Week 17 Ayacucho

Buenas Tardes, Feliz Lunes :D

Happy Monday again! A little late today because we had to wait for the president's letter. Thanks for all of your words! To answer a couple of questions. The biggest hurdle for us right now is getting people to church. Yeah marriage is a pretty big problem here but I haven't seen too many that can't progress because of marriage. Mainly I see people that commit to church until we pass by their house haha. We are still trying to get them to church. We have new plans to get them to church though and I'm excited to see what happens this week! This is because every week we teach the same investigators the same lesson in a different light haha. Finally we saw a miracle with one of our investigators coming to church. It was a lady named Celida that we didn't have a strong plan for but she went anyways because she said she would. It's funny how we pass by investigators' houses to pay their bus fees so they can come to church, but the one that we didn't pass by comes haha. Celida is a strong investigator and she is married, the problem is her husband isn't coming haha. But we are praying for them. They are progressing well.

   

Some of you might have heard about he President of Peru stepping down from presidency and some protests that have happened. Nothing happened in Ayacucho and I'm fine. That was pretty crazy to hear about haha. A pretty crazy rainstorm happened too. It was enough to put us at home from 6-8 in time for our 8:00 visit. Our street was basically a river and a lot of people's houses got flooded. Ours didn't we were just soaked head to toe haha.

   

Good to see everything with the techo (roof)! The roof is looking good and I'm glad everything went well. Also awesome to hear about the Jazz Band, I want the results haha, guess I'll have to wait until next week! Tell Brady to keep practicing hard, it's my biggest regret of high school is not practicing every day! Tell him to keep up the work practicing hymns, I'm expected to play hymns I've never even looked at. Thanks to playing a lot of hymns over and over I get the patterns in the hymns. The muscle memory comes with time!

I'm excited to share a little spiritual thought about the Book of Mormon. Our mission president encouraged us a couple weeks ago (little late to the punch but you can still do it haha) to do a new 3 month BoM study marking with four different colors. 1-References of Christ (Lord, Lamb, Him, His, Whatever). 2-Words of Christ (and prophets saying, thus saith the Lord). 3-Attributes of Christ. 4-Other doctrine and principles. I sent a couple of pictures of examples of my Book of Mormon. It is an awesome way to learn more about Christ and I encourage all of you to do the same with me! The President said something interesting that I'll share with all of you. It's about missionaries but I'm sure you will get the point

Si esta desalentado, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si se siente enfermo o dolorido, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si está cansado, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si no puede encontrar nuevos, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si no está feliz, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si extraña mucho a su casa, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si está preocupado, estresado, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si sus investigadores no están progresando, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si no es obediente, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si no asisten sus investigadores a la capilla, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si no se lleve bien con su compañero, leer el Libro de Mormón – juntos.

Si está confundido, abrumado, pesimista, optimista, feliz, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si hay problemas en su barrio, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si su barrio está funcionando bien, leer el Libro de Mormón.

Si ha hecho errores, ha tropezado o de alguna manera no hizo lo mejor posible, o si hizo lo mejor posible y todavía se siente que no era suficiente, leer el Libro de Mormón. "

To google translate! :D haha sorry
If you are discouraged, read the Book of Mormon.
If you feel sick or sore, read the Book of Mormon.
If you are tired, read the Book of Mormon.
If you can not find new ones, read the Book of Mormon.
If you are not happy, read the Book of Mormon.
If you miss your house a lot, read the Book of Mormon.
If you are worried, stressed, read the Book of Mormon.
If your researchers are not making progress, read the Book of Mormon.
If you are not obedient, read the Book of Mormon.
If your researchers do not attend the chapel, read the Book of Mormon.
If you do not get along with your partner, read the Book of Mormon - together.
If you are confused, overwhelmed, pessimistic, optimistic, happy, read the Book of Mormon.
If there are problems in your neighborhood, read the Book of Mormon.
If your neighborhood is working well, read the Book of Mormon.
If you have made mistakes, stumbled, or somehow failed to do your best, or if you did your best and still feel that it was not enough, read the Book of Mormon. "

Hasta martes con cambio!

Elder Olsen

My friend that didn't try to bite me!

Mariachi 

Fotos:

1 My friend that didn't try to bite me

2 Mariachi haha

3 Book of Mormon

4 ""

PS sorry I can't send the video haha, 1G is a lot, I'll try something different next week, if you have a suggestion I'm happy to hear it haha

Week 16 Ayacucho

Happy Birthday Dad and Trent!!

Happy Monday! I had a great week this week again! We were definitely lacking in church attendance, 0 for the fourth week, but we have a bunch that are completing other commitments! We have a bunch that are reading and praying. Elder Mozo and I are making some goals to make the Sabbath Day more clear for our investigators. We had a good lesson with a family, Celida and Michel, that works on Sundays, we talked about the Sabbath and the blessings that come from sacrificing a days work for a day of rest. They are available to make the sacrifices to come to church! We will follow this pattern for our other investigators and see how it goes!

Anyways to answer a few of your questions, we haven't been invited to dinners because we aren't allowed to haha. We can only eat with our Pension and Bishop (including members with Bishop present.) But I guess we ate with an investigator once with Elder Gutierrez. Her name was Nely, her and her family kept insisting that we eat lunch with them. We didn't want to offend them so we ate a little bit. I pulled the whole "I'm white, where I live, we eat a big dinner, there's no way I can eat two lunches" haha. To get around town we use buses and we walk. Me and my comp take turns paying for the both of us. It comes around to 1 sol every other bus trip. To get to church we take a bus and walk, but to get back from church we take a mototaxi. I had never seen a mototaxi before the mission, it's basically a motorcycle that's been modified to have a carriage and two back wheels. It's pretty crazy haha. I talked with the president in the beginning of this transfer. He interviews all the missionaries once per transfer. Speaking of transfers I'll know whether I stay in Ayacucho or leave in two weeks almost exactly. I'll be honest I want to stay in Ayacucho, I love it so much up here in the mountains. But I wouldn't mind going to Ica or Nazca. I'm just not looking forward to the day I have to go to Lima haha. We will be watching conference in our church no mas.

Awesome to hear about everything at home, not awesome about the roof haha. There's always something! It's awesome to hear about how you all are doing, and how the ward is too! Thanks for the news about the new primary presidency! Does Ethan like them? Also good to hear about the ward missionaries, keep working with them Dad! Give em a reference or two once in a while!

A little about the area now, we have a pretty large teaching pool. I don't know exactly how many, but we have a lot. The problem is, no one is home when we stop by for their appointments haha. They are a lot of times just being nice and say oh yeah I'll be home at this time, and then not be at home haha. We catch the majority of our people in backup plans for other investigators. We had a fun stake activity! We had a talent show where people in all the wards had their talents. The missionaries also had a skit to perform. I was one of the cameramen and I actually filmed the whole thing from on-stage haha. I'll send it next week, I forgot to have it uploading at the beginning of my hour. It was basically a churchified eggs skit where we had a street contact in a bunch of different themes: Lazy, excited, fast, slow, and a few others. And then the director does the perfect contact but the cameraman says the battery died haha. One of the talents was an investigator in a different area in my ward proposing to his future wife haha. He had hired a Mexican Mariachi band haha. I'll have to send a video of that too, Brady would enjoy hearing the trumpeteer and much and I did haha. We are getting our ward missionary team ready! We have a bunch of members that are ward missionaries and we are going to have them help us. We are currently training a convert and a recent convert in our area. They will be leading the agenda eventually they will be companions to visit a couple of families every once in a while. I'm excited to see what will happen! If I stay next transfer that is haha.

Well thats my time this week, have an amazing week!

Con amor,

Elder Olsen

(Mom here. I went online and found a couple of pictures of a Mototaxi in Peru! Ha)

Week 15 Ayacucho

Slow Few Weeks

Good afternoon all from good ol Ayacucho. I'm still just learning my Spanish and Quechua, a phrase I learned from Quechua is "Imaynalla cashcanki", that means "hi how are you". I'll definitely take Spanish any day haha, I've heard there are areas in Cuzco that are completely in Quechua.

To answer a few questions, I am teaching an English class once a week on Friday. It isn't necessarily a suggestion from the mission but yeah it attracts investigators so we do it. Usually the classes are easy to teach because it's always lesson 1 "to be" for all the new people. I will have to explain a bit of pronunciation, that will be a pain to try to explain, I have some English language study to do. But yeah, the piano class was just something I did 1 time for another area. It was hard haha, we just had it at the chapel, they had a few keyboards to use and it was all good.

A bit about my crazy week haha. This week was a bit more difficult than the rest, I'm thinking hard about what was different with Elder Gutierrez and I did our plans for church because the past three weeks we have had none. All 5 of our baptismal dates fell through leaving us with our 1 progressing baptismal date left to postpone a bit haha. His name is Luis, he was excited to come to church and everything but the member we made a plan with never showed up. You know what they say, if you want something done you gotta do it yourself, I'll be stopping by next week myself haha. The good news is we have 18 new investigators from these 2 weeks. We taught an Israeli this week! His name was Victor, it was awesome! I'm not sure if he is a new investigator or we are haha.

It's awesome to hear from all of you this week!! It made me way happy to hear about Ethan's whole deal with the marble Olympics!!! Tell Dad thanks and tell Ethan I would love to participate haha. Awesome to hear about everything with the roof! Praying everything goes well with it! Awesome to hear everything in music with Brady and Ethan, tell em to keep at it and keep practicing every day!!!

That's my time, thanks for reading and I love read all of your letters!

Con amor
Elder Olsen

Burgers, sauteed vegetables and aloe vera! (aloe is expensive as all heck but man it was delicious.)

Week 14 Ayacucho

Happy Monday!

Today was a calm week! To answer a couple of Dad's questions, the chocolate chips were actually little disks of chocolate that I just broke up. So far, I have seen them in one store haha. It was actually a bit of luck that I got them haha. I'm trying to cook up some new things haha. I haven't had too much time to think about things like that haha. But if I come up with something good I'll let you know haha. For now it's eggs and bread for dinner, and oatmeal and toast for breakfast. I love oatmeal so much haha, I always buy different fruits to put in it and it's always so good. Never was a fan of oatmeal before the mission but now, that changed haha. It has been so good to be serving out here though!

We found a couple of investigators thisi week named Celida and Michel. They are extremely good people and open to learn more! They even attended my English class on Friday. They came early, and because of this they got to meet the Bishop and his wife!! Truly a miracle, the Lord's hand is in my area for sure, we are finding a good amount of new investigators, this week we found 8! The Book of Mormon is extremely important in our teaching, it is the part of lesson 1 that we spend the most time on with explaining it. I like the phrase if the Book of Mormon isn't true, nothing in the church is. I love the phrase because the Book of Mormon is true, and the church of Christ is on the Earth through the prophet Joseph. The introduction to the Book of Mormon explains it perfectly. I always teach with all the pictures as well.

I'm extremely glad to hear of the Jazz Band's success at region!!! I'm still cheering them on from Peru!! Go get all 1's at state now! I'm so glad to hear of everything back over at home! My Spanish is coming right along! District meetings are all in Spanish. Almost everything I do is in Spanish haha. Becuase of this, it's coming right along! Thanks for the package! It came Tuesday. I think I'm good with whatever for the next one. I don't need too much. Thanks for everything!

Well I'm gonna get off here, thanks for thinking of me! I hear your prayers and pray for all of you individually for your individual problems!

Con mucho mucho amor,

Elder Olsen

Pictures of Wari Museum! (and a picture of my area I think)

Street in Auyacucho

Translation:  Prohibited to climb the sacrificial stone

Sacrificial Stone

A tomb 

Elder Olsen and Elder Mozo

From Wikipedia (added by Mom): The Wari (Spanish: Huari) were a Middle Horizon civilization that flourished in the south-central Andes and coastal area of modern-day Peru, from about AD 500 to 1000.[1]

Wari, as the former capital city was called, is located 11 km (6.8 mi) north-east of the modern city of Ayacucho, Peru. This city was the center of a civilization that covered much of the highlands and coast of modern Peru. The best-preserved remnants, beside the Wari Ruins, are the recently discovered Northern Wari ruins near the city of Chiclayo, and Cerro Baul in Moquegua. Also well-known are the Wari ruins of Pikillaqta ("Flea Town"), a short distance south-east of Cuzco en route to Lake Titicaca.

Early on, the Wari expanded their territory to include the ancient oracle center of Pachacamac, though it seems to have remained largely autonomous. Later, the Wari became dominant in much of the territory of the earlier Moche and later Chimu cultures. The reason for this expansion has been debated; it is believed to have been driven by religious conversion, military conquest, or the spread of agricultural knowledge (specifically terrace agriculture).

As a result of centuries of drought, the Wari culture began to deteriorate around 800 AD. Archeologists have determined that the city of Wari was dramatically depopulated by 1000 AD, although it continued to be occupied by a small number of descendant groups. Buildings in Wari and in other government centers had doorways that were deliberately blocked up, as if the Wari intended to return, someday when the rains returned.  By the time this happened, though, the Wari had faded from history. In the meantime, the dwindling residents of the Wari cities ceased all major construction. Archaeological evidence shows significant levels of interpersonal violence, suggesting that warfare and raiding increased amongst rival groups upon the collapse of the Wari state structure.