Elder Olson's Church Mission 2019-2021: 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