Month 5 already...



Me and Elder Reynolds



The 2 sides of missionary work: temporal and spiritual service

Wednesday was mostly service for the Hands of Jesus Food Pantry. After service, we ate dinner at the Morgan's up here in Guthrie. Then we went over to the Rollins for FHE. We read the story of Abinadi with them and talked about it. Then for the activity, Sis Rollins took us to the bowling alley for 25 cent games! 

E Spafford thought that we should try to go see a family we recently met a couple weeks ago. They let us in and we talked and read about faith with them from the Book of Mormon and prayer. The wife told us how happy she was that God has helped her be smoke-free for over a month. Her 14 year old daughter isn't a member so we're going to try to teach her the lessons too and reactivate her parents! 

On Friday we had exchanges. E Reynolds, who came out to OKC with me from the MTC, came up to Guthrie with me and E Spafford went down to Edmond with Elder Halls. Within being here for an hour, E Reynolds flipped end over handle bars on his bike at a stop light in front of 15 stopped cars. I was crying I was laughing so hard! He ended up breaking his bike and having to email home to get money to fix it. So we walked a lot during the day. We saw Orlandress and read 2 Nephi 29 with him. His desire to come back to church is growing! Miracle --> as we were driving, a sad looking man waved to us as we passed him. Reynolds said that we should go talk to him. So I flipped the car around and we did. He and his wife have a couple of small children. He invited us into his house. We talked and were able to leave him with a Book of Mormon and he agreed to read it carefully and pray about it. He said that if it was true, that he'd submit and be baptized! Sweet!:) 

Sunday- Great day at church. The Stuarts gave talks on faith in God. I finished 2 Nephi this morning while studying. I know I've been reading it slowly! The Gardners fed us dinner. David, 11 years old, showed us his pet bearded dragon lizard and fed it a cricket for us to watch. It reminded me of us showing off our pet snake Kaa to the missionaries especially the missionary back in Avondale that was so scared of him that he ran out of our house! After dinner, we went to the Dickman's to eat the ice cream cake that they had had since Monday for Elder Larson's birthday. 

I know that this gospel is true. I love the Book of Mormon. I am eternally thankful for the atonement and repentance. I feel honored to be out here in OKC for two years to serve God. Love,

Elder Olson

Sharing the gospel and loving it!

Armadillo road kill

Australian blue-tongued skinks sighting in Oklahoma?

They are filming a movie about America in Guthrie.

 

Monday- Normal p-day. The carpet in the church building that we normally play basketball and volleyball in is being all torn up. So we went to E Halls and E Reynolds apartment and played basketball on a tiny half court that they have by their apartment. Then we showered and went to the Borgerson's for dinner. Afterwards, we went to the Wade's and met up with Dakoda there to play more basketball.

Tuesday- After studies, Sis Storie took us out to eat lunch at Stables!:) Then we visited Rodger and read 2 Nephi 4:16-35 with him. I had read it during my personal study and felt that it would apply to Rodger as it did to me. We worked a lot with members today. At one of the houses, the lady told us that the person we were looking for had moved away about a year ago. So we thanked her and headed back to our car... not even thinking of asking her if she was interested in the church or anything. As we were getting in the car, she yelled to us, "Are y'all Mormons?" We said yes and she told us she had some questions and would like to make an appointment with us. We set up an appointment with her then left. Awesome!

Wednesday- What a day! We got to see Sis Barrow for a minute and set up an appointment to teach her and her daughter again. We ate dinner with the Chaston's. When we returned home, we brought Dakoda with us to the Bibb's house for a FHE that we had planned. We brought up music and beats that Dakoda had made and Br.Bibb pulled out his phone and plugged it into a speaker and started playing some beats that he had made. I ran out to the car and grabbed the CD Dakoda had burned us of beats that he made and we started to listen to it all together. All of a sudden, I guess Br.Bibb was feeling a beat that Dakoda made and started to freestyle rap to it. (Mom and Dad that means that he started to come up with lyrics off of the top of his head) He rapped about Jesus, the Atonement and Joseph Smith! It was freaking sweet!

Thursday- We met the Schraters. They are members. We visited with them and talked about their missionary work. They are doing awesome! Sis Schrater is discussing some little things about the church with a couple people that she knows. We ate a cheap dinner at Taco Bell then went to the Rollins for cake and bowling because it was Sis Rollins' bday. It was actually a little bit of a surprise party for E Larson because his bday is this coming up Monday. Sis Rollins got a yellow cake with an octopus that had black jerie curls for E Larson. It's an inside joke that's hard to explain ha-ha. The blue frosting stained our tongues.  We went bowling at 89er Bowling Alley. Probably the oldest bowling alley I’ve ever seen ha-ha. I won a game.

Friday- Today we visited the Morgans. We asked them how their missionary work is going and talked about it. We read Isaiah 29 and 2 Nephi 27 with the Ramirez's. Then stopped by Melanie and Nick's to try to set up a time when we could come have a FHE with them. We went to the Rollins and gave Marianne, Sis Rollins' mother, a blessing and Sis Rollins a blessing then shared D&C 4 with them and Dakoda.

 

Love you all,

Elder Olson

Serving with a smile...

Doing service at a farm in Guthrie.

 

Hello,

No more winter weather yet. It rained a little bit this weeks but it was in the 50s most of the week.

Monday- We woke up early and headed to Dakoda's to be guests on his Morning radio show that he created. Then it was a normal p-day. We had a specialized training meeting after we ate an awesome dinner at Adobe. We were trained on goals and planning by our Zone Leaders, Elders Zerkle and Jones.

 

Tuesday- the Zone Leaders came up to Guthrie to go on splits with the other elders and us. E. Jones got stuck with Spafford and me. We saw Rodger and shared with him the Plan of Salvation. We searched for some families of the ward. One was at Guthrie Lake which was actually a pretty lake. They weren't home but their neighbor's giant Rottweiler tried to eat us!

 We had a huge Mexican feast dinner at the Acuna's house:)

Wednesday- Today we were able to visit Sis Barrow. She told us to treat her like an investigator so we did exactly that! We taught her and her 25 year old daughter the Restoration. She is a less active and her daughter, Mary, isn't a member. I did a faith test visual lesson by setting an empty tea bag on fire in my hand. It burns till it's about to touch your hand then it floats off your hand and burns in the air.

Thursday- We felt that we should go see Sister Ford. When we got to her house she told us she had been very sick and trying to call her doctor but he wasn't answering. She didn't know if she should go to the hospital or not, then she thought, "I should call the missionaries and get a blessing from them." Right when she thought of that we knocked at her door! We gave her a blessing and she immediately started to feel better. She wanted to visit with us and talk, but her doctor called her back and said that she should go to the ER to get checked out. Then Sister Rollins took us out to eat at Pop's for dinner. We went to Br.Dickman's afterwards for a meeting.

Friday- After District Meeting, E. Halls, Larson, Spafford and I went to eat at Mr.Lu's Asian buffet. The old Asian lady there continued to flirt with E. Spafford by insisting that he looks like Matt Damon ha! Well today while walking through a neighborhood to find some more people on the list from the ward, a car pulled up by us and rolled down their window. We were like oh no because it's in Guthrie so anything could happen. The lady driving asked us if we had stopped by a certain house and Spafford replied no. She asked why not and he said he just didn't feel like we needed to. She told us that she and her husband are members and she'd like us to stop by. So we did. They are a less active, part member family that was actually on our list but they were on a separate address. We would have never found them unless we were outside walking at that place at that time. We get to go to some service at Melanie and Nick's farm tomorrow and we are going to Family Home Evening next week at the Bibb's!

Saturday- We did a lot of service today. We drove to help the Smith's move a new family into the ward. We just emptied some storage boxes into a storage unit. Then Br.Smith bought us Subway. We went to Melanie and Nick's farm after that to do some service. Their milk barn collapsed because it was super old, so we cleaned it all up and are going to burn all the rotted wood from it. We later visited the Ramirez family and read 3 Nephi 11:1-17 about Jesus coming to the America's. We went to the Rollins' house and her friend, Dee, was there from Denton, TX. We gave Sister Rollins a blessing and the spirit was so strong!

Sunday- Today was a pretty normal day at a church. We had transportation problems so all we could do was visit with one of the other missionaries’ investigators with them.

 

Love,

Elder Olson

 

Ready for the day (notice how clean our apartment is?)

Tracks I cross every day here in Guthrie.

Our snow has melted so it's back to shirt weather.

Thought for the day: Life is like a mirror-- you only get out of it what you put in to it.