New Experiences (week 25)

HEEEEEEEEEY GUYS!!! This week was soooo insane, I have had so many new experiences here in Valle Grande.....it is not very far away from Ciudad Modelo, but it is a totally different world!!

Elder Flores and I are good....I am just tired of having tired companions....I want a companion with less time in the mission. When you do not have a comp that is motivated and wants to be obedient, it is hard for you to be motivated and obedient.....he does not talk very much. I think it's because half the time he does talk I do not really understand, which is rough but we will get there....this area has been very hard for me with Spanish actually. By the End of my time in Ciudad Modelo I thought my Spanish was getting decent....but nobody can understand me here. Aubrey do me a favor and look up some ways to get an accent, I have tried to the pencil in the mouth thing anddddd I don't know hahaahah. (Oh Garrett and his odd requests!)

Our district is INSANE!!! I LOVE IT SOOOOOO MUCH!!! It's such a party with Elder Eldredge and Guiterrez, I missed them!!! It's weird though, we have to go to Morichal for our district meetings so we have to take jeeps all the time....we also have to take them to get to our church since we live kinda far away!!! You just hop on and give them $1300 and you are good to go....each jeep has numbers for routes that you have to memorize!!!

I do not know very much about the ward....we have met with one member named Carlos Nuñez a lot.....he's cool!!! I have met with lots of other members too but I am not very good with names. We always ALWAYS talk about Elder Chaiña...it's something that I have in common with the members here.....he was here for a looooong time (6 months) so all the members here know him very well!! We went with Carlos one day to visit another family of members and we ended up helping them build their house. They decided to add another house on top of their current house (a lot of Colombians have a flat roofs so this is easily doable).  Sooo yeah we helped them bring bricks up and watched them lay the cement.....it was the third floor though and they did not really have a fence so it was kinda sketchy....I was not about that.

We had a stake activity for Santa Semana....this is literally the only thing that I did for Easter...I actually did not even realize it was Easter xD gotta love holidays on the mission. But the activity was for the "Prince of Peace" campaign thing. We were divided into groups and each group went through a bunch of different rooms watching videos that demonstrated how we can feel peace through the gospel of Jesus Christ......the first video was in English and it was on a tiny laptop with Spanish subtitles, sooo some kid was up there to say the subtitles ANNNNND THEEEEN the video blurrrrred out me and Elder Eldredge just sat there laughing likkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkke only in Colombia!!! Elder Eldredge is doing good though!!! He learned how to talk hahahaha anddddd he has an accent (jerk!!) Buuut yeah we sat there exchanging stories about our first areas.....he had to go to the hospital a bunch for uhhhm "stomach problems" and his shoes that were BRRRRAAAND NEW in the CCM were destroyed and he had to get them glued hahahaah! Buuuuut yeah, it is good to talk to him.

Today we went to the Central as a district....everybody was there except Elder Eldredge and Chicaiza....if you guys remember the YouTube video that we watched when I first got my call it's that place.....I have been there!!! I didn't really love it though, there is soooooo many stores and soooooo many people. We also got hamburgers....it was the weirdest hamburger I have ever had though....it had a piece of lunch meat on it xD taaaan raro!! But yeah we took a random car on the way there and on the way back.....there was not really enough seats in the second one though so I was basically on Elder Ramirez's lap....hahaha!!! When we got out of the car I seriously could not feel my feet.....they were not asleep.....they were dead!!!

Elder Garner also told me that Ciudad Modelo has been getting calls from Salt Lake asking about me and elder Brizuela.....not sure what the deal is with that and I am only slightly freaked out hahahahah!

We are getting ready for our visit from D. Todd Christofferson tomorrow!!! I am really looking forward to that....it's gonna be a good time. And I have my audiologist appointment on Wednesday....also really looking forward to that!!!

I have had lots of opportunities this week to try new experiences, but as I think about it I could've always had fun and new experiences. This weeks challenge is try something new....a new food....skydiving...going bankrupt...sending your little brother a package....the possibilities are endless!!!! Part of our experience on this life is to have experiences....to learn!!! And the only way we can do that is through new experiences......I wanna hear about how it went!!!!! (Sending Garrett packages really is going to make my parents bankrupt...holy expensive!!)

Elder Chicaiza said that has long as we wrote president we can chat....but I don't know so imma ask Elder Garner about it!!!

LOOOOOVE YOU ALL TONZO,

Elder Olsen

Coming home from the Central......and yeah I was basically on Elder Ramirezs lap hahaha 

New key chains!!!! I have 3 from Colombia and 1 from Bolivia so far!!!!

(Garrett has a big cork board with the world map on it. He collects key chains and pins them to their spot on the map! It's getting pretty full.)