Life in Ada

 

Well this weekend is my second General Conference in the mission field. I’m excited, but it won’t be as awesome as the ones I remember from back home, mainly the big yummy brunch and being with family.

Last week there were four baptisms on Saturday. A native American family, Tanner, Taloa and Talia. And a 12 year old boy named Dylan. I got to stand in the circle when we were conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday to Tanner and Taloa, his wife. It was so awesome!!:)

My companion is Elder Davis. He is from a big ranch in Townsend, Montana. Born and raised there. He is 6'6" and people call him Goliath, Papa Bear, Paul Bunyon (which makes me Babe the big blue ox) He kind of looks like Eric Wilcox and acts like him too. But he is also a spiritual giant. He is the District Leader so I am learning a lot from him. Well I love it here in Ada! My companion and I get along really well. There are only 6 missionaries in our district. Four elders and two sisters. The ward here has only been a ward for about a year. It used to be a branch. There are only about 80 people in the whole ward. On my first Sunday here in Ada, I got to give a talk about my personal conversion, along with one of the sisters giving a talk. Then the second hour, my companion and I taught the one youth class with nine kids from the age of 12-18. Then the third hour we taught combined adult men and women the restoration and then for the last 15 minutes went and did sharing time with the 13 kids in the whole primary! It was crazy, but really fun:)

We have decided that we need to run in the mornings. We share a Chevy Cruse with the other elders here in Ada. Ada is split into three areas. Elder Davis and I have the northern part. The central part has the university ECU where the sister missionaries serve. Ada south is where Elder Read and Elder Garcia serve.

So there have been some crazy awesome miracles! We watched the movie, Ephraim’s Rescue with a recent convert family, the Walls. Elder D felt inspired to tell the 16 year old boy, who has a hurt foot that has caused him a lot of pain over the past two years, that if he fasts for 24 hours and we give him a blessing that he will be healed. He did so and we gave him a blessing with the Bishop. Afterwards Elder D told him to stand up and walk around. He did and didn't limp at all! He said his foot had no pain! 

 

A couple days later we felt that we need to go to a less active member's house. So we did and her friend, Lenita, who is an investigator, was also there. The less active member asked Lenita if we could give her a blessing of healing because she had just gotten her arm out of a cast and it hurt so bad that she couldn't move it and was crying. She said sure we can try to give her a blessing. We blessed her and afterwards she was moving it and twisting it all around! She was almost scared from what had happened. She opened up to us and told us about her struggles with faith and her purpose. We talked about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. She promised us she'd read it and pray about it. On the other hand, the less active member wanted to test me and asked me to give her a blessing of healing but didn't want to tell me what was wrong with her. So, very nervously, I put my hands on her head with my companion and began to give her a blessing. I was trying to be very general in the blessing cause I did not know what specifically was wrong with her, but the word, "joints" kept entering my mind. I finally said that her joints will receive strength and will be healed. She paused after the blessing and said, "Well that's interesting." I thought oh no there's nothing wrong with her joints. But she said that her Fibromyalgia has been attacking some of her joints and has been causing her to hurt really badly. When we got in the car, my companion even told me, "her joints?! How the heck did you know her joints were hurting her?!"

This mission is so awesome. I love all the miracles I have been seeing. I try to constantly be humble and never get caught up in the sin of pride.

Love you very much!

Elder Olson