Heeeeey you guys!
I decided to hand write my letter today (typed by Aubrey) while Elder Chacon writes his family to save some time and be able to send some of my last pictures from Pasto.
But all is well here in Popayan, it's been a big stress for me this last week trying to learn and open the area. Our area book is sooo awful! I'm lucky that I have Elder Chacon. He's been really good with memorizing the area and finding directions...all the things that I am bad at! He's really obedient too. I really just don't like the weather here, it's either hot or really rainy and when it rains in Popayan...IT RAINS IN POPAYAN. I've been really worried about my hearing aid...it's not going to do well here :(
Our house is terrible. It's really dirty and gross and the neighbors below us are constantly BLASTING their music and smoking weed so that has not been a fund thing to deal with. The missionaries actually haven't lived in this apartment for very long, maybe three weeks! They had to change the apartment because the last one had a pool and a ton of disobedience went down...the area has actually had lots of problems with the missionaries and now we get to deal with it. Literally every two seconds "do you muchachos want breakfast tomorrow?" and then we have to kindly explain the rules and then they get all offended because all the other missionaries ate with the members...me molesta mucho.
We have a really good pensionista named Francia. She actually is not a member of the church, she wants to be but she lives with her husband and they are not married. They want to be married but she has to be divorced from her first husband and they that's not the easiest process here in Colombia.
While the other missionaries were awful about filling the arca book we have been able to find some really great people to teach. The Benitez family is a part-member family that are really great. Christen is a member but his wife Fernanda and their two kids are not (well one of them is five years old sooo...). However, she has a desire to be baptized but she's worried that she'll regret her decision. I'm not worried about her, the fact that she is worried means that she understands how important it is, so we'll be working hard to help her.
The Burbano family is also the family of Fernanda, all of her sisters and her mom. The problem is that they listen to all the missionaries of all different kinds of churches. The Jehovah's Witnesses are always leaving as we get there. Those girls have their agency and they don't wanna use it to learn and gain a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, they only wanna ask us questions about who Jehova is and when we give them scriptures to answer their questions they don't read it :( it's frustrating but I have faith that we can help them.
The Ordonez family is pretty special too! We found them on our "future investigators list" which basically means the Elders contacted them and then never visited them again! (Big surprise!) I think it's because German and his wife aren't married...but that doesn't scare me ;) But we just talked a lot about the restoration and Joseph Smith...we were explaining to German about how we can know the Book of Mormon is true...after that he looked at us with a weird face and said "I don't need to read your book to know it's true" which surprised me. Then he went on to say "it's obvious from a missionary's and pastors expression, their words, the way they present their message that what they are saying is true, orrrr that if they just want money and what you boys are telling me is the truth." That was a very powerful and spiritual experience for me. It's amazing how the spirit can work through us to be able to help other people.
So yeah that's how the area is going...mas o menos. However I know that we have some golden investigators. that can progress, but I'm smart...I know that to be able to help a golden investigator you have to be a golden missionary. You have got to be on it! Praying and thinking about how you can help them. This isn't just a "full time" missionary problem, we should all be praying, finding and having missionary opportunities and not only praying FOR the missionaries, that's chichi! So yeah the challenge is:
A) Pray for missionary activities
B) Recognize them
C) TAKE ACTION
D) Receive the happiness/blessings
E) Write me about it
F) Repeat
God has so many chances and opportunities for other people but we need to help him do his work, we all need to be golden missionaries! And when we are we can receive even more of the blessings he has for us! It's the truth :)
Loooove you honey bunches and oats!
Elder Olsen
These are the only pictures I have from here in Popayan...
Our chapel
The view from outside of our house
The Burbano family is also the family of Fernanda, all of her sisters and her mom. The problem is that they listen to all the missionaries of all different kinds of churches. The Jehovah's Witnesses are always leaving as we get there. Those girls have their agency and they don't wanna use it to learn and gain a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, they only wanna ask us questions about who Jehova is and when we give them scriptures to answer their questions they don't read it :( it's frustrating but I have faith that we can help them.
The Ordonez family is pretty special too! We found them on our "future investigators list" which basically means the Elders contacted them and then never visited them again! (Big surprise!) I think it's because German and his wife aren't married...but that doesn't scare me ;) But we just talked a lot about the restoration and Joseph Smith...we were explaining to German about how we can know the Book of Mormon is true...after that he looked at us with a weird face and said "I don't need to read your book to know it's true" which surprised me. Then he went on to say "it's obvious from a missionary's and pastors expression, their words, the way they present their message that what they are saying is true, orrrr that if they just want money and what you boys are telling me is the truth." That was a very powerful and spiritual experience for me. It's amazing how the spirit can work through us to be able to help other people.
So yeah that's how the area is going...mas o menos. However I know that we have some golden investigators. that can progress, but I'm smart...I know that to be able to help a golden investigator you have to be a golden missionary. You have got to be on it! Praying and thinking about how you can help them. This isn't just a "full time" missionary problem, we should all be praying, finding and having missionary opportunities and not only praying FOR the missionaries, that's chichi! So yeah the challenge is:
A) Pray for missionary activities
B) Recognize them
C) TAKE ACTION
D) Receive the happiness/blessings
E) Write me about it
F) Repeat
God has so many chances and opportunities for other people but we need to help him do his work, we all need to be golden missionaries! And when we are we can receive even more of the blessings he has for us! It's the truth :)
Loooove you honey bunches and oats!
Elder Olsen
These are the only pictures I have from here in Popayan...
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