Week 39 Chincha Alta

Pizza Time!

This P day was sick!!  Me and my companion were just proselyting by an area with little mountains and my companion said hey we should go up that mountain.  We came up with the idea to bring pizza up the mountain hahaha.  It was super rad.  We totally climbed a mountain just to eat pizza.

We have had a great little week, a lotta things going on, good, bad and ugly haha.  My companion and I have been thinking a lot of about a bunch of things that are happening with other missionaries, a bad thing going on in the ward, our area and investigators and we have come to a conclusion that we aren't going to stress, but we WILL worry.  I don't believe it's healthy to have stress, but it is good to be worried.  When we worry we improve and others improve together.

Aside from all that good jazz, we have been having quite a time in our area.  We have 3 couples that are gonna get married and baptized. 2 of them are for sure going to do it, with one family we are a bit worried.  He wants to be married and she pulled the "I've been with him for 7 years and I still need to get to know him."  Alas, it is what it is.  We are juggling the 10 investigators that attended church to get them to have baptismal dates, we have a lot to do haha.

Welp, guess that's all folks, pictures speak a thousand words.  I LOVE YOU!!!  Keep being self reliant and recieve revelation in everything like President Nelson said!!  Innovation through revelation is the best!

I do what I can,
Hago lo que puedo,
Elder Olsen

Week 38 Chincha Alta

Que Paso

I had a pretty rude awakening this morning, I'm not really sure if it was my imagination, dream, or actually happened. But I was awakened by an explosion nearby haha. Don't really wanna think much into but that happened haha. The other night we saw a drunk guy screaming at the top of his lungs, it was actually kinda sad because another dude in a mototaxi drove up and took his hat. Poor guy didn't even realize it hahaha. Just another week in good ol Peru.

It's been another great week. Bishop Prieto is a machine haha. He put a goal of ward baptisms 6 higher than the rest of the wards, his goal being 30, and he passed it recently. The guy goes up to the board during our mission coordination and draws up in big numbers 8 and 0. The guy just set a goal of 80 baptisms by the time the year ends haha. We are gonna be working.

And work we have been doing. I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my mission. Every day we are scrambling to do the next thing!! It is just the best feeling in the world. Even better of a feeling is just crashing in bed and realizing that you just gave it your all. It feels great. At the same time, I really miss personal study, I can't really share anything because I kind of have a different responsibility that doesn't allow it very often.

The work has been going great. 11 people came to church. We thought it was gonna be a bust because we had 4 people that were really set on going and the rest of our investigators were either too drunk to go or couldn't for any other reason. Miraculously, members had just randomly brought people to church. People like family members, friends. It was great. All thanks to our Bishop, he has got a lotta focus on less actives right now.

Victor was just baptized Saturday!! He is a young kid that is a part of a part member family. Elder Thatcher (the missionary I replaced) and Elder Sosa found him and I got to finish his lessons. He is an awesome kid. He is going to be preparing for the mission!
Speaking of Elder Thatcher, the guy must have been a legend! In every area I've been in they always talk about the missionary replaced for a while but man, this is a whole different level haha. Everybody talks about this dude! The members truly have a lot of trust in their missionaries in this ward!
HEY, I love you all! Thanks for all of your support and letters!


Chao,
Elder Olsen

Bautismo

Chincha frente de casa

Member's cake

Week 37 Chincha Alta

Asu

Wow what a week! I'm just gonna say I have learned more in 3 days than I have in months in the mission! It is an area with a lot of work to do! Chincha is interesting, I don't know why but there is a lotta sarcasm in this city! All the people are like "yaa, uhuh, ah, and eh" its the the most funny thing ever haha.

First questions haha. My companion is absolutely the greatest, Elder Sosa is quite the jokester but he is also really spiritual and easy to get along with! He speaks a lot of English, his pronunciation is super good! I have never seen a ward with such powerful member missionary work as this ward!! They have 20 ward missionaries, 10 companionships, and they actually have them go out and teach our recent converts and investigators! We end up getting references to new investigators who have already been taught by our ward missionaries! It is absolutely incredible. The members were extremely excited to meet another missionary to add to their family!! Although a lot of them miss Elder Thatcher they are getting used to have me there! They have a ward pianist already! He is the Bishops son, he plays in hymns made easy but it gets me really excited to see people learning piano! I did play for the choir, they are gonna be singing "when I am baptized" The apartment is definately bigger. Pisco is a lot closer to Chincha than I thought, we actually have a piece of Pisco in our area! Granted it's a long way away but still!

Well I'm going to wrap up, we have a ton of things to do today haha. Thank you for your love and support! Know that I am always praying for you! Sorry I couldn't write very much, I had a couple of things to do! Thou shalt receive more for the next time!


Con mucho amor y un besito,
Elder Olsen

Week 36 Chincha Alta

Happy Transfers!!

That was unexpected. Haha, I got transferred to Chincha. I only had 1 in Pisco but they decided to take me out already haha. So I said bye to a couple to members, taught some fire lessons with investigators and off I went. Chincha is great so far, I have to ask forgiveness in advance, I don't have pictures of Chincha yet, my mind is on a lot of other things haha.
Chincha is supposedly the best zone in the mission. 1/4 of the numbers in the mission are a result of Chincha alone. Our members are also fire. We have 20ish ward missionaries. They all are really active and magnifying their calling. The ward goal of convert baptisms was 30 for this year, they converted 31 so far. I feel privliged to work here, it's a rad area. Also it is a really really really big area. It is by far the biggest area I've seen. They give us extra money to pay for all the travel we have to do. It goes on for miles!

My new companion is Elder Sosa, he is the best. He played soccer professionally before the mission. He is from Bolivia.

Thanks for your concern with the dogs and everything, but trust me, I wouldn't touch those things, they are disgusting hahaha. They smell horrible, but yeah they are just good missionary dogs. In Chincha we don't have any :(

I kid you not, when members and investigators in Pisco found out I was going to Chincha every single one of them said "Oh you are going to eat cat??" Every. Single. One. Haha, I've heard it's got a texture kind of like rabbit, if only I had ate rabbit I'd know... They also said it's known for having a lot of black people haha.

Hey thanks for reading my quick note, I love you guys, and hope you all have a great week.

Chao
Elder Olsen

My Family (in Pisco) the Chaves family 

A bomb dinner we had in exchanges, 
I made some pasta with corned beef, 
and they ordered pizza haha.