A Great Week.....

Raymond's baptism with Elder Davis

Elder Olson cooking hotdogs after the baptism.

Elder Olson and Sister Goza, a wonderful family in the Ada ward.

My week was great! I've been trying to write in my journal more often!. Raymond's baptism was awesome! I'm glad you're helping the missionaries there at home so much! 2 Nephi 4 also known as Nephi's psalm is one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon. I am studying Alma 46, where Moroni creates the Title of Liberty and kills all the traitors to freedom, to Matthew 12:30 where Jesus states, "he that is not with me is against me." That reminded me of obedience. Why are we disobedient? If we knew the consequences to our actions before we acted, would we still act the same? Elder Robert D Hales mentioned this in his talk at last conference. He said that the reason we are disobedient is found in Moses 5:13: because "they loved Satan more than God." Talk about boldness!

 

Elder Davis and I are working on finding more people to teach because our teaching pool is getting smaller. We have found several nice people. I am so thankful for our Heavenly Father's plan and for temples.

 

Love,

Elder Olson 

Ponderings......

Lanita's baptism. Wonderful!!

Check out this awesome knot I learned!!

I've thought about us being our own worse enemy too and I think of flesh vs. the Spirit. Our spirit wants to do well and knows what is good and bad. But our flesh is what falls so easily into temptation. It just wants what FEELS good and wants it right now. I think of the cookie monster when I think of the flesh. "I WANT COOKIE, I WANT COOKIE NOW" This life is about developing Self-Mastery which falls under the category of Temperance in the Topical Guide of the scriptures. It is not easy, but this life is not easy. Missionary work is not easy. Raising a family is not easy. But the Atonement was not easy either. If we are to call ourselves Disciples of Christ, then we must endure through something, maybe a little speck of something that the Savior went through. Elder Holland gave a great talk about that.

Raymond is getting baptized this Saturday. We had a baptism last Saturday. Our friend, Lanita, ask me to confirm her on Sunday and Elder D. to baptize her. It was a wonderful day. She is so happy and so are we.  Raymond, another man we have been teaching is choosing to be baptized on this coming Saturday. There have been 20 baptisms in Ada since January. The Lord is truly “hastening His work,” and I am so glad to be part of it.

 I want to share a neat quote I found while reading a talk by the apostle, Elder D. Todd Christofferson:

“There is not a higher good than motherhood and fatherhood in marriage. There is no superior career, and no amount of money, authority, or public acclaim that can exceed the ultimate rewards of family.”

Okay so funny story time... Yesterday after the Skype, we went to give Chris, the Sister's investigator, a blessing because he is quitting coffee and is going through caffeine withdrawals. So he asked some questions about the priesthood and my companion answered all of them perfectly. Then we gave him a blessing and he started to say how awesome it felt and how empowered he felt. For some reason I started talking about how he has the power to quit coffee, that he could "punt a bag of coffee beans no problem." And he took that literally and asked me if I wanted to go outside and punt his last can of coffee that he has in his kitchen. Of course I said heck yes, and we went outside and Elder Davis held the can on his foot and I field goal kicked it off of some stairs. Then Chris wanted to try so he ran down and got the can and tried to kick it too, but mostly just nailed Elder Davis' hand and the can rolled down the stairs. So Chris wanted a re-try and he held the can himself and kicked it and it blew up when it hit the ground. It was all so awesome, except we didn't think about the giant smell of coffee that exploded into our nostrils after the can blew up. But Chris thought it was the greatest thing ever! :)

Love you

Elder Olson

 

Temple Joy

Oklahoma City Temple with Sister Rollins and the Dickmans

A wonderful day!

Loving every minute....

Ada District Missionaries

Bottle feeding a calf
 

A little frog I caught.

Little helpers who remind me of my nephews, they wanted to carry our backpacks to the car!

I got to stand in the circle for a baby blessing of Brother Calhoun's daughter, Rosemary Calhoun. It was so cool! It's the first time I’ve ever stood in one of those. My last week was pretty good! We had a meeting with Bishop Niblett on Tuesday night after our Book of Mormon class. He gave us some assignments to look up what the difference between temperance and diligence is. D&C 4:6; 12:8. I came to the conclusion from the tortoise and the hare story. The tortoise had self-mastery. He abstained from working harder than he was able, but yet he didn't stop. He was diligent and he won the race. We did a lot of biking this week. About 32 miles since Wednesday. On Thursday we taught the Restoration to Evelyn, she is in her 50s. We invited her to be baptized and she accepted a date! We need to continue to see her and really work with her to achieve that goal. Later that night we went to the Walton’s' house to teach one of their grand daughter's friends named Lexis. We also taught her the Restoration and she is getting baptized on May 17th! She is already going to girl's camp this summer and has friends in the church. We went on exchanges Friday and Saturday. I was with Elder Garcia. We tried a lot of people but no one was available. We continued to work and the Lord blessed us with people in our path. Elder Garcia stopped and talked with everyone and we found three potential investigators from it. We have an appointment with one of them tonight! There are 14 new missionaries coming in this next transfer. Trainer calls were last weekend and I didn't receive one so I’m not training a new missionary. Yay! That'd be super stressful haha. I hope I get to continue to labor with Elder Davis here in Ada. I'm learning so much from him and we seem to work well together. I love you and hope you have a great week! Thanks for the package and shirts and notes! :)

We usually eat out on Mondays and/or Fridays as a District. Sometimes when we drive all the way to Coalgate with the Sisters we eat at a home cooking restaurant called the Brand-N-Iron cause we can't make it back to eat with a member. I am looking forward to receiving more mail! I haven't gotten any letters in almost two weeks haha. We drove to a tiny Amish town called Clarita to find a less active member. It was awesome and super pretty! I'll send some pictures.

Mother's day is indeed approaching. I love you so much and am so thankful for all you have done for me. Can't wait to Skype!

Love you!

Elder Olson 

Serving, storm, and miracles...

Elder Read and Me

Fixing the tractor

The Ada sky before a storm

 

The sky after the storm

My week was fantastic! On Tuesday, we taught the Restoration to Lenita, an investigator and she really liked it. She understood and believed it all! We taught a Book of Mormon class that night and had a meeting with the Bishop just updating him on the progress of the work.

Wednesday we went to eat lunch and do service with Sister Gray and her Baptist husband, JD. Elder Davis was in heaven because it was just like being on the farm back at his home. We fixed a broken tractor in the pasture, fixed their water pipe so they could have water in their house again, dug a fence post hole, took out a giant root and got super muddy and dirty during it. At first JD didn't want us over there because he didn't think we could help, but then by the end he wanted to take us out for dinner! We went and visited them yesterday after church and they were both very excited to see us! They are so awesome!

 On Wednesday, we gave a blessing to Lenita cause she was about to lose her apartment that she had lived in for 10 years. She was very stressed out and depressed. She had a miraculous experience during the blessing and heard God telling her that everything we were saying in the blessing was true and she felt like he was there in the circle with his hands on her head as well. It's crazy because Elder Davis and I felt that there was a third person there as well.

 

 I went on exchanges with Elder Read on Friday and Saturday. We visited some of his investigators.

 Did you hear about the storm that hit here yesterday? It was in the high 80s then a huge dark wall cloud hit and it started pouring rain and got super windy. There were some tornadoes up north of us but nothing here. No need to worry!! We have an awesome shelter in a member's backyard close to us. Even though it just rained yesterday, we still went over to their house in case it got worse. I'll send you some pictures. Today it is in the 20s and 30s.

Our teaching is going very well. Elder Davis and I are growing together in our companion unity.

 Yesterday was an awesome day at church. Elder Davis and I taught Gospel Principles class and it was about the freedom to choose. It felt super hot in the room because there were so many people in it, but the lesson went well! It seemed like there were so many people at church yesterday and when we added up our district's numbers last night, sure enough, there were 25 investigators/ recent converts/ less active members at church between the three companionships here. Our investigator, Lenita, came to church and loved it. She checked with us to make sure we can still baptize her on May 10th haha! When does that ever happen?? An investigator checking with us that we can still baptize them haha:) 

 I'm reading thru the Book of Mormon and New Testament right now in studies. I read Alma 34 this morning. What an amazing chapter. I cross referenced verse 36 with Revelations 7:14 and Alma 13:11 I believe it was. We need to have the Priesthood and continually repent to have our "garments be washed clean through the blood of the Lamb." In the New Testament I’m only in Matthew 18 I think. I read a chapter then read further into the chapter in the book, Jesus the Christ. I also really love the book you sent me, Believing Christ. It is so straight forward and easy to understand!

Today, we'll all be going to Paul's Valley for Zone P-Day and a Specialized Training Meeting given by our Zone Leaders. 

Elder Olson

Spring in the Air

Bishop's homemade meat smoker.



Watching conference at Sister Chappell's.

 

Hello!

I'm glad you enjoyed conference! I really enjoyed Elder Holland's talk. It was so straight up and bold. I watched Saturday conference at the Bishop's house with his wife, daughter, son and the sister missionaries. They BBQ'd a lot of food for lunch and we ate a huge dessert! They smoked some of the meat in this giant smoker that one of his sons built. Bishop Niblett is an architect and also is kind of a farmer. They have some cows and pigs. One of his cows gave birth on Friday and we got to go pet the calf on Saturday when we were there.

 

Unfortunately I still slept thru some talks :( to make it worse; I fell asleep while we were watching them at our Bishop's house! But I stayed awake for most of them.

 

On Sunday we watched the sessions at a recent convert's house. Her name is Sis. Chappell and she was baptized in February. She owns a 900 acre ranch that we went to watch conference. She owns four other ranches as well. She made us so much food! Ribs, brisket, bean soup, mashed potatoes and a cake for dessert!

 

Last night it was pouring rain, our car was out of gas and it was Sunday so we couldn't get gas. So we got on our bikes and went out in the rain. It was so fun! We were completely soaked. But we biked to a member's house to ask if he could come to an appointment with us. He said sure and we went to see our investigator, Lenita. We talked about the Plan of Salvation with her and she accepted a baptismal date! We see so many miracles from being obedient and working hard! 

 

Love you

Elder Olson

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