Wednesday, January 26, 2011

24 Jan 2011

wowowowowow
what an amazing week i am going crazy right now i can not even believe what has happened. wow. so this last week i recieved a email from tyler that pretty much says decide now to baptize and you will do it.. as you all know i have not had the privelige to baptize and with sincerity it has been really hard for me. every week tyler sends more pictures of all of his baptisms and i know how good of missionaries mike and steve were so i was really started to doubt whether i could baptize and when was it finally going to come. ecspecially since transfers are tomorrow... anyway i have been fasting and praying alot to. and well the lord stepped it and had a changed the way i think.. so tyler said baptize every month. so we had inter cambios and i was with elder ramirez when i decided you know if i wanna baptize i just gotta do it. so we went to clemente house and i just told him we were going to baptize him this saturday and elder ramirez interviewed him.(this was on thursday) well he said yeah and he was way stoked and he told me he wanted me to baptize him. man the joy that came over me at that moment is indescribable.. anyway long story short we called my comp that night who is leader of the zone and told him we were going to baptize clemente and he said no?? we cant?? so i said why?? so i ended up calling the assistent and we got permision to baptize.. the problem was that we did not tell the president inthe last email( it was not in our goals for the week) yeah i was pretty confused myself...
anyway this last day we decided it would be best for the dad to do it. very new to the church and has really bad legs. can barely stand but we asked him if he wanted to do it and he said he did and he had faith christ would heal his legs.. wow the humility and faith of this man is incredible... ok so it is day of the baptism and they are all at the church, when i get the impression to bring another pair of white pants. i did not listen. so we go to the church the family is all in white and they get into the water and the dad falls and does not have the strength to baptize(he tried to or three times) yeah so we shut the doors to the font and go in and talk to him when he just said elder olsen can you baptize my son for me.. man seriously missionarry work is the greatest thing in the world. at that moment i dont think i have ever sprinted faster in my life....got the pants and i have the privelage to baptize clemente.. Man it was amazing.. mike was right i would go through hell and back to have one baptism.. it really is amazing i have never been happier..
other than that this week was good we got alot of investigators and we are working me and my comp still are not gettting along perfect but i am trying to just serve him and learn from him because he is a fantastic teacher..

Also i recieved a package!! and a bunch of letters, the package was from nanny( thank you very much nanny), it was super cool to read so many letters and to know that i am still loved in bolivia.. i got a letter from clint, alyssa,jaron, someone in the ward, man it really was good.
I have scriptures!! but they are not my scriptures they are some elder in my group that had an extra pair it is only i would lke to have my other pair so if you could send them that would be awesome.
i am doing great i am really loving the people. the president of the rama hereis crazy,,, in a good way.
i really would like to here that talk that dj gave.and tell him to have patience in the mtc. hahah.
love you all tons send some pics of the fam. other things i wanna see some snow..
Love Elder Olsen

Monday, January 17, 2011

17 Jan 2011

Oh man the time is flying on the mission it really is insane next week is transfers.. man i am so nervous i really have come to just love this place, it is amazing the relief society treats me like a son so mom dont worry i got alot of love here in bolivia. i am really starting to see the rama( district) change. it is so weird but awesome to have members come up to me and say come to my house i want you to teach me friends... it is awesome puerto suarez really is changing i love it so tomorrow we are having family night at hmo. pardo house he is in the police and ever since he found out i am in the military he treats me like a king haha it is pretty funnny the whole rama knows i am in the marine corp. and i have not told anyone i think it is the presedent because everytime he sees me he throws up a salute and shouts some weird phrase i have not been able to translate¨"he was in the bolivian army"...

other than that i still have not recieved any packages and i dont have an adress, another elder told me that we need to probably go to santa cruz and it is just chillin in the mail room or something but i dont know.
and by the way it is all good that you are not going to brazil (it is a little over rated) haha just kidding but when you come to bolivia we can tour here then go on down to brazil to visit tylers mission because i really do want to see more of brazil it is beautiful.

holly cow dj is leaving next week that is crazy, i would love to hear the talk. so please record it also tell covey work his butt off.

anyway i know this letter is really scattered and you probably do not understand it but just a quick recap of my week. my comp left for zl conference for three days and while he was in santa cruz i went to pto. quijarro with elders abbot, ramirez it was pretty intreesting we taught some great lessons and i learned alot of how the teach and differnt ways to contact. but the best was we were teaching this inactive member and we were sing songs for him to cheer him up, he was drunk. so we ended he stood up threw his alcohol over the fence and just started crying saying how much this has ruined his life, it was actually really sad. we encouraged him and told him we are always here for him as we were leaving i noticed he was going for another beer. so i gently stood him up and started telling him it was time to sleep and it was really late. walked him to his bed tucked him in, and hit the lights. locked up his house and we left. first time i have ever tucked in a grown man. good experience. anyway so we had another baptism date for clemente but my comp feels we should wait one more week even though he has 5 times in church. some times i just wanna beat someone up. anyway we talked about it and after a pretty heated discussion we decided to wait so he could prepare a little longer. the familia riveros has a date for feb. 5 so that is going to be realy really special they are a strong family they just need to finish up there papers for marriage. other than that we are meeting some really good people i am loving it. the language is coming along i can pretty much get around but far far far far from fluent.

tell adam if you let him go to state and he does not win he has to clean the kitchen for 3 weeks. and andrew to just keep being a stud. also adam will never be the man of the house until he can beaat me up wich will never happen.

also mom with jeff you cant call you just gotta show up to his house to visit. his grandma or him or his mom there is always some one there i cant even tell you how many times i just chillled in his room when he was not there. also send some pictures i would love to see how the family is doing and adam wrestling.
anyway i love you all tons i pray for you everyday, janessa still has not written me. that is so crazy tyler is going home wow time flies. keep me updated on the life back home. love ELDER OLSEN arriba bolivia!!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

10 Jan 2010

WOW; what a fantastic week woww wowowow

I love being a missionary it really is so cool, there is no feeling like it honestly it is strange, but i really do love it. So this week we were contacting and there is this house way out in the boonies i mean out there!! and that morning i was study about how to follow the spirit and Elder Scott says that "often our most prized and most valuable spiritual prompting are our first thought or prompting that go unnoticed because we do not act upon them" and it is so true so we were walking and we were just gonnna pass by this house because it is out there, but i felt like we should go.but we just kept walking. again i looked back just kinda thinking "oh it is not important" nothing is gonna happen with this house" so i kept walking. finally the spirit was able to hit me in the side of the chest and say go! so i turned around started walking towards the house and my comp was like huh i just said vamos haha any way we go up to the house and before we even get to the fence the man is coming out to meet us saying pass pass.. we go in and he is just excited, i´m in heaven and my comp is kinda lost in the sauce... turns out he had been going to church when the first elders came here 30 years ago when there was not a church building or nothing and he has been looking for it since but didnt know where the building was or any of the members. wow... coolest feeling ever.. but it gets better.... 7 little girls the cutest little girls you have ever seen. (i am going to send a picture next week of this family and janessa is going to die that is how cute these little girls are) the whole first lesson the little 5 years old was laughing at me the whole time, now normally this is a distraction but she is just so darn cute it doesnt even matter. it really is the coolest thing i have ever experienced just a little prompting and we found this family. wow. i love it. the spirit is insane, the way it works with us and with others just blows my mind. anyway they are way stoked 5 of them have baptism date for this 5 of febuary we still need to talk to one more of the girls that is 17. but the only sad thing is i could not be there to see them baptized. this next transfer is 27th of january so i dont know what to think right now.. anyway we have a date for a girl named carla 9 years old and she is just like amanda no joke it is so funny she is always at the grandmas house(which is how we know her) they are recent converts and she is always going to church with granparents i asked my last comp why she was not baptized he told me the parents would not let her,, so with my new comp we talk to those parents and they said yes. so pretty sweet she is a way sweet little girl. other than that me and my comp are getting along alot better. i found wheni just will make him breakfast or dinner iit is easier to just love him haha. oh yeah funy joke every one in south america says peruvians are thiefs and every one always says hide your wallet when my comp tells them he is from peru.. hahh so next time you see chino you can tell him that. Other than that i am doing good quick funny story really quick i went into a drunk guys house and the whife kinda had just this upset look on her face. i could telllsomething was wrong so my comp was talking to her and the husband was telling me about all the chickens that he owns. ( dont know why but seriously drunk people just like me alot) so why he is tellling me about all his chickens i went around his house just kinda chatting with him, and distracting him, while i hid all his beer :) all of it haha under the table under clothes and the whife just looks over with a big old smile hah anyway it was pretty hilarious and we got a return appointment with the whife when he is not wasted...

anyway i still want more updates on how it all my buddies doing and my family. also mom i do not really have time to write the ward just tell them i love them and seriously i miss having so many good members and people that we can rely on, the members here and really flaky so i miss the confidence and trust that i had in utah. also how is coop doing tell him to send me a letter or something seriously he does not know what he is missing out on.. also dad a few weeks ago you asked me what was that animal i was holding it was a monkey,and yeah they are pretty freaky. mom i know i do not write as much as you want me to,so i got a little assignment for you i know how much you love to talkand visit with people so i would love it if you visited with jeff and his mom and grandma great people, also there is clint and his parents great people., corey, dj, the list goes on and on and write me after and tell me how is went.
anyway i love and miss you all every single day my spanish has really talking a big step of improvement but i still got a long way to go. i´m working my butt of, i am not having much success but it is coming i have faith i would love your prayers and fasts for my investigators thank you so much for always teaching us to do what is right.. wow the world really is a different place. i love you alll tell adam he is not the man of the house.
Love Elder Olsen

3 Jan 2010

Gunner is getting married????? ( he is just doin whatev!!)
hah i cant believe he is getting married before steven that is so good. and no i have not gotten any of the letters or anything and i dont have an address. all the stuff just gets sent to puerto suarez and we go and pick it up at the TAM. dont really know how it works but whatever you guys think will work the best.

anyway this week was super long my comp was "sick" for two days straight.. man it was hard to sit in the house all day when we have so many fantastic people to teach. right now we are teaching 3 women maria 50, diana 22, mariolli 18 they all love me haha diana even tried to kiss me the other day (must be my olsen charm) but i felt bad because i didnt know what to do or what to say so i just kinda jumped back and was like i´m sorry i cant, i didnt know how to explain it and she was super emberressed and felt way bad. but my comp cleared it up and explained that as missionaries we have rules and such, but it was pretty funny.

other than that we have found lots of new investigators, i dont know how long i am going to be here so i am trying to change my attitude of how i work. i used to always just think about me baptizing but most of these people i am meeting i am realizing i have to prepare them to be baptized it doesnt matter who does it i gotta always work like there is no tomorrow.. that was the problem with my first comp he kinda died out and didnt want to work his last three weeks because he could not baptize them. i dont wanna be like that.

other than that how is the family, did dad take coop the letter i just wanna know how he is doing? how is steve? how is mike? is he really dating a columbian?? HAHA that is pretty cool. everyone here says that after the mission i need to go to brazil to find my whife haha so who knows maybe i will learn portugese ha

anyway i am doing better i had some rough spots with my comp but i am really tryingg to just see the good in everyone i meet, i try to study ch 6 of pmg for 10 minutes every night it is helping alot helps remind me of who i am representing and who i need to be worthy to represent.. Big responsibility.
anyway much love
Elder Olsen