week 25: I've been called as a District Leader

Week 1 of transfer 4 (FYI a transfer consists of a 6 week period of time)
January 27, 2020

Hey everybody, I recorded my email but it didn't save again.

Last night, I got a call from President Piros to tell me that I am the district leader here in Hidrolandia now, because there was an emergency and Elder Santiago was transferred to be a zone leader in another area. I was pretty surprised, because this is only my 4th transfer. But, the more responsibility you get, the faster you learn I guess.

This week Jose and Elezangela came to church! Jose is on track to be baptized, he is keeping the commandments and has received all the lessons. But, he still has doubts that he needs to be baptized again, because he was baptized in a different church already. We taught him about fasting, and this Sunday we fasted with him so that he could receive an answer to his prayers. Hopefully all goes well and he is baptized this Saturday.

Rafael and Elizabeth are still having problems with documents, but they are trying to solve them.

On to things that I hate: -being sick in the mission. I had a little fever and headache during my fast, but it was gone in one day. I really am blessed to be better already.

Things that I like: -Elizabeth's sister let us borrow her cuscuzeira (a pot they use to make cuscuz, the cornbread stuff) So we are gonna be eating a ton of that

Spiritual thought:
1 Nephi 15: 8-11 

8 And I said unto them: Have ye inquired of the Lord?
9 And they said unto me: aWe have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us.
10 Behold, I said unto them: How is it that ye do not keep the commandments of the Lord? How is it that ye will perish, because of the hardness of your hearts?
11 Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you.

When we have questions, struggles, or doubts, all we need to do is diligently keep the commandments and use our faith. God will respond. Follow the example of Nephi. Have the faith to ask. It's ok to have doubts. It's ok to have struggles. God will help you.

Love you all and have a great week!
-- 
Elder Olson

(A 17 yr old boy they contacted sent this photo via instagram direct message)

week 24: Members Help Missionaries

Week 6 of Transfer 3

Well I accidentally deleted my recording for this week so I'll be typing this one out.

Hey everybody!! I'll be here in Hidrolândia for yet another transfer! 

This week was much better, we were able to work with members a bit more which makes all the difference. We had our first ward counsel (The bishop hadn't been doing it before) and the members really helped out with ideas to help less active members and some of the people we are teaching. Rafael and Elizabeth haven't made much progress with the documents, but they are working with members of the bishopric to try and figure it out.

Also, we were able to mark a baptismal date with Jose and his wife Elezangela (the people who came to church last week). We never thought we'd see this day, but after he visited church he realized it really is a house of prayer and a church of god, but he didn't really understand the restoration. But, we taught the dispensation of the gospel and something clicked in his head. He said he still hasn't received an answer about baptism through his prayers, but now he actually understands.

Anyways, on to things that I hate. 

1. Somebody through something dead in our trashcan and it has been rotting the past couple days. we can smell it when we are in the house and it is terrible.

2. Cleaning the bathroom. Let me break it down how we have to clean it. First step, throw a mix of bleach and water. Then, you throw laundry soap (the powder kind) all over the floor and walls that are covered in bleach. After, you scrub with a broom and rinse it with a crap ton of water.

Things that I like.

1. We made these burrito things with salami, pork, barbeque sauce, and pineapple. The "tortillas" we made weren't really tortillas but it was pretty tasty.

Spiritual Thought: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media-library/video/1-nephi-8?lang=eng I've been studying with the come follow me book and I wanted to share this video of the vision of the tree of life. Something I learned from my study is that there are many people wandering in the darkness, and we need to call out to them to help them get to the tree of life. We should invite and share the gospel with all people.

-- 

Elder Olson

our attempt at making tortillas. I'm half covered in the picture but oh well.

talking with the fam, Monday Morning the 20th

week 23: Rough week but I survived

5th week of 3rd transfer

January 13, 2020 (transcribed from audio recording)

I can't believe it, but there's only one more week of my 3rd transfer. I almost have seis, I mean six, months in the mission.

This week was a bit rough. We had problems with the marriage of Rafael and Elizabeth. He doesn't have his birth certificate so he has to pay to get that transferred and stuff. They have to transfer some documents from a city that is like an hour away and they are really poor so it's really hard to get there and pay for the transfer documents and stuff. So that didn't turn out well this week and lots of our appointments fell through.

But...

every week is not gonna be the best so it's ok.

Usually every Saturday we confirm people for church to see if they need help getting there for the members to give them a ride or something. And we only confirmed two people this week (out of the 12 we contacted) which was Rafael and Elizabeth and neither of them came to church. But right before the meeting started, two of our friends (who hadn't said they were coming) entered the chapel and we were really surprised. It was the parents of one of our friends who had just "cut" us the day before and said he didn't want any more lessons but his parents came to church and they really liked it. And then after church, we taught the dad of a recent convert here and he already believes in the restoration and everything but he has problems with drinking coffee and with going to church. The other elders before us, like 6 months before, they tried to baptize him but they had problems with this. So we marked the baptism date for three weeks ahead to try to motivate him to change and we will see if it works out.

We also had interviews with President. We got to go on a two hour bus ride to a chapel in the city. So that's always fun. haha. (tried to sleep but there was no way)

On to things that I hate: Still hate the bus. Still hate the heat. But there wasn't much different that was really bad this week besides that. Lots of our appointments fell through but that's normal here. Lots of people mark appointments and forget about them. So that's normal.

Things that I like: I made German Pancakes today. They didn't really puff up because apparently there's no...what do you call it...yeast, no...I don't know how to say it in English. But there's no stuff to make it puff up in the flour here so they were really dense and flat but they still had the same flavor so it was good.

Spiritual Thought: I have started the come follow me for this year, restarting the book of mormon. I have been using the example of Nephi's obedience to teach a lot this week. When we exercise our faith and just go, God will provide a way. God wants to give us blessings, we just have to show our faith and go.

-- 

Elder Olson

Week 22: Hello Again. Happy New Year.

Week 22,  4th week of 3rd transfer

January 5, 2020

It's been a while since my last normal email because we only had pday on Christmas and New Years Day and the LAN house isn't open those days so we just had to use computers of members so we didn't have as much time. But this week was good.

We have two friends that are really progressing. Rafael and Elizabeth. They're a couple and they have 2 kids but the problem is they aren't married. Both of them have been to church 2 times and Rafael has been to church 3 times. They really like it there and they are really progressing in reading the Book of Mormon more and this following week we found out that Brazil has, for people who can't afford marriage here, they have free marriage sometimes and you just have to take a test sort of thing and then take it to the...I don't know what it's called in English... the place where the government building is where they get married and mark a date for a wedding. So they're going to mark a wedding date this week so that's exciting. Because once they get married, I'm almost positive that they'll be baptized. The other thing we are working on with them is the Word of Wisdom. They like to drink coffee and they drink a bit of alcohol, but I don't think that's going to be a huge problem after they get married to get over before their baptism. So after they mark a marriage date, we are going to mark a baptismal date for them. It's been really good with them because we've been teaching with the members a lot more and they've interacted a lot more with the members. 

Sunday night we had a Family Night in the house of one of the members and it went really well. We invited them and they came with us and we share a message and had a little activity and it all went really well. They're really interacting well with the members. So that's helping a lot! It's so much better to teach with the members. 

For those of you who are wondering what Christmas and New Years are like in Brazil. It's A LOT different. I'll give a little explanation. So for Christmas, on Christmas Eve everybody parties and drinks and the next day they all sleep in but some stores are still open Christmas day and they don't really do presents or anything. Some people do presents but it's not like a big thing to do presents. And then they do a big BBQ for lunch. So we had BBQ at the house of a member that was really good. Then New Years Eve is basically the same thing. On New Years Eve everybody parties and drinks all night, blasts music and fireworks and then the next day everything is closed. More things were closed New Years day than Christmas day which is kind of weird. So our Christmas Eve I talked about in my last email a bit, but when we got home from working for the day, the other Elders were bragging about how they got to eat all this BBQ at a house of a member for dinner but me and my companion weren't able to because we were on the other side of the city. So me and my companion were really hungry and I was going to go eat my nightly egg sandwich but Elder Santiago was like, "Just call the member and tell him to bring food for you." haha. So this member's name is Jun. He's a returned missionary who got back 6 months or so ago and he works with us a lot in teaching people. So I called him and he had told us about how in his mission he'd always call members and ask them if they had any water to kill his hunger...basically just asking them for food. And how they would always get dinner all the time from that. So I called Jun and asked hime, "Hey, do you have any water to kill my hunger?" And he was like, "Yeah! I'll bring it to you right now." So he brought us this rice and meat/BBQ to our door because we couldn't leave our house because we have to stay inside after 9. He said that he promised himself when he got back from his mission that if any elder had the courage to call and ask him for food during the night that he would bring it to them. So I called and asked for food and he brought it. It was pretty awesome. Pretty funny. I sent a picture last week with us in the doorway with him. So that was my Christmas Eve. 

My New years eve, we made pizza. I sent a picture last week of that too. Then we tried to sleep but there were fireworks and loud music outside our house. So we didn't really sleep, we just kind of sat there in bed. 

Then for things that I hate this week: One thing that I hate is false addresses. Lots of people give you a false address because they don't actually want to hear your message but people don't like to say no here. So sometimes you'll go WAY out looking for this house and you'll find like an empty field or that that block doesn't exist. So that's pretty annoying.

Then things that I like: Basically the story that I already told about dinner Christmas Eve and also the weather right now is awesome. It's been raining a lot and it's been sooooo much cooler during the night. It's probably like 70 degrees which is really really nice for here. 

Spiritual Thought: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/my-2020-invitation-to-you-share-the-message-of-the-restoration-of-the-saviors-gospel?lang=eng This is a link to President Nelsons invitation for us this year. 200 years after the first vision. The restoration continues today and we are a part of it! Share the joy of the gospel with everyone!

-- 

Elder Olson

New Year's Pizzas

Typical day in the life of a missionary in Goiania

Weeks 20-21 : Christmas and New Years

Hey everyone,

I hope you all had a great Christmas and new years! We only had p-day on Christmas and today. These past two weeks have been difficult, but really good. i just want to share an experience with you all, and the next week we will be back to the regularly scheduled program.

Christmas eve was a really difficult day of work. After 6, we didn't find anyone to talk to. So, we decided to start caroling, singing Christmas hymns door to door. It started raining and we had like 10 doors slammed in our face. But, we were able to sing for a few people. It sounds like a terrible Christmas eve right? But it wasn't. I felt more joy than I usually do during Christmas eve. You can find joy in any situation, especially when you are serving others. I would like to challenge you all to find something this week you can do to serve someone else.

-- 

Elder Olson

A member (recently returned missionary in the ward) brought Elder Olson and the missionaries some Brazilian BBQ on Christmas Eve because they didn't get dinner that night.

Christmas day they bought cake and played Uno. Elder Olson is wearing the new Brazilian soccer jersey he got from Mom and Dad

New Years Eve pizza making. The propane for their oven ran out as they were cooking the last two but they were "done enough" for missionaries to eat anyway.