Settling 'n to a small town...

This week has been pretty good. The branch is so different than a ward. It's pretty much run by 3 families. President Robertson is Branch president, his wife is Relief Society President, Brother Shaw is his first councilor and Sister Shaw is primary president, Brother Gerlach is 2nd councilor and his wife is young women president. There was about 50 people at sacrament, everyone was saying how there was such a large number of people there. Our chapel is 6 pews long. 4 people pass the sacrament, when it could actually do with 3. Elder Lyman and I are speaking next Sunday about the work of salvation or temples or something along those lines. We're teaching a lot of people and many of them are progressing very well.

 
My companion is pretty cool. He's from a tiny town in Utah. Richfield I think or it's nearby Richfield? He wrestled all high school and played football and soccer. I don't think he is related to the Lyman's in our ward. We got to go back to the city on Saturday and I baptized Anna :) it was so awesome! Elder Winslow and I found her back in October. I'm racing an investigator of ours right now in the Book of Mormon. I'm maybe like 1 chapter ahead of her. She's 13 but she reads really fast. Her name is Kalayla and her sister is Tiera and her mom is Aaron. They are all planning on baptisms in June.
I love my time here. Thanks for all the love and support.
Love,
Elder Olson

Baptism of Anna

Month in Review...

Here is a little review of the past month:

Feb. 16: Bishop Gillespie and his family fed us a cool dinner on Valentines Day. We each sat down and had a plate and a menu. But no silverware, cups or food anywhere. The menu was a 3 course meal. We got to select 4 things for each course. I don't remember what all the stuff was but it was all coded. "the devil's tool" was a fork, "a man's best friend" was some bacon, "pucker up" was grapefruit juice, "love handles" was cinnamon rolls, "yellow diamonds" was lemon bars, "cuddling" was the spoon and much more. It was really fun. We could only have one course at a time. So in my first course I got no silverware, so I had to eat all my food with my hands. So transfers are this Wednesday. Elder Quijada and I are the only ones in our district that are staying the same. So now I'm the district leader of what we call a relief society district. 3 companionships of sisters, the APs (which we never see) and the Zone Leaders (which we see every other week at district meeting). I guess this is what I need so I can learn to love sister missionaries more haha:)

Feb. 23: This past week was good. We got to have several great lessons with our investigators. We taught the Restoration to them and they were loving it. We have a new investigator. He even loved Elder's Quorum which I taught. The Elder's quorum president asked me to rebuke and chasten the snot out of all of them for never doing their home teaching. I just used scriptures and what they had to say about home teaching in the lesson. I think the spirit did most of the rebuking cause "the guilty take the truth to be hard."

March 2: This past week was kind of rough. We were grounded to our apartments due to snow/ice weather for 4 days. Then we had a great zone conference on Thursday, but that took up most of the day. On Friday I gave a training on the talk, "flooding the earth with the book of Mormon" by Ezra Taft Benson. It went pretty good.

March 23: Dakoda is coming down here today to feed us and the sisters dinner. I love seeing him again. He is working on his papers for his mission. I love that kid!. Elder Quijada and I have been teaching like crazy and everything is now falling into place just before transfers which are on April 1st. Myrna Lee is getting baptized this Saturday the 28th. Paige is getting baptized April 1st in the evening. Anna is getting baptized April 11th, the Saturday after general conference. And Lance is getting baptized April 18th, the Saturday after Anna. If I get transferred I will be making trips back here for almost every Saturday for the next 4 weeks :)

Today we are going head to head with another zone of missionaries, the Midwest City zone. Elder Debenham, my MTC companion, is a district leader in that zone and he is training Elder Riffenberg, who is from Phoenix. 

This week is going to be fun and exciting! As you can see there are lots of baptisms and miracle happening here!: )I don't want to leave:( 

Love you!:)

Another Wonderful Week....

My Zone and District at the Oklahoma Temple

This past week was awesome! Elder Quijada and I got to go on splits with the members a couple times unexpectedly. I went with Brother Woodhouse (we call him Studhouse) to a lesson with a new investigator, Mary, and her 8 little kids from the ages of 1-10. She is a single mother and raises all her kids and goes to school! The lesson went very well, we taught her the Restoration. Meanwhile, Elder Quijada went out with Brother Kunkel (a  member that I call Uncle Kunkle) to one of our potential investigators named Preston. He wants to come to church so they discussed church and the Book of Mormon. Preston told Elder Quijada he knows what the Book of Mormon is cause his grandma used to read it to him every night til she died in a plane crash before she was baptized. Elder Quijada read from Alma 40 about Spirit Paradise and Preston remembered his grandma reading that to him and thanked Quijada for bringing that memory back to him. He came to church Sunday and really enjoyed it!

On Friday at District Meeting I trained on asking inspired questions and listening. I shared the fiery sermon when I was talking about listening and being okay with silence. It was great:)

Love you!

-Elder Olson

Teaching in the Lord's Way...

A nice dog who decided to follow us for a day. We knocked on 20 doors without success.

Emailing at the library...matching tie day!

This week was really good. I'm working on focusing on the district and our investigators. I know as I get my priorities straight, the rest will fall in place. My training this past Friday was on who we are and who we can become.

 

I'm doing well. My ankles are the same. I've been putting on this cream night and morning to help them, but no improvement in the aching and soreness yet. I'm wearing the special shoes and they feel slightly better when I wear them.

I've been thinking a lot on forgiveness. The parable of the unforgiving servant. God has forgiven me and will continue to forgive me for everything I might do, but am I willing to forgive others? No matter what the offense. Will I be required to gave someone forgiveness for a huge wrong? How could I mentally get over it? 

Tomorrow is our zone temple day so we get to all go to the temple as a zone for an endowment session. I'm pretty excited.  

Here is a question I have been thumping over for quite a while and I don't know if there is an answer other than practice, trial and error and experience: How can you correct and reprimand someone yet help them still feel good about themselves and that they know you are doing it out of love? 

I love serving the Lord on my mission. I am meeting amazing people who are enriching my life tremendously.

Elder Olson

Teachin 'n Preachin

The OKC 2nd Ward Missionaries

Elder Quijada and me

This was my first week as a District Leader. On Friday we hold training meetings.  The training I gave was on personal revelation through prayer. I had each person analyze their own personal prayers and talked about the importance of it. This was kind of like cleaning the inner vessel before the outer kind of deal. I gave a talk at church on Sunday along with Sister Chugg. She spoke about God answering prayers and I talked about two of the talks this last General conference. "Receiving a Testimony of Truth and Light" By President Uchtdorf and "I Know These Things of Myself" By Elder Christensen. Paige will be baptized probably the 24th. She is due on the 27th so we'll see how all that goes.

Anna is progressing. She wants to read the whole Book of Mormon though before she is baptized and she is not feeling very worthy. Some people are  pretty self critical and we are working on helping her with that. We are hoping to have her over to the Lusks' this evening and teach her there.

I am so thankful for the family I was raised in and the examples of a loving father. That has helped me so much on my mission.

I love my mission and the people here. My new companion is Elder Quijada. We get along really well. He is a great missionary.

Love you!

Happy New Year...

At the Christmas conference I got this photo with all my companions so far on my mission. Awesome!

My new planner cover.

Me and the big guy at  church Christmas party.

Elder Winslow taking out all our Christmas package boxes. Thanks for everything.

The Bartlett's and me the Sunday before Christmas.

Changes are in the air here in Oklahoma.

So transfers are on Wednesday. Elder Winslow is going to Anadarko, I’m staying in OKC and I got called to be the District Leader here. I’m in charge of the 14 missionaries here now, I will give trainings every Friday for district meeting, counsel with the missionaries, be in charge of exchanges with all the elders in the district and the Zone Leaders and I don't know what else. Naturally, I feel completely inadequate for such a calling and responsibility. But I asked Elder Winslow for a blessing and it helped a lot. 

We met a new investigator this week. His name is William. He is so amazing! He has had a rough past and you can tell by his looks, but he has completely changed. He got up yesterday and bore his testimony on his first Fast and Testimony Sunday! We've taught him a couple times and he is really excited. He wants to be baptized but not sure when yet. Hopefully Paige will be baptized on January 10th. Then our other investigator, Anna, has a date for January 17th. They're both awesome. I'm so glad to be here.

 

We started going to the gym in the mornings now. It's pretty fun to wake up at 5:30 then exercise. It's a nice way to start the day. I am still getting used to the new shoes. These have lateral support to help keep me from rolling my ankles.

 

Thanks so much for your love, support and encouraging words!

Love

Elder Olson

Countdown to Christmas

Canal in Bricktown downtown OKC



Having fun.

Kevin Durant Hall of Fame
 

Just in case you are looking for entertainment, come for a visit.

Hey-o! This past week was good! I sprained the same ankle on Thanksgiving at the Turkey Bowl. Both my ankles seem to hurt most of the time. I am wearing braces on them now.

Today we woke up at 4:30 am and did a deep clean of our apartment because the Zone Leaders requested that our entire district does a big clean because they had gone in several of the sisters' apartments and said their dishes were stacked way above the sink and everything was just really dirty. 

We watched the Christmas devotional at a less active member's house. It was really good. I think Richard J Maynes spoke to us at the MTC? But I’m not sure. I'll have to look back in my notes and see. We have been hitting the streets hard this past week trying to find more people to teach. I know that God is working with people and that He will lead us to them if we are worthy and put in the effort. I too am also grateful for the Lord's patience and love toward me. We've been sending out scriptures to a lot of people every day to help them "Discover the Gift" this Christmas season. Today was John 1:35-51. Yesterday's was Psalms 46. I really like them both :)

Have a great week! Love you!

-Elder Olson