Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Christmas soon.

This week has been so busy, we are preparing for our skills and interviews meeting- its amazing how hard it is to do somthing as simple as make a good slideshow when you have to go to the library and when you don't really have access to any books or pictures or anything very easily....

We did have a baptism on sunday- our investigator Monica was baptized and it was amazing- her life has changed so much since we met her a month ago. Before that she was depressed daily now she is happy and cheerful and has had alot of questions that shes had for a very long time answered. Thank you for your prayers. Now we have a few more people we are working with and hopefully we will have some more coming up soon! Lets see we just had our mision's yearly planning meeting with all the district and zone leaders- it was pretty interesting and we have just set the new mission mission plan for the new year- I know pretty exciting right! (Only to the missionaries)... We are taking our preparation day on friday next week i believe( boxing day) so this is the last time that I will e-mail before christmas- the last word is that I did recieve a package! At least one so I should have them both by friday! If not the next time that I'll be speaking to you it will be over the phone! I think 1:00 on christmas day will work so I'll try to pop in sometime this week to the library and just check to see if thats ok! But as always I will give the house phone a call and you can call me back on whatever number that is best! Exciting! Thanks for everything and I love and miss you all. I am sending some letters and pictures at least that should get there by christmas and a few other things hopefully will be coming around that time as well... sorry I haven't yet been able to get everyone something and make a package... I always have the same excuse- lack of time! what can you do. Anyway Looking forward to talking to everybody!

Love Elder Olson

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

This will be real quick...

Ok, so today my companion hurt his back and so we had to do e-mail a little later in the day than normal becuase we were going to see some physical therapists.

Anyway- we are having a baptism on sunday, our Investigator Monica Nolan is getting baptized she will be the first in her family to be baptized and hopefully her kids will follow later they are having alot of problems right now. However Monica is so excited to be baptized, last week after church I asked her how it went and she said, "Everything that I've been looking for in my life is in this church"- It definitely has been a miracle. Her baptism will be less than a month from the day we first met her. Everything in the zone is going well we discovered a few things that were going on in the zone that we have had to make some special focus on. Its amazing how much being a leader can be like babysitting or problem solving. We had to sit down with a companionship this week and just talk about all the things that were causing them to get frustrated with each other and leave them committments to change and to call us every day to follow up that they were keeping the committments. Almost every day it is something completely new that I've never had to deal with before- as a leader or ever it gets pretty crazy.

But thank you for the e-mails sorry if I can't write more right now but I will for sure will be sending the pictures for this christmas and a few presents, if i can't get all the presents actually by christmas you'lll have to forgive me but trust me I haven't forgotten about everybody.... Love you and I will hopefully talk to you soon! - oh and the only guidline we were given was what the white handbook says and then to be guided by the spirit of the law and to live by the principle and not the letter- so it is up to our own discretion.

Oh and the mission office address is 24 Ferrand Dr. - Don Mills, On m3c 3v4 -- the best place for packages we have frequent travels to there - its only 20 - 30 minutes away no traffic.

Love Elder Olson...

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Flat tire...

This is going to have to be really quick... crazy day today again... no transfers but we had an apointment in the morning and on the way we got a flat tire... we put on the spare and went to go teach our apointment afterward we had to take in the tire to get a plug and that took over an hour with an oil change that we needed then we rushed around to get everything done and to take care of a few other necessary chores. The apointment went well we moved our investigator Monica's baptismal date forward a week because she is ready. So hopefully that will be on the fourteenth. Lets see... other questions last year I got a yo-yo-ma cd and a chopin cd- tire colors... I like orange - blue - green - anything really- the color isn't as important as the style...c ool ties are always cool. Hmmm... My companionship is still the same, E. smith is my companion hes been out for about 14 months- the zone got changed around alot... I think the missionaries in our mission kind of had a problem with idleness this last transfer so every single companionship in the mission got changed (one or both companions were transferred) except for 5 companionships. The changes in our zone were all good. We quite a few problem companionships last transfer but the changes will help alot. We for the third transfer in a row have a companionship whitewashing in our zone- not a new on this time but both companions got moved. We are really excited for the coming transfer it is going to be really fun and we have alot of baptismal dates in the zone and alot of missionaries are really performing well. Anything else- I bought some boots today- I'm still on search for a watch though... nothing seems to fit in the price range.

We have seen so many blessings in our own area. Monica and the nolan family is doing well. We have found alot of new investigators in the past few days including two sisters that have already committed to baptism and a few people from GHANA! The work is great and I really love it out here... honestly I get the chills when I realize I only have 7 months left- I wish there were more time. Anyway I miss you all and I am going to be sending a package with some stuff in it this year, hopefully it will get there by christmas... If i get it sent off in time.

Love Elder Olson