Week 46 Chincha Alta

I'M IN A TRI-PAN!!

There are new secretaries this transfer so they had to have their transfers 2 weeks in advance. So I have a new companion!! I'm gonna be training Elder Paddock with Elder Sosa!! I'm so stoked to finally train! Elder Paddock's companion, Elder Canaán left to Cañete on Friday to fill a hole as a zone leader! I'm so stoked to be able to train seriously haha, I've always wanted to train hahaha.

It has been such a perfect week! We have been seeing a whole bunch of success in good ol Chincha. We have been basically throwing out all the investigators that weren't progressing and started over with finding a ton of news this week. We successfully found a lot and will continue finding with all the referrals we have received over the last couple of days.

We had a successful zone activity. The Stake organized a massage activity. A blind man and woman learned how to give massages and make it a business thanks the the Church of Christ's self reliance program. In their gratitude, they decided to give free massages for all the people that came to the activity. So we put "Meet the Mormons" on in another room, and had the missionaries invite people around the building to the activity. It turned out pretty well, we took down some good referrals! We will keep getting activities like this going for the Ward and Stake. 

It's been a bit of a crazy week having to proselyte in two areas, but it's still been a party. I'm grateful for all you do, and I always pray for you guys!


Con bastante amor y cariño,
Elder Olsen

My new companion Elder Paddock,
Elder Sosa not pictured haha.

Week 45 Chincha Alta

Happy Monday!

We had a great week again! We have been having some great successes is our area! Every day we are seeing miracles!!

We just recently had something called our "Super Planning Session"!!! It's like a weekly planning that lasts 6-8 hours haha. We couldn't proselyte for elections day so that's what President came up with. It was so good we came up with a lot of ideas to hasten the work a little bit more! We came up with a lot of stuff to improve our street contacts. One of the things we will definately apply is singing hymns for door contacts, like hymn caroling!! It had a lot of success in our exchanges with Chincha II. We put a lot of goals about the Book of Mormon! We decided that once people begin to actually read and ponder the Book of Mormon, they won't be able to put it down!!

We had a lot of success with General Conference, even though it didn't really look like it at first. We only had 3 investigators, Edita and her children, Tatiana and Matias. that watched conference but they loved it and are doing the things neccessary to get baptized!! It was amazing!

The only thing is, I didn't watch General Conference haha. The Church of Jesus Christ couldn't have meetings due to elections, I will watch all of it next week. I watched just the Sunday Morning Session when Russel M Nelson burned the entire church and Jeffery R Holland burned everyone that are holding grudges and when the YW President called Elder Uctdorf a German Shepard and when the Elder from the Seventy gave an absolutely fire talk about the Book of Mormon.

A little bit about the people. Our couples that aren't married absolutely lost their marbles and don't want to be married anymore. A seriously unexpected turn because they were all excited haha. The Paucar family got discouraged thanks to having no support from the family, and Luis wants a huge party when he gets married. Edita and Sergio just got separated because he drank again. It was a roller coaster for em. But we have an investigator that will get baptized on the 27th. Her name is Koraima. She knows its all true already. We just gotta work with keeping the fire burning.

That's about all from me thanks for reading the good ol letter.

I LOVE USTEDES MUY MUCH!!!

Elder Olsen

PS I got the package. The sweets really help out with the missionary work haha. The kids listen when there is a prize at the end!

PPS The chamos (Venezuelans) are from Valera and Sabanade Mendoza. Maybe you know those cities dad?

PPPS Did you use the word chamo dad haha?

PPPPS Can you send me more socks, that would be amazing.

Week 44 Chincha Alta

Happy normal P'day free of stress haha
Our program is doing really really well!! Me and Elder Sosa are working really hard with the people that we have right now!! Our worry is in our strength though. We aren't finding as many news as we would like. We believe we will have many baptisms this October, we have families getting married and a lot getting baptized!

I'm really excited for the spiritual feast we will have at General Conference and the visit from Russel M Nelson!! I've got my goals ready to get me prepared for the good ol banquet!

Question time haha. Our week has been great! We had a busy P-day last week. We had to coordinate everything with the beach. We went over to play some american football. The beach is actually pretty ugly, dead seals are a common sight, I kid you not. I'll see if I can get pictures from the other missionary, but I taught myself how to do a handstand haha. There isn't very much to see in our area. We are in the middle of Chincha. There is actually a pretty cool plaza. The members are the greatest, this is a missionary work focused ward and they LOVE their missionaries. I still do not know were our four Venezuelans are from, I'll have to ask them sorry I just wrote in my agenda, ask Venezuelans haha.

Baptisms!!! We saw 4 these past two weeks. Jakelin and Ruben were baptized along with Mavery and later André! Jakelin and Ruben were married then baptized. That was a baptism we had to fight for. Jakelin didn't really wanna get married because of a past relationship, but it finally happened because she wanted to keep the commandments, she "took the risk" haha. Mavery is a girl we found at church. She had said she was attending a different ward in the stake, they told her she should attend the closest church, our ward. She came and recieved the missionaries. We had to fight for her baptism as well!!! She teaches catholic children so we had to back everything up with the Bible!! Eventually she recieved her witness that the Book of Mormon was true. André has been investigating the church for about a year. He was taught by Elder Styler Cullimore Plada Thatcher Sosa and I until he finally had a change of heart. He recently had broke up with her member girlfriend and he said after that, it was "time to open the door for the Lord" and was baptized almost immediatly.

Well that's about my week in a nutshell. I'm traveling to Lima for a meeting tonight, that's gonna be fun haha. I LOVE YOU GUYS!!! I'm interested in every detail. Dad, what are the names of the people that were convert baptisms? What are their names? Are they active?? Tell them I said hi! I'm happy about your goal of 4 baptisms!!

He aqui, mi amor; ¿es poco? Os digo que no, es mucho,
Elder Olsen

PS hey there is apparently a Facebook for missionary families. Sister Richey said it was called Mission Peru Lima South Families or something like that.

PPS OH man don't know exactly what I need this package haha. just a ton of candy, oh and a pack of beef jerky. Also a recipie for Alfredo, and if it requires cheese, better to send just a bunch of packets haha. A few pens would be amazing, nice pens.

 Left: Bishop, Juan Jesus Gutierrez Huari, Elder Sosa, Elder Olsen,
Jakelin and Ruben, Mavery, Ariana, Our Ward Mission leader

Andre

Nerds!

Week 43 Chincha Alta

You Are All Gonna Hate Me
Hey just wanted to let you all know I am alive. We had 4 missionaries in our room so we had to get ready, then we all had to cut our hair. we have to be traveling 15 minutes ago to a beach or something. Totally rad. I took one for the team so I have 5 minutes to write. Awesome. The baptisms went well! The Venezuelans were baptized and also Mavery. Thanks for your letter, I'll print it off and save it for later. Sorry again. Please forgive me, I love you haha. Thanks for understanding!!!

Great week, baptisms, we had a lot in church. Found some more Venezuelans that accepted a baptismal date. We are working really really hard this week to keep everyone ignited for their personal progress to their baptism! Thanks so much for reading my like 2 sentance note. So sorry!

Love you all, you are the best.

Elder Olsen

Week 42 Chincha Alta

Happy Transfers!!

I FINALLY GET TO STAY WITH A COMPANION FOR MORE THAN ONE TRANSFER!!! Man I am so excited to spend more than one transfer with Elder Sosa. Finally broke the "one companion one transfer" cycle!

The Venezuelans canceled because Jakelin had to travel to Cuzco for an emergency, but fear not, they will be baptized this Saturday, they had their interview done and everything! Also Mavery is going to be baptized on Saturday. She is a reference of another ward, she was attending regularly over there until they sent her to our ward. We had to fight hard for her baptism hahaha. She always wanted biblical proof of what were talking about until finally she got a testimony of the Book of Mormon and accepted it as scripture. Then she said she didn't feel family support for her baptism. We got bold and said we were going to talk to her parents. At first I thought her dad was gonna be stobborn and say she wasn't ready, but he ended up just saying "well if you think she is ready to be baptized go for it." She said that now she has support from her family and they are going to come to her baptism.

She have a few baptisms on deck for next week as well. We have a family that is getting married this Saturday. Paula, the wife, is inactive and her future husband Luis is attending regularly with is son Luisito. Paula literally works every day from 11AM to 1 AM. Uhuh, 14 hours a day. We have talked about the classes of self reliance given by the Church. She took a lot of interest, we are praying for a new opportunity for her. We wanna baptize Luis and his son, but also reactivate Paula. A young adult named Andre is also getting ready to be baptized. The missionaries stopped teaching him when they found his desire to be baptized wasn't there and he was just going to church because his girlfriend was. They broke up and now he is way interested in what we teach to comfort him. We had actually set his baptismal date for the 19th of October with conference and everything, but he expressed his desire to be baptized next week, we won't complain haha.

We have worked so hard the first transfer here and now it's paying off. Something I learned in these last few weeks along with my companion is that if you want to be successful, there is nothing stopping you but yourself.

Enough preaching, we had a calm week. Not nearly as packed. For Pday last week we saw the jungle book. Oh and something interesting about the zone we have now, everyone that can train is training. There are 12 missionaries in Chincha and 5 are being trained 3 are training 2 are training and DLs and 2 are zone leaders! The whole zone is in training! 4 of the 5 news are right of the plane but 1 has 6 weeks on the field. Way crazy.

Well that's all the time I've got this week, thanks for your letters! I LOVE YOU!!!

Ustedes son lo maximo!
Elder Olsen


Pictures are of a poster thing our DL made with the help of other DL, they are so great.

Week 41 Chincha Alta

Wow!  What a week!

Hands down the craziest week I had in the mission haha. Saturday we had our schedule completely full. We moved lunch hour from 1PM to 9:30PM. That's right, it was so busy we didn't have time to eat haha, a package of ritz crackers and off we went haha. It felt way good to just work like crazy this week. We have been working working and working some more, I've never worked so hard in my mission. We have been working so hard with member referrals and putting baptismal dates in the first lesson.

Questions! South America is super great, I'm lovin it. I'm getting to the point in Spanish were I can start saying some stuff that I would say in English and it cracks them up. I've got a long way to go but I'm getting excited haha. I get the patterns of the language so I can have a conversation, now I just need to learn a ton of words. Our ward is the best, all of their activities have a purpose of missionary work. We are always involved in their activities.

We are a bit worried about the Venezuelans, we lost contact with them for a little while then they told us Jakelin was in Lima, and Ruben was recovering from an illness. We told Ruben to come to Stake Conference, but he stayed. It made us way sad because Stake Conference was a spiritual BANQUET! Haha Elder Caulderon of the General Seventy gave a talk. It was really interesting, the little guy is a fireball! He tells a funny story then he burns the congregation, then he tells another funny story and burns us again hahaha. It was a great talk, he talked about ministration. President Richey was there too! He is the funniest guy ever haha.

We went to a training meeting in a ward kinda near ours to give a little talk. President and Sister Richey came and they did this super funny skit thing about getting to know new people when they come to church, it was called "Break the Ice." Sister Richey made some killer brownies. Then I talked to the President for a bit and then he left. The best part was when before he left I gave him a hug and said "I love you President, you're the best" and he replied "I'm the best!" Hahahaha he is so funny.

We traveled to Lima!! It was a great time to see the Elders in the office again. Then we went upstairs with President and other missionaries and we had a revelation sesh. It was sick. We came up with a goal to baptize 100 people as a mission in one night. Oh that kinda reminds me. The rumors have been confirmed, THE PROPHET IS COMING TO THE PROMISED LAND!!!!!!! Wohoo. That's gonna be rad.

Well that's about all the happened. I'll be paying attention a bit more this week to write about some funny stories haha.

Con mucho amor, ustedes son lo maximo!!!
Elder Olsen

Week 40 Chincha Alta

Sup?
We had a fifteen minute nap in last weeks P'day. It was absolutely amazing. We have been working like animals haha. We hardly have time to study haha, we always put our planning in first priority but man we have been working!

We had a pretty fun little week. On Wednesday we had something called a "Breakfast of Love" it's a mission tradition we have. We have permission to invade a different area to minister to them. For example we invaded another area to make french toast, bacon and eggs. Then we gave them council about how to improve their skills, and in this case, their positivity. It was great to have bacon again, it was expensive, but delicious.

We had a 2 mornings of double service. On Thursday we went to help a lady move a curtain in her sewing shop. Then we went over to help some Venezuelan recent converts move. On Saturday we pulled a bunch of grass, and then we went to help a lady take out as old wall. That was fun, we got to break a wall haha.

A little miracle we saw this week is a couple got married today!! Their names are Jakelin and Ruben, they are from Venezuela. They are investigators until the 15th haha. They are really excited to be baptized and then enter the temple one day!! Their conversion is amazing becuase they have friends in their ward, and not just us, the missionaries.
We had an activity this week for recent converts and investigators. They basically put together a baptism video with all the converts baptized this year. They also had motivational videos from the previous 3 missionaries, two of them returned from mission. It was a cool little activity.

I love you all! Thanks for your letters!!
Con amor,
Elder Olsen

PS Hey I know it's a little late to ask for a box with Christmas and everything, but I really need a journal pretty quick here.

The Venezuelans marriage