I got everything you sent me, the short sleeve shirts came last wednesday and they fit really well. And this morning I got the leather bound infinite atonement. Thanks for sending that stuff up to me. It all came just in time, our last interview with president Callister is next week and this week i just saw the forcast and friday is going to be about 32 degrees.
The work is really picking up right now. We are still teaching susan, who may still make her baptismal date on the fifteenth, but if not it will be soon after that. The only reason her and her daughter didn't come to church this week is because they had a wedding. We had kind of a funny situation with her. We work really hard with all of our investigators to help them find what we call "real member friends" or someone that they get along with who they can ask questions when we aren't there and who can help them easy the transition into coming to church. We took Sis. Bailey, who we live with to appointments a few times and they got along really well and they both wanted to start running this summer they started to run together. We were so excited we were thinking man now she has a good friend in the ward and we have daily contact with her and shes coming to church awesome! But then something completely unexpected happened. They started running together every day so much so that we couldn't daily contact her any more and we didn't even see her for a week! Backfired! But then the way was prepared and she started taking the train home from toronto so that now everything works out and we can teach her again.
It was good to hear from everyone this week thanks for the e-mails and packages. My companion and I taught seminary this week and they invited us to their seminary breakfast on friday morning! And I haven't had time to golf either...
Love Elder Josh
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Whoo Hoo!
We had a sweet week at church this week (that sentence sounds a little funny).
President Monson came to Toronto with Elder Ballard, because they both served as
mission president here. They spoke at a canadian wide broadcast of the Brampton
stake conference (its in the west mission where the temple is just outside of
toronto city). Although we didn't see them personally we got to see them speak
over the broadcast. We also had a bunch of investigators come to church that
week. Including Susan and her daughter- Shalaya for the first time. They are
doing amazing her first time at church she got to see the prophet speak and next
sunday is going to be testimony meeting! (Whitby always has good testimony
meetings and hardly anything crazy happens.) I really think she is going to make
it to her baptism on the fifteenth, she has made some really good friends in the
ward from us bringing them to apointments- last night she went out running with
the bishops wife. We also had an old investigator from when Elder Brennan, my
fist companion, was in whitby (he was actually trained there). He is kind of
married to a member though they are getting a divorce- he has a strong testimony
of the church and used to come almost every week but hadn't come in over a year
because he has a few issues that he hasn't been able to overcome.
The work is going really well up here. I'm glad to here that everyone at home
had an awesome camping trip- i'm jealous I remember how fun it was climbing up
those waterfalls! I can't believe it was a year since we were there last time.
I hope your planning one for next year, maybe just a month later next time...
Gas prices up here are just under $1.30 a liter so thats almost 5 dollars a
gallon. We get to drive about 1800 kilometers a month which isn't too bad- if
plan we can stay under that pretty easily- being in the car is annoying anyways
you get sleepy and I have gotten pretty bored of driving everywhere for the last
6 months.
I'm sending pictues down this week- there are a bunch of good ones- and i haven't
yet recieved the shirts or the book but I think they'll probably come in the next
few days.
Love Elder Olson (josh).
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Good Morning ...
Hmm... i didn't get any e-mail from you guys for two weeks so I hope everyone is doing well. Maybe after mothers day everyone just kind of thought, "well thats enough of josh for this month..." - well you haven't got rid of me yet.
Yesterday, we had zone conference, it was strange because it was in the same place as my first zone conference- so my first and last with president Callister where in the same church. Next transfer is going to be crazy, we will have a brand new mission president and they will be sending in 19 new missionaries.
We are still teaching Susan, she is doing really well and we have a good relationship with her family. She didn't make it out to church this week so she still hasn't been but we'll get her out this week, she is reading the book of mormon almost daily and is starting to makes friends with all the members we bring over we have alot of hope that she will make it to her baptism on june 15th. We also had amazing progress with the wolf family, they asked me to baptize their son Dillan on June 8th. Whenever we went over there he would always hide on the staircase and listen while we talked to luke + sylvia, until he finally got the courage to come out and sit with us a few times. They knew they wanted him to be baptized eventually but the plan was to kind of wait for his dad to have enough time to actually come to church and be baptized as well. But when he got up on his own to bear his testimony last fast sunday they talked about it and he didn't want to wait to be baptized.
Its kind of funny about kids (<--what a ridiculous sentence). As soon as they decide they want to be baptized they start asking everyone around if they've been baptized before or when they are going to be baptized. We were at their house one day and one of their friends walked in and dillain said, "hey jason, have you been baptized before?" We were shocked when his mom told him that he had been baptized before, we looked at each other and thought, "why hadn't we just asked that question?".
Its may up here but its only about 6 degrees i hope its a little more comfortable down there.
Love Elder Josh Olson.
Yesterday, we had zone conference, it was strange because it was in the same place as my first zone conference- so my first and last with president Callister where in the same church. Next transfer is going to be crazy, we will have a brand new mission president and they will be sending in 19 new missionaries.
We are still teaching Susan, she is doing really well and we have a good relationship with her family. She didn't make it out to church this week so she still hasn't been but we'll get her out this week, she is reading the book of mormon almost daily and is starting to makes friends with all the members we bring over we have alot of hope that she will make it to her baptism on june 15th. We also had amazing progress with the wolf family, they asked me to baptize their son Dillan on June 8th. Whenever we went over there he would always hide on the staircase and listen while we talked to luke + sylvia, until he finally got the courage to come out and sit with us a few times. They knew they wanted him to be baptized eventually but the plan was to kind of wait for his dad to have enough time to actually come to church and be baptized as well. But when he got up on his own to bear his testimony last fast sunday they talked about it and he didn't want to wait to be baptized.
Its kind of funny about kids (<--what a ridiculous sentence). As soon as they decide they want to be baptized they start asking everyone around if they've been baptized before or when they are going to be baptized. We were at their house one day and one of their friends walked in and dillain said, "hey jason, have you been baptized before?" We were shocked when his mom told him that he had been baptized before, we looked at each other and thought, "why hadn't we just asked that question?".
Its may up here but its only about 6 degrees i hope its a little more comfortable down there.
Love Elder Josh Olson.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Sorry, I'm a little late. (which is the story of my life...)
I didn't miss because of transfers but we just ran out of time. One of the members who we became good friends with took us to toronto on wednesday because transfers are next week and one of us will probably be leaving.
This next transfer will be interesting to see what happens- I think I have a really good possibility of getting transfered we will see what happens. I am creeping up on the year mark and still miss you guys like always, it seems like every time I sit down to write a letter by hand I just get it started and then the next week comes by and everything I wrote is a little outdated so you'll have to forgive me.
We've been working incredibly hard but have hit a little dry spell. We keep finding alot of people but everyone is either too busy or has too much opposition in their lives at the moment to meet with us for any period of time. However I've learned alot and we are really hopefull for the next transfer. Even though its been hard work with alot of ups and downs I've really come to realize recently how much I've come to love missionary work, when six o'clock rolls around on wednesday we are always tired but we just can't wait to put our suits on and go back to work.
We've been working with a really great member in the ward who was really struggling to gain a testimony after about 15 years away from the church. We've been meeting with her for the past three months and the difference has been amazing. She began to read over a chapter of the book of mormon every night and came to church consistently. Just a few days ago she told us that she started to really recognize answers to her prayers, and that although she had thought she was done with marriage for the rest of her life she now looking forward to being married in the temple for her and for her children.
One thing that really stuck out to me was how much what she learned in her childhood had mattered to her. She had stopped going to church at around 17 and she had never really enjoyed it, even though she was the stake presidents daughter she was more concerned with her friends and going to parties. Yet after she gained alot of life experience she realized that something really was missing in her life. She struggled to gain a spiritual testimony of the gospel for a long time, yet recently as she has really worked for her answers she began to tell us that she was feeling good about it, and that she remembered how she had felt as a youth, going to the temple and to the sacred grove. Even though she had never really wanted to go and they didn't seem to have an effect on her, many years later she could still recognize those feelings. We had been struggling and praying about how to help her to find her answers. This was the miracle that we had been praying for. Sometimes, you expect to see success in one area but the Lord gives it to you in another.
I hope everything is going well with everyone. If there is one thing I miss its just hanging around with the family- it feels like just yesterday that I left and I'm sure it will be even sooner until I'm home(which is really scary) but until then, thank you for all your prayers and support and I'll try to return the favor. Missionaries sometimes forget where their strength comes from until they remember all the people that are praying for them at home.
Love Elder Olson.
This next transfer will be interesting to see what happens- I think I have a really good possibility of getting transfered we will see what happens. I am creeping up on the year mark and still miss you guys like always, it seems like every time I sit down to write a letter by hand I just get it started and then the next week comes by and everything I wrote is a little outdated so you'll have to forgive me.
We've been working incredibly hard but have hit a little dry spell. We keep finding alot of people but everyone is either too busy or has too much opposition in their lives at the moment to meet with us for any period of time. However I've learned alot and we are really hopefull for the next transfer. Even though its been hard work with alot of ups and downs I've really come to realize recently how much I've come to love missionary work, when six o'clock rolls around on wednesday we are always tired but we just can't wait to put our suits on and go back to work.
We've been working with a really great member in the ward who was really struggling to gain a testimony after about 15 years away from the church. We've been meeting with her for the past three months and the difference has been amazing. She began to read over a chapter of the book of mormon every night and came to church consistently. Just a few days ago she told us that she started to really recognize answers to her prayers, and that although she had thought she was done with marriage for the rest of her life she now looking forward to being married in the temple for her and for her children.
One thing that really stuck out to me was how much what she learned in her childhood had mattered to her. She had stopped going to church at around 17 and she had never really enjoyed it, even though she was the stake presidents daughter she was more concerned with her friends and going to parties. Yet after she gained alot of life experience she realized that something really was missing in her life. She struggled to gain a spiritual testimony of the gospel for a long time, yet recently as she has really worked for her answers she began to tell us that she was feeling good about it, and that she remembered how she had felt as a youth, going to the temple and to the sacred grove. Even though she had never really wanted to go and they didn't seem to have an effect on her, many years later she could still recognize those feelings. We had been struggling and praying about how to help her to find her answers. This was the miracle that we had been praying for. Sometimes, you expect to see success in one area but the Lord gives it to you in another.
I hope everything is going well with everyone. If there is one thing I miss its just hanging around with the family- it feels like just yesterday that I left and I'm sure it will be even sooner until I'm home(which is really scary) but until then, thank you for all your prayers and support and I'll try to return the favor. Missionaries sometimes forget where their strength comes from until they remember all the people that are praying for them at home.
Love Elder Olson.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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.
--
Love Elder Olson
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.
--
Love Elder Olson
Thursday, April 10, 2008
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.
--
Love Elder Olson
--
Love Elder Olson
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