Week 27: 6 months in the mission

Week 27,  3rd week of 4th transfer

February 10, 2020

Hello!

This week I reach 6 months in the mission! So I followed tradition and burned a tie...but it wasn't my tie. It was a ties of my companion. It was really crappy and old. I bought him a new tie 'cause he doesn't have very many and burnt one of his old really crappy falling apart ones. I'll include pictures.

Also this week, we had Zone Conference. I was late to the leadership meeting because nobody told me that I had to be 30 minutes early. So that wasn't cool. Also, this week in church, I had to give a talk, but it was actually a really cool experience because the microphone was broken in the chapel (because they are renovating the chapel there so the microphone wasn't working there) and so I had to speak really loud. But the Bishop had asked everybody to be extra reverent because of this problem with the microphone, so it was actually pretty cool because everybody was really reverent, which isn't usually the case. Usually people are like talking or on their cell phones. But it seemed like everybody was a lot more focused this meeting. So that was cool. It was my first talk in a ward here in Brazil in Portuguese. But yeah it went really well.

Onto our friends:

Jose, who I talked about last week, who was in church, the friend of Rafael and Elizabeth. Well, We scheduled a few appointments this week to teach him and every time we scheduled one in the morning and one at night and he wasn't there. It happened four times this week and then he wasn't in church either, so we are pretty upset about that. Sadly, he definitely won't be baptized next week. 

Then the other people...in church we had 5 people this week. Rafael, Elizabeth, again, which is great. And they brought their friend Milton, who was in church a couple weeks ago, maybe last week...yeah last week. But yeah he's not married legally so that's a problem...we can't baptized him. His situation is difficult because his girlfriend that he's living with is only 16 and so she needs her parents to be there when she gets married to be witnesses to sign the marriage documents or whatever, but they live WAYYYYY on the other side of the country. So that's not going to be happening any time soon. So we've just been inviting them to church and activities. But we are going to teach them but not use a lot of time there, but they are really interested so that's good so we are just going to keep sharing the gospel with them and hopefully one day they get married legally and somebody can baptize them.

Then the other two people in church, was the other Jose (surprisingly) and his wife Elezangela. So we passed by their house just one time this week and just shared a scripture and he came to church. We know that he REALLY likes the church but he just doesn't feel like he NEEDS to be baptized. He doesn't understand the need for proper authority. So our plan is just to help him feel the spirit, share scriptures with him, continue inviting him to activities and to church until he realizes he needs to be baptized basically.

Onto things that I hate: I kind of talked about this already, but....cleaning the bathroom. This week we had to clean the house completely...a deep clean. So basically you clean the house the same way you clean the bathroom...throw water and soap everywhere and scrub and throw more water and scrub and throw more water and then throw more water. So yeah, it's not very fun. It took like 3 hours this morning. 

But things that I like this week: It was like 65-80 degrees this entire week! IT WAS AWESOME! Right now it's super nice. My companion is freezing to death but it's great for me. 

Spiritual Thought: This week I had the opportunity to talk in church about Charity. I found a great quote from this last conference I want to share with you. President Nelson said...

"Latter-day Saints, as with other followers of Jesus Christ, are always looking for ways to help, to lift, and to love others. They who are willing to be called the Lord’s people “are willing to bear one another’s burdens, … to mourn with those that mourn; … and [to] comfort those that stand in need of comfort.”3

They truly seek to live the first and second great commandments. When we love God with all our hearts, He turns our hearts to the well-being of others in a beautiful, virtuous cycle.

We should always be looking for opportunities to help one another. 

That's it for this week!

-- 

Elder Olson

6 months! tie burning

fire

Churrasco!

João Vitor da Paixão 1, An old man in the ward with alzheimers who is hilarious.

Week 14: service and churrasco

This is week 2 of transfer 2.

This week we discovered you can make tortillas out of pastel dough, so we're pretty excited about that.  We're going to make tacos one day, but a, this week was good.  Sadly we had nobody come to church, but we had 2 investigators who had a good excuse. I talked about Jacqline before, but I don't know if I've talked about her friend, but we've been teaching them both. They didn't come because of a test they had for school, a really important test for college. We had a lesson with them the other day that was really awesome. We were with some of the other youth of the ward, 2 young women and a young man, and we read a chapter of the Book of Mormon---2 Nephi 31, it's a great chapter---and then let people comment. I could tell our friends could feel the Spirit.  Afterward the members, the youth of the ward, shared their testimonies and conversion stories and it was a really spiritual experience. I think it will help our friends Jacquline and Matisha feel the Spirit and know what it's like to feel the Spirit so they can receive an answer about the church.

Also this week we got to do a service project, so that was cool. We helped a sister in the ward move.  It was fun because it was something different from our normal schedule.  I've included a picture in the email. After the service project for lunch, one of the members gave us 10 more Reals than usual so we decided to make churrasco, which is BBQ, so we bought a bunch of meat and cooked it over a fire outside our house.  It was pretty awesome.  I included pictures of that too.

On to things I hate: This week there are these cars that drive around and blast ads that are always really annoying, but there is one in particular for a circus that is in town that is so annoying and somehow all the cars are playing the same ad and wherever we were in our area it was always playing.  It repeats over and over, during our study time, when we're walking in the street, during our lessons with people.  It's the most ANNOYING thing ever.

Things that I like:  I've started reading the book Saints (I've read parts before the mission, but I've started at the beginning in Portuguese and it's helping learn a bit more.) It's super interesting and I would recommend everyone read it.  I hear that the second one is out already, so if you've read the first one, go read the second one because I'm sure it's good too.

This next week we have zone conference so that will be fun. 

Spiritual Thought: 

2 Nephi 31: 20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a ^asteadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of ^bhope, and a ^clove of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and ^dendure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have ^eeternal life.

I want to focus on the part about love of all men. Our journey to eternal life isn't just about getting ourselves to eternal life, but helping strengthen others too. I want to challenge you to share your testimony, or a scripture or something on social media or with a person you feel needs it. 

-- 

Elder Olson

Photos: service, chuhassco, and a cool dirt road