Week 61 Chorrillos

Happy Monday!!

Chorrillos is pretty sweet.  There are some houses that are even richer than some of the houses by us haha.  There is one spot in our area called La Encantada.  It's an area of just pure mansions.  Haven't been yet but will go next week.  There is a member family in our ward that are from Utah.  The Madsen family.  Super interesting, Mark, the dad, is one of President Nelson's grandchildren.  So rich he can go anywhere in the world with his business and live haha.  He is the only one that speaks Spanish in the family, the rest are learning.  He is one of the councilors in the Young Mens I think haha, super funny.

Question time, Sunday was great, I know about half of the Ward leadership.  The Bishopric is a little tricky.  Bishop Pachari works in Ica, about 5-6 hours from here.  He is out of town from Monday to Saturday.  We will have to work with the councilors for the most part.  I'm playing the piano again and...THE PIANO HAS PEDALS!!!  Imagine 6 months of playing a piano without pedals and sitting down and being able to play with pedals. Incredible.  I'm getting used to the whole area organization.  It's kinda different from Chincha haha.   We have to travel via bus again instead of mototaxi and colectivos (not sure if you know about them, in the south they use colectivos, basically routed taxis that are super cheap.)

It's been a perfect week.   I'm getting to the hang of things here so I can start helping my companion a bit haha.  He was kinda stressed because he'd only had one transfer when I got here so he was still getting used to the area.  Oh speaking of which, Elder Arreaga is a mechanic, we will have to bring him to the States so he can work on the truck hahaha.
Thanks for the letters, I love you!!   Keep being the awesomest or something like that!!


Sigan siendo lo maximo,
Elder Olsen

Week 60 Chorrillos

Happy Transfers!
I´m writing from Chorrillos, Lima right now!  They moved me to the richest part of the mission haha, the work is going to be a lot different for sure.  I'm in the ward Las Villas.   I've heard it's a great ward to be in, so I'll get started.  They've told me the majority of Elders that have come through have been musical people, so they always have the Elders play the piano.  It just so happens to be that I replaced a piano player!  This ward has some luck with their piano players haha.   It sounds like I'll be continuing the tradition.  My companion is Elder Arreaga from Equador.  He is super cool.

My first day in Chorrillos was super good.  We got to know some of the members here.  It was super good.  A missionary returned home last night at 10:30.  His name is Elder Chavez.  He won't get released until tonight so he is going to be our companion today.  He went to Iquitos.  It's a jungle area in peru.  He trained someone in my group.  He also knew my ward mission leader in Chincha haha.  They went to the same mission at the same time.
We are starting this transfer right with a little room cleaning.   When I stepped in I was surprised that people even lived here hahaha.  But my companion and I both knew we had to clean it all up today for Pday.  We are excited to work with all the new investigators here.
Thanks for reading this little letter.   I love you all and pray for each and every one of you! Thanks!

Difficult Venezuelan investigators haha

Fredy and Isabel, golden

 Missionaries on transfer day

 Me and Juan Jesus

Con demasiado amor,
Elder Olsen

Week 59 Chincha Alta

Happy Monday

Woohoo, we had a miracle week in Chincha.   A lot of our investigators with baptismal dates had not been going to church, so Elder Correa and I sat down and said if they don't come, we aren't counting them in the report.  And they all came.  Every single one of our investigators that are progressing decided to come to church!!  I don't even know what to think haha, what a miracle.  We have found that the Lord's hand is definitely in the work as we teach by the Spirit, so that all the investigators we are teaching can become truly converted.  I hope I don't sound cocky haha, I hope I never sound cocky haha.  The members are actually doing everything haha.  We just kind of sit down and teach the people they bring to us.  I've never been in a ward so focused like Chincha.  The Bishop is super crazy focused on his goals and it kind of stuck to me too haha.  The ward's goal is 81 baptisms this year.   He put it that high because he got every organization to commit to a specific number and then he got the total.   Like I said, we only teach and find a couple of people, it's our Bishop and members that do the baptizing.

Luciano came to church, WILL be baptized this week.  We got his interview done and he is super strong.   Now we just gotta hope for his mom's signature... Benjamin is a Venezuelan we are teaching, not sure which part, sorry dad haha, I'll have to ask again.  Brenda came to church and some members stopped by to minister to her and she is super excited about her baptism, she is in 2nd Nephi now!!  The Molina family came finally!!  All 6 of them.  What a miracle, we have been working so so hard for that moment haha.  They had a family home evening with all of the ward missionaries.  There were like 10 members in their home haha. A couple of Venezuelans I had taught with Elder Sosa came to church for the first time!! They are Maycol and Vanesa.  When Elder Sosa and I taught them they didn't want to get married.  They are now preparing for their marriage with a ward member that's a lawyer. And of course the Carbajal Borda family came!  They are a miracle family, seriously.  They are going to get married on the 26th, they put that date yesterday.   What faith they were able to achieve!!  They are so converted that they will do anything to be baptized.

Well that's about enough of the week's report.  Next week are transfers!  This is my 4th here so I think I'm a goner.  They're going to open up a new Lima mission, so I'm probably going to go to Chorrillos to open up the new Lima Limatambo mission haha.  Last week we had the leadership meeting.  Lima is 4 hours away from us.  The reason the meeting is so tense is because man that council gets super heated when it comes to the mission goal haha. This time it was pretty calm.  We just talked about the goal that we already have to read the BoM, mark scriptures in PMG and stay 100% with the schedule.

We had a super cool service project, our friend Juan Jesus had a cousin that needed help with his farm.  So as a result we got to see all of his animals.  He had 3 giant pigs and like 20 little piglets, that was super cool.  He also had a bunch of geese, chickens, and little chicks.  He had some goats too.  It was super cool.  It was in a super remote place in a neighboring area, Pueblo Nuevo.

These last couple of weeks with 2 hour church have been super wierd haha.  It feels like I'm just dippin early haha.  When we get home we can actually sit down and study for a bit.  So cool.

Well that's my time, thanks for the double letter this week, it made up for it haha.   I love you guys and pray for your specific needs as you make them known to me!!


Con mucho amor,
Elder Olsen

Week 58 Chincha Alta

Happy Monday!!

I guess you guys missed me, but here goes anyways haha normally I write at 8:00 but this month I've been late.

We had a super great week.  We got our New Years stuff done and now we are back to work to work on our 2019 goals.  We are going to have a lot of success in the mission.  We got a mission focus of 1 reading the Book of Mormon in 3 months, 2 reading PMG and marking scriptures in chapter 3, and 3 following the schedule with exactness.

We had a super successful week.   We still gotta find Luciano.  Brenda is getting a little bit cold with the gospel.   The family with William and Patricia is with new enthusiasm to do everything.   We need to find the family with William and Gisela.

We found a miracle family.  One family went to a couple of ward activities.  The Borda Family.  We found them on the first of this month.   Everyone was walking around drunk, it was like walking in a zombie town haha.  But he was the only one that wasn't haha.  He accepted us with excitement.  Isabel was a little skeptical but after we taught with the power of the Spirit, her heart was softened.  They accepted all the commitments.   Now they are keeping ALL of their commitments.  He is already on 1 Nephi 11 haha.  They are telling us about the mighty change that was wrought on their family.  Super cool experience.  They came to church and are now preparing for their baptism February the 9th.  Woohoo!!!

We played soccer again for P-day, now that they have soccer approved the Latinos are going crazy!!  Haha, they are teaching me all they know!

Well that's my time.   I'll be getting ready to go to Lima now for a leadership council meeting. They've always made me super nervous haha,  Wish me luck!  I love you guys!!


Les amo bastante,
Élder Olsen