Another week has gone past again and I feel like they are going even faster than usual. But if you have written me recently (like with in the last month) you should be getting a letter soon and for everyone else I apologize I'm a little backlogged but they'll all come through pretty soon.
Dad: There's a letter for you and mom coming in this next week and it has the things that you want to know about
Mom: Thank you so much for the crumpets! I love them and also the pear from the tree, it was delicous
Andrew: Thanks for the "i-like-you" mouse I push him whenever I open up my drawer and he makes me laugh
So last week we were blessed by getting the opportuinity to hear from another apostle, Elder Ballard, and it was an amazing talk. He talked about how we need to excercise our faith in Jesus Christ and hwo when we get rejected that we need to focus on Christ's atonement and that will help us get over it and refocus on the reason why we are here. He shared a couple stories too and one of which was when he was in England after world war 2 for his mission and he had just gotten there and they were preaching to a crowd in Hyde park and he was chosen to go up and preach and there was like 500 something people there, and so he chose to speak on baptism and he said everything that he knew about baptism in about one and a half minutes and then that night he prayed and promised that that would never happen again, and that he would be more prepared and be ready to teach people and so he got up extra early and studied about the restoration and the reformation and the scriptures. All in all it was definitely a most excellent talk.
(I'm going to skip around on the days just to warn you)
This morning I was awoken at 5:30 by hearing people yelling in our hall, it turns out that one of the guys in my district got his visa and was leaving at 6:00 am and so he was rushing to get everything packed since they didn't tell him until 5:10 (where they announced it on the intercom for the floor, and I slept throught it, and was one of the few that did from what I hear) so he was rushed and didn't get to tell his parents and probably will at the airport. So if there is a week that you don't get an email from me that means that I got my visa at 5:30 in the morning and had to be gone by 6:00, and I'm letting you know now that I"m not going to call you when I'm at the airport for the reason that I feel that I would get distracted by having the opportunity to call. But that was really exciting.
This last week me and Elder Robinson have been on fire! Like it has been amazing how much success we have been granted with. I'm currently not using the book at all anymore in the lessons and am saying what I need to from the vocab that I know and have been learning. When we have been teaching the spirit has been in our lessons alot and so the words that we say are guided and we are able to be tools in touching the hearts of our investigators. All of them now have baptismal commitments which is amazing, especially because a week or two ago I wanted to drop one of them. Her name is Socorro and she hadn't been progressing, but she's read the book of mormon and knows that it's true and so I was super happy about that, but now we have another problem. She has a "esposo" who she isn't married to legally and so she can't be baptized because she's not living the law of chastity and she won't kick him out and she won't get married to him. Why she won't get married is a legitamite reason, it's because he drinks and smokes and she doesn't want a husband who does that, and so we have an appointment for this friday with her and we want her to bring him along and we will be teaching them about the Word of Wisdom (we were planning on teaching it that lesson anyways so it's going to be great), and she said that if he does stop those things that she will marry him and that would be most awesome but she doesn't think that he's going to because he does it even though he knows that it's bad. I went out of the lesson a little discouraged but after praying about it with elder robinson I know that everything is going to be alright and that it will all work out.
Oh and elder Robinson got his electronic part of his visa done today and so that's really exciting because that's one step closer for him being in Brazil. If you could call the travel office and find out an update on mine that would be awesome (the travel office is part of the mtc so look on their website or call the main line). They have information on how far along the visa is and so just put it in a dear elder and send whatever they tell you over.
This last sunday we had a couple who served as mission presidents in the Sao Paulo east mission come and speak to us. They told us about miracles that happened while they were serving. One of which was that every transfer when the missionarires put their suitcases out in a field while they were waiting for their reassignments it didn't rain (and it rains hard down there, they shared a story and picture of how they started driving and it started raining and in a matter of blocks they were floating down the road in 4 feet of water and from the picture they showed us i would believe that isn't too far off from the truth, it was true), and then another time when they were driving on sunday and had forgotten to fill up the gas tank before and they had to get home and theri car was only going to go for 9 more miles, and so they said a prayer and their car went 22 miles before the 9 mile mark changed.
Thats all that I have time for today but I hope that you all are doing well and I love you,
Love
Elder Olsen
No comments:
Post a Comment