Service (week 12)

Ohhhhhhh heeeeeeey friends and family!!!!!

It has been succccccccccch a busy week! Usually the weeks go by somewhat fast, but not this week!! It dragged and dragged and dragged on! But some really significant things have happened this week!

First: Transfers!! Usually everyone gets trained with 2 trainers and 1 area.....I am still here and I am still with Elder Chaiña!!! I really kinda wanted a change, I am not upset about it!! We totally have plans to go zoo this transfer so everyone pray that happens!! I am not sure about changes in the zone but I do know that one of the sisters in the district was transferred and we are getting a new one!! Hopefully she is good because we work very closely with the sisters to help the ward out!!

SECOND: something that I am really excited for is the NEW MISSION PRESIDENT WAS ANNOUNCED BY THE FIRST PRESIDENCY!!!!!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHFDHGODHGOSGHOH!! His name is Ray Whitesides!! He is a norte from Utah and should be coming around July!!!

Last week we had our zone conference and it was sooooo weird being with the whole zone one last time and saying goodbye to Elder Reeve.....he was so chill!!! But I am pretty sure Elder Mcdermott is still one of my zone leaders sooo estoy muy feliz sobre eso!!! (That means "I'm very happy about that" gotta love google translate!)

My investagators are doing okay.....not much progress there!! We had a ton of less active members and Blanca at church yesterday........BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT none of them stayed, with that being said Blanca cannot be baptized on the day we picked out for her which blooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooows!!!! But we will get there eventually......eventually.

We have not really visited Sandro and his mom much lately......they are interesting, they always want to talk about cats and drugs!! We asked her about her religious beliefs.....she is very much catholic and we asked her what inspires her faith and she just said her mom and grandma were catholic........so she is catholic!! It is actually really common to be religious for tradition here.....which I do not understand but whatever.

We have a new investigator named Rodrigo!! He owns a heladaria....so obivously I really like him!! (heladaria is an ice cream shop!) But he is also always gone because his church is during the day....all week long so he is always gone....but he is really receptive.

We also have Mileny (probs spelled wrong) we found her through one of less actives.....she's interesting, we had to pray away some of the evil spirits that she saw in her house....but she is also really receptive and has agreed to baptism once she has an answer about the Book of Mormon!! The problem is that she is always busy with her job, so it is hard for us to get appointments with her.

We have been working with a kid named Santiago Ragifo!! He is 26 but does not look a day over 17!! He kinda stopped going to church because he does not have the priesthood.....but if he does not go to church he will not get it!!! ITS SOOOOO FRUSTRATING!!! 

But what I really want to talk about is........................MY FIRST BAPTISM!!! YUP SUPRISE!! Henry is the investigator of the sisters and we have worked really closely with him and his son!! His son is not as interested though!! On Friday he had his baptism interview and picked me to baptize him......It went kinda awful but it is okay!! He was not bending his knees or plugging his nose.....and I was not shoving him in the water enough and I learned the all the words the day of soooooo that was kinda shakey....all that being said he had to be baptized 3 times!!! But I am not upset about it...practice makes perfect!! It was a cool opportunity!!! Annnnnd the biggest fear of dropping someone did not happen soooooo that was good!!!

I have been thinking alot about service....I mean I do it all day every day but honestly it is what sets our church apart from the rest....we are expected to serve in callings inside and outside the church....and honestly I think that is the best thing about the church! Service to others is service to God and by doing so we gain a close relationship with Him!! This weeks challenge is to serve!! Accept a calling because you want to......accept a calling because you want to help others and you want to help and gain a better testimony of God!! I know that by doing so you will be blessed.

LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU,

Elder Olsen

So before zone conference Elder Chaiña found this cat (he has a cat obsession)

He wanted to name it Princesa.......I wanted to name it Feo.

That's a bed in the middle of church. Bienviendo a Colombia.

Gonna miss Elder Reeve!!

The zooone

Your fav elders at night of commandments

 Finding baptism clothes for Henry!

...Dork

Is it a problem? (week 11)

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Busy day of emailing I just want to thank everyone for the support and the 18 emails that I got today!! I have the bestest people supporting me!!

Well, first things first WE HAVE A BAPTISM DATE!!!!!!! Blanca committed to be baptized on the 28 of January....so lets hope that works out. This Sunday we also had Cynthia and her sister at church, they are some of our new investigators and their mom is a less active member so I think they will do well!! Alcides dropped us because he isn't running his business where we teach anymore. We found a new barber investigator named Victor. We have also started teaching another new less active named Santiago!!! Lots and lots of work to do!! Sandro is still easily my biggest challenge.....him and his mom always have a new rant. The other day she was asking me if all the cats in north america are white because they are gringo cats!!! Hahaha!

I also had my first interview with President, Hermana Pricoli, and the assistants this week in preparation for my first transfers next week! It was kinda a challenge, I accidentally told him that there was a problem with my recommend so we had to go back and restart the conversation xD but we just kinda talked about our goals. We really wanna see more baptisms and more references.....since I am being trained and I have already had two trainers, I am sure that I will still be here with elder Chaiña which is alright.....we struggle with some things but its nothing that I cant handle!!! 

Honestly, I have been noticing that my biggest challenges are really just myself.....I am too hard on myself ALWAYS!!! That is something that I am going to be working on this week, month and transfer!! I know that this is not a ME problem. We can all easily get rid of so many problems by going back, taking a deep breath and really thinking the problem through. Is it a problem or are you making it a problem? So that is the challenge this week...STOP BEING HARD ON YOURSELF AND EAT A BAG OF HOT CHEETOS AND EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY!!!!!!

Hahaha I love you guys!! Just know that I miss you all and I pray for you all everyday,

Elder Olsen

(This next part is a handwritten letter that Garrett wrote and then took pictures of. He asked me to type it up and put it on here! Garrett and our mom always sing the Unpacking My Adjectives song (they're weird if you haven't learned that yet) so that is why he named it that!)

Unpacking My Adjectives 

Sooo there's a lot of things that I really need to write about, my letters are not as descriptive as they should be. It's so hard only having an hour to write, so I decided I would write this letter with a few details during my very slim free time during the week. 

The Area:

Okay so I'm serving in an area called Ciudad Modelo, but the ward boundaries are split in the middle to make areas called "Ciudad Modelo 1" and "Ciudad Modelo 2". Our area consists of many different neighborhoods of Cali. San Carlos, El Jardin, Agua Blanca, Fortaleza, San Pedro...there's a lot more but we don't work in those areas as much! Most of our time is spent in Jardin because that's where a lot of members and recent converts live. It's nice though because no matter where you are there's always a convenience store and a Panaderia (bread store) nearby! There is also a trillion "cane services". I asked Elder Mcdermott about what they are and he said it's like the lottery. But seriously they are everywhere. There is also a bunch of food trucks. People run out of their house...but we can't buy from them. My area is really cool! There are some really cool people that live here.

Typical Cali streets.

Those flags are on every street and hang from house to house.

The Apartment:

My house is really small and like super gross...every P. day we sweep so much dirt out of it. We have our main room, our kitchen, our bathroom, our bedroom, our closet room. We also have another bathroom attached to the closet room, but the toilet is broken and gets gross water everywhere...so I never use that bathroom. Because Colombian houses are next to each other we can hear everything...we also live above a market and we can always hear them unloading fruit from trucks. Because the buildings have these weird courtyard things we have windows..but the rain is always so loud and I wake up (the roof is tin). We also have to rent a washing machine, but I always just wash my clothes by hand because it is cheaper and easier...and for any missionary mom's that may be reading, each apartment comes with a bottom of Permethrin :) I have also gotten really used to cold showers...it took me like two weeks but I can do it now with no issues haha! Another fun fact is that lizards crawl all over our walls sometimes, I have also found rats but not as often. 

Our closet room.

 Our bathroom.

 Our bedroom.

 Our kitchen...only rich people have ovens here.

Our main room. 

The ward:

I really like the ward here...there is a sense of community that I really like! There is a lot of older people and a lot of people between the ages of 14-20. So the younger programs seem to be strong for such a small ward. The chapel is tiny, it's about the size of my high school seminary building. It's nice though, it looks exactly like the CCM. But back to the ward, there is a lot of less active members but the ward is really good about helping us in anyway that they can! We always get Carlos and Favian (two priests in the ward) to come teach with us...we also have noche de lugar. It's basically ward family night and the missionary all have to teach a small class. It's a good time!

 Our tiny chapel. 

Our tiny chapel hallway.

Conclusion:

I hope this answered some of your questions! I hope with the holidays behind us I can write some good letters...it's just so hard with only one hour, but I'm trying and that is what counts! I hope that my blog as been interesting for everyone! I'm glad that I have the opportunity to share my experiences :)

-Elder Olsen 

My Glue Stick (week 10)

Okay well all my ten trillion pictures are loading so I guess I better write my letter now haha! (Most of the pictures he sent were from Christmas so I added those to the last blog post if you want to check them out!)

My week was okay.....kinda frustrating but it is all good! We spent News Years Eve and New Years Day with Julieth and her family........HER WHOLE FAMILY!! Her brother was very interested in me and kept talking to me about his sister who lives in Texas....I guess she does not talk to him anymore, and because of that I got a giant rant about how North Americans forget about family.....which honestly made me kinda mad because I just wanted to spend that day with my family!! But he told me that I was a kind person and even took a picture with me.

News Years Day was weird....because they blow up mannequins for Christmas Eve there was burnt dog hair EVERYWHERE, but we just went to church and back to Julieth's....she tried to give us food but I politely had to remind everyone that we couldnt eat. We called President and he said NOOOOOOOOOOOO. Hahaha I don't think Elder Chaiña was very happy with me. But we taught her family again and then Julieth gave us a gift....a ceramic donkey thing...which was weird but HEY when in Colombia right!! After that we just taught.

We have a few new investigators, we have Sandro he's interesting...we always try teaching him something but then he will go on a rant about how the church should allow marijuana and stuff. One day we were trying to teach him about the plan of salvation buuuuut he wanted to talk about the word of wisdom and even went outside and found a carton of cigarettes and showed us all the warnings (Colombian cigarettes are required to have pictures of like black lungs and cancer patients on them). Sooooo yeah teaching him is kinda hard!! We do not really have progressing investigators but we visit less actives and members all the time. 

I have actually had a few breakdowns this week.....I just want to know Spanish. As I was gluing together a pocket for my mission manuel and I thought of something, it's kinda weird but............the gospel is a glue stick....but not a crappy one! Every time I get sad or frustrated it's always prayer and scriptures that help me to glue myself back together!! So that is my challenge for everyone not only for this week but also this year, do not let yourself fall apart, use your personal glue stick to glue yourself back together. Our Father in heavens wants to help us and He will......if we ask!!! It is very important and has saved me many times!! The struggle is real but so is Christ!!

My donkey!!!

(This is Garrett's sister Aubrey here, I'm going to tell you a side story because I want to remember it and it makes me laugh! So my husband and I found out we are pregnant the day after Garrett left on his mission! It was an emotional day to say the least. I wrote Garrett and told him about it in one of our first emails. His ONLY response to me was "yeah...I don't believe you." So the next week I tried to convince him that I was telling the truth and all he said was "this is just the kind of joke you and Dane would do..." So here we are! I am now out of my first trimester and he just says things like "I guess you're probably pregnant because you wouldn't keep talking to me about it for this long if you weren't hahaha" I sent him a picture of the ultrasound this week and he replied "I don't see anything...." Oh geez...I'm thinking that he probably won't believe me until he is home and holds my baby for himself, silly boy! Makes me chuckle.)

No Limits (week 9)

We got to skype Elder Olsen on Christmas Eve, which was the highlight of our holiday season!! He sounded so good!! He is a little sad that he isn't fluent in Spanish yet but he has been in the field for like three weeks so I think he'll be okay. 

This one is a video so I hope you can get it to play! If you're friends with Garrett on Facebook or Instagram it is posted there. 

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMILY!!!!

How are you guys? Haha I hope that things are going good!! It was super weird to talk to you guys haha it was just different!! The computer I am using does not have USB ports (it is one of the giant 90s ones) so I cannot send my pictures right now :( will for sure next week though.

Buuuuut yeah this week has been crazy because we had a trillion different district meetings leading up to our christmas conference! We had to prepare a skit.....ours ended up about a girl that left on her mission and tracted into a gangster that got stabbed and then he woke up out of no where and started singing christmas music hahahahaha it was pretty dumb!!! (Not gonna lie...that does sound more scary than festive haha) The conference was really cool though we had it on the 15th floor of the Dann Carlton Hotel......it was waaay nice!! We started off by listening to President Pricoli and Hermana Pricoli and then they called two people to give a talk! Then we watched 17 Miracles!!! After that we had LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNCH.....we had a quiche type thing for an appetizer and then we had steak and mashed potatoes....they covered it in basil and olive oil sooooo I was all about it. Then we had a lemon cake for dessert with chocolate drizzle....after that we had to sit through an hour and a half long video of every single missionary talking about their favorite companion and what they learned from them.....Hermana Herrara let me go through her photos so I did that instead of paying attention! Then we all had to give our skits.....which was fun I guess.....and then we had scripture trivia and I kinda was just there for that.....It was all in Spanish and we only had 10 seconds to answer sooo I was just there hahahahhaha but after that we had a break and we got chocolate covered strawberries which was cool. Then we heard some more from President and Hermana Pricoli and got our letters from the first presidency, 2 bags of candy, a Liahonna (ENGLISH FTW) and our packages.....everybody was looking at me weird because I got two packages and most people did not even get one.....I kinda felt bad about that!! Then we went home.

Christmas Eve was like any other day except skype haha buuuuuuuut Christmas is another story.....I started with the packages which I appreciate mucho!! The N64 shirt is my favorite! (Tooting my own horn here because I give awesome gifts haha!) Mom did you make those pillowcases? (Yes she did! She sent a handmade pillowcase for both Garrett and his companion! Most of everything in his package there was some for both boys) .....Elder Chaiña is always disobedient and sleeps in so I had time to put all his stuff on his chair and lay it out.....he seemed to like everything okay....he was not as excited as I thought he would be...but oh well!! Then we had church which was an absolute disaster!! Not a ton of people showed up including the bishop so the members were scrambling to do everything.....so of course the missionaries had to give talks hahaha but they didn´t get anything figured out until 9:30 so we started way late. I just pulled out my talk I wrote for the Christmas conference and gave that.....I got lots of compliments on it so it worked out I guess!!! But after that Julieth was really wanting all the missionaries to eat lunch at her house so the sisters asked for permission AND WE GOT IT!!! (In Garrett's mission they aren't allowed to do anything member dinners without permission so this was the first one he has had) So yeah we went to her house for dinner. We had potato salad and lunch meat ham, and that´s about it but we had caramel pudding and popcorn and we watched conference talks hahaha we were there for a long time it was fun!!!

After that we visited another member....Nancy Escobar and we chatted with her....and then we went home and I had bread con queso (SOOOO GOOOD ITS BAKED INTO THE BREAD). But yeah that was my Christmas!!! We had a zone activity today which was fun everybody was playing sports but Elder Reeve and I just sat down and talked about life.....he has a South Korean hacker investigator which sounds RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!

Buuuuut yeah I have some pretty big goals for this next year and I want to share a few with you guys:

- Better group emails

- pictures with every email (unless I get a dumb computer)

- better Spanish skills

- better testimony

- really strive to help others around me

- be the bestest I can be

- have no limits for myself

We honestly should not waste our time....every minute of free time we have could be and should be used to develop a better relationship and testimony of our Heavenly Father!! I have come to really enjoy conference talks and writing in my journal....I am about halfway through my first one!!! Prayer is also another good one we need to constantly be doing.....are you guys praying or just saying a prayer? Sooo yeah that is this weeks Challenge....write down some goals AND DO NOT LIMIT YOURSELF!!! There are no limits unless you put limits on yourself!!! I love you guys mucho!!!

Also I just wanted to say real quick HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAIRBEAR! I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE YOU TONS!!! Hope you have a great day! (Our brother Jarin's birthday is on the 31st so feel free to send him presents and candy)

 Practicing our Christmas skit (I died so that's why I am on the floor)

Chocolate Strawberries in between skits.

A view of the mountains....I tried cropping this picture cause it looks better, but my camera was not about that.

The super nice hotel where we had our conference!!

 SPOILED.

 My Christmas ornament.

Another view in the night time!!



Okay I forgot to write about the zone activity we had on Christmas Eve, but we had an activity where we had to get a piece of chocolate out of a pile of flour, then we played mafia and drank hot chocolate and Elder Mcdermott passed out stockings.

Just opening presents... 

All of Chaiñas stuff I left on his chair.

Opening my mug from President

Fruit roll ups are life!!

Hanging with Julieth and her family.

Caramel pudding stuff Julieth made us.

These next few are from the sports activity I told you about...

More Christ (week 8)

THISSSSSSSSSSSS WEEK was sooooo slow!!! Hahaha Elder Chaiña is good, he's very different than Elder P!!!! We don´t have a ton of investigators, so we have been working with a lot of less actives. We have Alcides though, he´s one of our two investigators. He told me he really likes pb&j's and that he learned how to make them while in prison hahahahahaha! But yeah Ciudad Modelo is sooo sketchy, but there is a lot of good people here!!! It´s just really hard to do anything without any Spanish skills, but we will get there!!

At a zone activity I was talking with Elder Mcdermott (my rad zone leader who has a blog, I stalked it before I came) and he was telling us about how Christmas is gonna go and how we all should not be sad because Christmas is all about Christ. Mas in Spanish means more, and we talked about how we need more Christ in our lives!!! So that is this weeks challenge...seek Christ!!! Find Christ!! Really get to know your savior!!!

I am sorry this email sucked but I am trying to get all my pictures up and this computer blows. So just know I am trying and I love you all!!! I can´t wait to talk on Christmas Eve.

 Cristo Rey!

This is the view from Cristo Rey.

 

 

 

With the district on our way to a zone conference in the rain!!!