Do we really have faith? (week 28)

HEEEEEEEEEEEEELLOOOOO WONDERFUL HUMAN BEINGS!!!!! Another LOOOOOOONG week here in Valle Grande!!

This week really has not been very eventful.....we have been working with our baptismal dates Virgina and Reinaldo, and they have been progressing super well and have almost every single lesson. BUUUUUUT they did not come to church this last Sunday because of the rain, soooo they cannot be baptized on the 20th so that blows, but I still love them. They work in a sewing studio and it rained super hard one day and the whole place flooded with gross brown water...that was fun. Virginia also sewed me and Elder Flores both a Colombian flag tie.....it's the fav!!! Elder Chaiña had one and only wore it to baptisms, I think I am gonna do the same thing.

I am lucky that I have Elder Eldredge here!!! I have struggled a ton with John buuuuut Elder Eldredge probably struggles a ton more with his John.....Idk it's just nice to have somebody to talk to about all things that have gone on!

My Spanish is stilllllll strugggggling a looooooooooooooooooooot hahahahaha Hermana Cecilia always encourages me and is always like "you only have like 6 months, when you get back you will able to write me a bunch in Spanish!" I seriously love her!!! She always takes care of us....she offered to cook for us on Sunday but we told her about our rule of not being able to eat with the members, SO GUESS WHAT SHE DID.....she went out and bought us hamburgers to break our fast with....and they were like giant good hamburgers too!!! We are lucky to have her in this area.

A lot of people of asked me how the Nuñez family is doing....and they are doing tons and tons better!!! And they have been coming to church....ALL OF THEM. The other day the grandma showed me her worldwide coin collection...it's actually pretty sweet! She has coins from just about everywhere and some of them are super ancient.....she has coins from Ecuador......that's how you know that those coins are ancient (Ecuador uses american dollars now) and Carlos showed me this English program that his mom used to use. Basically you laid on this microphone pillow and it played English audio as you fell asleep.....it also came with a record player and records for during the day.....that was all kinds of interesting for me.

Ward Council meeting yesterday was INSANE!!! In Ciudad Modelo we would have ward council meeting like maybe once a month for 15 minutes, but here we have them every other week for 2 hours......and the bishop tells it like it is....yesterday he was like "sooooo who here in the ward council is fasting" and nobody raised their hand, and then he went on a big rant about how we cannot be leaders and ask the ward to do spiritual things we when don't.....it's very true!!!

WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY NEXT POINT!!!! We need to be examples to each other.....if you are not living the gospel how are other people going to learn about the joys and the blessings of living the gospel? If we are not demonstrating our faith through our actions do we really have faith? That question is a writing prompt......this weeks challenge is to answer that question in our challenge notebooks......I would love to hear any responses that anybody has for me!!

Also I totally read the ward newsletter today and I very much learned that I have my very own way of writing letters hahahaha

ANYWAYS, looooove you guys tons!!!!! Looking forward to Sunday!

LOVE YOU

ELDER OLSEN,

P.S Aubrey I cannot write you back but I am voting for Kennedy over Adalyn....glad we have that established. (Garrett asked me what Dane and I are naming the baby and I gave him our two choices...it's good he voted for Kennedy because Adalyn wasn't one of them haha!)