Week 99 Marcona

Happy Saturday!! (He's still on Sat mode - Ha Ha!!)

Successful week!  We are working super hard here in Marcona, given that we are writing from Nazca today.   My companion is going to be off to Lima tomorrow so I'm going to spend half of the week with Elder Costa from Brazil.  His companion is going to Lima for the same thing, migrations.   It's going to be another week of pure work just in a different area haha. We had a good travel last week, we went to Pisco for our zone conference and got back ok.
This Pday we went and saw a museum.  It was pretty cool.  It was in memory of a German lady named María Reiche that discovered the Nazca lines.  We went there and took some pictures, it was pretty cool.  All of the stuff there was pretty interesting not gonna lie.

As far as the work goes, we are ripping it up over here in Marcona.  We are working super hard to maintain our investigators that we have while at the same time finding new ones.  We have 3 baptisms set up for this Saturday, they are members that haven't been baptized all three of them.  Their parents have slipped in and out of activity so we are working super hard with getting them to make friends with the ward.  Apparently they've been attending church for a really long time, just now they are taking the decision to be baptized.  Their names are Jennifer, Juan, and Mateo. aged 13 11 and 10 I think.  We are excited for that. We are working with another man, Jeshua.  He is a 22 year old going through some health problems, he is coming to church now so we are excited about that.

That's it for this week, we didn't have any crazy stories this week because we haven't been in our area haha.  I DID get pictures though.   Thanks for reading this little note, I love you! I'm praying for you all!


Con Amor,
Elder Olsen


Aquí están las fotos


PS Let me know if those closeupish pictures are good

Week 98 Marcona

the CRAZIEST thing happened this week!!
No legit, this is an experience and a HALF.  Haha, so we had some companionship exchanges with the Elders in San Carlos an hour north of Marcona, it was super calm, I was with Elder Lescano from Texas.  When we got back from a day of pure success, we went back to the apartment to make some (pretty wierd textured but good tasting) oven peach cobbler.  My companion and Elder Valverde from Mexico just said that we have an appointment tomorrow (Friday) with the sub-manager of SHOUGANG HIERRO PERÚ!!  Not even joking.  So we go on Friday and they had us talking with their public representative (yes they're so rich they have one of those) and he was just talking with us making us comfortable.  It was crazy because it sounds like they are a monopoly company.  The guys are shipping water and electricity to the city and expecting the city to pay it back haha.  It's insane so we are waiting here for about an hour and a half and then they invite us to go upstairs.  And we had a visit with Wu Yi Min himself!!!!  He sat us down and said "do you guys speak Spanish?" (in spanish of course) and we said "of course we do!" in my head I was thinking "the real question is do YOU speak Spanish?"  He spoke fine but his Chinese accent was really heavy haha.  So he gets to know us a little bit and then he says "so I have a family member who is applying to Yale, he said I've seen you guys walk around and I've noted you are both North Americans and was wondering if you can help proofread his application."  And me and my companion looked at each other as if we were both thinking "Ammon also had to serve king Lamoni before baptizing his whole village."   So we agreed! 

We took the sheets home, and we revised it for about an hour during language study.  So we show up for our follow up appointment and he receives us again and sits us down again for the revision.  And he was talking for no joke 2 HOURS about the revisions we made, because his English is nothing to sneeze at either.  The guy is like the second man up in line for the biggest mining company in Ica and he is just like being our best buddy.  He says he's going to go to English class this week, we are kinda stoked about that, who knows he might just bring his whole people over there as well hahaha! Ojála!

We got some pretty good contacts out of that one, we talked to some of the people we were waiting with and it really surprised me to see how receptive they were haha.  It was kinda cool.  And when the members started to figure out that we were talking to like their bosses it really made them interested in how we are working in their Branch.  By the way, first sacrament meeting was crazy, it's a branch but it's also a really really big branch, we almost filled the building.  Super good attendance.  We have 3 investigators that are progressing towards their baptismal date.  We have María and Jennifer they are both members that haven't been baptized so we are working with them a lot and they are progressing super well.  Then we have Guido.  He is a young man that is progressing really well.  We just need to keep him coming to church is all.  We are doing everything we can to keep Marcona on the rise!  We are working really hard, trust me!

I'm writing you all from Nazca right now, we had to travel from Marcona on Sunday night to get here so that we could help with the zone barbeque.  Then we are going to travel tomorrow at about 5:00pm to go to Ica.  Then on Wednesday we are gonna wake up super early to head off to Pisco.  Then we return on Thursday.  That's gonna be fun!  We have our interviews with President on Wednesday as well.  I hope he doesn't say anything embarrassing in the zone conference haha.  He already told the zone how much more time left I have on the mission, that little bugger haha.

That's about all for this week, thanks for reading this short little letter.  I LOVE YOU!!

Con mucho amor,
Elder Olsen


PS mom, next week I'll have the pic for sure

The China dude

The barbeque

 

Week 97 Marcona

Happy Saturday!!! (Except that he writes on Mondays again-Ha Ha!)

We have had a super great week here in Marconita.  I've gotta tell you one thing about Marcona that I wasn't really expecting.  Almost everyone here is working for a Chinese mining company called Shougang or something like that.  I learned a new Spanish word, well not Spanish actually, more like a Marcona word.  It's "huelga" which means like their break shift.  They work about 12 hours a day until their huelga when they get anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks or more off of work.  It's kind of funny because the majority of our members have some higher positions so they choose their huelga to be the weekends. Many of our investigators don't have that opportunity haha.  It's super crazy haha.  Not only that but the Chinese have been in the town for so long that many of the people have Chinese family as well.

Well, before I answer questions I have one for dad.  How's being the new ward Young Men's president? hahaha sorry, I had to do it.  I heard all of the news except the news revealed with the womens session.  I was really surprised about some of the things they started with this new conference.  I don't know about you guys but I'm excited for the 2020 April Conference!  I loved Elder Bednar's talk so much, his remarks were super good.  I don't have my notes on me right now but I loved the ones about missionary work, especially Elder Uchtdorf's on going "down and back again" haha.  I loved his remarks about how we, like Bilbo Baggins, should leave all of our comforts like we did before this life and get on the adventure trail.  My companion says that getting to zone conference is a three day thing for us haha.  I believe it.  The zone conference is in Pisco, which is about 6-7 hours away so we part at 5:00PM the day before to Ica then we wake up and leave Ica about 6:00AM then after the conference we stay the night in Ica, then we part for Nazca the next morning.  We from Marcona get back at around 2-3:00 haha.

Now our investigators are actually doing super well.  We achieved all of this weeks goals except for investigators with a baptismal date.  We are working with Guido, he is a young man that the Elder's found last transfer that basically told them he wants to be baptized.  His parents are super supportive.  Our other investigator that's progressing is Jenifer.  Also the Elder's before found her.  She had been investigating the church for quite some time, and recently she has showed interest in being baptized.  Almost her whole family are members, most of them less actives but her mom in active and supports her a lot.  We are also teaching her cousins, Juan and Mateo.  With them we are just kind of waiting for the OK from their mom.  They have been attending Church and all of the activities that come with it for the past month.

That's all time lets me write. Thanks for everything!!  I love you!!


Con Amor,
Elder Olsen


Pictures of some beaches we went to. Note the super cute baby seagulls. they were like running away from the waves that went toward them hahaha.

Not hard to find out how this guy died

They call this place "Playa Hermosa" 

what a beautiful beach haha

Week 96 B

Happy Transfers!

Well that was a super long travel.  We started the travel at 6:00AM where we went to the Church where the office was, then at 6:30AM we went to a different Chapel, the one in Las Villas.  From there, at 7:15AM we went to the bus station where we had our bus leaving at 9:30AM.  We got on and traveled until 3:00PM to get to Ica.  We had to get off the bus there and then get on another in order for us to go to Nazca.  So we left Ica at 4:30PM and didn't get to Nazca until 5:30PM.  Then we had to leave Nazca to go to Marcona at 6:15PM and we were in a van until 7:15PM where we had to get all of my stuff on a mototaxi and finally arrived at home at 7:30PM.  It was super long haha.  Not quite as long as my travels from Ayacucho to Lima with the good ol 12 hours nonstop in a bus but it is still way long!

Yohrgenis got baptized too last Saturday!!!  It was a super cool service, a lot of people showed up to support him!  Now I'm here in Marcona and I still don't know any of our investigators.  We only had time to go out from 8:00-9:00 last night due to just barely having arrived 30 minutes prior.  I've been told that we have two people who are progressing really well and have a baptismal date set, they are Jennifer and Vanessa.  I'm super excited to be out and getting to know the area.  I know the branch mission leader, he is super awesome. Just about his whole family is super active in the Church.  I'll be meeting our Branch President tomorrow night sometime.  I've heard his family is super active as well.  Both of them work in different mines in Marcona.

Marcona has a bunch of weird little stories.  It is basically this small mining town where people go to work in mines.  Apparently the mining operations started from people that settled there from Utah and brought the Church with it creating 2 wards in Marcona.  Since then people retire or find better work in Nazca and Ica and moved there making it now a branch but some of the members really want to try to make it be two wards once again.  The members all have this vision of making Marcona grow into being two wards once again.  I guess I have some work to do here!

That's about all for this week, I'll tell more next week when I see a little bit more.  I attached some pictures for you though!!  We went to the elephant boulder for Pday!


Con mucho amor,
Elder Olsen

Yohrgenis' baptism!!!!!
 

A pic of the first time I'd seen sun in who knows how long

The coast of Marcona,
with a couple of pictures of a rock
that looks like an elephant.