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Elder Olsen's mission president has asked the missionaries to not have a blog that is updated weekly. Therefore I will no longer be updating Eric's blog :(

First comes the Trials and then come the Blessings

So heres my week

Monday:

So we went and taught Natalia the girl that was baptized Saturday. Then we went and taught a less active family and got to know them better. Its a mom and her 3 daughters, 2 of the daughters have the age to be baptized and we will be holding their baptismal service this week.

Tuesday:

We had district meeting and today i had a division with Elder Housely in our area. We were able to encounter another less active member and his family and they were really nice and polite. I dont remember too much about today. But we ended with the English Class that we are teaching here  in Manacapuru. It was good but unfortunately our investigators didnt go :(

Wenesday:

We went to Manaus and had a meeting there with Elder Aidukatis who is a member of the quorum of the seventy. It was good but infortunately I didnt prepare as well spiritually as I had Elder Costa, but I was able to learn many things still. He gave me some interesting principles to think about. Read his ``because my father read the book of mormon`` talk that he gave in 2008 Because My Father Read the Book of Mormon

So I didnt sleep well on the bus returning home and so I read letters (ps the dear elder package came thanks!). When the bus arrived in Manacapuru me and Elder Anderson went directly to an interview with Antonia. If you dont remember her shes the investigator who has a smoking addiction. Well 2 weeks ago she was smoking 70 cigarettes in 3 days. Tuesday when we visited her she smoked half of a cigarette in 3 days. Today shes not smoking! She passed the interview but she will have to wait until the end of the month to be baptized because theres a man living in her house and hes moving out at the end of the month and so it will be good. 

We taught the less active family again (Rosenalda, mom, Gabrielle, daughter, Nariyelli, daughter, and little 4 year old daughter). They gave us dinner which isnt a common thing to do, and was a blessing because me and Elder Neves missed our lunch and were fasting earlier that day. It was a blessing from the lord.

We were passing in the street and a little boy asked me for a book of mormon. We marked to teach him and his family the next day :)

Thursday:

Today we planned and we went and taught some good lessons. We taught the boy who wanted a book of mormon, his name is Eliel. He accepted to be baptized on the first of december but will probably be baptized this week.

Friday:

Today was a very difficult day for me. We went this morning to dedicate the house of an investigator and they had forgotten and had left to go out. During the day we had our appointments fall through which is normal but i was really stressed. We ended the day with not very many lessons. 

Saturday:

We went out and worked today and so it was good. Today was the opposite of Friday. We had members go out and teach with us and we were able to have many lessons. We went to the baptism of the other elders (our baptisms had fallen through), and we had a member there. After we went out looking for a reference and i had mixed up the streets and ran into a man that we had contacted the day before which was good.

Sunday:

We woke up at 5:30 to prepare so that we could go out and bring many people to church. We gave our all. We  went to every house, called every phone, contacted in the street and ended up only bringing Eliel. We showed up to church with only 1 investigator and then the Lord began to bless us. Members began bringing in their friends, less actives showed up with non-member family members, investigators came by themselves. We ended Sacrament Meeting with 14 investigators at church which really was a miracle.

It was literally a miracle that I got through the day becasue I was super tired from having had woken up at 5:30 two days during the week and we got home at 9:30 almost all of the nights. 

Gabrielle and Nariyelli recieved answers about the book of mormon, and we were able to encounter Kevin again and he had recieved an answer as well and so we will hopefully have 3 baptisms this week. 

As we were walking to a devotional at the church me and Elder Neves were feeling that we needed to bring someone so we went and tried to bring some investigators and less actives but no one could go. A drunk man stopped me in the street asking for a book of mormon. He had previously asked me several times and I had always told him only if he went to church. So we invited him to the devotional and he accepted, which was different than the other 5-6 drunks that we had invited to church that day. I had to walk by his side going to the church because if not I think a car would have hit him. I began trying to look at him as my brother and how god would look at him. I was praying for him to become more sober by the time that we got to the church. When we got to the church some members thought it a bit amusing that we brought a drunk to the devotional. As we sat down in the back, he told me ´´thank you for bringing me here``. I sat looking at him and thinking about his life. He was dirty, smelly, and with a bag full of cans. I then began to think of him as the Savior would see him. As a soul that was needing the gospel in his life. When the devotional ended i gave him a book of mormon like we promised. He promised he would read and asked to come back the next week to church. He was still drunk by the time the meeting ended but he was able to give me his address and so we will visit him. Some members know him, and so they can show us where he lives. Who knows maybe he will be our new ward mission leader because we dont have one, but I want to teach him.

This week Elder Neves will go to Manaus and our Zone leader will do divisions with me and Elder Anderson for the entire week.

I hope that your week was full of miracles as mine was. Please continue to pray for me. Elder Aidukatis said this last week that he wants our missions to be so hard that we need a miracle to make it through to the next day so that one day when we are eating with the pioneers, Joseph Smith and Christ we will have a sacrifice that is worthy to talk about at the dinner table (if it makes sense without me needing to explain more of the story). I know that I personally this week was one of those weeks. I only made it through each day because of a miracle. Because I believe, preach and love God, who is a living God and a God of miracles.

Elder Eric Alan Olsen