40 in 6?

Hello everyone!

I am now writing to you from my new area in Goiânia! I am loving this area. There is a TON of work to do. Since we are whitewashing this area, there are a bunch of uncontacted referrals, so we find all of the people we teach from referrals. The members here are also really awesome. We introduced ourselves to most of them on WhatsApp, and a bunch of them passed referrals of people who may be interested. We found a bunch of new people this week and had some very spiritual lessons. 

Our second morning here, the mission president called us. He challenged us to baptize 40 people by the end of the transfer because they are trying to open a branch here. That's quite a few... But we happily accepted the challenge! Please keep us in your prayers so that we can reach this goal! 

On Saturday night, the bishop here called to ask us both to give talks in church the next morning. I was nervous I wouldn't have enough time to prepare my talk, but it went super well. It was probably one of the best talks I've ever given.

Today, (p-day) we are deep cleaning the apartment because it was absolutely disgusting when we got here. I don't think anyone has ever cleaned it.

Anyways, I hope you are doing well and that you enjoyed this longer than normal update!

Spiritual thought: I've probably shared this scripture before, but I wanted to share it again Alma 29:9 "I know that which the Lord has commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself,  but I glory in that which the Lord has commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy" I would like to testify that there is no greater joy than doing that which God commands and helping others repent.

-Elder Olson

Photos!

1. Our first day here (on the balcony of our apartment 

2. Church after our talks

3. Sushi

Father and Son Reunited

Oi pessoal!

Happy Independence day! Living outside of the country has helped me realize how blessed we are to be Americans. Today, I start my final transfer. Surprisingly, I am not staying here in Rio Verde. I will be finishing my mission in Goiânia, and my companion will be Elder Bezerra, my son (I trained him)! It's always so sad to leave an area, but I'm so excited to be companions with Elder Bezerra again! Its going to be a blast.

The work this week was pretty slow, lots of appointments fell through. But, it was still good. Nothing too crazy. I'd like to thank everyone for your prayers for Onaldo, he is recovering well, and his doctor said it's a miracle that he lived through it! 

Spiritual thought: This week we watched a missionary devotional with Elder and Sister Christopherson. Sister Christopherson talked about the principle of "unpacking our bags". For example, whenever the saints had to reestablish, the Lord commanded them to basically act like they were going to stay for a long time, and that made it so they always prospered wherever they went. They put their all into it and labored diligently every time. When we never stop to labor diligently in the service of the Lord (or in any worthy cause) we will prosper.

Thanks to everyone who supports me and writes me! I love hearing from you.

-Elder Olson

Photos:

1. Happy Independence day! (We didn't have a flag, so I drew one.

2-3. Cereal. You all know I love cereal. My companion does too. During the past 2 transfers, we bought basically all the different types of cereal that exist here and rated them from best to worst

There is a work to do

Oi gente, bão??

This week has been absolutely crazy and awesome. So much has happened. We had zone conference, and then took a 3 hour van ride to our area. Elder Bowen and I live with our District Leader, Elder Lopes, and his companion, Elder Jhonsson. They are both from Brazil. The first night here, we had 8 Elders in our apartment and only 4 beds. Luckily I got a bed haha. It has been super fun to be back in Brazil. It is really hot, but luckily, we are going into "winter" so sometimes the temperature can be in the 70's. 

Our apartment is pretty small, and kinda messy. We live next to an Avenue, and for some reason everyone in Brazil loves to straight pipe everything. I'm pretty sure motorcycles just come standard that way haha. The noise has given me quite a few middle of the night scares haha, but I'm getting used to it.

As far as the work goes, the quarantine rules are pretty similar to the states. But, this area is a big city and there is tons of work to do. The ward is really struggling, and there are many new people who want to be taught. We have already marked a baptismal date for May 8th for a lady named Gilberta! We also had a miracle happen on Facebook! On Sunday, Elder Bowen messaged someone and he responded telling us that he had just been praying to hear a message about Jesus, and BAM! We sent him a message. We had an amazing lesson, and then right after he watched church online and loved it. Sorry for the length of this email, but a lot has happened haha.

Spiritual thought: since this email is already long, I will keep this short. Miracles do happen and God has a plan for all of us!

 I love you all and appreciate all the support you give me!

-Elder Olson

Photos:

1. Reuniting with my son and other past companion (my trainee, Elder Bezerra, who is now my zone leader)

2. Me, my companion Elder Bowen, and our friend Elder Locey 

3. Tiny Banana

4. Pizza time

5. 8 Elders, one house

6. District Rio Verde!

Reuniting with my son and other past companion (my trainee, Elder Bezerra, who is now my zone leader)

Me, my companion Elder Bowen, and our friend Elder Locey

Tiny Banana

Pizza time

8 Elders, one house

District Rio Verde!

Week 19: I'm a trainer

Week 19, 1st week of 3rd transfer

December 16, 2019

This week I had a trip into the city again. Luckily this time it wasn't by bus. We had a member take us in because Elder Rodriguez was transferred into the city. He's a zone leader there now.  And I had to stay with him and pick up my companion the next day so we got there...we left tuesday and we spent the afternoon cleaning the transfer house because it was TRASHED. And then that night, I stayed with Elder Rodriguez and his new companion, and we worked for a couple of hours making contacts and stuff. The next day, in the morning, I went to the bus station to pick up my new companion Elder Bezerra. I'm training him! He's from the north east part of Brazil. So that was kind of a LONG trip. It kind of took away from...I lost a day and a half of work basically. But it was kind of fun because it was different. I got to see a lot of other missionaries. I got to see some of my old friends. 

This week, all of my friends I had been teaching with Elder Rodriguez, well, we basically had to cut all of them so we basically started over here with teaching people and finding people. We've been doing good with making contacts with everybody. We made a goal to see how many "no's" we can get basically. So once we finished our real goal of contacting people, we still want to contact more people to see if they'll say no. Not that we are trying to force (or even want) people to say no but we are trying to motivate ourselves and be happy even when we get rejected.

We had a reference from a member this week and it was WAYYYYYYYYYYY out off our map. Like it wasn't even on our map. It was a 30 minute speed walk, because we only had 1 hour left of the night. And when we got there, All we were able to do was to say Hi, tell them who we were and then leave because we had to get back home before 9. So that was basically running to get home. My legs are still kind of tired from it. Haha.

So yeah, this week has been good but we haven't been doing a lot teaching. Mostly trying to find new people to teach. We had an activity with the members this week. We had a Christmas family home evening, which was good. It's funny because it started at 7 but nobody showed up til 8:00. So that's kind of annoying, haha, but it's all good. Then yesterday we went caroling with the members to some of the older members of the ward. Some of them aren't able to make it to church because of their age or health problems because of old age. So that was kind of a cool spiritual experience.

So on to things that I hate: The transfer house. I had to sleep on this mattress that was basically springs and without a pillow so I basically didn't sleep and I had to get up at 5 (an hour and a half earlier than usual) to go get my new companion. Me and another elder who were going to the bus station to get our companions, we had to ask people on the street to get an uber for us because we didn't have a way to get to the bus station. (and we don't have smart phones with the necessary app). 

Things that I like: In the bus station I got to see a companion from the CTM, Elder Neely. So that was cool to catch up and talk with him. The first thing he said when he saw me was "Oh, you've gotten fatter!" Haha. Which was funny. But which is very true. It was funny because in the CTM they all made fun of me for being really skinny and now I've gained like 20lbs. But yeah, that was good.

This week was a lot of work, a lot trying to find new people and hopefully this next week we'll be able to do more teaching.

Spiritual Thought: I watched the new nativity video the church released, and thought a lot about the example of the shepherds and the wisemen. They dropped everything to search for christ, and when they find him, you can see the pure joy in their eyes. I want to invite you all to watch this video, The Christ Child, then think of what you need to give, or give up, for Christ. Have a great week and a Feliz Natal!

Elder Olson

1st transfer souvenir t-shirts

The 4 ninja turtles

New missionary, new companion Elder Bezerra