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 29: Last week before transfers, Lost in the work

March 14, 2017

Hola,

Wow, this will be the last letter of the transfer. This one seriously flew by. I've been a lot more focused on keeping my mind and heart in the work, which has helped me a lot.

This week we took a trip to Rancagua for a training conference. It was great as usual, our mission president is seriously incredible. Super driven and full of energy. One of the themes we talked about was talking with everyone we see. After the conference we wanted to put it into practice. Among the people we talked to was the woman next to me on the bus. We talked for the entire hour ride, and she ended up asking me about how she could have eternal life, and I taught her an entire lesson. It was pretty cool.

Also, this week we taught a 12 year old kid named Ignacio. We have another appointment to teach the whole family, but the first lesson was just him. We passed by later in the week and asked him how his reading and praying went. He said, "yeah, and I got my answer. He told me that it was all true and that I need to keep listening to you guys and do what you say, and if I keep on a good path everything will turn out alright." It was the fastest and surest answer I've seen so far, and I'm hopeful that he'll keep progressing.

On Monday, we got out of a lesson a little late. The lesson was in the other town, Alto Jahuel, about 5 miles from Buin where we live. We came out to find my companion's front tire completely flat. As we walked, we ran into a guy drunk out of his mind named Sergio. After throwing every curse work in the book, he took us to his house and patched my companion's tire (which was really impressive given how drunk he was).  So, shoutout to my man Sergio. Really though, it was a tender mercy which I was really grateful for.

Les quiero,
Elder Olson

Pot is legal here in Chile

"Camping out" again.

Family Home Evening with our District and Members and Investigators

Dinner with members.

Family home evening game of modified "Hot Potato." If you got caught with the potato, someone got to draw something on your face.

Got caught with the potato a couple of times. here are the results

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