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.

11-28-09 Carta De Elder Olson

I can say I had one of the hardest moments of my life recently, that helped build me, but also dropped me to the floor with little strength. I will never forget the past few weeks of my life. "Code Red" is what I would call it. My companion Elder ___, I can say that I very unhappy with him, because I felt manipulated. I don´t know if he did it on purpose, but I was very sad at times with him. I was forced to turn to the president for help.
I guess Elder ___ is well known, for causing problems to other missionaries, I have done my best with him but we could not get any success because I was unhappy, I could not work right, Despite that I tried everything. I have never prayed so hard for help, I was helped and answered in my prayers, but I could not be in his presence, because I felt betrayed by him.
President has exchanged me with another companion, I am now in a area called "Bowen" I don´t have a bike anymore, but it´s a really great area. My new companion is Elder Armstrong, He is a great Elder from Utah. He competed internationally as a swimmer. A really great Elder, I have already known him before, the first day i came in the mission I met him.
And now I am his companion. We are doing well here, and he only has a transfer left, so I have to take care of the area after this transfer.
Sharing this is hard for me, I rather not say anything about all this, but it´s the truth. I did my best, and I guess I wasn´t prepared for Elder ____. But, now I am.

I had a great christmas, I still need to talk to you mom, it was great talking to you Dad, Stef, Ryan, Erin, and Kyra.

I´ll call you soon mom...
Take care.

Elder Olson

*the moderator removed one of the names for privacy purposes

Carta de Elder Olson 12 21 09

This has been a really difficult transfer, I wasn´t able to write last week. We have been doing a lot of divisions, I left to other areas with other elders (Elder Vasquez, Elder Giminez, and Elder George), 3 times this week. It has been really tough week for me, I learned a lot despite the pressure.
I learned that trials are the moments of our progression, and this is very difficult for me, and I know the little decisions I make will make the outcome different, so I am being very careful. Me and my companion don´t agree on some things with teaching, I don´t like to count things, if we don´t cover at least the main idea of the doctrine. It´s hard, but we are going to have to deal with it.
A very progressive week, we are going to call tomorrow I guess (home), we are going to have a Christmas party tomorrow. It will be pretty sweet. I´m going to have to cut short here.

Merry Christmas,

Elder Olson

Helllo everyone

       Yeah, it´s been a great week again. Progress, and full of dificult moments. I learn a ton from each companion, right now, I am learning from someone who grew up entirely different. Elder NIeve (From buenos aires), I had problems with his personality at first, but it´s going really good now. He is like a brother to me, the things we went throught his week strengthened us a ton.
        We had a really good conference in our zone, I met a ton of elders, and we ate argentine fried chicken after.(they celelbrated my birthday this conference. I am going to say goodbye to my teenage years, it´s been a good 15-19!!! I have a month left). Then we ate a argentine barbeque later that night with a bunch of elders (We ate Asado, it´s really good). We stayed in a pension with like 8 elders then left to play soccer in the morning. It was super awesome. (part of P day)
        The week we had was tough, we reached goals, and we didn´t reach others. We are eager for this following week to turn out well. I am starting to get in the rutine of the mission, now that the language isn´t a big problem. I let spanish get in the way of some things, but now it´s just getting better and better now that I have a base, I can focus myself more in what is really going on (Like the people I talk to, or around me).
        Well we rode on our bikes, all over, I popped my tire because I was forced to move off the road, a road far out of the city (A car came fast without much notice) ... and I ran into stickers and nasty stuff. We had to walk far haha.
        Niel, thanks for writing me your letter. Right now I´m trying to pick up the porteño accent from my companion haha (The accent you mentioned). I hope everyone in the family is doing great.
        Take care everyone, I´ll try to send photos next week.

This has been a great week!!!

  Hey everyone, I would like to start by saying... I get to ride a bike hahah. I am in 1 of the 2 areas that allows bikes. I left Lavalle(it was pretty sad, I got to say bye to everyone), to a place called peligrini. It´s super huge and pretty. I had the oppurtunity to watch 2 people get baptized right when I came, it was great oppurtunity.
        So my new companion... His name is Elder Nieve, he is from buenos aires, he is such a stud. I´m learning how to talk like a porteño (I don´t know how to spell it), they are people someone from buenos aires. They have a cool accent, he always says "Chincholin" I don´t know what that means. I think it means intestines. He is really cool, he knows how to cook (i´m learning home made milenesas from him), and he knows how to work really hard. we get a long really well, it´s so much fun here...
        I´m learning things from how to set goals, to how to sweep the floors... (Literally I use to sweep in a ineffective way). It´s been a great week here, we have been working with a few people, We taught some great lessons, together, we had great unity in the lessons we taught. I really lucked out with a great new start here in Mendoza.
        I have had really great experiences here, I wish to share all of them with you, but I feel like they are better to share later... I love all of you, sorry I cut it short on this letter. Take care.