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 

Full of Gratitude...

The Original Guthrie Five!!!

Goodbye for a time to a wonderful lady who loved us like her own, Sister Lisa Rollins you are missed.

With the Dickman family and the group of missionaries who were touched by Sister Rollins.

Here is what happens since I inherited my dad's bad genes!!!
 

This is such wonderful work. I love bringing someone to Christ.

The old true Elder Olson shining through.

Sister Rollins passed away last Thursday. Her funeral was Monday afternoon. I went up to Guthrie and attended the funeral. It was very sad at first but we all had a good time. Lots of laughing and joking with Dakoda and the other missionaries.

 From the Dickman family in Guthrie:

 Many of the missionaries that have touched Lisa's life were here for her funeral. We are so grateful for the time they have spent in our home and for touching our lives. Lisa's funeral was beautiful. Dakoda was so excited to have so many people surrounding him- it was so great to see. It was also great to see Elder Olson. He sure is such a great kid!
We are having Thanksgiving at 2 or 3 members’ houses. I've been doing some stomach stretching exercises to prep for this. Training is going well. Elder Winslow is taking the lead in almost every lesson now. He is a great teacher. His Aunt and Uncle used to live in Montana and now live in Lehi, UT. They are good friends with Jim and Becky Olson! Our plans for December are to go crazy with the new "He is The Gift" video and we are going to find a ton of people from it. We are supposed to hand out 10 a day. We are going to be reporting to our leaders how many people we find from the new video, like we do with lessons taught to investigators with a member present. This is going to be sweet.

The work is truly hastening and the dividing line between good and evil is getting more and more apparent. I love this work and I love you!

Elder Olson

Happy Fall 'Yall

 

  

At the State Fair

Howdy,

That's awesome attendance for the open house of the Phoenix Temple! (One week to go and over 100,000 visitors with a record 12,000 on last Saturday) I got to go to the sealing of Brother and Sister Gates in our ward on Saturday. Bro gates was re-activated in the church a little over a year ago and now is the Elders' Quorum President and Sister Gates was baptized in Edmond while I was back in Guthrie. They got married about a week ago and now they were sealed. It was so sweet to be able to attend it. There were about 20 missionaries there because of how many had worked with both of them.

The work here is good. I love my companion and we are working well together. We set four baptism dates this past week with Scott (21 year old man who really reminds me of Eric Taylor), Cesar (15 year old with Hispanic parents but is searching for a church with his older brother, Angel), John and Henry Stoneroad (two Native American brothers about 55 and 57 years old). John, Henry, Paige, Derrick and Carmen all came to church yesterday.

We bike a lot here but it's all good. I know that God called me to a biking area for a reason and if I don't bike around every day then I kind of feel like a failure for that day ha.

 

Here are a few excerpts from an article published in the Deseret News last week about our mission:

A day in the life of Mormon missionaries in Norman, Oklahoma
A few weeks ago, thanks to the kindness and flexibility of President Stewart Walkenhorst, I was blessed to replicate the experience in the Oklahoma Oklahoma City Mission. Though much is the same from mission-to-mission and missionary-to-missionary, no two missions are quite the same....

What impressions did I leave in return? Once again, the similarities between the work in diverse places drown out any differences. The spirit of truth is fluent in all languages and recognizes all accents.
Truly the bar has been raised, and the elders and sisters in the Oklahoma Oklahoma City mission are not just clearing it, they're flying over it.
And in the case of these four missionaries, they're flying on bikes.
Written by: Jason Wright

 

Some parts from letters in September from Elder Olson:

It's been stormy and rainy here the past several days. Elder Buhler is getting transferred to Mustang and my new missionary will be here from the MTC on Wednesday. I also get to see Elder Debenham again! I'm excited to see him again. Have you seen the Meet the Mormons movie yet? If not, you definitely should. We got to see it before it came out in theatres. It is amazing. Va'a Nuimatalolo is the son of the Navy football coach, he was in my family at EFY! He is in the movie talking about his Dad. It was crazy seeing him haha.

Here is a quote from the last Mission President, "There is no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone." So get out of your comfort zone if you want to grow! Thankfully I don't have too hard of a time talking to strangers about anything, that is a blessing. I have seen missionaries who are shy and reserved and it looks painful for them to talk to random people. I wish I could just make it easy for them. But if that is their weakness, the Lord will help them grow and I'm positive he'd do a better job at it than me.

Our teaching is going well. We are constantly trying to find more people to teach. We are also trying to figure out how to progress from us doing the work without the ward, to working with the ward's help, to us helping the ward do missionary work. That is the vision. Each Ward/ Branch doing all their own missionary work: Finding, fellowshipping, feed, FHE, fasting, prayer and scripture studying. Elder Foster of the 2nd quorum of the 70 told us that on our own, as a mission, we could get 30 baptisms in a month. With the help of the ward, we could get about 100 in a month. And with the Ward performing their own responsibilities and doing what the Prophet has commanded them to with just out help, we could achieve about 300 baptisms per month. So how do we move to the next category?

I love serving the Lord on my mission. I love the people of Oklahoma. I know this is where the Lord needed me to be.

Love

Elder Olson

 

Now in OKC!!

Enjoying a lunch after a service project



Fishing on P-Day



Dropping a line in the water on Prep Day



Saying goodbye to leaders in Ada



That would be a selfie with the mission president's
 wife, Sister Walkenhorst

My new companion in OKC, Elder Bueller.

Duncan with Br. and Sr. Bartlett aka Jennifer Swartz Bartlett who introduced
 Lori to the church 35 years ago. Full circle!
 

It's hard to leave Ada. I love the people here and all our investigators who we've found and taught. I think transfers are the hardest part of the mission. I can totally understand why Ammon couldn't leave the people of Lamoni. He spent so long with them and loved them so much that he couldn't bear to leave them. He joined them as they became the Anti-Nephi Lehites. My last Sunday in Ada was pretty good at church. Between the three sets of missionaries here we had 9 investigators, 12 recent converts and 14 less actives at church. One of our investigators, Ricky, is getting baptized on Saturday!

I'm in the city now. Our area is only about 25 square miles so we don't have a car. Bikes only! My companion is sweet too. He is from Portland, Oregon. I love him to death! Him and I have been doing insanity and eating healthy. He has been out on his mission one transfer longer than me. He has lost 40 lbs so far on his mission. My new ward is pretty cool. My mission president is in our ward and he sat next to me during priesthood opening exercises. So scary! When I got here the investigator board was wiped clean. So Elder Bueller and I were starting off with a clean slate. It's called shot gunning an area basically. But we have found some pretty solid people and already have a couple baptismal dates! On Tuesday we have mission conference. It's a pretty big deal. Half of the mission will be there on Monday and the other half on Tuesday. Elder Bradley D. Foster of the 2nd quorum of the Seventy will be presiding.

The Bartlett’s are awesome. I'm glad I finally got to meet them! Last week we biked a lot in the rain. In the past 6 months I've biked a little over 300 miles. Not many people really answered their doors and the people that did, they weren't the people we were looking for and they were quite rude ha-ha. But it's okay. We did get to meet a sweet family. So they came to church Sunday. That was pretty dang sweet!

 

We did some service last week for Jackson Elementary school. We took a LOT of textbooks, workbooks and study books and organized them and stacked them in a big closet on shelves. There was a teacher there that is from Guthrie Ward. Sister Dymond. I gave my first blessing on the mission to her. She is an interesting lady. Definitely won't forget her.

One year ago today, I was giving my farewell at church and balling my eyes out like a baby ha-ha.

Hope you have a great week! Love you tons!

Elder Olson

Thoughts from the "Field"...

Things are going well here in Ada. Transfers are next Wednesday, I figure out if I’m staying or leaving on Sunday evening. My companion, Elder Owen, is going to be getting Insanity workout from his Mom next week. So if I stay here another transfer, we will be killing ourselves working out.  One of our Zone Leaders here is Elder Nelson. He is from Rexburg, Idaho. He is super cool and he plays the bagpipes a lot! He was in one of those huge Scottish bands like the ones we'd see at the Highland Games. 

 

Definitely send me some copies of Dad's letters from his mission! I also want to see some pictures of him from his mission! I ordered some new missionary name tags. I'll probably mail you home one to have and put on that Missionary Wall by the computer. The ward here just released all of the relief society presidency, bishop's counselors, seminary teacher, high priest group leader, ward missionary leader. They filled in most of the spots, but not ward missionary leader. So we'll see who it will be soon! Brother Solórzano was called to be Bishop's 1 counselor. He was very nervous ha-ha.

 

I've been slacking on my journal writing. I am on May 1st in it. Luckily I have written down in my planner some special things that happened each day so I can look back and record those memories in my journal. It's not that same cause time has faded my memories of those day's specifics. But I don't want to say that there was a day in my mission that I didn't write about. I have a shoe box here full of letters from family and friends that I’ve received while here in Oklahoma. We might have a baptism this Saturday. His name is Ricky and he quit chewing tobacco yesterday. You're supposed to be off of it 7 days prior to your baptism. He has some strange beliefs though, but is open to the idea of Joseph Smith and Thomas Monson. He said he does believe in them and the restoration, but he doesn't KNOW it's true yet. We explained that's why faith is important. President Walkenhorst and Bishop Niblett said that it's Elder Owen and my call. We are earnestly seeking revelation! 

 

Thought on helping others: We do not know the capabilities of the Sealing power. It could be as gentle as a divine tug or pull to return to that which they know to be true. But also in Alma the Younger's case, he was visited by an angel because of the prayers of his Father, Alma. Now read D&C 123:17. Let us cheerfully do all that we can and stand still and watch the power of God be made manifest. 

 

Love you

Elder Olson