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.