Back to this E-mail!

I had switched from the LDS e-mail because it broke on me for a week or two and i was fed up with messing with it- but in our last zone conference President asked us to go back to using it- so we get to deal with it again. So i'll keep checking both for a few weeks and then switch permanently to this one.

Its incredibly warm up here in canada, in about a week we went from using our winter coats to shirt sleeves. Well I would have gone back to using short sleeves except it turns out that all of mine are too small in the neck and shoulders.- To answer the question, I have gained a little weight- when I left home I was about 145 and then I lost a little to about 140- but I've put on about 10 pounds of muscle in the last few months.

Our zone conference was pretty amazing last week. Although Doug L. Callister (the president's brother) ended up coming to a seperate fireside and no to the zone conference, it was still amazing. President and Sister Callister did a presentation on external and internal evidences of the book of mormon- and then at the very end they told us all about how he had been called to the seventy- a bunch of different stories about being trained by the Apostles and about being set apart and then he opened it up to questions. They are going to be in the presidency overseaing the pacific islands- everywhere from australia to new zealand to fiji and the marshall islands. He told us a story about his actual setting apart as a general authority. Because President Callister had already been an area seventy he only needed to be set apart as a general authority and given the sealing power. There were 15 general authorities being set apart that day, a large number. 5 were set apart by pres. Eyering, 5 by pres. Uchtdorf, and Pres. Callister and 4 others by Pres. Monson. When he was getting set apart it came down to the end of the blessing and he hadn't heard the prophet give him the sealing power but he didn't want to say anything because it was the prophet- kind of a nerve wracking experience. But then he heard Elder Tingey nudge pres. Monson and say,"The sealing power!". So he quickly corrected. That story makes me feel better about the times that I forget or stumble over words in blessings.

We found an amazing new family this week, a couple named Ivan and Karen with 2 young children. He is from Cuba and practices an African tribal religion that apparently has alot of rituals and spirit worship in it. He wants our help to teach him about Christ and to help him get rid of his shrine in his bedroom because he is nervous about taking it down himself. It sounds wierd but they are a really nice family that we are really excited to teach. Transfers are coming up again at the beginning of may, I think I'll be getting a new companion or get moved. After being in my first area for so long, I don't really want to stay in one place, I feel like getting moved around a bit more before really making my nest (hahaha) in an area again.

Sounds like everyone is getting into the spring mood quickly with vacations and golf lessons and all other kinds of nonsense. Keep me posted on everythings thats going on especially with summer coming!

Love Elder Olson.

A Little Early This Week...

I won't be able to read much of your e-mail this week because were taking preparation day one day early this week. Tomorrow is our zone conference where Pres./ Elder Callister and his brother Elder Callister will be speaking so we will have two general authorities there and its going to be insane. We weren't really surprised when he was called to the seventy because we had heard that he was called down to salt lake for that week already. They had to shuffle a few meetings around and one of the councillors in the mission presidency lives in our ward so we heard about it. The only thing was that we thought he was going to be called as the new member of the twelve- not yet I guess- instead they are sending him to Fiji to preside over the pacific Islands.
In other news I've almost beat my way through all my shoes and am looking to get another pair. The only problem is everything is really really expensive up here. A pair of shoes probably costs about 40-50 dollars more up here than in the states even though the dollar is basically the same. But my nicer pair still works for now. By the way I am definitely going to be sending some pictures home this week- I am still taking more althoug i've slowed down a little bit as each week seems to be going by more quickly.

Everything else is going on as normal my companions still complain about my crazy driving- and they are amazed daily about how much food I eat.

The work is really picking up, in the last few weeks alot of the people we were teaching either became uninterested or got alot busier with the spring thaw. We've been teaching people everywhere from old people from the congo to punk teenagers. Everyone is outside and friendly now and we've been tracting alot and teaching alot in the past week- somehow we keep managing to get more done in each day.

The ward up here is really cool, we were helping one of the members a 30 year old guy finish his basement (doing alot of the framing) and then during lunch we took a break and took a bunch of pictures of us working and him hitting us with contstruction tools to make us work harder some of them are pretty hilarious- this is the same member who gave both my companion and I Mp3 players loaded with church talks for helping him.
We've been working alot with another member of the ward- shes about 30 and stopped going to church when she was 15-17 but realized recently that alot of what she had cared about for a long time really wasn't important to her. So she has started coming back to church with her two kids and since we've been meeting with her she has been the scriptures every day and really increasing in her faith. She has the coolest kids ever, one is
6 and is competely insane- every time we come over he is always actually riding one of their dogs around that is about as big as he is. He is like a tarzan that looks just like a young Macaulay Culkin, but without the creeeeepy.

Hope that everyone is doing well I miss you all and can't wait to hear from you twice next week- I hope you guys are camping and stuff this
spring- thats one thing I keep having a strange desire to do, sleep outside.

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Love Elder Olson

real quick

Hey thanks for all the letters this week, world record hoorah! Sorry I didn't e-mail on wed. I was cleaning all day and we just ran out of time- then the mission office called us to see if we were okay because we didn't send our pres. letters, So I only have a few minutes to say hi. I'm still alive and everythings going well up here still working really hard- we just had a really good district meeting all about how to help every member become a missionary. I am finally getting comfortable planning and runing our weekly district meetings so now I am starting to enjoy them, we have 4 every transfer. In case you were wondering the trick to being a good member missiosnary is just to explain simply the way the gospel blesses our lives and then to invite to church or to activities- really simple and effective. You may have heard Elder Bednar's talk in conference- members our full time finders and missionaries are full time teachers - sometimes we wish it was more like that, we tracted for 4 hours on tues (although thats not alot compared to how much they used to do). Its like summer up her 10 - 12 degrees celsius although it may be getting back down to 5 this week.

Anyway it was amazing to hear from everyone today good luck with the trips, jobs, braces, seminaries, and hefalumps and woozles.

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Love Elder Olson

Everythings going well!

We've been pretty busy this week, getting super excited for general conference! We spent A little bit of preparation day playing hockey with a tennis ball in the gym, because we can't play real hockey- too many missionaries get hurt on ice-skates I guess. The area is really picking up right now we have just recently found alot of new people that we are teaching- it seems like they are all from crazy places. We are teaching a family from nigeria, a lady from zimbabwe, a family from st. lutia in the west indies, a family from bombay in India, another lady from india, another lady who is east indian but is actually from guyana in south america and maybe 1 or 2 canadian folks, and we still see our persian family every once in awhile though they are really busy with school and work right now so they have kind of slowed down.

Recently we have seen so many miracles. We tracted into one of the indian ladies on the first relatively nice day of the year. she opened the door and was dressed completely in white but we could hardly see her because these white curtains were flowing out of the door in the wind. I think my companion and I thought we might have had a hallucination or a vision or something. Then she after we invited her to church she told us she thought it was a miracle that we came by because she was looking for a sunday school for her kids and she usually never answers her door for anybody she doesn't know is coming but this time she just had a feeling that she needed too.

Our zone is doing well, the best in the mission right now and as a zone we set a huge goal for 20 baptisms this transfer (the last 3 transfers we've had 6, 8, and then 9) so our district is working really hard to help our zone to reach that goal.

Hope everythings going well at home. Zach, thats a bummer about those impacted teeth but what can you do- its funny that all of us had them. My fake tooth is doing fine, I named her charlene!
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Love Elder Olson