Guthrie, Oklahoma

I'm in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

When I went tracting, there were a lot of run down shacks as houses with hillbillies sitting on the porches drinking moonshine and smoking cigarettes. But I love it here. It's actually really green, but very windy. I had my first tornado warning my second night here. Yes the members feed us and take us out to eat. No okra so far.  

There are a lot of bugs here, big flying beetles and lots of spiders.  

My apartment is alright. it smells like weed all the time because the guy above us smokes all the time. the other missionaries and members probably think we get high back at the apartment because all our clothes smell like it haha.
 

Mumford and Sons (a favorite musical group) came to Guthrie in early September and it was such a big deal the whole town shut down. Sister Storie from the ward, took several of the missionaries to lunch today at Stables. The workers were all wearing Mumford shirts so I bought one to remind me of home, family, and friends. 

My companion is Elder Spafford. He is from Syracuse, Utah. He looks just like Ben Olson. He is really cool. The members I've met so far are awesome! I haven't been to church yet because of conference, but I heard that there are like 200 people in our ward.
The dinner with the mission president was eating sandwiches in the gym of the church with like 26 other missionaries.

My bike has arrived, but its like 100 miles round trip to pick it up and go back to the apartment and I guess those miles aren't covered. I'm going to pick it up in a week when my companion and I go down to OKC for a trainer meeting. We have a pretty sweet truck though. I think it's a 2010 Colorado crew cab that's lifted. All the trucks are lifted because the roads here are really crappy and it floods a lot.

I met a mom and a son that are inactive. Lisa, the mom, has cancer, and Dakota, the son, is 19 and stays home to take care of her. She loves the church but can't go cause of her condition.  Dakota is so awesome. He plays guitar and sings. He sounds amazing! We have a cd of his in the car. He writes his own music, plays guitar and sings on the cd. We invited him to come play volleyball tonight with us at the bishop's house. He said he'd come. I think I know what president Forsberg was saying when he called this a "rescue mission".  I am rescuing all inactives or less actives.

I've done a little tracting, but mostly I've been meeting with inactives and becoming friends with them. There is an awesome family I've been seeing. Zack and Natasha are the parents and Zack has one boy that is 8 and Natasha has a boy and a girl that are about 6 and 4. The 8 year old got baptized but hasn't gone to church since. Zack and Natasha struggle with the word of wisdom. and it's hard to teach them because previous missionaries were just really good social friends with them. So it's difficult to switch to teaching them more than hanging out with them.

We helped a inactive lady, Phyllis, move in the second day I was here and we invited her to come to conference. We got her a ride and she came to the Sunday morning session. She loved it and can't wait to come to church next Sunday. Conference was awesome. Pres. Uchtdorf had the best two talks on Saturday and Sunday.

I'll leave you with some of the poem that President Monson said. "Timbers do not grow with ease. By strong winds and storms sprout tough trees."
Love,
Elder Olson