Family,
So I am pretty jealous that the family is going on a cruise! Especially to the west coast! I've never even been to California, much lest the west coast of Mexico! That sounds really fun, I hope everyone has a good time while they are there. Send me some pictures please... speaking of which I still need to find the time to send you my pictures... Things have calmed down a little bit up here. Although this week my companions and I all got really sick for about 2 days. It started Wednesday morning we all woke up on the way to the gym with sore throats. I took some sudafed and we felt alright until about 10:00. We were messing around in the apartment for a few minutes with the other companionship that lives with us when one of them E. Pauni a 300 poung tongan elder threw a broom lightly at my companion E. Diehl. He blocked it with his hand but the metal top gave him a deep cut right into the palm of his hand and it bled profusely with a lot of fatty particle sticking out. So we bandaged it up and took him to the hospital to get stitches. While we were there I developed a fever and crashed on his hospital bed while he sat on the chair! (he was tired of laying down anyways and had gotten sick earlier and was already getting over it.) After about six hours of waiting (it made up for it because we didn't have to pay for anything with Canada's free medical care), we were able to leave, just in time to go proselyte. The next day we were planning to go on a two-day travel and we woke up and my companion E. Nelson and I were both still running fevers. We took some rest, some medication and gave each other blessings before we left for our travels. It worked and we just got back this morning in time for our meeting with president and I feel a lot better. Right now we are just preparing really quickly for next weeks transfer meeting before we get to go out and work in our area! Hey everyone have a good time and get a lot of sun, its just getting warm enough out here to walk around without a heavy coat! It feels like summer...
Love Elder Joshua Olson
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Last weeks continued
To start off this week we had our normal president's meeting and then we drove about 2 hours to go on travels with missionaries out in the country we spent the night and had the country zone conference the next day where we did our workshop and I gave my talk for the last of three times I think it went pretty well. Then right after zone conference we went on travels again in the country. I went with the zone leaders of one of the country zones. We had an amazing miracle and we were able to get into a door and commit this lady named Natalie for baptism and daily contact, she was really excited. Then the next morning we drove back into toronto and we traveled a few district meetings and then I went with a mandarin speaking companionship for the day. I slept overnight there and we went with their zone to the temple for the day. Last night I got to sleep in my own bed and we are going on travels with another companionship at about 1:00. Its been really tiring. I'll just tell a quick funny story... but I have to go so I'll tell it next time!
Love Elder Olson
Love Elder Olson
Friday, March 13, 2009
This week ...
To start off this week we had our normal president's meeting and then we drove about 2 hours to go on travels with missionaries out in the country we spent the night and had the country zone conference the next day where we did our workshop and I gave my talk for the last of three times I think it went pretty well. Then right after zone conference we went on travels again in the country. I went with the zone leaders of one of the country zones. We had an amazing miracle and we were able to get into a door and commit this lady named Natalie for baptism and daily contact, she was really excited. Then the next morning we drove back into toronto and we traveled a few district meetings and then I went with a mandarin speaking companionship for the day. I slept overnight there and we went with their zone to the temple for the day. Last night I got to sleep in my own bed and we are going on travels with another companionship at about 1:00. Its been really tiring. I'll just tell a quick funny story... but I have to go so I'll tell it next time!
Love Elder Olson
Love Elder Olson
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Here we go!
Family,
Hey everybody I don't think I'm too late writing this week. This week we had zone leader's council and two zone conferences, only one more zone conference to go and then our big meetings are done with for this transfer! I gave my talk at the two zone conferences so far. It was supposed to be fifteen minute talk on enduring to the end and finding joy in the journey. The topic was assigned by President. It was strange that it actually took more effort to stay under fifteen minutes than it took to stretch it to that length. I didn't share everything I had planned in either one. I think it went pretty well here I'll just list one thing that I shared in my talk from Neil A. Maxwell. Dad, I think you agree, it’s just hard not to quote him. Neil A. Maxwell Patience - Patience is not indifference. Actually, it means caring very much but being willing, nevertheless, to submit to the Lord and to what the scriptures call the ``process of time``. There was another one but I can’t find it.
Today we are just doing a lot of preparation and we are setting up for a mission president’s fireside tomorrow night. The zone conferences were pretty hectic this transfer. Not only did we have the normal preparations but we had a lot of work preparing for general conference and for a parenting fireside coming up. For both of them we made really nice color flyers and posters that look much more professional than the ones that we had in the past. One of the people in the office here photoshoped the general conference invite and we did the other one. Then we spent a lot of time getting them translated into the 7 different languages that we have in the mission and then finding a printer planning all the amounts and how to get them to everybody. It put a lot of extra hours in. The night before Thursday’s zone conference we had to meet the printer at 8:30 p.m. in another part of the city (we have permission from the president to stay out past normal times to prepare) he ended up not being done until about 9:30. It was actually a pretty funny story. First of all this printer we never spoke to at first a Senior sister had talked to him and then sent in an e-mail to order the first round of general conference invites. Then when we wanted to go pick them up and place another order we couldn’t get any kind of contact with him. His website didn’t work and neither did his phone number. We had two address for him, his normal location and a temporary location. We went to the temporary location and found an unmarked warehouse we went inside and couldn’t find anything. So we went to the normal location and the address that was advertised was a physic palm reader. Now we thought he was just a crook, but we decided to check the warehouse again anyways and this time we came back from a different direction. My companion jumped out of the car and we ran into a random door, unmarked and we found this guy just printing and cutting on his printer in what looked like the most makeshift print shop imaginable. We considered that a huge miracle. Then when we came back at 8:30 a few days later this printer had a friend over who we weren’t sure what he was doing. The whole time we were waiting he just kept talking about other “businessmen” that he knew. He talked about the guys who were apparently the only two people in Canada to be able to import blank cds illegally and sell them for a lower price and a lot more. We weren’t sure what was going on but it felt a little shady. Then the printer told us to come out back to his trunk to pick up the rest of the flyers… pretty funny although we really never felt like there was really anything going on. After getting back to the office at about 9:45 we still had more things to prepare so we were ended up staying up to 12:00 to get it all done. It was a pretty crazy day in the life of a missionary.
Well that’s pretty much it for now. Just to follow up, that family that I told you about Merwan and Gulzar from Iraq, were able to get their permanent residence in Canada and are going to be baptized one week from tomorrow! Hopefully we will be able to attend. They have now permanently left everything in their former lives behind in order to stay in Toronto and receive the gospel.
Love Elder Joshua Olson
Hey everybody I don't think I'm too late writing this week. This week we had zone leader's council and two zone conferences, only one more zone conference to go and then our big meetings are done with for this transfer! I gave my talk at the two zone conferences so far. It was supposed to be fifteen minute talk on enduring to the end and finding joy in the journey. The topic was assigned by President. It was strange that it actually took more effort to stay under fifteen minutes than it took to stretch it to that length. I didn't share everything I had planned in either one. I think it went pretty well here I'll just list one thing that I shared in my talk from Neil A. Maxwell. Dad, I think you agree, it’s just hard not to quote him. Neil A. Maxwell Patience - Patience is not indifference. Actually, it means caring very much but being willing, nevertheless, to submit to the Lord and to what the scriptures call the ``process of time``. There was another one but I can’t find it.
Today we are just doing a lot of preparation and we are setting up for a mission president’s fireside tomorrow night. The zone conferences were pretty hectic this transfer. Not only did we have the normal preparations but we had a lot of work preparing for general conference and for a parenting fireside coming up. For both of them we made really nice color flyers and posters that look much more professional than the ones that we had in the past. One of the people in the office here photoshoped the general conference invite and we did the other one. Then we spent a lot of time getting them translated into the 7 different languages that we have in the mission and then finding a printer planning all the amounts and how to get them to everybody. It put a lot of extra hours in. The night before Thursday’s zone conference we had to meet the printer at 8:30 p.m. in another part of the city (we have permission from the president to stay out past normal times to prepare) he ended up not being done until about 9:30. It was actually a pretty funny story. First of all this printer we never spoke to at first a Senior sister had talked to him and then sent in an e-mail to order the first round of general conference invites. Then when we wanted to go pick them up and place another order we couldn’t get any kind of contact with him. His website didn’t work and neither did his phone number. We had two address for him, his normal location and a temporary location. We went to the temporary location and found an unmarked warehouse we went inside and couldn’t find anything. So we went to the normal location and the address that was advertised was a physic palm reader. Now we thought he was just a crook, but we decided to check the warehouse again anyways and this time we came back from a different direction. My companion jumped out of the car and we ran into a random door, unmarked and we found this guy just printing and cutting on his printer in what looked like the most makeshift print shop imaginable. We considered that a huge miracle. Then when we came back at 8:30 a few days later this printer had a friend over who we weren’t sure what he was doing. The whole time we were waiting he just kept talking about other “businessmen” that he knew. He talked about the guys who were apparently the only two people in Canada to be able to import blank cds illegally and sell them for a lower price and a lot more. We weren’t sure what was going on but it felt a little shady. Then the printer told us to come out back to his trunk to pick up the rest of the flyers… pretty funny although we really never felt like there was really anything going on. After getting back to the office at about 9:45 we still had more things to prepare so we were ended up staying up to 12:00 to get it all done. It was a pretty crazy day in the life of a missionary.
Well that’s pretty much it for now. Just to follow up, that family that I told you about Merwan and Gulzar from Iraq, were able to get their permanent residence in Canada and are going to be baptized one week from tomorrow! Hopefully we will be able to attend. They have now permanently left everything in their former lives behind in order to stay in Toronto and receive the gospel.
Love Elder Joshua Olson
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