Real fast.

I don't have much time to e-mail this week everything is closed over the holdiays but I will be sending a letter, I already have half of one written. It was really fun to talk to everybody on the phone and here first hand how everyone is doing. I hope you all had a great christmas i'm sure effigy josh filled in nicely. I just remember something I was going to tell you yesterday... those skull and frankenstein cups you sent me for halloween- I still use those... every day. Interesting fact.

Love Josh.
--
-Josh

2007 Christmas Card

Christmas card sent from the President and Sister Callister with the following note:

Elder Olson is a steady, faithful, exemplary missionary.
He is making a valuable contribution to the mission.
We love & respect him very much.
President and Sister Callister.
December 2007

Picture taken at the October 2007 Zone conference with Elder & Sister Kikuchi

Christmas!

Hello! The weeks coming up to christmas have been crazy. We had a huge storm on sunday morning and a ton of snow - I think our car got stuck about 15 times. It came right after we had our big Christmas Devotional were we watched our one movie for the year. This year it was "Luther" all about Martin Luther- it was pretty intense especially after not watching anything for along time.

I loved the christmas package you sent me especially all the pine needles! Christmas is going to be awesome- we already got invited to members homes for christmas eve and christmas day- and there are four missionaries in our branch now so its going to be a blast. I just keep remembering all the christmas eves that we had with the missionaries over and I've just realized how awesome it was to be able to go and eat dinner and just enjoy it. I'm looking forward to be able to call everyone on Christmas we will be calling in the afternoon. I think just after 12:00. And no later than 2:00. If anything changes will have to jump in the library during lunch someday and e-mail but That should be the best time- that way I can hear about all the stuff everyone got for christmas.

So besides being the worst winter in Canada in 15 years things are going really well- the other day it was negative 18 degress celsius. We are doing really well up here. Even after they split the are we have been able to find alot of new people to teach. So I'll be sure to send letters and hopefully a tape for christmas even if I have to express it- I was going to buy gifts but it became too difficult but I might send some a little late becaue p-day is on boxing day this year and thats when they have a ton of good sales.

Got to go a member just called me (we have a cell phone right now) and we need to help him put his suitcases in his car.

Merry Christmas Love Elder Olson.

--
-Josh

Yep!

How is it going this week has been crazy. The new apartment is really big but its super empty we hardly have anything not even things like can openers. I had to open a can by jabbing a knife into it. By the way my new address is the same zip code as before but its now

284 Kingsdale apt. # 207

Kingston, ON

Elder Hatch is Orrin Hatch's grandson and he was born in Virginia before moving to utah as a child.

Everything is going really well I am still getting used to the responsibility of being senior companion, though it isn't too much different than before though instead of having companions that have been out for about a year and a half or more now it is about 3-4 months.

It is going really well though I'm glad to hear everyone is doing really well, especially Lindsey graduating, Zach's brain still works, and Beccas gettin tons of A's!

I have it written down in my planner to sit down and write letters today so I promise to get some sent- Its going really well up here and I'm loving being a missionary thanks for the news and all the support

Love Josh (Elder Olson)

--
-Josh

A little change...

I wrote last time that they are going to split the area that I've been in so far for my entire mission. Well we just found out that that is going to happen- they are also splitting up Elder Hinkle and I and I will be having a new companion named Elder Hatch for the last 3 weeks if this transfer and probably for the next transfer as well. Elder Hatch came into the mission one transfer after me so they will be making me senior companion this transfer after all. Not only that but the are that I'm going to be in has a little less than half of the the main area that I have worked in before as well as the entire northern area that missionaries rarely go to so I get the good car and we are basiclly going to be opening up a huge unworked area though we are still holding on to a little bit of Kingston. We also got a brand new apartment which I'll be moving into on friday. It is a little sad because I'm going to miss the little dinky place that I've been living in since I came to Canada. Also I'm pretty sure that my new companion Elder Hatch is actually Orrin Hatch's grandson - yah the senator - though I haven't had the chance to ask him personally yet. So i'm really still digesting that news but it looks like fun times on the horizon. So although I'm still in the same brach and am partly working the same area I have always done everything else has changed. Mid- transfer splits are pretty rare so we'll see what happens. The work is going really well we might have to push back our upcoming baptism till after Christmas because Laura's mom probably won't be able to make it back in time. We are also teaching a couple of really cool new people that I'll have to write about. One is this really hilarious guy named Andrew- hes got sweet dreads and a beard - he spends his free time planting trees, snowboarding, and doing yoga - and as far as I can tell doesn't change his clothes that often. He just wears one of those south american poncho things Becca, zach, and I bought and some crazy looking pants and he loves praying and learning about the gospel. I'll have to write more in letters.

--
- Love Josh

Eh!!!

I heard BYU won! (someone gave us the news the day of the game and then Lindsey gave me the game report today-THANKS!-). We had another missionary with us for the day of the game and he sported his BYU scarf all day in solidarity and made sure that no one was wearing a red tie. I think I recognized only one name in the game report, Collie, did he play last season?

Anyways things are going really well up here in Canada. Our investigator Laura is progressing really well though she will have to be baptized in the other branch that attends our building because she technically lives in our are (I'm still gonna count her as mine). We also have a few other people that are doing really. In other news they are going to split the area that I am in into two areas. So we are looking for an apartment for 2 new missionaries to live in. So it is possible that I will get another companion by dec. 6 if they decide to split my companion and I up because we both know the area. It is possible that they will keep us together and just whitewash half of the area but its not very likely.

In other news as of yesterday I have been a missionary for 5 months. On my birthday I will have been out for a quarter of my mission already, the time really flies - funny how I went into the mtc on my half birthday.

Lindsey- it sounds like your suffering from an extreme and prolonged case of senioritis. Its not as if you don't have enough distractions as it is (football season). Just push through it. And thanks for the letters from fhe with the warners. They always pretty fun I'll. I'll have to write back soon. I got one a long time ago and then I just got the last two in one week.

Hows it going back home in Virginia? Can't wait to here from you and I'm writing more about what I'm doing in my letter. Nice to hear that things have quited down. Thanks for sending my hat!

Love Josh.

Still Here...

Transfers came this week but I'm still here. It turned out to be probably a 50/50 chance fo me leaving. President asked me if I wanted to leave and I told him I didn't care either way but would like to stay one more just to be able to see one of the people I have been teaching baptized. He also said he thought that I was ready to be senior companion but that it just might not work out. So its pretty much the same as last transfer except now my companion is the district leader. The next transfer should be the end of december. The only other change is that the Zone leaders that also work in Kingston are now in a threesome companionship so one of them is going to be with us in our area about every week and sometimes for about three days at a time. I'm looking forward to that because he is really easy to get along with and has been a zone leader for over a year, so I will be able to learn alot.

We set a really solid baptismal date with our investigator Laura, the 20 yr old. We've been teaching her the entire time that I've been here and she is finally decided to be baptized, although she has been ready for about 2 months. That should be around the 23rd of december.

Its getting pretty cold up here, I can't believe its only 60 in virginia. I can't remember really how cold it gets in january and february back home. Out here it apparentlly the daytime temperature bottoms at around negative 30 celsius which is really close to - 30 farenheit. They also say that occasionally with windchill it will get to -40 (which is the same as -40 degress farenheit). So I'm looking for some warm socks, which reminds me if its not too much trouble to look for my gray beanie (they call them tukes up here - or tooks- either way it rhymes with pukes) and send that up in the next package. I'm using a black one I found but I look alot like a burglar.

It sounds like everyone is doing well down there and in Utah. I will be writing again this week, which is my new goal - to remember to write. I may actually get 2 american thanksgiving dinners this week, which is funny because we didn't get any canadian dinners. Oh by the way did you know that generally words like "center" are written "centre" up here? It took me about 5 months to figure that out. Sometimes I forget I'm in a different country.

Love Josh (Elder Olson)

Real quick...

It was good to hear from you again this week. Transfer day will be next wednesday, I believe it is the 21st. I'll find out on that monday whats happening. By the way is there any more news on Zach's head I wasn't sure after last week if he was fully recovered yet or not. Well trust me I have already wrote a letter this week but I've been saving it because I am also sending pictures so this won't be all you get this week, I hope your all doing well. Sounds like it was an interesting trip to Virginia Beach, its really tought to be sick and work at the same time. I started taking a multi-vitamin and a vitamin c pill every morning because for a couple months I had this head cold flu thing that wouldn't go away and I really don't want it to come back. It must have been nice to see Brody, he was always a really fun guy. Manassas is on mandatory water restrictions? Does that mean just watering grass or everything showers included? How warm is it in manassas right now? Its kind of fluctuating up here I thought it was going to hang around 0 degress, and it did for a week but its already up to 14 today so its pretty nice out. I'm not really sure since I don't watch the weather but someone told me we were supposed to have a pretty cold winter up here, I guess I'll find out eventually. Hope you guys have a good week, keep keeping me updated its surprisingly interesting to read about all the stuff that you guys are doing.

Love Josh.

pheww!!!!

I get the most stressfull emails. Its a really good thing that i can only check e-mail once a week. If I had read the e-mail about zach's crash and then didn't get to find out all that happened for about another week I might have keeled over. So for future reference, if something crazy happens on tuesday night that could possibly resolved, use your judgement but maybe don't send it to me. Its really comforting to get the problem email and the resoloution email all in one go. (I might start reading my email backwards.) But I do appreciate the emergency emails, just be carefull.

When I read the first one Zach hitting his head the first thought that came into my head was "Oh no! I killed Zach!" Its good to find out hes still alive and that his head was only messed up a little bit (what does it mean his short term memory is almost back?). Anyway thats a pretty good story especiallly the part about asking the same questions over again. I especially like this one... "Is my bike ok?" "probably not" "Is my bike ok?" "maybe" Is my bike ok?" "its fine" "good as long as my bike is ok" hmmm... "Is my brain ok?" "Probably not the only thing you keep asking me about is your stinkin bike!" ... that made me laugh so hard the lady sitting at the computer next to me got up and left. Good story, the pictures were awesome... but zach man be careful you need to stay alive until I get back.

I did get my winter coat in the mail, thanks!, and it is getting kind of cold up here. Its hitting 0 celsius every morning so only about 32 degrees f. I did buy myself a pair of gloves today because its been pretty cold tracting ( I got some mitten ones that pull off into fingerless gloves so that you can still write- they're perfect for missionaries).

This has been an interesting transfer my companion is a different guy, he spent alot of his mission in around toronto and he likes to tell me about it every day. This is probably one of those stories I really shouldn't write home about but it was pretty funny. Yesterday we were knocking on a door and he said something about how different "the city" was from "the country" and so I promptly turned around and gave him a little punch in the chest and he fell off the front step. It wasn't hard or anything just a little reminder. I felt alot better after that I had never really thought about punching your companion before, I probably won't do it again. We get along fine though- I just heard yesterday that if you stay with a companion for 3 transfers (4 1/2 months) you will actually be physically with them for the same amount of time as a couple in their first year of marriage. Sorry again about not writing letters last week but I just bought stamps today and I got the letter from Mom and zach this week so I'll be writing everyone and lindsey I'm still getting the package together, sorry belated birthday face, dad have fun in virginia beach, and Miss Becca...ladybugs.

Halloween

Its Halloween today and its p-day so we are going to get together with a bunch of missionarys and go 5 pin bowling, a Canadian classic. After 6:00 we can't street contact or tract, but we were able to set up 3 apts. for the night so we should be busy till 9. It was great to get another letter this week from mom and a buch of pitctures. I saw that one with Zach wearing Sonic YOuth! hmm... I guess its alright I though about it and I can't really stop zach and becca from wearing my shirts... just as long as there are a bunch of cool new ones in my closet when I get back! Anyway I'll definitely be writing because my time is about to expire but love your guys and hope your doing well!!! go team!

Hello there!

I'm glad to hear from you guys again and I feel bad about not getting an e-mail off last week, I wrote one and then the library (which has recently been renovated) dropped its internet connection before I could get anything off. Good news is that I did recieve the halloween package. Really quickly I should tell you about my new companion. His names Elder Hinkle from Salinas, California (it where lettuce comes from, check it out on any lettuce you by from the grocery store) and hes an interesting character. The change from Elder Brennan to Elder Hinkle has been a little rough as they are complete opposites in every way, but thats ok because I'm learning why we are supposed to have companionship inventory once a week to talk about our problems and how to resolve them. You'd be surprised at how well it works, I never had to do it with my last companion. Anyway, opening the Halloween package with him around was like opening pandora's box. Suddently I was blowing up balloons and making things grow, eating eyeballs and drinking out of skulls- I swear he though all the evils of the world had opened up on him. He looked at me odd when I handed him the frankenstein cup and said here this is for you to drink! Not that he was scared, but every time I pulled out something new I think he was tallying them up as distration number 1, distraction number 2... So thanks I'm having a ball... or should I say a monster mash, its a midnight bash!

We have just spent two weeks doing alot of tracting and finding alot more people to teach and it was very succesful. We are now teaching a really cool phillipino guy names rod who is about 23 and he reminds me alot of Sergio Ortiz. We are also teaching a middle aged lady who is a diesel motor technician in the Canadian military. One of the people we've been teaching for a while now is Laura, who is about twenty, and she is ready to be baptized as soon as her mother returns from Ireland. We also have begun teaching her roomate who has already read more of the Book of Mormon than Laura has. We've had a lot of good meetings with both of them and it will be really good for them to be able to got to church together.

Its really warm up here in Canada, people keep telling me its the warmest fall they remember but it finally is getting cold and rainy. I'll be glad when I get my coat in the mail. One thing for Christmas that I forgot to ask for would be my gray beanie. I don't think I'll need it before christmas but it would be nice to save buying a new one. Its kind of interesting this will be the first christmas in a while that I am actually pretty sure of what I want... kind of funny that way. It would be great to have another dark V-neck sweater, possibly one that'll look good with my pin-stripe suit if that exists. More sweet ties (becca I get alot of compliments on my green tie, more than any other!) that are nice and think and make a good knot whith all kinds of different colors. Possibly a nice pair of black leather gloves. And c.d.s anything classical, especially cool stuff like experimental yo-yo-ma recordings or really interesting piano and orchestra recordings (you know me anything a little strange) and anything mo-tab. (please no efy music). The music rule right now and this is a quote from President Callister , "Were moving towards the spirit of the law so, anything that makes you a better missionary". And Snicker Doodles! And Scarf!! And sock!!! So just pick anything out of the list. And especially pictures of the family and letters!!!!!!

And also some exclamation points... because I'm kind of running out of them!!!!! ! !! !

I hear everyone is doing well in school and thats good. Its kind of odd but I actually miss doing homework and math. So i'll let you go because I'm running out of time but my new goal is to make sure I remember to write a real letter every week so you'll hear from me again. I just found out I've been sending my mail in the local kingston box so its probably taken alot longer to get my letters than its should, oops.

Love josh.

Letter: Holy Cow

September 21-27, 2007

Family,

Holy Cow! Where did the phrase ‘Holy cow’ come from, it’s very puzzling. I’m already more that halfway through my second transfer. On Tuesday I’ll be going to someone else’s area and I’ll get to be the senior companion for the day—its possible that I’ll even get to drive. (!) I finally feel like I’m getting enough sleep every day, and no longer feel the need to doze off when we are traveling from place to place. It helps that I just got over a cold that was wearing me out. It stinks to feel sick as a missionary, because you can’t really take a break and sleep it off, you just kind of have to wait it out.

I was really sorry to hear about whiskers. I still can’t believe it happened so quickly; the house won’t be the same without her. I can’t even really remember a time when Whiskers wasn’t’ hanging around sleeping in tiny little boxes or making sure to sit down on the only piece of paper on the entire floor. I’m glad you were able to bury her in the backyard; you’ll have to put a flower on her grave for me.

Besides that it sounds like everything is going pretty well back home. At least everyone sounds pretty busy, Dad gone on vacation/work (just kidding, I’m just jealous of all the cool restaurants), Mom with seminary, Becca with physical therapy, work, school, dance, potatoes, and crayon coloring lessons. Zach with high school and biking and seminary, and breakfast cereals. I’m mostly quessing about Zach because I haven’t actually heard from him yet, but that’s alright I understand how hard it is to write letters (you PUNK!). It was great to get letters from you guys, I like to be able to read them more that once, Becca’s day care sounds just as hilarious as ever, just thinking about kids saying the words, “Ms. Becca” makes me laugh. Especially in the context of tackling and licking. “Ms. Becca we need to talk”, “About what?” “Lady Bugs”.

It is getting pretty hectic right now, we’ve been really busy for this part of the week or so, teaching more people that I ever have before. One guy who we are teaching is this Native guy named Brian. We met him a number of times outside his apartment building before he finally agreed to meet with us. The first appointment he set up he didn’t show up. However we were able to see him a few days later and gave hi a Book of Mormon. Later that night he gave us a call. He told us that he had been studying it for hours and was amazed by it. He told us a story about how his Great Grandfather used to tell him that long before the white man came, The Creator visited his people. It’s hard to get people to even turn off the TV for 5 minutes to read a little bit, much less a few hours. So after we met him we taught him about the Restoration and committed him for baptism on October 7^th. (This was around Sept. 7^th) Not only does Brian read everything we give him, he even looks for more on his own. After his first time reading he asked for a Doctrine and Covenants. The third time we met with him he showed us a copy of True to the Faith that he had bought at a thrift store. He had a little trouble with the word of wisdom because in his culture it is normal to eat huge amounts of meat and drink a lot of tea, because they grew up in poverty and that is all they had. We had one scary appointment when he had just found out that he was going to be evicted and he told us he probably didn’t think it was going to work out seeing us anymore; but we fought for him and explained how much he had learned so far and how obstacles would come in his way, but that he needed to work through them. He finally set a time we could come back a few days later (previously we had been seeing him everyday). He didn’t turn up for that appointment so we were kind of worried because he wasn’t returning our calls and was never home when we dropped by. About a week after we last saw him, we were dropping by to see if he was home, we were worried that he may have already moved. Before we got out of the car Elder Brennan decided that we needed to say a prayer, so we prayed for help in finding Brian. Just as we got out of the car, I saw a couple walking a little ways behind us and I thought, if were going to get help in finding Brian we need to show that we are willing to put in some effort. So even though the couple looked pretty sketchy, I went over to talk to them and ask if we could come teach them some time. As I was writing down their information, Elder Brennan looked behind me and said, “look who it is”. Brian was riding his bike down the parking lot directly toward us. He stopped and told us how he had been having a crazy week trying to find an apartment and being out late looking for his son who kept running away from his mother’s house. Then he showed us how he had bought a Gospel Principles Book at the Book Barn along with 2 extra coping of the Book of Mormon so that he could give them out to anyone who was interested. He came to church that week and loved it and since then we’ve taught him everything and he’s still scheduled for baptism on General Conference Sunday. Just last night after teaching him the law of tithing he said, referring to our discussions, “it’s getting better all the time.” Which he explained is an old Indian saying. Anyway, there is only about one more week in this transfer and as of the 27^th I’ve officially been out 3 months, which is 1/8^th of two years---so it’s already going pretty fast. I hope you are all doing well, and having a riot in the fall, so far it’s been extraordinarily warm up here, but I think it’s about to drop.

Love Josh,

(picture of sleeping microphone)

News..news...news....

Not too much to say today as I haven't heard from you since last weeks e-mail, letters take forever to go through the border and then they only get picked up from toronto when someone goes out there. Which isn't too often my zone is the furthest east and is often called the lost zone. Apparently Elder Ballard came to speak to our mission and only our zone wasn't able to attend because we were too far out (the same reason we are the only zone that doesn't go to the temple). Tomorrow I'll be doing the gallon challenge with a less active member and one of the priests in the ward that comes out with us alot. We are going to be doing it again with our district next p-day... that is alot of milk. I'm going to be sure to take alot of pictures. Oh yah... and I'm speaking again in sacrament meeting. This time with one of the district councillors. I've never had to give so many talks in my entire life. I hope your all doing well, school just started so thats pretty exciting. It got hot out here again I'm getting pretty tired of the heat its Canada it should be cold.

Six Weeks

Today is my first transfer day and both my companion and I are staying in the Cataraqui area. If you are getting transferred you get the call monday night anywhere from 9:00 to 10:30 so it is a pretty nerve-wracking hour and a half. Next time will be worse though because I will probably moving and I will definitely be getting a new companion. I did get a new Zone leader, which I see alot (almost every morning and some p-days) because they are right next door. Whats really exciting though is that the district leader in my area is training so I will not be the newest missionary anymore and when we go on travels I will actually be the experienced missionary for one day.

Other than that the most craziest thing right now is that its p-day and we didn't get our monthly allowance yet so we have no money to buy groceries this week, I have 3 dollars and my companion has 4. Luckily I have enough change to do laundry. I don't want to get in the habit of paying for groceries and laundry with my own money so I'm just gonna have to suffer this week and be more a little more stingy next month.

Anyway, its great to hear from you and I'll see you next week same bat time same bat channel.

-Love josh.
(thats elder josh to you!)

Letter: Dear Fellows

August 29, 31, 2007

Dear Fellows,

This letter should be a little later than usual because I’m actually writing it on Friday instead of Wednesday. Wednesday was a pretty uneventful p-day. We didn’t go grocery shopping because we hadn’t been paid, of this month and we could hardly do laundry. So right after studying in the morning we took a three hour hap, which is the first real nap I’ve taken since I went into the MTC. For once I actually felt rested, so it figures I would ruin it by getting one of the worst night of sleep I’ve ever had. Anyway, that kind of went over my letter writing time. In fact we went to the library when I was doing laundry and I wasn’t in my proselyting clothes. We just happened to run into the Branch President’s family when we were leaving and all the kids were yelling, “Elder Olson’s in jeans”. It was kind of awkward.

The first week of the first transfer is almost over, and I just found out that everyone in my MTC district either got transferred or got new companions, except for the only other guy in my Zone and I. In fact, apparently all the rest just kink of switched trainers, I’m not really sure why. Anyway, I’m excited to start this transfer with a little bit more experience, in fact I was a little over-excited and I got myself into some trouble.

In our interviews with the Mission President last week he stressed how there were a few different levels of missionaries. The first was those people who talk to a lot of people they see, the second was those people who talk to everyone that crosses their path, and the third were the missionaries who were “hunters of men” and would search for people to talk to, every hour of the day and talk to everyone in visible range. So it was about 9:45 at night and my companion and I were talking about how we needed to be better at hunting and even pull over the car when we’re driving to talk to people on the street. So after dropping by an investigator we were driving home and saw a guy unloading his car. It was 9:55 and we had about 5 minutes left so we pulled over and ran over to talk to him. While I was talking to him, Elder Brennan went to talk to some other people. The guy I talked to told us we could come back and just then I saw a lady on a bike to by, so I yelled after her car and asked if I could give her a copy of the Book of Mormon. She told me I could if I could catch her. I thought about it for about 3 seconds as I saw her get further away before I bolted after her. My pens flew out of my pocket and pass along and scripture memorization cards were floating behind me. I caught up to her and tried to hand her the Book but she almost crashed so she told me to wait a second until she got to her house. It turned out to be about a 5 minutes heavy run. By the time I had given her the Book I realized I had left my companion a few streets back so I bolted back to the car. When I got back to the car he wasn’t there so I started looking for my pen when I heard someone yell, “Newbie!! From back the way I had come from. It turned out that just after I ran away he had come back to the car and was amazed to see that I was no where in sight. He immediately thought that possibly I had got into some kind of a fight with the guy that I had been talking to. Then he saw my pen and cards strewn all over the street and that pretty much convinced him that I’d been kidnapped. He got really scared, picked up my stuff and went to the investigator’s house to call the Mission President and tell him he had no idea where I was. He thought that I was going to be dead after only being one transfer out and that he was going to be sent home. After we finally got to the apartment and called the President to tell him I wasn’t dead, everything was fine. Elder Brennan told him that it was the scariest experience of his mission, and President Callister said, “Now you know what it is like to be a parent.” I felt really bad for scaring everybody around me but that’s alright. It was actually pretty scary just being without a companion for a little bit. It is amazing how you get used to never being alone.

Anyway, that’s my story for the week, so now I want to hear a crazy story from you guys. Hope your doing well and I miss you all.

Love, Josh

(sorry about the handwriting)

(cute picture of a square cow)

August 22, 2007

August 22, 2007

The only time I lave to write today is in between loads of laundry, so while I’m writing I am being periodically distracted by the news and cheesy soaps (the T.V. kind not the laundry kind). Anyway – After about two months of wearing proselyting clothes everyday, I’m finally getting used to it. We don’t even wear normal clothes on Preparation day if we can reasonably wear our proselyting clothes. The one change is the temperature, last week it was 30 degrees C. for half of the day until it suddenly dropped to about 12 degrees C. Ever since then it has pretty much long sleeves. Apparently that quickly the summer is over.

Friday I am going to be trained by the District Leader for the first time, which basically means that I’m gonna be the one in charge of planning teaching and deciding what to do while my trainer is in Napanee (which by the way is Avril Lavigne’s home town, apparently missionaries tract into her mom all the time. I was there 2 weeks ago and it’s a bum country town…and that is your most random useless pop culture trivia fact of the week).

I thought you might want to know a little bit more about my area, Catoraqui. It is basically the suburban area of the city of Kingston. Kingston is a really old city with a bunch of old churches and buildings. It also has Queen’s University, which is apparently the best Medical School in Canada, and is where Hockey was invented….I went to a Hockey Museum and learned all about it. It’s pretty much classic Canada, about every few days we’ll knock on someone’s house who only speaks French because it is pretty close to Quebec. And just like in the movie, every single thing label, document, and sign is written in English and French (if you look really closely at a picture of the Toronto temple you can see that below where it says “Holiness to the Lord” it’s written again in French). It’s actually kind of odd considering the lack of exclusively French speaking people.

The missionary work is going pretty well, we have a whole group of new people we are teaching and we are hoping to see a lot of people progressing towards baptism in the next transfer. (six weeks) We just taught a great girl named Shannon who was perfectly prepared. We were in her neighborhood fro an appointment with a lady we’ve been teaching for a while but who can’t quit smoking. She missed her appointment, which she does a lot so we decided just to drop by Shannon and her mom who we had street contacted and who sounded interested. As we walked into her driveway, she pulled right behind us and we were able to teach her all about the restoration. She told us all about how she was looking for something more in her life and had been wanting to o to church. Apparently, her mom had always been kind of anti-religion, but ever since we talked to her on the street she had been much more open to the idea. Another one of our investigators Matt, who went to Youth Conference with his friend is the most solid person I’ve ever taught. Most people we have taught always forget to do the reading we asked them to or are stubborn or nervous and too lazy to get up for church. This guy reads everything and asks other people for things to read, he goes out of his way to learn more and even gets up himself and rides his motorcycle 30 minutes to church every week. He would even have a baptismal date if it wasn’t for one of his parents being somewhat opposed to it. He keeps going on the internet to dig up anti-mormon stuff. As soon as we can teach Matt with his dad and clear up all the misconceptions, he said he wanted his friend to baptize him.

I’m having a great time so far. I am just to the point where I am getting used to missionary work enough so that I can actually enjoy it. It is hard and I never feel like I get enough sleep, but it’s great to be busy every day, it really makes you appreciate the times that you can just sit down and relax (about once a week during church). I hope to hear from you soon, I’m gonna be better at writing every week. I like letters so much more than e-mail because I can read them other times that in the space of one hour once a week. Anyway, I want to send my memory card to you guys, but I need to back up the pictures onto a CD first, if you have any ideas of the best way to send it just email me (will it b e alright to just put it in a letter?) Anyway----

Love, Josh

Hey!

How is it going? I hope you got my letter from last week by now but if not don't worry I'm going to be getting in the habit of sending one a week from this point on especially now that I bought Canadian stamps.

This is my sixth week in Canada and the last week of my first Transfer. I find out if I am tranfered on monday night, although I probably won't moved because you usually stay with your trainer for two transfers. That is a good thing because I don't want to have to get to know a whole other ward and area already. I just gave a talk on sunday which almost killed me because I didn't have a computer to type it up on and I had to prepare it during my personal study and that was all the time that i had, it was on how charity is the source of a real missionary attitude. It went alright though, this week I am going to be teaching elder's quorum. Out of the 5-6 sundays I have been here I think only two elder's quorum meetings have NOT been taught by us, Its a pretty small branch especially during the summer last week we had 40 people total at church. Between having to teach and speak in church and giving people blessings alot I've already had to learn to overcome alot of nervousness. For some reason people keep asking me to give the actual blessing when a husband or more experienced missionary is around, its kind of frustrating. I had my first kind of "bible bash" session the other day which happens even if you try to avoid it apparently, it was with this crazy pentacostal guy who just kept talking about the gift of tongues.

I'm still trying to balance what I write in my E-mails and letters so I apologize again for being kinda sketchy. I hope to hear from you again next week.

- Love josh.

August 19,2007

August 19, 2007

There is a little trick that trainers like to pull on their greenies. It goes like this, he sees something off in the distance like a plane and says, ”Hey Elder (Greenie) how far away is that plane?” The inexperienced missionary looks up and says, “I don’t know a few miles?” ---“Nope,” the trainer says, “Two years away.” Luckily I heard about this joke before my companion could pull it on me. That’s basically how it is around here. The 5 older elders in my district have all been out over a year and a half. Two of them are Zone Leaders and one other elder, who I am going on a travel with today, is leaving at the end of this transfer which is 3 weeks away. But that’s alright, most people tell me I look pretty young but today some told me that we looked older that the last missionaries who came by which were “just a couple of young guys.”

My area “Cataraqui” = cat-uh-rock-way, is basically the suburban areas of the Town of Kingston, which is an old historic town which was basically established when all the loyalist left the states after the revolutionary war. They also had a big in flux of confederates after the Civil War. So basically whenever anybody loses a war in the states, they come to this area to get away from repercussions. It’s a smaller branch, but with a few pretty strong families, so we get fed a lot.

I’m working really hard but having a pretty good time while doing it. My companion plays bass guitar and listens to a lot of punk-metal-emo music. So we switch off playing guitar while the other brushes teeth and such-not. We had a pretty serious fly problem so we made a trap out of a bowl and a moldy piece of pineapple. We left it overnight and the next morning there were about on-hundred dead flies in it, not exactly sure why they died…it must have been really moldy. Eventually we found the source, it was a stinking bag of potatoes in a closet. When we picked it up to carry it outside the bottom ripped out and flies flew everywhere—we had to remake the moldy pineapple trap. So that’s pretty gross. My apartment is pretty much sketchy—no air conditioning, (it’s about 30 degrees Celsius up here, do the conversion, F = 9/5(C) + 32 degrees – I think.), smells kind of funny, bugs everywhere, no vacuum, tiny kitchen, and the freezer leeks water so everything we put in it gets encased in ice and we have to chisel it out. Eventually the ice actually entirely fills up the freezer and slowly pushes the door open an inch at a time.

The teaching is really starting to pick up. We are teaching a few really good people. We just started teaching this seventeen year old lad named Matt. He had started to come to youth activities with one of his friends because they played a lot of soccer and Frisbee. After meeting him at a dinner with a member family we asked him if he wanted to take the discussions. We taught him on a Friday and then he went to church on that Sunday. We set an appointment up with him on the coming Friday but he called us back later and said he couldn’t make it because he had decided to go to youth conference. We were pretty excited. All the other youth in the ward have kind been inspired from this. One guy who we take out on a lot of appointments with us, just came up to us one day and told us he was going to bring his girlfriend to church because we needed to baptize her. Beside a few other people who are taking a little longer, we are teaching a 30 year old woman who actually bore her testimony last Sunday and who we are going to try and commit to be baptized in one week. She has already been interviewed by the Mission President but then she backed out, but we think she is ready now.

Yesterday we had an amazing teaching appointment. We talked to a guy named Kevin just the night before and he told us to come by the next day. When we knocked on his door nobody answered so we knocked on a few other housed and we saw his wife walking by. So told us to check in the backyard and we were able to teach both of them. This guy was so prepared to be taught, before we even began teaching him he was talking about how he didn’t believe that his own baptism had meant anything because it had happened when he was an infant. So we taught him about the Restoration and the Spirit was so powerful that we committed both of them to a baptismal date on Sept. 2 and they agreed to work towards it. So while the first three weeks were a little dry we are starting to get a lot busier (however you spell that).

I had my first Zone Conference last week and I learned a ton, even about washing hands. Apparently, it doesn’t matter what temperature the water is or if it is antibacterial, that actually just kills the good germs, but the soap creates more friction so that you actually rub off the bacteria when then gets caught in the soap bubbles and is rinsed away by the water. Washing your hands well for 25 seconds keeps them clean for about 30 minutes, whereas that antibacterial gel keeps them clean for about a 3 minutes. This pretty much blew my mind, I haven’t been washing y hands fight for years. We also got to watch a few clips from Hoosiers. The assistants to the President used the clip of when the coach yells at them for not passing enough and not listening to his directions “What I say when it comes to this basketball team is the law, absolutely no question,” and the final game to talk about team unity. It was pretty great.

Anyways, I’m excited to here more from you guys all about what going on in Virginia. I’m pretty jealous that you all got to read Harry Potter. (by the way its kind of funny when people tell you that they are just way to busy to have read any of the Book of Mormon, but then tell you right afterwards that they read Harry Potter in 4 days. Ha?)

Anyway, you guys seem pretty busy with all kinds of trips and concerts, and high adventure, and birthdays, and breakfast cereals, and picnics, and oranatangs, finishing the 10^th grade (yay) and “l____?”, “three sir!”, “Three ???” and keep writing me letters because apparently I’m a 4 year old child and can’t really handle e-mail. Oh no… my hands are so small! I can hardly press all the buttons!

Love, Josh

(funny picture)

Dad

DAD,
It sounds like you guys have been pretty busy out there with going to wyoming and everybody getting married. Its strange to think about Jeff coming home from his mission, older missionaries keep telling me that it goes by really fast but it still feels like its going to be ages long. This is probably a good thing however because right now my companion is dreading the end of summer (in about 2 weeks) because it means that winter is coming and he'll be going home, so I'll try to enjoy the endless mission feeling while I still can.

I can't believe Bro. Lee is in Iraq that is pretty insane, I kind of thought it was farther away but I guess that means your own trip is coming up pretty soon.



I hope the summer isn't going by to fast. Its been pretty crazy out here now that i've been out a month. It kind of feels like its taken a really long time to get here but it also seems like it just flew by. There are 2 weeks left in my first transfer starting today so we'll see how that goes. You already know how it is but missionary work is kind of shocking at first, you really work ALL day and there are almost no breaks. Its strange to think that it is really relaxing to help someone move for a few hours or clean up there house because it gives you a little break. I have a few letters that i haven't sent yet. I just realized last week that i've been sending letters with U.S. postage... I didn't think about getting Canadian until I actually looked at one of my letters and realized there were little american flags in the corner. Anyway I'm doing really well up here, as the days start to go by faster it is becoming a little less tiresome and I am starting to enjoy it more. Anyway I hope your doing well.
Love josh.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Eric Olson"
To: "Joshua Olson"
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 06:46:59 -0500
Subject: Missionary Dude

Josh,



I hope this letter finds you well. Last weekend we had a quick trip to
Wyo for the family business meetings. We stopped in Provo to pick up Lindsey. We left Becca and Zach at home. It was nice to see everyone. I had a template for the new LM Olson website and reviewed it with Gregg and Gary on Friday and then presented it on Saturday at the Board of Directors meetings. I still need more content from Gregg and Gary but at least we have settled on the look and feel of the web site.



Jeff came home from his mission in Atlanta GA. He looked good. We had to get back to SLC for our flight home so we didn't hear him report on Sunday but Grandma and Grandpa said it was a great report. He is going back to BYU this fall.



Lindsey is doing well. She is finishing up her summer term this week and then she will be moving to another apartment that she has yet to find.



Brother Chris Lee is in IRAQ now. Lia called for me to come over last night to fix a plumbing problem. Zach and I went over and fixed it and then Kyle came over to stay overnight. Zach and Kyle are going biking today. LIa says Ryan is doing well. He has been there eight months now and she thinks this next transfer will make him a trainer.



Brother Faust past away over last Friday. I am sure that you heard
about that. He was a great man and great leader in the church. It will be
interesting to see who gets called into the presidency, but that probably won't be announced until October conference.



Nate was married last weekend. He and Beth are back here this week and they have their reception on Saturday.



Your cousin Brody is coming to live in Virginia. He is going to a Baptist school in Virginia Beach to become a minister in the Baptist church. He will be there for 4 years so we will be able to see him more often. He will be driving through tomorrow night and staying with us for the evening.



Well, I better get off to work this morning.



Love always,



Dad

Fossils!

Ahhhh! this email is terrible. Last week I wrote a pretty long e-mail and then write before i sent it i hit the forward button on the mouse and it got erased (now i know how becca feels) and just now I wrote another long e-mail and then tried to add an address and it got erased! So my communication up to this point has been pretty sketchy but from now on I'm will be sure to write a letter every week. The prep days up to this point have just been hectic. We usually go to the hospital so that the doctor can look at my companions spleens and the between that, laundry, groceries and e-mail 10 o'clock to six o'clock runs out pretty quickly, especially with a dinner or teaching apointment set up during prep day like today we are teaching someone at 4:30. But i need to catch you up on what i've been doing for three weeks. I'll be sure to write a letter every week now that i'm more used to the schedule.

I'm doing great I''ve finally gotten adjusted to waking up at 5:45 every morning(or as adjusted as you can be) we do relaxation breathing excersises at night to make sure we get good sleep (trust me it works). Just take 6 super deep breaths and breathe out slowly through your nose while thinking about something positive, you'll sleep like a baby, or a kitten, i sleep more like a kitten.
(a box of kittens!)

The teaching is going really well our area kind of went though a dry spell the first 2 weeks or so all the investigators we had kind of fell off but the ones we found since being here are just shaping up so we are doing pretty well. Last week we had 6 lessons with a member present and so far this week (2 days) we have already had 7 and the weekly mission standard is 14.

It sounds like you guys are having great time back in old virginia.
That salsa sounds really good and mom Its pretty hilarious that you got jury duty, classic. Oh yah i've only got three minutes left so i'll send this before it gets trashed agains so i'll write more about this later (dad you'll appreciate this) but in our first zone we watched parts of Hoosiers to learn more about unity, it was awesome.

and please forward this again to lindsey but i believe her address is smurffette at byu.edu but it didn't work last time so hmmm... thats the one you guys keep telling me about. lakljfljf BYE

-----Original Message-----
From: Leslie
To: Olson.J.L.CANTORE@myldsmail.net
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 17:06:15 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: What's up

Josh,

We got a letter from your Mission President with a picture enclosed today. It said that you had arrived and were doing well. The picture was of you, your companion (I guess), and the mission president and his wife (I assume). You look great and Becca noticed right off that you were wearing her and Natalie's tie.

Well, you've been in Canada for three weeks now and all we have gotten are a couple of short emails. You keep saying you are writing but we havn't received any letters. Zach did receive his birthday present. It was great of you to think of him.

We celebrated his birthday yesterday, Sunday the 5th and had Mike and LInda come over for dinner. He also opened his presents then. Tonight his actual birthday , Zach, Dad and I are going out to dinner. Becca has a dance practice tonight. Guess what, Becca finally finished her Sophomore year today. She sent off her last English Portfolio. Well she actually has to take the final but that will take a couple of weeks to get here and she is not worried about it. Also on Wednesday we have an appointment at OP to register Zach for High School. Wooo.

I wrote you last week so this week I am emailing you. I don't know if you would rather get emails or letters, let me know.

We are heading out to Wyoming on Thursday for our August meetings. This weekend is always so tiring. We are flying into SLC and driving to Provo to pick up Lindsey, then we are driving to Wyoming. It is going to be a long day. Jeff Beaty just got back from his mission and will be in Rawlins this weekend. If fact he is giving his homecoming talk on Sunday. Unfortunately we will not be able to stay to hear it, as we need to leave early to catch our flight home from SLC.

I have jury duty this month, every Monday. Fortunately I didn't have to go today. I call every Friday evening to see if I have to report on Monday. I won't know until Friday if I have to report next Monday. We'll see.

We went and got peaches on Thursday. We didn't get to pick them we had to buy them already picked. But it was OK. While I was there I was able to buy a half a bushel of fresh tomatoes. Yea! So Zach and I made salsa again this year. We made 24 pints. We made it alot more spicy this time. We put in a Habanara pepper and Jalapeno peppers along with a red hot pepper. It tastes great. It sure is fun to make it with Zach. I'm glad he likes to help me. With the peaches of course I have been eating them everyday. But I also made some more frozen peach pies. So it's been a pretty busy week.

I hope the work is going well with you. I hope your health is good. That you are eating well. I do worry about what you guys eat. I hope to hear from you soon with a very long letter about how everything is going with you and the work.

I love you and pray for you constantly.

Love, Mom

Letter to Zach - July 26, 2007

July 26, 2007

Zach,

How does it feel to be 15? (Aye?) In six months you’ll be getting your learners permit and tearing up the roads. I saw those pictures of you at high adventure, it looked pretty intense. Did you fall out of the raft at all? The ones I saw had you right in the front. I didn’t get to ask you too much about high adventure on the phone, you really only told me that they stranded you. Which is sweet to just have to to fend for yourself for one night.

I also heard that you got the bike all tuned up, which seemed to work out for you. Dad said you, Kyle and Scott rode at fountainhead the other day. It was probably way better without the chain problem and all the other fixes. I’m probably going to be buying a bike up here sometime soon, even though we have a car, sometimes it’s a lot more convenient with a bike.

Anyway, I’ve been seeing a lot of people carrying around the new Harry Potter book, I’ve managed to avoid hearing anything about it but I’m not sure how long that will last. You need to tell me if it was good. I did hear a little bit about that, but I don’t know of I trust them.

The apartment that I’m living in is small but it’s not that bad, we have a random arch right in the middle of it. The good news is that there was a little guitar here when I moved in, so I have time to play if for about maybe five minutes a day. Also I don’t know if you heard but my companion is English (British). The funny thing about that is in Britain a lot of words we would consider swearing are totally fine, so sometimes he will just break out into searing and other missionaries will just kind of look at each other and be kink of shocked. In fact one time he was calling some Sister missionaries to get their numbers for the week and he accidentally, said “What the hell have you been doing all week”, and she broke into tears. (ha ha)

I basically get up at 5:45 go to the gym, eat breakfast, study, and then start working from 10:00 to 9:30 at night. So I’ve been pretty tired but I’m getting used to it. We’ve finally started to get some actual teaching appointments, so the days have been going faster. You meet all kinds of people doing missionary work, some are crazy and some are really cool. You get all kink of reactions just walking around and tracting. Sometimes people will literally run away into their homes. We knocked on this one door and the guy came running out waving his arms yelling, “no, no, no!”, and then we ended up talking to him for about half an hour. A lot of people are nice though, they will invite us for drinks even if they’ve talked to missionaries one hundred times. We were even in this kind of run down area and we are pretty sure that a couple of fourteen year old girls were taking pictures of us on their cell phones.

I wanted to send you some cool Canadian stuff for your birthday, but I couldn’t find any. So I went into the CD shop, I was looking in their clash DC’s for the one you were looking for last time, but they didn’t have it (Canadians (snakehead)), but I saw this one and I was like “that’s just as good”. I’ve never heard of this one before, so you’ll have to tell me if it’s sweet. It’s deerhoof so I’m guessing yes.

Anyway, I hope to hear from you soon and I hope your having fun your last summer before high school, and I remember high school being so much better than middle school.

Love, Josh

Howdy

I'm writing a letters today so I won't write alot. Its been one week in Canada and its been a pretty long one. I'm still getting adjusted I guess to the hours since I still get really sleepy right about lunch time I feel like an old man or a cat or both. Its a mission requirement to excersize every morning so we just got a ymca membership so I wake up at 5:45 and go to the gym every morning a feel like a loon. I'm not sure how I'm doing now but for a while people would always comment on my accent which I don't have. What i think was happening was that since my companion has a british accent and everyone else spoke like a canuck I was getting confused because no one around me spoke normally... for a few days I kind of forgot how to talk. So either I've remembered or people just stopped telling me about it.
My address for the next 5 week is 693 Glencove Street, Kingston, ON K7M 5G1. If you send it to the mission home just be awareI won't get them every week, I'm not really sure how often they go and get them from toronto. They recommend you still send to the mission home but i guess its up to you. Packages though always go to the mission home otherwise i'll have to go to the post office to pick them up.
I didn't get anything from you guys this week and I still haven't gotten the first letter you sent so I guess things are still going good. I just got to take a few more pictures before I send them to you. The downtown area of Kingston, which is just out of my area is really cool it is full of old buildings and stuff but I go there once a week because my companion gets blood drawn at the hospital, I don't know if I don't know if I told you already but apparently he almost died about 2 weeks befeore I got here from kidney disease, hes doing alright now.
Send me some stuff so I know whats going on with you guys, I know Zach's birthday is coming up. Any way...

Love Josh

I got a return on this e-mail so I'm sending it again in case it didn't go through so just ignore this if you've already read it.
--------------------- First day
Hows it going aye? I've been in Canada only for a day and i've already heard quite a few good ayes, including a drive bye aye.

My flight was a straight through flight to Toronto, about 3 hours. We were greated by alot of friendly people in SLC and on the flight including the Toronto Temple president who I was able to talk to on the shuttle from the plane. (We got off the plane on stairs - classic). Then we met the Mission President who helped me and two other Elders who had a problem with an unfriendly immigration officer. He was the only officer who wouldn't mark a religous exemption on our visas so that we could qualify for health care.

The city of Toronto is very cool, it really does have and incredible amount of diversity. The Assitants to the President were telling us that even if you see someone in the city who you might think is an authentic canadian it will turn out that he is from the Ukraine or Denmark. After eating at a Brazilian bakery we went to a Baptism which was being held in a Mandarin Spanish and English speaking ward. In the mission there are about alot of Mandarin speaking missionaries, five cantonese speaking, two portuguese, alot of spanish, a good amount speaking korean, alot of english, and two who are learning farsee in the mission.

After staying the night in the Mission home we went to the Stake Center for orientation the stake center was adapted from a planned office building and is three stories high, the second largest in north america. The only larger one is apparently in Vancouver and has pull out bleacher seating. I was assigned my first companion, Elder Brennan from Schoffield, England. They then shipped me 4 hours out to almost the very east of the mission to the canadian countryside where it is almost all english speaking and looks alot like virginia (trees) although i'll have to send you a picture of the penitentiary which looks like a castle. My area is called Cataraqui, not sure about the spelling, and is in Kingston. Kingston is apparently where all the prisons are in Canada.

My apartment is a small basement with two rooms and a washroom (restroom). My bed is a box springs and mattress lieing on the floor the Kitchen is tiny with a tiny stove and a tiny refrigerator. I'll be sending some pictures soon to show you. Anyways I'm pretty excited to get to work. I haven't really done anything yet but i'm teaching my first lesson in the field tonight as well as going tracting. So I'll e-mail an update next week. Love Josh

p.s. if that isn't actually lindsey's address forward it i think it is but i forgot to bring her letter where she sent it to me.
------------------------------------------------------

Canadian Sunset

Canada

Hows it going aye? I've been in Canada only for a day and i've already heard quite a few good ayes, including a drive bye aye.

My flight was a straight through flight to Toronto, about 3 hours. We were greated by alot of friendly people in SLC and on the flight including the Toronto Temple president who I was able to talk to on the shuttle from the plane. (We got off the plane on stairs - classic). Then we met the Mission President who helped me and two other Elders who had a problem with an unfriendly immigration officer. He was the only officer who wouldn't mark a religous exemption on our visas so that we could qualify for health care.

The city of Toronto is very cool, it really does have and incredible amount of diversity. The Assitants to the President were telling us that even if you see someone in the city who you might think is an authentic canadian it will turn out that he is from the Ukraine or Denmark. After eating at a Brazilian bakery we went to a Baptism which was being held in a Mandarin Spanish and English speaking ward. In the mission there are about alot of Mandarin speaking missionaries, five cantonese speaking, two portuguese, alot of spanish, a good amount speaking korean, alot of english, and two who are learning farsee in the mission.

After staying the night in the Mission home we went to the Stake Center for orientation the stake center was adapted from a planned office building and is three stories high, the second largest in north america. The only larger one is apparently in Vancouver and has pull out bleacher seating. I was assigned my first companion, Elder Brennan from Schoffield, England. They then shipped me 4 hours out to almost the very east of the mission to the canadian countryside where it is almost all english speaking and looks alot like virginia (trees) although i'll have to send you a picture of the penitentiary which looks like a castle. My area is called Cataraqui, not sure about the spelling, and is in Kingston. Kingston is apparently where all the prisons are in Canada.

My apartment is a small basement with two rooms and a washroom (restroom). My bed is a box springs and mattress lieing on the floor the Kitchen is tiny with a tiny stove and a tiny refrigerator. I'll be sending some pictures soon to show you. Anyways I'm pretty excited to get to work. I haven't really done anything yet but i'm teaching my first lesson in the field tonight as well as going tracting. So I'll e-mail an update next week.
Love Josh


p.s. if that isn't actually lindsey's address forward it i think it is but i forgot to bring her letter where she sent it to me.

First Day in Canada

First day in Toronto.

President and Sister Callister and my first companion Elder Brennen from England.

Family! - July 11, 2007

July 11, 2007

Family!

How are you guys doing out there? It is about one-thousand degrees in Utah, you said Becca was complaining about the walk to dance class, I can understand, especially when I have to walk around in a suit.

Time goes fast here at the MTC, already I’m a veteran with the second group of new Elders arriving today since I’ve been here. When the first group showed up I felt so experienced and now these new guys are trying to five a lot of their “wealth” of knowledge when I’m pretty sure they’ve only been here for about 2 day (or a week). It’s gonna be a shock when I get to Toronto and suddenly experiences are measured in months and years as opposed to days and weeks. This is making me even more excited to get to Toronto.

My flight leaves at around 8 or 9 on Tuesday morning. From here on out I am only preparing to leave. I am going to teach the third lesson to a practice investigator tomorrow. I even got my required departure haircut today (I don’t think I have ever had so little time between haircuts).

Here is an interesting story, we met our Branch President for the first time on Sunday because he has been on vacation. At first I just thought it was a coincidence because his name was President Marriot and he is the cousin of the Marriot’s. In the interview I had with him I told him that my Mother grew up in Virginia and my Father in Wyoming. Then he told me to ask if we knew the Olson’s from Rawlins. It turns out he roomed with Uncle Steve and Dad’s cousin that sings in the Tabernacle choir when he was at BYU. So we talked about that for a while and he told me my shoes might be a distraction (but he wasn’t telling me to necessarily blackout the stitching) and that anything besides the 4 books on the list were contraband, including The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (which I will probably have to send home).

For the 4^th of July we had a special fireside where we played the chimes, it was kind of awkward. After that though we were allowed to stay out till eleven o’clock! And watch the fireworks. It was unprecedented. That didn’t really make up for the fact that Mission President’s week ended the day I got here so I haven’t seen an Apostle yet. Although we did have a few emeritus members of the Seventy, which I had never heard of before.

Anyway, I’m preparing hard so that I’ll be ready in a week but I’m getting nervous because once I get out of the MTC there won’t be a safety net anymore. I can’t wait to here from you guys again, and if I ever can find the time on P-day, I’ll send some individual letters very soon.

Love, Josh

Email...

I just set up my e-mail account, so here it is please send it to Linds, I couldn't remember her e-mail, and anyone else you guys want (do becca and zach have e-mail?). Anyway happy late birthday I'll be writing you guys today so I won't write too much now, but I'm leaving in one week so I'm getting pretty excited to get to Canada. I'm doing great right now just doing some laundry and I'll be going up to Mt. Timpanogas temple later today, Provo is closed. Hope you guys are doing alright. Say hi to becca and zach for me.


Josh!

Heres my E-mail

I just set up my e-mail account, so here it is please send it to Linds, I couldn't remember her e-mail, and anyone else you guys want (do becca and zach have e-mail?). Anyway happy late birthday I'll be writing you guys today so I won't write too much now, but I'm leaving in one week so I'm getting pretty excited to get to Canada. I'm doing great right now just doing some laundry and I'll be going up to Mt. Timpanogas temple later today, Provo is closed. Hope you guys are doing alright. Say hi to becca and zach for me.


Josh!

First Letter - Wednesday, July 3, 2007

Wednesday, July 3, 2007

Family,

Hey, how’s it goin? I wasn’t sure how to start a letter so I decided to do it with a rhetorical question that you couldn’t possibly answer without sitting down and writing a letter and then sendng it in the mail for a few days…anyway…. It feels like a month since I’ve been here. When I sat down to write I was trying to remember what happened on the firs day here and I couldn’t, but after looking in my journal (which didn’t help at all), I managed to remember. I realized that this was because it seems so different from when I first came here my first day, after stepping off the bus into the confines of the MTC. The first thing they had us do was to be ID’d and tagged before shuffling us into the gymnasium where we were filed, checked, and immunized. Like nuts being sorted, the line of missionaries was passed slowly from one lady to the next who asked questions, gave us papers, took our papers, informed us of what needle we would be getting and where to wait for it. Finally having been fully screened we were packaged into our district containers of nuts. Personally, I’m of the Toronto variety but I live near a lot of Philippines nuts, New York and even Korean nuts. Some people even live in cans of assorted nuts. The buildings seem all sharp and alien and the sun would steal your will to move as it baked you alive in your suit. The MTC was almost like another dimension that day, every building looked so similar that every time you entered and exited one I would wonder if I had ended up somewhere completely different.

All new missionaries were given an orange sticker on their nametags so that they would be given special treatment. This treatment basically consisted of every other missionary informing us over and over again that the first three days were miserable, but that everything got easier by Sunday. This turned out to be true, although for me it happened around Friday morning when we had gym, because this was the first time that I hadn’t been miserable hot when I left any building. Apparently this has been the hottest week of the entire summer. Now I am pretty much adjusted, my first P-day has been very relaxing and I no longer have everything scheduled for, but I now get to decide how I should spend a lot of my time outside of class. My companion’s name is Elder Zueigg. He is a pretty good guy. He’s not an academic by any means, but he makes up for it by being able to run over 120 miles in less than 2 days. The other Elder’s that I’m working with are Elder Chu, and Elder Haytz. Elder Chu has been teaching me how to say a few phrases in Cantonese like, “Le-ho ma” is “how are you doing”, “da dinwa bai Chu Janglo” is “call Elder Chu using the phone”, and “O-de iu sow-la” “is we need to go!” (I made up the spelling it really looks like this #$%^^%$#... or something).

The four of us and the other tow guys in our district have become good friends and I’m having a great time when we’re not studying and a lot of the times when we are studying. We’ve started memorizing one scripture a day because we heard that President Monson promised that if you memorize one scripture a day for everyday of your mission, you’ll have a photographic memory. We’ll see how long that lasts. I’ve been mission you guts a lot, and I would have wrote sooner but apparently you are only allowed to write non-emergency letters on P-day, and maybe Sunday although I’m not sure.

It has been a huge adjustment living with a companion every moment of the day, sometimes I just want to be by myself for a few hours but I can’t. It’s at times like that I start thinking about home the most, but I just kind of sit somewhere a little further away and pretend like I’m alone and that’s almost as good. Other than all the annoying stuff, there is a reason why they call it “Alcatraz”. I’m really enjoying the MTC. I’m getting excited about studying the gospel, and am making a lot of progress with my ability to teach lessons. I’ve been to one of the training centers here where you teach a local volunteer the first discussion, which was pretty intimidating. That was nothing compared to working at the Referral Center. There I sit at a computer with a phone and take calls, from actual investigators. Their either got the number off a television or some kind of pass a long card. We take down their information, bear our testimony, and teach them a little about the restoration. It may be the most nerve racking experience ever. Anyways, thanks for the cookies Mom, they were great. I realize now why it is so exciting to get mail. Other than that, if you guys could send me my ‘spy’ t-shirt, my ‘cougars’ t-shirt, my black wells fargo t-shirt, that I turn inside out, and a few more plain white T’s without pockets, that would be great. If that’s too much to send just send me some of it, but we have gym 4 times a week and I need shirts to sleep in so I realized that I’m drastically short. I’ll try to set up my e-mail before I leave, but I’m not sure if I can use it before I get to Toronto. Also I think I left my laundry bag at the grandparents, it’s tan and blue. Today I carried my laundry in my bed sheet. I miss you guys a lot and I can’t wait to get your letters.

Love Josh (Elder Olson)

By the way I saw Spencer and he left on Tuesday before I could get his address so if you guys could send me it that would be great. And it you still need a scripture for my plaque you can use 1Corinthians 13:12 the one that starts “for now I see through a glass darkly…”

(picture of some sort of bird)

MTC Zone

Joshua's Mission Training Zone

Arrival and check in to MTC in Provo, UT

Dear family of OLSON, JOSHUA LINNE,

We are pleased to inform you that your missionary has safely arrived and checked into the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. We thank you for your support of your missionary and know that your family will be blessed as a result.

Your missionary's mailing address while at the MTC is:
ELDER OLSON, JOSHUA LINNE
MTC Mailbox # 203
CAN-TORE 0717
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

Your missionary will have a preparation day once a week, at which time they will be able to send letters home.

Should you have need to communicate with the MTC, do not reply to this email, but call 801-422-2602.

Sincerely,

Provo MTC Presidency