Hiking in Chickasha...

Livin' in Chickasha, OK

Saying goodbye for now to the Lusk family...

Paige's baptism

Holding an Easter chick

New friends in Chickasha

Bitter sweet goodbyes to Oklahoma 2nd Ward. I am now in Chickasha, OK. It is about 45 minutes from Oklahoma City. My companion is Elder Lyman. We are the only missionaries in town. The branch is small (35-50) but growing. I am ready for the new experiences. I love it here!

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!