My Concern is Helping Others (week 53)

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUU GUYYYYYYS!!!!!!

How are you all doing? I hope everyone and everything is going good up there!!! I had a slightly better week this week.....we worked really hard, mostly visiting less active members (buuuut they all came to church soooo wooooh!) We also had a weekly attendance of seven investigators.....could of been nine but two left early.

This week we were chilling in the third hour of church when President Zembrano (Presidente of District Popayan) called for us to talk with him. At first I was like "ohhhh shoooot what did we do wrong" but noooope.....He told us that we need to get the ball rolling with a family.....we had an interview with him and I guess one of them had some problems with some of the questions that we ask in interviews for baptism, but she got them cleared up......soooo yeah that was a miracle. Tomorrow we will have a pre=interview with them and I am sure that because transfers are on Sunday they will be baptized. Hopefully that works out!! We had another date for this Saturday....and his mom is a member!! Buuuuuuuut he has problems with WOW and he is difficult to find and teach, I am thinking we will have to move his date.

This week the branch had a Halloween party....it was the same as all ward activities in this country, move all the chairs in the chapel and turn on salsa music hahahahahah President Chavaro put us in charge of making sandwiches for everyone sooo that's what we did hahahaha.....people were really just starting to get there when we had to go, so that blows but it was still fun!!!!

We also spent a day up in the mountains as a district.....we were in Elder Torres and Elder Hernandezs area and we just moved a bunch of wood boards and watched as their investigator added on to his house....it was pretty rad I guess!!! Elder Hernandez is from Honduras so we had a nice chat about Roatan. Roatan is really different from the mainland I guess.....but still it's pretty cool that I can kinda understand where he comes from.

Other than that we didn't do too much we walked and walked and walked.....we didn't focus too much on finding new investigators this week, just working with the ones that we have anddddd ughhhh they could all easily progress but they just aren't and that frustrates me sooooooooooooooooooo baddddd!!! But it's whatever.

So something cool happened this week......I HIT MY YEAR!!! And teeeenaz my feelings about that are all over the place.....sometimes I start thinking about how I miss home and I just want to lay in front of the fireplace, cuddling with somebody, eating some hot cheetos while playing Zelda.....but then I think.....what I am gonna do without my members and investigators, what I am I gonna do without Choclitos.......and everybody better know that I REFUSE TO BE ON A DIFFERENT CONTINENT THAN HERMANA LIDIA......nope, no way!!!! The mission is hard and there has been lots of challenges....like learning the language, teaching, getting along with another companion, problems with my health, problems with my safety....I don't know, there is a big list but when I think about the experiences that I have had.....VALE....VALE LA PENA!!! I love the mission, it's hard but it's something that you will ever be able to do again.....not in this way anyway. I am learning to look at things differently.....things change when your concern is only how you can help others....I hope that I can keep that state of mind after the mission. Here is to another year of doing what I love to do.....helping others be happy through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I encourage everybody to try and do the same.

Love you all so much....I hope you all have a radical week!

Elder Olsen

This dork 

 Vanessa (Christian Benitez's little sister) and her littles!

 Somos locos

watching the littles color 

Service Project up in the mountains 

 Building a house

Popayan in the distance 

Mountains and mountains

 More and more mountains!!

 ZONA POPAYAN!!!! Well everybody that came to play soccer today!!!

Christlike Attributes are Rad (WEEK 52, HALFWAY THERE!!!)

Teeeeeeeeeenaz family!!! It feels like it's been 18 trillion years since I last wrote you.....lots of things have gone down.

WE HAD INTERVIEWS!! And they went super duper good. I was talking to Hermana Whitesides about how I don't have a ton of motivation for Spanish after a few things some of the Latinos said to me and she was like "a lot of these Latinos have the same amount of time that you have in the mission and are you hearing their English?" I was like "Hermana we are in a Spanish speaking country...it's easier for me blah blah blah" and she looked at me with serious eyes but a sarcastic smile and said "ELDER OLSEN YOU ARE ARGUING WITH ME.....AND YOU ARE DOING IT IN A LANGUAGE YOU CLAIM YOU CANNOT SPEAK" and I just started laughing hahahahah I was able to talk to President about my health and some things that have been going on with my companion...it was good to get some advice.

My companion and I are doing better....we aren't perfect but we are better. Yesterday we had a THREE HOUR inventory...sooo yeah, we had to end it because the LZ came to house to do revisions baahahahahahahha whoops! We also picked up his x-ray exams today so I think that he is doing better.

Because we didn't do very well last week Elder Torres and his companion came with us this week to do divisions.....all of us in our area, I was with Elder Torres. He's really good at contacting though and I was able to learn a lot....that helped us a ton and we were able to meet our goals for new investigators for this week.

Its been a frustrating go this transfer, with my comp and with the area and stuff but I am always learning and growing....I am for sure a more patient person now than I was before, which is good. Patience is a Christlike attribute and unfortunately bad and hard things have to happen for us to learn and grow.....it sucks but it's part of agency!!! There's a lot of things that I can't change but I can change the way I think about things and I how am doing my work....I try my hardest every single day and that is what counts!!!

Love you guys tons!! Thank you for all you do for me.

ELDER OLSEN

 Helping Hermana Edith walk the littles home

Happy Birthday Elder Cadena 

 This dork

Helping my comp grab some socks that he accidentally dropped in the apartment below ours 

 The horse from a distance

The view from halfway there 

Hahahah no comment

Almost there 

The view from the top 

 The clouds were super raaadical

I own this horse

Becoming More Like Our Savior, Jesus Christ (week 51)

Heeeeeeey you guys!!!! This week was eeeeeeeeh. We had lots of bumps in the road and because of that we weren't able to get a ton of work done.....it's super rough, but it's life.

The first thing that went down is Elder Monserrate has been having a ton of issues with his stomach and his nose. Soooooo yeah, we had to go to a doctor and we are gonna have to go to some more so he can get some tests done so we can find and fix the problem.

Buuuuuut zone confrence was really good....I was a little disappointed because the saw DID NOT make an appearance but Hermana was quick to teach us that we need to be passing the saw.....con amor xD hahahahaha!! We just talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how we can more effectively apply and teach it in our lives. It was really interesting. They also brought some of the secretaries....and Elder Robinson (our secretary of materials) had an interesting power point, he talked about how when we break things in our apartments they need to know about it. He then showed us a picture of a broken shower head....which I quickly recognized....and I just turned right around and stared at Elder Brizuela....cause that shower head was in Ciudad Modelo.....and he broke it xD We were trying so hard not to laugh....we didn't do a good job though and Elder Robinson made us read the next slides of the power point hahahahahahaha! I also got my package!!! Thank you guys...I opened it briefly but after looking at a few of the contents I sealed it back up.....hahaha I will open that the 25th! (Garrett has been out a year on the 25th!!! Wahoo! So we sent him a hump-day package to celebrate!)

But yeah this week we just tried to find all of references because our current investigators really just are not progressing, the majority of them are not married and cannot progress :( We didn't really have luck finding our references this week either.....and our numbers were sooooo awful ugggh, I am sure that i am gonna hear about it from Elder Torres tomorrow.

Hahaha another somewhat funny/embarrassing thing happened! So the other Elders in the ward had a baptism and Elder Quispe and I were called to witness....naturally as a witness I was paying attention to the kid who was being baptized, mostly his body (because that is literally usually the only problem) and I guess Elder Quispe was doing the same thing because we didn't catch that the guy who was baptizing was using his left hand.....annnnd Presidente Chavaro very much passed the saw.....but not with amor xD that's the thing people don't realize....just because I am a missionary does not mean I AM NOT PERFECT, I have literally only had the higher priesthood for what? A year? Those things take time and learning.

That is something I have thought about this week.....we aren't perfect. We aren't sinless but through the gospel and the atonement of Jesus Christ we can learn everything we need to know. We can become more like our Savior. It's hard, and it takes patience but its so doable, and I think we need to be consistently repenting, trying and thinking about how we can do the things that we need to do to become more like him!!! Just some thoughts from this week!!!

Hope all is swell, love you all

Elder Olsen

 This Wagua was so proud of his bubble handwriting hahahah

(Also notice how his hand is on his chest cause he was like that all week long)

We got bored waiting for a baptism so here's a random picture of a centipede and a flower hahahaha 

A cool park that we found while exploring at the centro today!! 

 More photos of this cool park

 annnnnd more

 One more of this park

This is what the centro looks like 

 Popayan has the nickname "white city" for a reason.

 One more of the centro

 The wheels on the bus go round and round

Hermana Francia made us salchipapas today!! Noooooom noooom!