Earthquake

Earthquake, as you all know
I was really near, I felt the tremble, the floor was shaking at 3 a.m. We woke up, it was a pretty interesting experience. A lot of people are devastated, down here.
Ok well I have to be short this week, we have a few appointments today, later in the night, everything is fine down here. We had a rough week because of the festival, we tried to be effective but there was nothing to do. a 2 day festival (Festival of siruelas, i´m not sure how to spell it, it is dried prunes) where everyone gathers to party. We went for an hour, because we had permission and we had nothing to do. It was awesome because it was a interesting culture event. It made it really hard for us as missionary this week, in church not even half the members came. Our church is so small too. We have to give family home evenings every monday (Today) for the members, it is kinda demanding but we are learning. I will send some pictures of our activities sometime.
Our church has like 25 members. Here in bowen it´s almost like as if we were the leaders of the church, we take care of everything, prepare the sacrament table, prepare the chairs, open the church, the only thing we aren´t suppose to do is give talks on sunday. It´s an awesome learning experience, we are trying so hard to help this church grow. Bowen is very catholic, and most the people don´t like that we are here. We heard some complains about us, that came from the radio (members told us). The catholic church says that we are a sect and that we aren´t christians.
We are hoping for a good week, no more interruptions after the festival. Well thanks for all the support!
Love,
Elder Olson

2-22-2010 Carta de Elder Olson

We never are challenged with trials more than we can handle...
Now that Elder Armstrong is gone, I am leading the area and I guess I am senor companion. I was really nervous at first, but I realized that I have been leading the area this whole time, thanks to Elder Armstrong in letting me take the chance to learn to be a leader (He gave me those responsabilities that helped prepare me). I make the final call in all of our decisions, I never saw this day coming.
Elder Hollinger seems like a good companion, hes really great. I can´t ever argue with him. He is an example to me, in the sense of being positive and cheering me up, I try to do the same. It´s hard to get use to someone else after you had a great time with the last person, but I must be long suffering and patient with whatever challenge I might have to face, sometimes I find it hard because we are so different, but I can´t let that be a reason to not get a long.
I read a powerful talk in the liahona. In the work of the gospel, we teach to save lives. To save lives? Yes, but how? we teach key doctrine, invite to do action, and explain promised blessings. Through teachers of the church, and missionaries, there is no greater calling than to serve others by sharing the knowledge of the gospel. We have manuals such as preach my gospel to learn how to teach, then in turn We draw to the spirit to help teach the principles that meet the needs of all those we teach. We invite those we teach to take action, and we invite trusting them with great confidence so that it is an invitation very dificult to refuse, then of course we mention the promised blessings that will come for their efforts in taking action.
We are having a few dificulties in helping our investigators come to church, we invited them to take action, but we must learn to invite them showing confidence in them, that it might be dificult to refuse our invitation. As members of the church, we are expected to do the same that we might be able to save lives.
Everything is great here in Argentina, I hope all of you have a great week. The weather isn´t so hot anymore. Our efforts are never in vain!!!

Take care,
Elder Olson

It´s a shame that my companion had to leave, Elder Armstrong. It was a very sensitive moment for me when he had to leave. We had built a great friendship, and it didn´t hit us until the day he had to leave. It was sorta hard for me to take, I love Elder Armstrong as a great friend. He gave me a lot of responsabilities, which helped me grow as a missionary. He put his trust in me and now I passed a lot of doubts in myself. Every companionship should be like that, I know we will see eachother again.
We had a great week together, our last week, we went to a lot of panaderías, because Elder Armstrong won´t be able to eat the fatty pastries here in Argentina. A good excuse for me to go and take advantage. The family that we started to work with again, came to church. The father never wanted to go, but when they all came as a family, it gave ease to our hearts.
Our investigators are doing well, Silvio santillán (The cop) is reading and investigating a lot. We invited him to pray, and we still need to find him to check up on him (but I can´t for awhile because i´m not in bowen until this wednesday, he couldn´t come to church this week). Mercedes lucero, the señora we found when all of our appointments fell, is so prepared. She is commited to go to church, and she really wants to go. 1 of our good investigators went away on vacation, her name is adela, she will be gone for a month, but she is a great investigator, shes reading and investigating a lot too. Ramona and her family are doing well, but they had to get full times job´s so we can only talk to them on Saturday and Sunday...
So everything is well here in Bowen, I am stuck here with 2 other missionaries until wednesday, I don´t like trio´s. My companion is going to be Elder Hollinger, I already know him. He is a great missionary, it´s going to be great once we get to work together.

Have a great week everyone, Take care,
Elder Olson

2-1-2010 Carta de Elder Olson

We had a good time this week, we went to a tourist place for last p-day, it has mountains and a huge lake, we just went around to explore. There is a ton of rafting and kayaking, we couldn´t do it of course. Fun to watch. The place is called VALLE GRANDE, big valley.
Well it´s been a fast week and it´s hard to remember stuff, I try to write down things in my agenda so I can remember, it flew this week. Our investigators are doing well, we got a few new ones this week, which is pretty sweet. One of them is a cop.
It´s getting really hot over here, it was like 106 degrees, and dressed as a missionary doesn´t help haha, we are super brown from being in the sun for too long. Sorry I can´t send pictures this week, I got a few great ones, I´ll try next week. We had a funny moment, we were walking in a long road that leads to farms, and we knocked on the houses on the way, we ran into this old guy and he listened to us. We tried to talk to him but he was watching a soccer game. While we were there, he stomped a rat that ran by, I almost couldn´t control my laughter, it was crazy. The old man just left it there in the same spot (barely alive twitching... slowly dieing) the whole time we were with him, i´m sure it´s still in the same spot to this day. I looked at my companion when he stomped the rat, and his face was so hilarous, (he was shocked).
Take care everyone.

Love Elder Olson

1-18-2010 Carta de Elder Olson

Life has been really great, over here in Bowen.
I have been learning a lot because my companion is helping me become prepared to do everything well, on my own (Giving me a lot of responsabilities). I have a great desire to learn as much as I can from him before he goes, Elder Armstrong has helped me a lot. We are working hard sharing the gospel.
Lately, I have been very blessed. As I find someone on the street, I can look in their eyes boldy, and share with them what we have to offer (I can now see that I want to help, sincerly). I know that this message can better lives, I have a sincere desire to share this gospel. I have a testimony from living the gospel, I see the blessing that I get for living the gospel and sharing it. I pray that the people will recognize me as a servant of the lord.
I sometimes find myself wrestling with my trials, but I am doing great here in bowen, I am finding inner peace. I feel great about myself because I know this is the best thing I could be doing right now. We have been working a lot, from our labors, we can already see the fruit. We have had great experiences working with the people here in Bowen. A lady (Ramona bustos), that has a lot of children, came to church, and it was a spiritual experience, she enjoyed it, and she is a progressing invesigator. We have an investigator that can´t walk but he is growing a testimony from hearing us and reading the book of mormon. His name is Carlos Hector.
It´s been a great week, I hope for the best for all of you this week

Love, Elder Olson

Carte de ELder Olson 1-11-10

I had a great week, me and Elder Armstrong are doing well. I hope my letter with the pictures arrived to all of you (my last letter), our area in Bowen consists of a huge bolivian family, they are amazing people. They help us with everything, feed us, clean our clothes, and for the first time ever I ate dinner with a member family (Ussually we eat alone, something small) Never we ate dinner in my other areas haha. This area in bowen opened up like 3 months ago, so the people here had no church until recently. It´s so awesome to be here in bowen.
We had an awesome activity, they came to the church (since we live in the church and have the key we had to participate) and they were giving out presents to little kids and invited non members so that we could get references, and that they could have a good experience from that activivty. The activity was the wise man celebration. They are called reyes magos I believe. And so we got references and ate cake, it was pretty cool.
Me and Elder Armstrong are working with and teaching the family bustos, we had a appointment planned with them the day we did the activity, and luckily the president of 2 areas (Bowen, and Alvear) Came down to the activity and came with us to teach the family bustos with us (that part wasn´t planned, and he offered when we mentioned that we had an appointment). We taught really well with the help of the branch president, it was interesting to have a member help us out, he served a mission so he knew a lot. Romana (The mother of the family bustos) has doubts of the book of mormon, so we shared 1 NE: 13 which talks about the precious and important things will be taken out of the bible, therefore we needed the book of mormon to fully restore the gospel and the "precious and important things". She is progressing!
We helped replace a roof for a service project, a little dangerous because some of us had to go on the roof!! but we survived. Remember everyone, there is no greater joy than laboring for others!!!!!

Take care!

Elder Olson

Carta de Elder Olson 1-4-10

We had an awesome week with the holidays. The members treat us as if we were their family. I have some pictures in this e-mail. Right now I am in a area called bowen, and the majority of the members are from bolivia, and they are super awesome. We spent new years with them, we had to leave at 12 a.m. We ate reall good.
So now I am with Elder Armstrong, he is a really great Elder. He is a little older (28 years old). We get along very well. I am blessed to have a good companion, we are working together very nicely. We are working with a big family (familia bustos), the Mom is really interested in the gospel. We have been also teaching a few others, and it´s a great oppurtunity to share, we have been blessed with success here in bowen.
The catholic church complained about us opening the mouth by their church, and complained on the radio, before they kicked out missionaries that were invited by a member of the church (previous missionaries in this area). They don´t like us at all.
Bowen is really great, something crazy happened this week, a bunch of drunks on bikes came and circled us haha. And they were calling us yankees and saying that they kill our kind. It was awesome, they were so drunk. We knew they couldn´t do anything to us, they eventually left us, it´s something to laugh about later.
We ran into an american family that don´t speak spanish, and they got in a complicated mess. They have been betrayed by a family member that won´t let them recieve their containers from america (It was signed under a relatives name) which has all their stuff. So they are stuck here trying to fix it, and they are trying to do it in court. Super sad, they are awesome, they are reading the book of mormon, we teach them in english haha.
Well everything is going smoothly here, Take care everyone.. I hope you can see the pictures I sent.