Tuesday, November 30, 2010

24 Nov 2010 Here is the pic from the baptism!!! :) Families can be together forever!!!!

24 Nov 2010

Hello family,

wow this week was incredible!! I am so lucky to be a missionary. I will not lie, i love being out of the office alot, as a leader i feel i can accomplish alot more being a good example, instead of preparing a training or something like that, so i am really happy. This area is amazing. I love the members already and the investagators that we have, the lord is really blessing us alot. This week we saw one of the best baptisms on our mission. Brother Wesley and his whole family were baptized on saturday, what a special family!!!! the have the cutest kids in the whole world, the have baby twins, that are 1, and also have a daugther that is 8. WOW! the baptism was amazing. President Martins (a man in our ward, he is AMAZING!! ex mission president, fantastic member of the church) he baptized the dad, i baptized the mom and my companion baptized the daughter. it was awesome. The dad wesley went to his baptism in a suit and tie, he was just really prepared to be baptized. They were confirmed members on sunday, it was awesome. We are working A LOT, i cant remember ever working so hard in all of my mission, but the Lord sure is blessing us. We had 13 investagators at church on sunday!!! 2 full families, and a lot more people as well. This week we are really blessed, we will have 6 baptisms this saturday. Jose and Aladia are amazing. they are a older couple, the oldest i will ever baptize. they are 77 and 75. they have been going to church for ALONG time, but nobody seemed to be able to mark their baptism. Well they really liked us, so the first time we went to their house they accepted baptism for this saturday, they are awesome, they gave us lunch today, the wife has cancer, and she is going through kemo threapy right now, but she is strong enough to be baptized. We also have Adilson, Rosangela and Leticia. They are another family, their son was baptized about 6 months ago, but the parents didnt want to at the time. Well we have really been blessed to touch the hearts of alot of people in these 3 weeks here, all 3 accepted baptism for this saturday as well. We also have a Anielly, she is a young women, a member's sister, she is going to be baptized as well. We are really excited and really happy. The ward members are excited to see so many families entering into the ward, so we are planning on recieving a lot of referals from the members. I am so thankful for this great opportunity to serve the Lord. I want to baptize alot more people before my mission ends. I have to reach my goal. The Lord will bless me. I am so thankful to be here, I couldnt imagine doing a more important thing than working in the Lord vinyard. I love this work, I love this gospel, i love helping these people.
Have a great thanksgiving!!!!
Elder OLSEN!!!!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

17 Nov 2010

Family,

That is pretty cool that now justin has been to brasil as well, i know that he is jealous because brasil is the best country in the world(alright its still behind the big usa, but it is close.) this week was a fantastic week. i am really motivated to work as hard as i possibly can. me and my companion are getting along great and working really hard. we had ALOT of sucess this week. our new ward is amazing. everyone is amazingly excited that we are here. our president helped us out a little with a phone call to the bishop saying that he was sending his aps to the area, so now the whole ward knows we are the assistents, so on sunday we were recieved really well in the ward. we recieved over 20 member referals during the week, all of families, and we marked over 10 baptisms!!! we recieved a referal from a fantastic family, that has already been going to church.... their names are wesley and luciana. they have 3 children, a set of twins that are 1 and way cute, it is an amazing family. they have already been going to church, but the missionaries before had never taught them! we taught them, and they already know everything about the church. so they will be baptized this saturday! they are a special family!! their 8 yr old daughter will be baptized as well!!! it is going to be amazing. We are also teaching another part member family, where there are 3 non members in the house. the dad never wanted to accept the missionaries, but for some odd reason he met us and really liked us, he accepted to be baptized on the 27th. we are extremely excited. and we are ready to work like crazy!!! we have to baptized alot this transfer, the lord wants us to!! I LOVE this work, it is amazing!!!
Please pray for me.

Hurrah for Israel!!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

10 Nov 2010

Family,

I am so excited!!!!! Today is my first full day out of the office. And I am loving it. I have really missed serving full time, but at the same time I am very thankful for the opportunity that I had to serve in the office, I learned alot. But now I feel like we will be able to be more effective APs being in the field full time. During our visit that the area presidency made he had told us the importance of the aps being examples in the work, that we need to be baptizing the most on the mission, and so it was hard to really establish a teaching pool while only working limited hours, now working basically full time we will be able to have alot more success. I am really excited. Elder Castleton my old companion went home on monday, it was hard to say goodbye.. we worked for 3 months together and he really became one of my good friends. I gave him our address and he is going to stop by this month and get to know the family. Elder Hansen is my new companion. He is awesome!!! He is a little nervous to be ap, but he will do great. He has about 1 yr and 5 months on the mission. I cant believe i only have 2 more transfers. it is crazy. I get a little sad sometimes thinking about how fast time goes by. but i am really excited to be here. This area is called Costa e Silva. It is a really good area. It hasnt had alot of success. Only 3-5 baptisms in 8 months, but last night we got here for the first time and we talked with the bishop(he served a mission in the states speaks english) and the ward mission leader and they are both really excited. We are going to baptize alot of people. Our goal is at least 20 people this transfer!! 4 families!! we know that is possible. I really want to end my mission just going all out, working as hard as i can. I am really excited. We got here and we had to break into our house, and then there was nothing inside of it, so we had to sleep on top of matresses on the ground. It was awesome. well i loved to read justins letter. I laughed alot.. i love him so much. It was weird i started crying reading justin's email.. I just couldnt help but feel like alma in the book of mormon. I felt such joy hearing my little brother tearing it up in the mission field. I felt so much peace, i just started crying. I love this work, i love serving the Lord with all my heart, to just be here working and serving the Lord. I love you all, i love this people here in brasil!!! I love my Savior Jesus Christ!!

Hurrah for Israel!!!

Elder Olsen

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

3 Nov 2010

This week was great. We have been working really hard with the transfers coming up. My companion Elder Castleton is going home next monday. So my new companion is going to be Elder Hansen, he is a good young missionary. He has about 1 yr and 5 months. It is going to be fun. I have really enjoyed my time working with Elder Castleton, he has become one of my greatest friends on the mission, we have had a lot of great experiences together, i am going to miss him alot. I have given him my home address and he said he is going to go visit the family, he lives in sandy. I am really excited to be working this next transfer, I have the greatest blessing. After our visit from Elder Soares from the 70, he told us that the assistents should NOT work in the office, he said that they should not be office elders, but should be working and training elders. So starting next transfer I will not longer be working in the office as assistent. Instead we are going to work in a nearby area called Costa e Silva, this way we will no longer lose time doing office work, but we will just focus on training the missionaries on how to work and baptize. I am so excited about this, because it has been real hard working in the office, it is sometimes really boring work, so it will be alot of fun to be working all day everyday again. We will still have to have meetings, and trainings and stuff like that, but we will no longer live in the office. So please pray for me and my new companion so that we can work really hard and so that we can baptize. I really want to have the greatest last 2 transfer ever. I cant believe that i ONLY have 2 more transfers, it can be really sad to face that fact. so please pray for me family, i still want to accomplish all my goals that i set at the beginning of my mission, and the Lord has blessed me with amazing miralces throughout my mission, I have seen his hand in this work, and I know that if everyone continue praying for me, it will help me become a bigger instrument in the Lords hand. I love this work, it has changed my life. I know that they are many people waiting for this message!!
I love you all,

ELDER OLSEN