I love the mission!

Hola familia y amigos,

This week has been absolutely amazing.  We continue to find and teach more every day!  And I am truly convinced that we are finding people prepared.  I pray hard every day that we can find those prepared for the Gospel and that I can know how to help those that we are currently teaching.  For that is why I am here!

I am so excited for the Christmas Missionary devotional.  I have been praying lately that it is a successful tool in missionary work!  The ones we did in the Utah Ogden mission were very successful!  I do not sing well, but I love the power of music and the chance to sing in such a great cause is inspiring to me.  I am very excited and consider myself very blessed to take part in this great devotional!

We had a practice for the devotional today, and it was so awesome.  We went through the nit- picky parts and really learned the songs.  Like I have said, we are under the direction of 2 Mormon Tabernacle choir ex-members.  They are incredible.  

I actually was talking to one of them, Hermana Sullivan.  I was telling her about how excited I am for the choir, and how I really really REALLY want it to go well!  I am praying daily that people come and that God can make me sing like an angel for just a few hours!  I am trying really hard to memorize the songs and follow the instruction we are given, but I don´t always know how to sing better and they use a lot of technical terms I do not know.

I was telling her that I was nervous I was not going to do so well. She told me that what made a program successful is a lot more than what we sing.  She said if I look happy and confident, then I will be okay.  And nobody will hear my mistakes.  It really made me feel better. 

Now i just hope people come.  Please pray for us this week that we can invite and commit people to come!  The concert is on the 16th!

We are planning a fireside for our ward to get them pumped for missionary work.  We have a good plan, and I hope it is well carried out and that it is well recieved.  I think we are doing it at the end of the month.  It is supposed to be a kick off to the New Year.  I will let you know how it goes!

Our plan is to watch Elder Holland’s conference talk from a while ago (The first great commandment?)  It´s the one where he talks about Peter and how he just went back to fishing and Jesus asks Peter 3 times if he loves Him.  Then we are going to share personal experiences of how we have seen the blessings of members in missionary work.  We are going to have a member who served talk about her mission.  We are going to have a recent convert share an experience.  And then we are going to invite the ward to ACT!  We want each person to participate in the work.  We want each person to find someone ready for the Gospel.  If everyone works on it over the year (a long time, no?) We can DOUBLE the size of the ward!  Thats the plan anyway!

I have been studying Alma lately and I love learning about Aaron and Ammon.  They were such powerful missionaries!  I read Alma 26 today and it was cool for me because I recognized that I understand the joy Ammon is talking about.  I too have felt it.  To teach people and watch them progress and enter the waters of baptism has brought such a joy to my life.

At the very end of verse 16 I really like how Ammon says he cannot express even the smallest part of what he feels.  I was reading that this morning and I understood how he feels.  Sometimes I cannot explain the joy I feel at being a missionary.  It cannot always be explained, I think sometimes it simply has to be felt. Oh, how I wish everyone could feel it!

Con amor,

Hermana Olsen

MIRACLES ARE EVERYWHERE

 Thanksgiving

Christmas lights in a little courtyard of our piso!

 snow!

Missionary baptism story: I hope you find this as funny as I did.  The elders had a baptism the other week, and after the ordinance, they forgot to unplug the font.  When we all went down to have refreshments, we realized it and nobody wanted to go in the water (they said it was cold during the baptism and a good 30 minutes more had passed).  So how did they get the plug out?  

Our recent convert (not the one who got baptized), Dantel, grabs a chair and puts it on two different steps.  He tries to balance on it and I yell to one of the elders to grab the chair.  He responds, don´t grab the chair, grab Dantel!  With one elder holding the chair, and the other holding Dantel, Dantel was able to reach down, grab the plug, and come back up without getting wet!  We were all impressed.  

Later, Hermana Palomino asked me how many elders it takes to unplug a baptismal font.  I responded, ¨2, and a recent convert"  It was SOOOO funny!

Hunger games metro:  This metro came into the station on the other side of the tracks, while we were waiting for ours.  I think I took a step back as my jaw dropped in awe.  It was so cool to see it come in, and leave.  A powerful ad.

Hola familia y amigos,

This week has been absolutely amazing.  We are finding, teaching, and working with the ward! Every day I go out and work my hardest.  I am so happy it is amazing.

We started teaching two new investigators this week.  We had great first lessons with them.   I am feeling myself become a powerful teacher.  This week, I have been working on asking inspired questions.  It has had an inpact on my teaching.  I am trying very hard to work and teach by the Spirit. Doing so makes the work so much easier and more successful.

I´ve been reading an English copy of the General Conference Ensign.  I think I recieved it on Wednesday and have already read the session we were not able to see, the Relief Society General Meeting and am halfway through the Saturday Morning session.  I love the words of the modern prophets!  I know their words are true!

For the month of December our goal is to have 3 baptisms.  We are so excited to work hard and find those people ready for the Gospel.  We are also looking for 25 Christmas miracles.  We already have 2!  This transfer is going to be full of miracles.

Thanksgiving was great!  We ended up not doing brazilian, but all the missionaries in our ward (there are 8 of us. 6 elders and 2 hermanas) went to KFC and we bought buckets of chicken.  Then we went to the Capilla and ate all our food together.  It wasn´t turkey but it was american!  and we all said things were grateful for!  It was a good little thanksgiving in Spain.

It snowed a bit the night before thanksgiving.  we woke up to a little bit of snow.  It is COLD here. 

Mom, I got the package.  The blouse is PERFECT.  and I´m wearing the shoes right now!  I loved the cookies too!  Mint chocolate chip.  I think I smelled the cookies before I saw them!

We had a cool experience with the Bolivar family last night.  Hermano had asked the elders to give him a blessing, but they left after church before the Elders could find them, so they came to our lesson with them yesterday.  They gave him a blessing and then their little 5 year old son Jesus went and sat on the chair and put his hands on his head and looked at Elder Lloyd.  He was clearly asking for a blessing, and so the Elders gave him one.

Then Hermana got one and lasty Rosalind (our 8 year old recent convert) decided she wanted one.  The blessings were beautiful, as they always are.  But what struck me most this time, was how grateful I am that we have the priesthood on the earth today!  And how grateful I was for 2 Elders that lived their lives right that they prepared and were serving missions and when the time was necessary, they were ready and prepared to offer a blessing!  4 in fact!

I know this gospel is true.  I have learned this week that we need not fear if our trust is in the Lord and if we are following in His path.  I know He will lead me and guide me in all of my endeavours.  He´s been doing it, more than ever, for the past 16 months and I know it will continue the rest of my life.

I understand the gospel better every day.  I am more dedicated now than ever to live it.  I love it and I love who it has shaped me to become!

Con amor,

Hermana Olsen

Me quedo en Barrio 1 (I´m staying in B1)

November 25, 2013

Hola familia y amigos,

I am beyond happy to report that me and Hna. Palomino will be staying together for another transfer.  Christmas Miracle numero 1.  I am so excited.  This transfer is going to be super exciting.  We are going to work hard, and see miracles.

This transfer is also going to be awesome becuase it is Thanksgiving, Christmas, the New Year and probably something else.  For Thanksgiving we already have some comidas.  We are going to a brazilian restaurant with the Elders and our ward mission leader.  I think we have a comida with a family in our ward as well!

We have great plans for Christmas too.  Christmas will be our P-day so we have plans to get together with a few Hermanas and do some fun stuff.  This transfer we also want to have an ugly sweater party.  So that will be fun!

The last week of this transfer was a little slow, but not bad.  Hna. Palomino was sick most of the week so we spent some time in the Piso for her to recuperate.  I think she is doing better now.

We found a lot more this week, and so hopefully we will start teaching more this transfer.  And we can start teaching new people.  This week, on Thursday, we had an amazing zone conference.  We talked about desire, a little about obedience, and also about finding.  I feel so determined to be a better missionary.  I am excited for this transfer and the opportunity to work every day to be a little bit better.  I haven´t much time left and I really want to be the best I can be!  I know great things are in store if I work hard, and I know I will work and be the best missionary I can be until my chapa is off.  But lets not think about that.  I still have plenty of time, and I am going to enjoy every minute of it and work hard every moment I can!

My intercambio in Villalba was great. A lot closer to the mountains.  It was beautiful.  I wasn´t there for long, but I really enjoyed the intercambio.  It definitely was not madrid.  It was still a city, but there was some country too. OH!  I saw horses and cows!  I haven´t seen horses and cows in 9 MONTHS!  I almost felt like I was in Logan.  We saw cows all the time in Logan.  So I really enjoyed Villalba. We had a ward noche de hogar that night too, and so I got to see the ward.  It was supportive.  I LOVE meeting members in Spain.  They are such wonderful people.

The Bolivar family is doing well.  They are going to be baptized on December 20th (Christmas Miracle numero 2) and we are so excited for them.

OH!  The mission is planning a huge Christmas concert.  We have to invite all our investigators and recent converts.  We, the missionaries, will be singing Christmas songs and they have a presentation to go with everything.  A Senior couple in our mission is planning it, they both used to be in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so it is going to be pretty legit.  The 16th of December we will be having our concert.  I am super excited.  We have to memorize the songs and they want all of us to wear red (mom, I might need to buy something, because I don´t own anything red).  We have had a few practices and they have been pretty intense, but we are under the instruction of Mormon Tabernacle Choir vetrans, what can I expect?  i LOVE how I a serving in Spain, yet we have connections like this!  It amazes me!

I am looking forward to another transfer in Barrio 1.  Great things are going to happen.  Great things are a´foot in Madrid, Spain and at the Circle K.  I think I will look for 25 Christmas Miracles, I already have 2.

I KNOW this church is true.  I love the knowledge of the Gospel I have obtained and the strength of my testimony.  The mission is incredible.  I am so blessed, and I know that God and Jesus Christ love me!  I LOVE this Gospel and who it is helping me become.  I am changing and becoming someone better than I ever could have imagined!

I forgot my camera cord, so no pictures this week :( sorry!

Con amor,

Hermana Olsen