Oi Oi Oi Oi

This week. How can i descrive it? Good question? Hmm maybe in the following words...

So Tuesday we had our normal district meeting and it was rather a regular day.

Wenesday: So the mission president came to our house today for interviews with us. Our house is always clean but we made sure that it was extra clean today. The only thing was when President started walking to the back to enter our house I realized that we had forgotten to take out the garbage. So I did what any desperate missionary would do. Took the garbage bag tied it up and then hid it in my suitcase. On the brightside it didnt break and spill out. But my interview was amazing and helped me to understand better my purpose and why im really here. It was really nice to get a shock to get me remotivated.

 So English class had a bunch of new people this week! Still only members but we are having more people come is a good sign.

Thursday:We had a lovely morning where we went and worked out at a home gym in a members house and it felt really good to be on excercise machines again. But This was our lovely planning day where we plan for the week. We also taught a less active family where the father comes to sacrament meeting but the rest dont. They live in Tirar Dentes (translated ``to pull teeth´´). Its the rich part of our area where i have never taught anyone. We are going to start working there now and will start with references from this family.

If any of you are curious about what type of music, that isnt american, that they listen to here look up the song ´´Kurdo`` by Latino e Daddy Kall, or Velozes e Furious 5. The original was with a skinny white guy and fat black guy. A member told me the names so that you can know. Its from Angola in African and dont ask what theyre saying because i dont have any idea.

Friday:
We cut two people that have been investigators since i came. I feel like im closeing everything up here that I opened. It was weird. But i bought a really cool chair thursday that is imensely comfortable. Oh and i have to watch out when i drink Açaí because if i drink too much ill be addicted. I had some freshly made Açaí today and it was absolutely amazingzing. 

Saturday:Today we had an amazing amount of lessons. 6 appointments that didnt fall through and we marked two baptismal dates for upcoming weeks. I was definetly happy. I learned not to trust my ideas about cooking without recipes. We recieved money for our lunch and i tried cooking a macaroni with a white tuna sauce. Dont eat the canned tuna here. It looked like cat food and the taste wasnt amazing. But it was still food and still filled me up.

Sunday:
We had about a third of the ward bear their testimonies and it was amazing (26 people). All of the young women with the exception of 1 maybe 2 and one of the young men as well. As I was sitting up on the stand (Elder Almeida was playing the piano) I realized that I knew everyone in the ward (maybe not 2 or 3) but it was a good feeling. Im really starting to feel at home here. We had a family night with Valeria and Klinger and they made us lasanga and it was good. The lasanga here is definitely different and they use ketchup in it and catupiry which is like bolonge. 

I recieved a letter from the woman who called President Klein about me giving a book of mormon and her getting baptized and...it was me. I felt really really humbled to know that i made an impact on someone that i talked with for only 15-20 minutes. She is currently attending institute has strong friends in the church and is taking a mission prep class in preparation for a mission. God truly is looking out for me and helping me to help others.

I love you all and pray for you. Please keep me in your prayers,

Love,
Elder Eric Olsen

Dear Elder Olsen you have hereby been reassigned to...

Mission Brasil Acariquara. Yup another transfer is coming in and im still staying here in Acariquara. In was interesting, Sunday morning I felt like I was going to know the Lords will for me and that i needed to prepare myself for it. I felt the impression several other times but I was not prepared for the news that i would not be leaving after almost 6 months. The Lord has a little bit more for me to do here and the transfer is only 5 weeks this time but i plan on baptizing no less than 5 people in these five weeks. There are people that trust me and will listen to me because of this and i need to help them.

So we watched conference in the high council room and it was 68-70 degrees in there and i was freezing. Seriously, it was cold. Dont judge my sissiness to cold. I took at least 5 pages of notes for every session and loved it all dearly. I watched it with the other americans in my stake and it was really cool to be in a room with only english speakers. But this little kid came in distracting us during Elder Christoffersons talk during sunday morning and then he left and came back during president monson so we kicked him out and i put a table in front of the door. One of my favorite quotes from conference was by neil l anderson who said ´´to be a disciple during these times will be a badge of honor during the eternities´´. 

So many things happened this last week. First was I believe tuesday morning. I started my studies and we got a phone call from the president (I thought it was the district leader). He said that that morning he had recieved a call from São Paulo, I was expecting to hear that someone in our family had died and was about to brace myself for the worst. But he said that a woman called him from são paulo asking to speak with elder olsen because he had saved her life. The first thought that came to my mind is that they must have mistaken me for another elder olsen because i dont know any women in são paulo. He explained that I gave a book of mormon to a woman in são paulo when i was in the CTM and she read it and long story short, found the missionaries and has been baptized for 3 months. She remembered my name and was dating a person who works at the ctm and so she asked him to look through the records to find out who this elder was so that she could say thank you. They found me and said that i was the only elder olsen who passed through at that time so she called president klein asking to speak with me. She will write me a letter. Honestly when he told me about this i didnt remember any of it and so i was a bit perplexed and thought maybe they have the wrong elder olsen because there was an elder olsOn that passed through at the same time as me. as i read my journal i found where i had wrote about a woman on the bus that matched the description and how i said i thought she´d read the book of mormon. It is an amazing story and will only be complete when i recieve the letter.

So two people showed up to the english class and i learned that i dont speak english that well anymore and that im forgetting my pronounciations. Start learning portuguese to speak with me. But it was ok because the seminary class came and sat in after and I taught them how to pray in english.

So one of the couples that ive been working with since i came split this last week and it was really sad. I will share the whole expereince in a letter because its a complicated situation, but i cried for them and saw how the power of the adversary is real. They had been putting things of the world first in specific money before scriptures prayer and church. It was for this reason that they split up. But this week we encountered some elects and that was good. 

Im sorry that ive been bad about writing letters I havent sent one in weeks but ill start sending again soon. As a missionary we live very humble lives and i dont really have much money even though i recieved it again yesterday my necessary purchases have depleteted it again. 

I love you all and please pray for me and my companion that we will find the people god prepared for us.

Love 

Eric