1 year, 1 ano....estou no metade de minha missão agora (im at the halfway mark with my mission now)

So this week I hit my one year mark. I was looking back at all the pictures that I left with and that I have with you all this week and was suprised to realzie that they arent updated theyre all a year ago even though it feels like I left yesterday.

Monday:

So we were able to teach Luana today who is an 11 year old girl who lives by the church and has been going alone for a couple weeks now. We had tried teaching her before but it never worked out. So we taught her and at the end invited her to give the closing prayer. Before she had always been to shy to pray but after some coaxing she gave it. As she prayed I felt the spirit of the lord there strongly confirming to me that he was hearing the prayers of that little girl. It was amazing.

Tuesday:

We had a mini zone conference which really was more like a giant district meeting. It had the oportunity to talk with Elder Nunes about everything that had happened in Rio Branco after I left and it was wonderful to catch up with him. We taught good lessons and were able to help an investigator from another area receive authoriation to be baptized from her father.

Wenesday: We were able to drop off some more of my pants that i needed mended as well as my bag because they all had holes. Ill send you a picture of my pants some day. 

So we were doing a wedding for a family here and we needed another birth certificate for the man in the family, and we had the couple missionaries working on it. So they called us and told us that the second birth certificate would be 230 reais and that it would take 10 days to get there. Weddings here take 15 days to process and thats after you have all the documents. So I flipped because the wedding was on September 8th and the family had been spending lots of money on it. So me and my companion broke the news to them, and luckily they had relatives that live in the state where the birth certificate is so it wasnt too bad but i was stressing alot about this this week. 

Oh and I spoke english in a conversation with a doctor in São Paulo because I have a fungus... again. It was really weird speaking English because since having Elder Nunes as a companion I dont speak English with anyone. Including Americans. Ive said a few phrases and conversed maybe one other time but the only time youll hear me in English is when Im singing. Sorry tangent. But i have medicine so dont worry about the fungus.

Thursday:

I dont remember a ton about this day infact I remember little. But we went to the church that night looking for an Luana so that her mom could sign the baptismal release form and ended up helping out with the mormon helping hands project here which is food storage that they are doing in two liter bottles. 

Friday:

We went to the mission office to pick up the papers from the wedding because we will do it with the couple when the birth certificate arrives. I had the wonderful opporutunity to chat with Elder Shepherd there and also I got a letter from Ben and Caleb which I was most grateful for (ps caleb what was that picture you sent me?). We had the baptismal interview with Luana that morning and she passed with flying colors. When asked why she wanted to be baptized she responded ´´because i want to be a part of Crists church.´´ 

Saturday:

We had a very crazy day today and we ended with the baptism of luana and a wedding of the other elders. I think that Luanas baptism was one of my favorites becasue I felt that she was truly converted. I was granted the honor of baptizing her.

Sunday: 

I got a cold from another elder. Since mom asked (and i was planning on telling anyways) Ill tell you about lunch today. Lunch was rice, black beans, spaghetti, farinha (ground root that is dried) and lots and lots of linguiça. sausauge. It was so much taht it looked like a snake. Something about the culture here in manaus is that a greater part of the shops all close at 11 until 2-3 for lunch and then everyone sleeps which makes it harder to work in these times. This was my week.

Please send me an update picture of the family all together. I would be most appreciative since it has been one year since Ive seen you.

Love Eric

I am extremely blessed...

I feel extremely blessed recently, actually this week was only blessings.

Monday:

So we needed to get my suitcase in Acariquara, marriage documents from Elder Candido and then bring the documents to the Mission Office. So as we were preparing to do so our ride got stuck in traffic and couldnt take us anymore. I started getting stressed and called our ward mission leader and offered to pay R$40 for gas (its 5.60 a gallon here).  We were lucky that he could and also  that he knows all of the back streets in Manaus (because he used to do deliveries). We got everything done in record time (it was super heavy traffice as well) and when we got to the mission office there were people there! Better there were the Zone leaders from Porto Velho and Acre, and the ones from Acre brought my package taht I left there with my running shoes in it! Then I recieved a birthday package from Tabitha Kirk that I wasnt expecting that was very nice. Then I was able to give money to the Elder Jacinto to buy more Terere for me in Porto Velho (he was my olde district leader). Then we talked with Elder Shepherd and he gave us an air condicioner for our house because its hot. We decided to give it to Elder Rainho and Elder Brown (same house different rooms) because their room is always really hot and they needed it more than us. I was really blessed.

Tuesday:

We were able to teach a bunch of wonderful lessons today. It was a killer day!

Wenesday:

We were able to encounter a teenage girl Valeria who went to Sacrament meeting sunday. Her cousins are members but she wasnt. So we taught he and marked a date for her to be baptized this saturday. 

Thursday:

We had a division so that Elder Rainho could interview Cassiano our baptism for friday and so I was working with Elder Brown in their area which was really cool. We ran into a drunk guy that wanted us to do a miracle for him. I kept offereing the word of wisdeom pamphlet to him but he wanted a miracle. So we left. Cassiano passed his baptismal interview and Eldr Rainho and Elder Matos marked another baptismal date with the mom of a less active. 

Friday:

We prepared for the baptism of Cassiano and it was amazing. Afterwards we had dinner at the house of Irmã Antônia (his mom) with some people from another ward where they used to live it was great. 

Saturday:

We were able to teach Jose Maria who is a man who helps out a member whose in a wheel chair. He accepted to be baptized this next week. We planned on having the baptism of Valeria as well today but the water cut off in the church. It was a bit sad because I had felt earlier that day that we should fill the font up but ignored the impression because we had appointments. So she wasnt baptized and we replanned the baptism for sunday.

Also as we were walking to an appointment a man stopped us and told us that his friend wanted us to pass by and teach him. The friend was there and so we marked an appointment and went on from there. It was literally a moment when the lord was clearly placing someone in front of us that he wanted to hear the gospel. The mans name is Eliton and we will teach him Tuesday.

Sunday:

A bunch of people came to church without us having to bring them including some new faces that we will begin to teach this week. Including Valdiney the boyfriend of a member who is coming back to church. As we went to have the baptism the water still hadnt come back. We called the fire department to come and fill up the font and they said no. We tried the fire house in the church and turns out that its not hooked up to any water system so that didnt work. We saw our cistern of water (reserve well) and one didnt have very much water and the other I didnt want to carry buckets for 3 hours and so we ruled out the idea. As we started draining the font the bishop came and announced that he would find a find to fill the font with the water from the cistern. He took a pump out of the other cistern and jimmy rigged it with a hose and the water started coming but very slowly. They tried switching power sources and it didnt work so after some phone calls we went to go and do the baptism at the stake center. It was great, and their font was full by the time we arrived. We had the baptism and everyone went perfectly. We were extremely blessed.

This week I saw clearly and plentifully the hand of the lord in his work. He literally guided us and showed us what to do. We were able to have 2 baptisms and the most lessons with members that Ive ever had in my mission (17). This week was absolutely amazing. And I am very grateful that we were granted these wonderful blessings from God.

With a heart of Gratitude

Elder Eric Alan Olsen

My week was...

good. Our Mission President gave us a goal to baptize 12 people this transfer and so that we shall do.

Monday:
We ran around saying bye to people and ended the day sleeping. It was good.

Tuesday:
Went to the mission office and picked up my new companion Elder Matos. Hes from Rio Grande do Sul. Also Elder Nunes came back from Acre and so I was excited about that until he called me. He told me that the man who was making an alligator cover for my english seminary quad had taken our money and scriptures (elder nunes was putting a case on his bible) and had disappeared. I was furious to hear this since I used those scriptures for 4 years of seminary. Im going to try and think on the bright side that the man just couldnt find them before he left but still I lost 40 reais and priceless scriptures :P

I showed my companion our area and we did a service project bringing a big mirror about a mile to a new hair salon of a member. As we were walking up the hill the mirror broke. I wont go into details, but I felt horrible. The member was very understanding about it all.

Wenesday
It was a wonderfully normal day.We were able to teach many people today and so it was good.


Thursday
We planned today and visited some less actives.

Friday
We had 4 appointments who all gave us food which was cool. We had the baptismal interview of Ryan the grandson of Franscisca and he passed which was good. We just needed the signature of his mom which we went to get saturday.

Saturday:
We went to get the authoration of Frecy, Ryans mom. When we got there Ryan didnt want to be baptized anymore. He had been a bit reluctant all week and so I wasnt suprised. Frecy said that the decision was his and that she was completely willing to sign if he had been wanting to be baptized. So we continued on from there.

We had lunch and then a very full day ending with encountering a less active named Rosy who is returing to activity and wants her husband to get baptized and so we started teaching him.

Sunday
We went to church. I had been fasting for baptims and we had a miracle happen when a member brought a friend and asked that we teach him and then when some less actives who we were reactivating brought their cousin who we will teach. I felt that it was the answer to my fast. We went to antonias house that night and reviewed all of the commandments with Cassiano her son who will be baptized this friday. 

So as we were walking to lunch there was someone yelling from behind us, ``angels! angels! I need your help``. Assuming that it was a drunk man we didnt stop until one of the elders felt bad and so he stopped to see what the man wanted. We should have kept walking. So we stopped and the man looked a little familiar to me. We started talking and he put his arm around my shoulder and told me in english that I was beautiful. It was in that moment when I remembered the guy. It was the same guy that was on drugs and had tried taking my umbrella and then followed us around. And he was on drugs...again. So started spinning him around trying to get out of his grip and eventually did so. And promptly started walking away. The other missionaries started laughing because as I was wrestling myself out of his grip he had been trying to kiss my cheek. Luckly he didnt get the chance. If I see the crazy drug addict man again I will run in the opposite direction. Just another funny experience

Working with inactive and less active people really does work. They come back to church and bring others into the fold with them.

Also in our apartment now we have elder  Brown who is from San Ramon CA and its nice being able to talk about the Bay Area with him (I only speak portuguese with people now, i dont like speaking english really because it doesnt help me here).

I hope that you are all having a wonderful week. Pray for me and please write me emails too. This week only mom and andrew wrote me.

Love
Elder Eric Olsen

Why yes Sister, I would like some more cake, Happy birthday Charly and Billy and happy aniversay aaron and karalee

So I got fat recently. People here like me and they know that missionaries like cake . Unfortuanately my pants dont like cake, neither does my belt...

Monday

I was tricked into going to a sisters house where she made me a giant cake. The cake was eaten and then lived in our fridge for a couple days until thursday when our District leader came for interviews.

Tuesday:

It was an interesting day. We had a wonderful day set up but everything fell through. Normal

Wenesday:

We had zone conference and I had the opportunity to see Elder De Almeida again and talk with him about Acariquara and then see Elder Linefesty who is from my MTC group. It was my 1st time seeing him since september. We were lucky and won a microwave for our apartment in a game which I was really happy about.

Thursday:

Me and Elder Candido went to teach the grandsons of Francisca and encounterd Frank who had gone Awol. We had one of the most spiritual lessons in all of my mission with him including when he prayed and all three of us had the same confirmation about how the church was true. It was abosolutely amazing. Unfortuately he will wait a bit to be baptized because hes on probation. After probation ends I belive firmly that he will be baptized.

Friday

We spent the morning setting up for the ward activity. The activity was absolutely amazing. It was the fest Julina which is pretty much a rodeo party that they have every year in Brasil. I never saw so many people at the church. It was incredibly fun and amazing. 

Saturday: 

We had the baptism of Gabrielle the son of Frank and grandson of Fransisca. When we were picking him up all of the family (5) came, and we had already put the baptism of the other elders in the car. It was a ford ranger. Me and Elder Rainho sat in the back of the truck but first I thought we´d have to lay down because of the cover that I couldnt take off. So I layed down only to find out that it wasnt necessary. My shirt got dirty and everyone told me that for the rest of the night. But the baptism was at the stake center. It was a district baptism and it was super good. Afterwards we went to the stake talent show and it was by far the best talent show I ever attended. Our district even went up and sang a famous missionary song here in Brazil which I will send to you in the future.

Sunday:

We had the confirmation of Gabrielle and at 7 we had the call that elder candido will go to zona leste and I will stay with a new companion Elder Matos. He is from Rio Grande do Sul and I belive will help me achieve my goal of speaking like a gaucho. I have been told that I sing with an accent now and that my english accent is dimishing. Im excited for the next transfer and this one was my most baptizing so far with 4. If all goes well the next transfer will have no less than 6 baptisms from me and companion. Elder McGrath will go to Porto Velho so we will receive a new american named Elder Brown. Life is good.

Please pray for me, I love you all

Love 

Eric

The Missionary Work Week! & Happy Birthday Billy! And Happy Anniversary Aaron and Karalee!

So heres the week.

Tuesday:
We didnt have Reunião Distrito because our district leader was sick. We went out and taught people today and marked the interviews of baptism for Rainmundo and also Fransisca. That night we were going to have a training session with people in the ward to go and show them how to talk about the gospel, but it was canceled. I was invited by my ward mission leader to go fishing with him after my mission and also to go and live with an indian tribe for a week in the middle of the jungle. His nephew married an indian and lives there. The tribe is 1 day boats jorney on the river. So if anyone wants to come live in the jungle with me for a bit just let me know.

Wenesday:
Today was the birthday of Elder Rainho (another elder in the ward). I made him a cake and gave him a mirror. So today was intersting because we had 2 lunches. Seriously. The first was our normal lunch which was great and the second was at the house of the person giving him a party. They had asked us to do a service project and help them prepare for the party. So we did that and I was sick to my stomach because of all of the things that I had eaten. As we were going out to teach a man from Para stopped us and said that he had read the book of mormon and wanted to know more about out church. The city where he lives still doesnt have the church in it and hes leaving soon to return to there. It was amazing to me how the lord puts us in places where he wants us. We took the mans address and passed it on to our district leader because he wasnt in our area. Funny enough he lives in the area of my old companion Elder Almeida, so i know that he´ll be in good hands.

We went to the birthday party of the elder and I ate too much....again. 

Thursday:
We had the interviews of Rainmundo and Fransica today. Rainmundo will have a wait a bit more but Fransisca was set and passed the interview. That night we had a ward activity for the missionary work week and it was fun. A little disorganized but fun ( i can say that because we were putting it on). I rather like the members in the ward here. My favorite youth is a little 7 year old boy that I named Giggles, because hes always laughing. I think his real name is Junior but I dont know. Ill take a picture with him and send it to you. 

Friday: It was my birthday.

I woke up and opened the package that has been sitting by my bedside for the last 2 and a half weeks and was very happy to see the presents. The boots were a major blessing and im happy to know that ill have shoes that are going to last me the next year and not the next few months :) I am super grateful for everything inside and I didnt recieve the letters yet. (there must be a strike or something because i havent received letters for 2-3 weeks). So Elder Rainho and Elder McGrath sang me happy birthday in english which was nice to hear. We went to teach Rayane who is a inactive member and we were able to find her at home and it was her bday too which was cool.

At the end of lunch the sister made me chocolate pudim which i was excited for because im getting sick of eating cake. 
The day was rather normal and we ended with a movie night at the church for the missionary work week. They started by showing clips of different movies as we waited for the other elders who had the movies that we would watch. As we waited the ward mission leader and his wife showed a powerpoint presentation that they made for me. It has all of the missionary toons and is super funny. (they currently have my flashdrive and are putting it on it and ill send it to you.) at the end everyone there sang me Parabéns (the bday song in portuguese). The elders never showed up because they were in interviews for the baptims of theirs for the week and so we started watching 17 miracles. The only problem was that it was 8:30 the activity was supposed to end at 9 and 17 miracles only has the legends at the bottom in portuguese and a majority of the people there were children who live close to the church who have under 15 years of age. So a bunch of kids left to go and play outside. I didnt watch very much, just a few minutes because we were handing out popsicles and resolving problems. Ill wait til after the mission to watch it. 

We encountered Elder McGrath and Elder Gomes (District leader) at our apartment waiting to swap companions. When they were swapping I was locked outside with Elder Rainho, by Elder McGrath and Elder Candido. When they opened the door they had a 10 kilo bucket full of Açaí ice cream for my bday with a 20 candle on top. We sang happy birthday and then i ate at least 2 liters of ice cream because we didnt have room in our freezer. We swapped the rest to smaller containeers later and I took lots of pictures. The ice cream is all gone now with exception of a little for our ward mission leader.

Saturday:
We had the devocional with President Klein. As we were preparing to start some youth came and told us that the baptismal font was overflowing. Elder Rainho and McGrath had been filling up the font a little more since some water had drained and forgotten to turn it off. So we were cleaning up rapidly. The devosional was good and as I went to give my talk i felt impressed to change it. I had felt earlier that day that it needed to be on love and as I went there I changed it so that it was still on love but on a different aspect of love. I felt after that I had given the right talk which was good since I gave it on the spot. The baptism of Fransisca was amazing and I had the chance to baptize her. We will most likely baptize her nephews in the photo next week. Please pray for Frank her son since he went to work last week and hasnt come back since. He is still fighting his addictions and needs help.

Sunday:
We had the comfirmation of Fransisca and it was a good day. We ended by calling people who had gone to the temple.

I love you all and please email me pictures. I saw one of our family that Billy sent me and wow Ben looks much taller, Andrew much more mature and Caleb looks like my favorite little Stinky.

Have a wonderful week.

Love 
Eric

Pictures

Why I always walk with a book of mormon in my hand

Então (and so) this semana wasnt too eventful.

Terça feira

We had district meeting and went and taught people. Nothing too exciting happened.

Quarta feira

I woke up at 5:00 and took a bus at 6:00 to go to the temple. When we were at the bus station there were a bunch of people trying to get on the same bus as us. I got on and was standing next to the person taking the peoples money. As we rode the bus I stuck my book of mormon out for everyone to see. One man who was entering the bus was staring at it and so I asked him if he had read it. He said yes that he had friends in another state that were members and he moved to manuas and so he hadnt met with the missionaries. I took his address and continued standing. About 5-10 minutes later the young woman taking the bus fares asked to see my book of mormon. I then asked her if she had read it and she also responded no but would like to know more. So I explained about it and took down her address and gave her a book of mormon as well. It was interesting because that morning i hadnt been planning on bringing books of mormon with me or my book of mormon in my hand but because I did more people were brought to the point of learning more about the church. 

The temple is absolutely amazing and beautiful. I took pictures and theyre on picasa now. I had an amazing time there.

Quinta feira

It was normal work day and it even rained! Yay rain! But it was wonderful because we taught people. Also we had our correlation meeting and it was good.

Sexta feira

Today was interesting. So this week we had two couples that we were going to give dates for batism or cut them for not progressing. Each time we planned on doing it before we could talk they told us that they werent interested in hearing any more but invited us to pass by anytime we wanted. It was interesting that it happened two times the exact same way in one week. (the second time they gave us Mingau which is a porrige. It was really good)

Sabado

Today was the one year aniversary of my companion and also another elder in the mission. So after working for the day, we went to a members house and there they had a cake and a bunch of food for us. it was wonderful.

Domingo

We had excellent talks in sacrament meeting about missionary work. One returned sister gave a story about a young man giving his farewell address and he told a story about when he was waiting for his call and he had a dream where he was in the preexistance and he received his call to earth and it was to the us and he would have the gospel. His friend was there with him and he also recieved a call but his to costa rica and he wouldnt have the gospel. The friend who wasnt to have the gospel made his other friend promise to find him and share the gospel with him. The young man recieved his call to costa rica. One year later the bishop of the ward recieved a letter saying that hed found his friend. 

Look up the story its from the seventies and is real.

This was my week and I heard a quote from President Uchtdorf that i really liked. It was ``dont judge me because my sin is different than yours``. It was interesting for me to ponder about. 

Have a wonderful week and i love you all

love 

Eric