Elder Olson's Church Mission 2019-2021: week 32: Which is worse? Dengue or Corona?

2nd week of 5th transfer

March 16, 2020

This week was a bit crazy because first we had zone conference last Thursday. So we had a road trip there. It's 3 hours to Uberlandia where our zone conference was. Luckily, they had a rented van for us, so our district of 8 elders rode in this van to the zone conference. It was actually kind of fun to be with the district but 3 hours there and 3 hours back in one day is a lot. We had to wake up at 3 in the morning to get there in time. And it was kind of funny, at the conference, they were like talking about the Corona Virus, and like "Oh everything is fine. We're more worried about Dengue Fever." And then the next day, Friday, we get a phone call, "All the meetings are cancelled. Every meeting is cancelled. We won't have Zone Conferences. There won't be sacrament meeting and all that kind of stuff." And we were like, "What?! They said everything was fine. What's going on now?" And they didn't tell us, so we just kind of worried all day. Because if we don't have Sacrament meeting, how can we baptize people. But luckily Saturday we got a message to go to the LAN house and look at our email and there was a bunch of information about how it was going to work with Sacrament and the houses of members and how we can...if we bring our friends to these little meetings in the houses of members, we can count it as one time that they were in church. So, yeah that was pretty crazy. Oh also, I forgot to tell you but Tuesday we had our district council for the first time here, but the chapel is SUPER far. It was like, I think we walked at least, I don't know in miles, like 12 km. So yeah it was like 6 there and 6 back on hills. It was a lot of walking.

Then Sunday we had sacrament meeting in a members house which was cool. It was very different. It was more of a normal missionary work day, except that we went to a members house for 15 minutes to take the sacrament. But we tried to bring some of our friends but it didn't work out because we didn't know the day before where or when the sacrament meeting was going to be. We didn't know til Sunday morning. So we were passing people Sunday morning but obviously people already had planned stuff so it didn't work out.

Things that I hate this week: We've been without a phone these 2 weeks, which is a PAIN! Because we can't call for anyone, can't set up appointments. I have to use the other set of elder's phone to call for the district leader...everything is REALLY annoying. I called the office secretaries and told them and they were like, "uh we will call you back when we find out how to fix this problem. " And it's been 2 weeks. So...yeah...2 weeks without a phone. Pretty annoying.

Things that I like: So apparently we have a Walmart here but they rebranded it here in Brazil. They call it BIG. (the english word). So we went there today and they had a lot of stuff that was a lot cheaper than the other supermarkets here. The only problem is that it's a 25 minute walk there. So it's quite the long walk for groceries for the week but a lot cheaper. And then the other thing that I like, we're going to talk about Pão de Queijo again because a member made it for us this Sunday and it was REALLY good fresh.

So that's it for this week. We haven't really been finding a lot of people to teach or progressing so that's why I haven't been talking about any of our friends. So yeah, we are kind of having difficulties there, but everything is great here.

And WASH YOUR HANDS! Watch out for the Corona Virus. I think I am more safe here than you guys are there in the states because we don't have many confirmed cases in the area here close. So be safe and stay healthy.

Spiritual Thought: I would just like to bear my testimony that we have a real prophet that receives revelation. It's amazing to see what the church has done to take precautions with the corona virus. I know that if we follow the prophets guidance, all will be alright.

-- Elder Olson

p.s I received a photo that Isa (who I was teaching in Hidrolandia) was baptized!!!