week 10: Zone Conference, Splits, & Spiritual Experiences

Week 10, 4th week of first transfer

October 14, 2019

It was a good week. We started off with Zone conference which was really awesome. We learned a lot about teaching people not just lessons. So adapting lessons to fit peoples' needs and we did a lot of practicing. The only bad thing about it was that we had wake up at 3:30 in the morning to catch the bus to the stake center in Goiania. So that wasn't fun but other than that it was good. Oh another great thing about zone conference was that we had Big Macs for lunch and they had 3 for every person so that was pretty awesome!

We had splits this week with the zone leaders Elder Gregory and Elder DeSantos. I was with Elder Gregory and I learned a lot. He's got almost 2 years. He leaves this next transfer so he's got a lot of experience. I learned a lot about how to contact people and stuff like that. And I was able to ask him questions about the language because he speaks English. haha.

So after splits, me and Elder Rodriguez had a pretty cool experience. So in the Zone conference we talked about praying for your companion and yourself while your companion is speaking during the lesson. So I decided to try it out. The lesson after we finished splits, we taught a man and his wife about the restoration and as Elder Rodriguez taught, I prayed for him to be able to teach better and I prayed for me for the gift of tongues. I shared the first vision with them and it was a REALLY spiritual experience! I could tell that they felt something and it wasn't just me and Elder Rodriguez feeling the spirit. We all felt the spirit really strong. So that was pretty cool. 

Alright so I am going to finish off the email with things that I hate and things that I like, to follow the example of Ben Shapiro, haha. So things that I hate: I got stung by a wasp in the middle of a lesson and there wasn't really anything I could do about it so I just had to hold in my pain. So that was fun. haha. But it's really no big deal. On to things that I like: So this week was fast sunday and after we finished fasting (they fast from lunch to lunch here, because lunch is the big meal), so Sunday afternoon for lunch we went to a members house and we had Churrasco, which is the Brazilian BBQ, which was basically a TON of meat and oh it was so good. Basically Tucano's. Sausage and steak and chicken and all sorts of stuff and then dessert afterward. So that was pretty great.

So that's this week. It was pretty awesome. Hopefully this next week we can get people to come to church because still this week we've had zero out of like 10 people we've invited to church actually come. So that's kind of discouraging but all we can do is invite.

I'd like to share a scripture about scriptures.

2 Nephi 2: 3

 ^aAngels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, ^bfeast upon the ^cwords of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will ^dtell you all things what ye should do.  

These past weeks I have found answers to so many of my questions in the scriptures. The Book of Mormon is really the word of God. I want to invite you all, if you arent already, to study the Book of Mormon daily, for at least 15 minutes with a question in your mind as you do so. I know that you can learn so much from it.

-Elder Olson

Zone Conference: Elder Olson is smiling so big

Big Macs from McDonalds=Happiness

Dinner on Splits

Elder Olson on splits. He enjoyed the communication and association with some other elders for a bit. Elder Gregory loved that Elder Olson had a BYU sweatshirt and wore it around the apartment.