Take me to church

 Hello hello!

I hope you are all doing great. The weeks are flying by. This week the other Elders in our apartment had to travel to Goiania for a few days, so it was pretty quiet in our apartment. But, it was good. We had 2 friends at church this week! Fernanda came again, and she is really liking it. Also, a friend of a member decided to go to church with us as well!

Something fun we got to do this week was make pizza at a member's house for them for lunch (we didn't eat there, of course). But it was good to serve them and share the greatness of Hawaiian pizza with them. Hawaiian pizza doesn't exist down here, but my Brazilian friends love it.

Please include Onaldo in your prayers. He is on oxygen now and has been in extreme pain.

Spiritual thought:

I got to give a talk in church again this Sunday. It was basically about how we have to let God prevail in our lives by hearing his voice and acting on it. There are so many distractions in this world, but we need to put all of them aside and listen to the still, small voice of the spirit. I know that as we let God prevail in our lives and listen to the spirit, we will stay on the path that leads to eternal life!

-Elder Olson

Photos!

1. Making pizza with a member family

2. Burger King (again, but probably for the last time because I gotta lose some weight)

It's Over!

Feliz Natal!!!

It's over! My Corona Virus isolation time is over! We got out on Friday and celebrated Saturday by going to Vinnie's (an awesome local restaurant) to buy cheese steaks. 10/10 would recommend their cheese steak. Also, this week on Thursday we had in person interviews with President Nye. Technically we weren't supposed to leave the house, but President called us and told us to come anyway and we would just do the interview outside. It was nice to get out.

Also this week we got to actually have a lesson with someone! We said a prayer, and then randomly called somebody in our area book and she answered. We had an amazing lesson and the spirit was super strong. We got her a Book of Mormon and she is excited to read it. Hopefully we can help her progress. 

Love you all and have a great Christmas!

Spiritual thought: I would like to invite you all to remember the true meaning of Christmas. Remember Jesus Christ is the real gift of Christmas. I feel so blessed to be serving him on his Birthday.

Things I like: It snowed!! We built a big snowman with the Spanish Elders, and played spike ball in the snow. It was a good time.

Things I hate: not being able to go to the store last P-day was pretty lame, but we're all good now.

Photos

1. Snowman

2. My district with the Snowman

3. Playing spikeball

4. Me in the storm

5. Me and my comp Elder Giles

It was only a matter of time...

Hey everybody.

Well, it was only a matter of time. I got the Corona Virus (Most likely, I still have to go get tested tomorrow). I got to my new apartment here in Chambersburg and met my new companion and district. We live in a nice apartment that has plenty of space, and even has a dishwasher! My companion is Elder Giles from Sandy Utah. He's a nice guy. I live here with my district, which is just the 2 other Elders, Elder Harrast and Woffinden, that we live with. The first morning here, Elder Harrast lost his taste, and then soon after I started getting headaches. Elder Harrast tested positive, but I wasn't allowed to test yet. Pretty sure we all have it though. It's not bad for me, I can still taste, I just have headaches and my throat is a bit sore. Just symptoms of a minor cold basically.

So yeah, it's been kind of a crazy week. Sadly, we don't really have a teaching pool, but luckily the members of this ward are awesome. Our ward mission leader and ward missionaries are always setting up appointments with ward members for us. I've never seen such a missionary oriented ward, it's awesome! 

Spiritual thought: I would encourage all of you to go watch the Christmas devotional from last night. It was amazing! They focused a lot on how the true gift of Christmas is our Savior Jesus Christ. I know that to be true.

Things I like: Dishwashers. This ward. Our new Hybrid Rav-4 we get to drive.

Things I hate: My bed is basically a pool floaty, it's one of those tiny air mattresses. But hey, at least I don't have to sleep on the floor.

Photos! (Not many this week)

1. Saying goodbye to the best trio 😪

2. Mine and Elder Giles ad for giving out free Bibles on Facebook  

Its evolving, but backwards

Hello everybody,

This week has been an interesting one. It started off with a lot of bad news. First of all, Pam texted us and told us she doesn't want to meet anymore, which was very sad for us. Also, the mission has a bunch more restrictions due to covid again. We can't have in person zone conference anymore, we can only have district council in person once a week, and we can only have district activities once a month.

But, our zoom zone conference was still amazing and I learned a lot about building genuine relationships with people. Other than zone conference, not much has happened. We haven't had any lessons this week, except with members. But, our zoom english class is finally growing so that's exciting!

Spiritual thought: In Ether 6, the Jaredites are traveling in barges for 344 days. It is a really difficult journey. But instead of complaining, they give thanks to God the whole time. We need to always be grateful to God even in the hard times.

Things I like: The weather has been nice enough this week to allow us to go on some good walks.

Things I hate: The mouse has struck from the dead. We pulled out the fridge, because for some reason our crawl space is back there and the landlord sent someone to look at it, and there was a fat pile of mouse crap under the fridge. So fun.

Photos!

Intermission Blog Post

Hey Everybody,

It’s been a while since I have written about my mission. I Just wanted to share my experience with coming home and my temporary release. I received my reassignment last week, I’m going to the Baltimore, Maryland mission leaving August 11th! So, I thought it would be a good time to share what happened and what’s going on now. It’s gonna be a long one, so if you don’t read all of it, at least read the spiritual thought at the bottom.

I’m going to start from the beginning. It all started out very slow, and went downhill rapidly.

First it was we couldn’t shake hands, then church meetings were cancelled, then we weren’t allowed to have lunch with members, a week later, we were put into quarantine. We didn’t have a phone or anything so there was nothing to do except study and play uno. But, 2 days later we got the call we never expected. It was a Monday morning, and as we started our studies we got a call that all foreigners would be Going home. It was Devastating. I didn’t know what to think. We were able to call our parents to tell them. As soon I said it out loud to them, it all turned real. I was very upset and disappointed. We packed up that same day and moved to our District leaders house. By Monday night, I felt an overwhelming peace with what was happening and was able to accept it. We spent the next day at his house eating all of our food we had left (I had 4 boxes of mac and cheese left and Elder Buys had a Birthday cake mix) and playing games. It was a pretty boring day, but definitely the best part of our Journey home.

Ok, on to everybody’s favorite part, things that I hate: Our Journey to get home. It went something like this: Tuesday night at midnight we finally started our journey. It was an 8 hour van ride to Goiânia, then we spent Wednesday day and night at an apartment close to the airport. Thursday, we got on a short flight to São Paulo, then sat in the airport lines for about 8 hours with the thousands of other missionaries. By midnight, we got on the flight to LA. We spent all of Friday in the Airport, and I got back late that night.

Things That I like: Everything in the USA is so clean. It’s not a bajillion degrees outside. I can shower without sandals. There aren’t ants in everything. In LA, Elder Peek and I found nutter butters, peanut butter M&M’s, reeses pieces, chips ahoy, and a Shake shack (which was out of shakes, I was pretty upset, but the burgers were great).

Anyways, Since I have been back, I was released and I have been working at home doing customer service, and spending my free time biking and catching up on movies (I highly recommend Jojo Rabbit and Peanut Butter Falcon).

But, on to the good part.

My spiritual thought: Through my time in Brazil and my experience coming home, God has taught me so much. One of the biggest things I have learned is patience and acceptance. There are so many times when things didn't live up to my expectations. I had just accepted the fact that I was gonna be in Brazil for 2 years, when I was suddenly sent home. For just a moment I questioned why God would do this to me. Why would he make me do such hard things for 8 months and not even let me have the opportunity to finish my mission serving the people I love? Well that thought passed quickly as I felt the comfort that this was all part of his plan.

I have learned that we don’t always know why things happen to us, but it is all part of our Heavenly Father’s perfect plan. I know that he loves each one of us. I know that as we seek to submit to his will and accept our trials, we can find true happiness. I have no idea why I have been sent home early, or why the world has to suffer from this pandemic. But if we put our faith and trust in God, I know we can find peace and happiness amidst our trials. I am excited for what the future holds for me and pray that each one of you can find peace in Christ during this trying time. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Muito Amor,
Elder Olson

Photos from my last week in the mission in Brazil under quarantine.

week 33: I guess Corona is worse

Oí tudo mundo,


You all have probably heard already, but this week I will be cominghome because of the Carona Virus. It looks like we will be reassignedfor a different mission after 2 weeks of social isolation after I gethome. Thanks for all the love and support!
-- Elder Olson

Note from Elder Olson's mom: Well, I guess the Corona Virus won out. We received word from Elder Olson's Mission President on Sunday night that he would be heading home for a two week quarantine and then mission reassignment. The email is below.

March 22, 2020

Dear Family an Stake President,


In accordance with the latest announcements issued by the First Presidency with temporary adjustments made to missionary work and in response to the rapid increase of travel advisories and restrictions emerging around the world, the following steps are being taken in regards to foreign missionaries serving in Brazil:

· All missionaries returning to the United States and Canada who have more than 180 days left to complete their mission will be temporarily reassigned after their arrival. Missionaries who have less than 180 days left on their mission will be released.
· All sister missionaries returning to the United States and Canada who have less than 90 days left to complete their mission should be released. Sister missionaries who have more than 90 days left on their mission will be temporarily reassigned after their arrival.
· All missionaries who return to the United States and Canada must be quarantined for 14 days upon their arrival.

We will immediately communicate the flight itinerary to each missionary's stake president as soon as flights are confirmed.
We extend our gratitude, love and earnest pleading that the Holy Ghost may comfort us all at this time.

Sincerely,
President Piros

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!!!

Isa is in the middle.

Here are a few pictures from Zone Conference

our last zone conference before the cancellation of meetings

they feed us well

Elder Williams and I (good to see old CTM friends)

 Here are pictures from the apartment. It's smaller than our old place but newer and cleaner and there are no bugs so that's the best.

the bedroom. the beds are kind of broken. 

my study area

hallway

washing machine

main room

we have a pull-up bar. we are trying to be better about exercise

The bathroom

the other bedroom