My companion and I found 8 new investigators this week, which ties for our record from last change here.
Felipe and Felipe jr are two of our long time investigators who were supposed to get baptized on the 25th of November. Felipe has a slight difficulty with leaving wine. He won't get serious about it. He says he's received his answer about the BoM and wants to get baptized with his son. BUT they won't keep commitments. They could use your prayers as we decide this week whether or not we have to leave them.
Well that's gonna have to be all for today, but I'll have an audio for you next week!
Hey everybody, this is Monday November 6, 2017, the beginning of week 4 of this transfer. So this week was pretty normal, until today.
The beginning of the week we had Halloween. But for Halloween we didn't really do anything different. So here they celebrate Halloween, but they've only been celebrating it for the last 15 years? And they celebrate it because it's a holiday in the US and they wanted to get in on that. So it's not HUGE. A lot of people don't like it but a lot do, mostly for the kids. I don't know if I've seen any adults who dress up, mostly just kids who go around trick or treating. So for Halloween my companion and I dressed up as each other. We switched plaques, not plaques, nametags. We switched jackets, watches, I gelled my hair and did it differently so it would look kind of like his and we switched bags and took a picture. So you'll be able to see our halloween costumes there. I thought it was pretty good, pretty clever. A lot of people confuse us for each other anyway because we're both white...and about the same size and hair color more or less. So that was pretty fun.
After that, in the week, we're finally done with all of our meetings. We're back to just normal missionary life. We did have district meetings on Tuesday, we went out to Requinoa(?) which is a little...well all of the sectors in our zone are out in the country more or less. They're like outside of Rancagua. Our sector is the only sector, well our branch is the only branch that is actually in Rancagua and all of our sectors are actually outside of Rancagua. There's another zone in our stake here in Rancagua that has all the wards and branches that are actually IN Rancagua. We get all the outsiders. So we went out to Requinoa for a district class. It was good. It was kind of funny...We saw Elder Tyce and Elder Inuwe(?), the Elders from there in Requinoa, they brought their Matés, which we thought was kind of funny, they kind of followed our example there. We're getting the new guy kind of addicted to Maté as well. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. But it was a good class.
On Wednesday, we went to the district class in Do ñihue which is actually our district. We went there. And Doñihue is really pretty. I like going there. It's really close to the mountains, it has a really big reputation for being the center of a lot of country culture I guess you'd say. Out here the cowboys are called Huasos. They have kind of a different style. I'm actually going to try to by a Huaso poncho today, it's called a Manta. Doñihue is really famous for that. It's a really really pretty little town.
And then after that on Thursday, the Hermana's called us late at night and asked us if we could help them with an investigator who has a drinking problem and was going to set an appointment with a psychologist in the morning. And they had told him that they were going to help him to go to the psychologist but they realized that they can't because they're two sister missionaries and them leaving at 6:30 in the morning with a drunk guy is not at all a great idea and so we had to help them out there. So we accompanied their investigator to the Psychologist, well to the clinic to make sure he could get an appointment with the psychologist. So it was kind of weird but it was really good for him I think. He came to church this week. So that was the investigator. Well he's actually a less active member. He was actually baptized when he was 13 or 12 and he's been drinking for about just as long. He's been drinking since he was 12 or 13. But it's his mom who's the investigator. But he came to church with his mom, yesterday, so that was really good. It was cool they could see some progress with him because they've been working with him for quite some time.
We had to do a few favors for the Hermanas. And then we got a call from the assistants, last night and the Hermanas are having special changes. So that means one of the Hermanas is going to be leaving our sector here in Baquedano and they are going to be going to Buin. And the Hermana from Buin is going to be coming down here. And it's special because it's the middle of the change the middle of the transfer so they are going to be the only ones who will be changing. I think it's going to be good for our zone. The Hermana that's coming is supposed to be really good. I think it's going to help the companion of the Hermana who's leaving a lot. So I think it's going to be a good change. But that does mean that today we are going to help them. Well, whether or not they really NEED our help...I don't know...but supposedly the Hermana that's leaving has so much stuff that her and her companion and the two missionaries in Buin won't be able to handle all of her luggage. So I don't know WHAT she's carrying but Apparently she needs our help. So we will almost for sure be leaving for the terminal in about 20 minutes. Not sure though. So yeah, that'll be interesting. But it's gonna be good to have this other missionary in the zone. She's been an Hermana leader for the last few changes, but it should be really good.
Apart from that, this week's been pretty normal, pretty chill. We've had a few really good new investigators. We actually contacted one of them trying to find the other one. So the first one, Rodrigo, he contacted us when he was kind of drunk during the dies de ocho festival in September. He came up to us and was like, "I need to talk to you guys. You guys are awesome. I live right here." And we were like, OK. And we went back and he was still super receptive, but the area where we contacted him was a bunch of apartments and they all look EXACTLY the same so we went back and contacted all of the apartments that had his apartment number and while doing that we found another super super receptive lady and her three daughters. So we are now teaching them and also Rodrigo. I think Rodrigo has a good shot at being baptized. Well I think they all have a good shot at being baptized. We've got a lot of good investigators here. The trick for this sector tends to be getting them to come to church. We have one investigator, I think I mentioned him before, named Alejandro, he was super prepared. He'd been to church like twice before. He says he wants to be a member of the church. He basically considers himself a member already. He was waiting for us...when we knocked on his door he was like, "yeah Ive been waiting for you guys. I just didn't want to go to church by myself." He said he was basically a little shy to go on his own. So he's really great. It's been a trick getting him to stay for all three hours of church but we're working on it. A little bit at a time. Nobody can be perfectly ready for baptism.
So today we were going to deep clean the house but that looks like it's not going to happen because of the whole transfer thing, so we'll have to just give it a little light clean.
To leave you guys with a spiritual thought. Today's spiritual thought comes from Luke 21:19. "In your patiencepossess ye your souls." I'm workinga lot on my patience and so I've been making a wall of patience quotes right in front of my desk so every time I look up I see my wall of patience quotes.
So I do really like this scripture because I think there's a lot that goes into something so simple. But I can let each one of you pull your own meaning out of it. I hope you guys are all doing well, hope you have a good week. Take care. Ciao.
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!
