PARA MEU QUEIDO FAMALIA

Hello family, I know that its only been a couple hours but im still going to try and think of something to write.

So if you are wondering about my new area it covers about 10 barrios (neighborhoods) here in Rio Branco. Some that I remember are Moranda do Sol, Centro, tropical, Bosque  and some other ones.

I tried to send pictures here but the computers dont like my camera still and so I will just have to wait for next week to send you all pictures.

Tuesday:
I got on a plane and came to Rio Branco. We spent the day introducing me to the ward because if I dont know the members it will be a little hard for them to trust me.

Wenesday:
Something funny that we did is went to seminary and gave a quick message. We asked the students questions about the old testament up to the point where they were ( exodus) and if they got it right they got chocolate and if they didnt then we ate the chocolate in front of them. We ate a lot of chocolate. Thats not to say that they werent smart, just that our questions were ridiculously hard. For example: how many days was noah in the arc. Who was the grandfatehr of noah and others that were similar and very specific. The point was that if you dont study and focus in semanary then you cant reap the rewards of the knowledge there. We will do this again next week.  

Thursday and Friday were similar with lots of work and lots of walking i honestly dont remember very much about these days.

Saturday:
We planned a division and it fell through, but because of that we found an eleit family. Then later we were asked by the ward to help set something up for a mothers day and then we fopund anotehr elect family . It was an interesting thing for me to see that we werent working in the way that the Lord wanted us to and so now we will begin to work in his ways. 

Sunday:
I talked with all of you! It was wonderful and i wont lie it made me a little homesick because i have to wait another 7 months and also because im in a new area but i have faith that it should pass after a week or two. 

Today:
 I got up and studied and then went back to sleep after finishing studies because i was tired, very very tired. But its ok today should be good. Please continue to pray for me that everything will continue to be good.

Tchão
Love Eric

It´s time to fly south for the winter

So to start off I´m transfering areas for the first time in my mission. I have been reassigned to the Rio Branco, Rio Branco ward in Acré and so tomorrow morning im going to take a plane to a place that is much colder with lots of Tereré. My new companion is Elder Nunes. Elder Almeida will stay here with a missionary transfering from gloria.

Monday:

I got the nastiest sun burns from playing soccer. like really nasty. I´ll send you pictures next week of the burns because i had a defined sock mark.

Tuesday:

We had our last district meeting of the transfer. It was good and rather sad.

Wenesday:

I went on a division with Elder Gray in Colina do Aleixo. It was fun and in one part of the division we spent an hour looking for a house in the limits of the area. I think we might have gone out of the area/zone looking because no one had a clear sense of direction where the street was. It was cool because the area that we were in is in the middle of the city but all the houses have yards and its like its all in the jungle which is awesome. When we were about to give up a lady came out of the house (it was a reference from a member) and flagged us down. We went and taught the woman´s husband and taught him the restauration. Hes an elect and asked us immediately when he could be baptized because he wanted to be baptized as soon as possible. At the end of the lesson we taught about the word of wisedom and i asked him to give me his coffee. He said that he would throw it all down the sink and that he was done drinking it. And he did just that. He dumped it all down the sink and it was an amazing moment.

Thursday:

We had an ok day and it was fairly normal.

Friday:

We taught Michella and Rodrigo and now they are living above the house of Irmão Cesar, (he let me use him computer at Christmas time). They are awesome and i hope that they get baptized but they need to get married.

Saturday:

André our favorite little priest went and walked with us for a couple hours. Then that night we went to a Devotional with Elder Marzagarrdi a member of the seventy and the second counseler in the area presidency. We took Valeria, the mom of Seisi. It was great and i was able to see elder walch for a little bit. its been a while since ive last seen him. Elder Marzagarrdi talked about he was baptized after he visited the temple in São Paulo. It was really enjoyable.

Sunday:

Rodrigo Michella (the daughters of michella 3) Valeria and Divina all were at church which was the most investigators that we´ve had in a while there. I bore my testimony about accepting the will of god for us and that we can choose to accept it or we can choose to reject it and not recieve the blessings.

We had a division and i visited Iury and it was during this lesson that I recieved the transfer call. During the lesson i felt very lost at times because libras are definitely different than ASL. 

We visited a family that the sisters here were teaching about a year ago and it was good. The daughter of the family said that she wanted to be baptized and serve a mission. An elect family for my companion to teach. It should be very good. 

We ended with visiting Irmã Maria Rita. She is like  family to me here in this area and it has kinda become a tradition visiting her at the end of each transfer. I gave a message about how i´ve come to love the people here in this area since coming here. I really do love them and im going to be sad to leave.

Today:

I sent a package home with my scriptures, sunglasses, something from the indian fair and my letters. Thank you very much for continually sending me letters since i´ve arrived. I counted and off all the ones that i´ve kept (which have been almost all) I have recieved 170. Yes i do want them after my mission still. 

Until next week,

Love

Eric

I feel like a fat American again. Yes!

So this week lunch was money several times and so I had the oportunity of eating 5 burgers at a members new cafe. They are huge, cheap and delicious Also they have the best pizza that ive tasted here in Brazil, tastes like home to be honest.

Monday:

We went to a family night at a members house and it was cool. I rather like it when people give us food.

Tuesday:

District meeting and we started teaching the family of Klingers sister, which is good. I rather like them and they are receptive.

Wenesday:

At the English class we sang ´´I am a child of God`` it was really good and I rather liked the class.

Thursday:

I don´t remember anything too exciting about today other than we taught with a member this night which was good.

Friday:

Exciting things. I got my fan back after a week of not sleeping with it. Also we encountered more people through knocking doors and I´m starting to rather like knocking doors. 

Saturday:

So i´ll start with lunch today. We went to go to lunch and no one was home and so that wasn´t fun. So we went home to get money and eat at Valters cafe. So we show up to the cafe and no one was home there too. So we went to a restaurant. I was going to have to pay my companion back because I had no money. So we showed up to the restaurant and ate alot and then i went to the bathroom. When i came out i asked my companion if he had payed. he didnt answer me and said bye to the lady working then. when we got out he told me that he had tried to pay the lady three times and had even given her money and she gave it back and said ´´ your presense here is a blessing`` and let us eat for free. I felt humbled and remembered the scripture about going out and not bringing anything with you and that the laborer is worth his hire. Also the scripture of the lillies of the field.

Sunday:

Fransisco came with us to church and when we got there we saw that João had brought himself there. Which was good. After church i taught with a man in our ward the deaf man and his friend who can interpret. We will go to the birthday party of a child of a deaf man and will get a bunch of references.

Today we played soccer as a district with some youth and it was awesome. I got burned a bunch and feel really tired now but loved it completely. I´ll send pictures when we use another lan house because this one doesnt like my camera or card. We have transfers this week and i wouldnt be suprised if i stay again but anything can happen.

Please continue to pray for me,

Love

Elder Olsen

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

Why yes, anything less than 80 degrees is cold for me...

So right now i have a cold. Again. I really dont like these Amazonian colds, they arent very fun...

So Monday was good day. Normal.

Tuesday:

Another fairly normal day, but a little slow it was a bit more trying...

Wenesday:

Another wonderful day.

(I promise not all the days are like this)

Thursday:

I met, during our lunch appointment, a guy who works on a Boat-Hotel and he told me and my companion about the different nationalities and how they act at the hotel. He said Americans are great but the ones from Washington are serious. Just another happy wonderful day.

Friday:

We were supposed to have a division this day but it didnt work because our district leader had one with the zone leaders. So it was a good day. We got Divinia´s mom to sign the baptismal form and so Divina would have been baptized on Sunday (see Sunday). Oh and we bought pizza today. It was really yummy and delicious.

Saturday:

So today we met up with Elder Jacinto and he interviewed Gustavo for baptism. We saw another swarm of vultures above us in the barrio and then they moved on...It was weird. So our lunch for sunday canceled and gave us money so we went and bought 2 pizzas to eat on sunday.

Sunday:

I woke up with a cold and so waking up sick isnt very fun. I was in a bit of a tired easily annoyed mood (yes missionaries arent always perfect). Our investigators who we went to pick up werent home but it was ok because we had investigatos come on their own or with members. After Sacrament meeting i complimented someone on their tie and he gave it to me. It was really nice of him. We got ready for the baptisms of Gustavo and Kevin because Divinas mom couldnt make it over to the church so Divina will be baptized in two weeks after she goes and travels. I was supposed to baptize Divina so i brought my clothes but i found out contrary so it was oh well. I thought that my companion was baptizing Gustavo and Kevin and then when we went to take pictures Kevins aunt said that he wanted me to baptize him so i went an changed and baptized him. (I´ll send pictures next week) Those two little boys are special to me. But the baptismal service had a bunch of people and a cake afterwards. it was by far the best service i participated in here in brasil. After the service we went home and ate pizza and  we went out and worked and worked :)

Today:

We went to centro so i could buy the boots that all of the people who work in factories have here. Well i found out in order to get those boots i have to work in a factory. But so that I could have a pair of boots and fulfill our purpose there I bought a pair of boots but they werent nearly as good as the factory worker boots. I also bought  some things from the indian market again, and some other things that i wanted/needed, including a map of manaus. 

transfers are this week and if i get transfered to somewhere far (which i dont want to because i want to be here for the temple dedication) you will be recieving a package from me with some suprises in it :D. Have a wonderful week.

Please continue to write me and pray for me, I could use the strength.

Love 

Elder Eric Olsen

Meu Querido Família (My Dear Family)

So we now have a monkey that has made its home in our balcony. He is small and furry and a ball of joy! Just kidding, i have yet to see a wild monkey here in manaus but i do hear that they are around. Heres my week:

Tuesday:

We had our wonderful district meeting and a splendiforus day with some good lessons. 

Wenesday:

Today was the birthday of Elder De Almeida. I bought him a cool purple tie and we got permission to go to our local mall that is close to our area to eat at the food court there because we recieved money for lunch. We bought two large pizzas for R$25 one for each of us. It was great to have pizza from a restaurant again because I havent had it from one since my first transfer here because the pizzerias dont open until 6. I bought soft serve ice cream for us after. When we got home for our language study in the afternoon there were a swarm of vultures in the air near our house. Like alot. I tried taking a video but it doesnt do it justice.  On the bright side we had wonderful numbers this day for lessons with members. 

We met a young mother and her two sons who moved here recently from another barrio. The mom is a less active member and her sons (Kevin 8 and Gustavo 9) havent been baptized. They´re awesome and im excited to see them progress. 

thursday

A little bit slower and also we had to go to the mission office to get some documents for the marriage of our investigator for them to sign.

Friday:

We picked up a new great investigator named Miguel. He moved to manaus from a city in the interior and is awesome. We left a book of mormon for him to read (which we dont always do for new investigators) and im excited to see if he read or not. We had our ward activities and played some fun games there. If anyone wants to suggest any fun group games that everyone can play please tell, im running out of games.

Saturday:

We had an Churrasco (barbecue) for our recent converts and also for our investigators at the house of bishop. It was to help them bond more. The wife of the bishop is the teacher of gospel principles and she wanted to do this so that they all could bond and get to know each other and know that they arent alone. It was a good event.

Sunday:

Church was good and our lunch fell through. We asked some people in our ward if we could eat with them but ended up canceling because we had a bunch of lessons to do and ended up eating at home. I finally ate the rest of the spaghetti that i bought my first or second week here. It was all good though (we didnt starve) because we had a dinner appointment with a the family of César and they gave us Picanha (google it, yummy meat). Its interesting because here the seasoning that they use the most for beef and sausage is rock salt. Its good but it has killed some of my tastebuds because I eat a lot of salt. 

Today

We will go to the mission office to return the documents we took to get signed and our wonderful district leader is going to Centro and im having him buy me two kilos of pasta de amendoin (peanut butter without salt or sugar). 

I really do love this ward and the area here. This week was a bit trying at times because our appointments fell through at times but it happens. I just learn more patience and humilty. It helps when you have an amazing Mozambiquean companion too.

Please continue to pray for me. And know that I love you all very much. 

Love your brother/son/brother-in-law/grandson/favorite person ;) 

Elder Eric Alan Olsen