Week 85 Office

Happy Transfers!

Transfers almost went perfect.  We just had two mistakecitos. 1. Our mission credit card stopped working, right as we were trying to buy extra luggage for a missionary traveling home.  That was fun, we bought the luggage with someone else's card, Bishop Juan.  He works for the Church as a transportation guy. 2. missionaries missed their flights... Again.   I world have loved to take the blame and say that I could've done more and that it was my responsibility but this time I couldn't take the blame.  There was nothing else I could do haha.  Let's analyze this, we sent them 2 hours earlier than their flight time.  I sent them with someone to accompany them through the process, I did their check in online.  They got through security an hour.and.a.half.early... At that point we can't enter, they had to be on their own, we figured once they are passed security there is no way they can miss their flight.  Ya they did.  They missed it because they said "the intercom said 'all aboard the bus to go to the plane to Ayacucho'" and they said "oh we aren't going in bus, we are going in plane."  So they didn't line up in their line and missed they flight.  Not too happy about that one haha.

Other than that it went super smooth.  After 2 transfers in the office I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, it was super easy with less missionaries.  Right when we were doing all the stuff with transfers everyone was calling about their health problems, happens every time. On Tuesday we were training the new missionaries, and I got 4 phone calls about teeth problems.  It was kind of a pain to have to schedule all of those appointments for them haha.  The Church doesn't cover dental problems so that made things easier with payment and insurance things.  Lesson for Brady and Ethan, take care of your teeth because in other countries the dental work is kinda expensive and a hassle to pay for on your part.

The investigators aren't doing so hot right now.  Jeorgenis says he got blessed by God with a job.  Said job has him work on Sundays, he asked for Sundays off but his boss won't let him.  We told him God thinks that job is not right for him, so we invited him to pray again with all of his heart to help him get a job again, but one that lets him have Sundays off.  We hope it goes well.  Apart from him we are just now sneaking in our area again after getting wrecked by the transfers haha.  We will get it back on the rise this week for sure!  We got out on Thursday and Friday and both of those days were successful in finding potential new investigators.

Wanna hear something kind of funny?  I take out everyone's flights 4 months before they end the mission so yesterday I had to request my own flight hahaha.  I thought it was gonna be super trunky but I just kinda sent the request and worked on the next one haha #TookItLikeAChampcito

Thanks for tuning into Saturday afternoon ramble with Elder Olsen.   Love you guys!  You are amazing.  Remember, "you are not humans having a spiritual experience, but rather spirits having a human experience."


Con mucho amor,
Elder Olsen

Week 84 Office

As Promised.....

We visited the most beautiful place on earth.  I'll put photos, it's insane.  Remember those photos I took when I was in San Gabriel of this mountain of dirt and at the top there was this Inca head??  No joke, the pictures are of that SAME mountain, the only difference being that these pictures were taken now (Winter) and not the Summer.   It's called Lomas de Paraíso.  We went today with the office crew and our Mission President and wife.  It was awesome.

Transfer prep is real haha.  It wasn't nearly as bad this time around.  Those three zones that left the mission really helped things out a lot.  Lima always have the most stressful transfers and now it's nothing!  Not to mention I only had to get plane tickets for 2 people and not 15 haha.  We got transfers on Tuesday this time, which is kinda weird because normally we get them on Thursday.  We have had a lot of time to prep.  We have proselyted every day this week in our new area.  We have left at 5:00 sharp each day which is really surprising seeing that it's transfer week and everything.   You can say us office Elders are "performing" haha. We are always anxious to go out and testify of Christ.   In our responsibilities we sometimes forget our real purpose as missionaries which is to invite others to come unto Christ through His gospel.

Our program is confirmed to be called La Campiña IIB.  We are in the Campiña 2nd ward, woo!!  This week we have already got our pool up to two investigators.  The first is a Venezuelan from Maracaibo named Jeorgenis.  He already knows that the Church of Christ is the true one.  He says that nothing is going to stop him from reading the scriptures every day and attending sacrament meeting weekly.  He is preparing for his baptism on the 27th. We are excited about that!!  Ojala que no sea too good to be true haha.  Next one we have Loyola.  She is a single mother with a special kid.  She has been going through some tough times.  She doesn't really have interest in trying to make it to church.  We will work with her just the same though.  Jeorgenis and Loyola, just now realizing that we have some investigators with the weirdest names haha.

Thanks for reading this note, hope you enjoy these bomb pictures.   Love you guys!   Keep going strong!


Con mucho amor,
Elder Olsen 

Week 83 Office

Happy Saturday!

We got some serious transfer week prep going on now.  I can't believe week 5 is already ending of this transfer.  Next week we get the transfer papers.  It's probably going to be another fun one but I'm really getting used to it so I don't think it'll be so hard this time.  It's gonna be fun having not only the Limatambo change but also our mission transfers.

Questions, things are going super great right now.  Our mission office wasn't really in our mission to begin with and now it's super far away from our mission.   About 15 minutes away in taxi haha.  They are gonna leave it where it is right now but I feel like eventually they will change it.  We will be taking bus so that means our church building is about 50-70 min away, we will have to take two different buses just to get there.  The people that we have are progressing pretty well, we just gotta keep our eyes peeled for the ones that will progress.

Not gonna lie I laughed out loud when I saw this line in dad's letter "It was actually a pretty good dinner and the Bishops got to exchange “war stories” without mentioning names."  It's funny because it's the exact same deal with us in the office, we like to share our "'war stories' without mentioning names" every once in a while.

The investigators are making some good steady progress.  Frank is still attending church, we are getting him fellow-shipped with the young adults in our ward, make sure he has a lot of friends.  We are focusing this week on our finding efforts, we need to find a lot more.  This whole week has been pretty bad as far as getting out and sharing the gospel goes.  My companion had a lot of stuff to do with the migrations office just about all week.  It's about 3 hours of work for him, 3 hours of waiting for me hahaha.

Be ready for next week's pictures, you are about to see the most beautiful place on earth. Not even kidding, I'll tell you all about it next Pday when we go there.


Con mucho amor,
Elder Olsen

Week 82 Office

Happy Saturday!

So we have been hearing more chismes about the new Limatambo mission!  So we were expecting to give away San Juan and San Gabriel right?  They just announced yesterday that they are going to give away San Juan, San Gabriel, and my home town of Chorrillos!! That puts a wrench in things because not only are we losing 56 missionaries, but our proselyting ward, Bolognesi, is also going to be a a part of the Limatambo mission.  That means I won't be able to proselyte in our area anymore on July 1st.   I'm probably going to return to my home Campiña stake!!!!  Instead of being in the Las Villas ward, I'll probably be going to the Campiña 1st ward this time.  So that's crazy.  Our office and proselyting area are probably going to be an hour away from each other in bus.  That's gonna be 100% amazing.  I love change hahaha, it's so dang exciting.

Question time, it was a pretty crazy week, but it doesn't compare to last week!  Last week was full of awesome adventures hahaha.  We got some teaching in this week for sure, toward the end of the week though we just got overloaded with not only the meetings but also the preparation for Limatambo, it's due on Monday and we don't work at all on Sunday.   I'm just about done with my side of things, just need to separate some insurance cards today.  We basically have to get everything that has missionaries' names on it, and slide the Limatambo-bound missionaries' stuff over to the other mission.  It sounds like you've got some fireball missionaries over there!  They just asked me and other missionaries in the stake for some referrals!  I'll have to give them a few for sure so that way they can stay close to us haha.

We didn't change too much this week as far as investigator teaching goes.  We are still trying to work with Fabrizzio, he's the grandson of one of our oldies.  We also are working with Jessica, trying to contact her so we can keep steady lessons for her and her small family.  Mostly we have been working with this young adult named Frank.  He moved in recently and he followed through with an invitation to go to church, we taught him this week and he is super humble, he basically confessed in the closing prayer he gave that he had felt the Spirit and knows the message is true.  We invited him to be baptized on the 20th of July and he accepted.  Not gonna be here for his baptism but someone will do it hahaha.

Anyways that's been my week.  We had a pretty cool P-day today, we woke up at 4:45AM to go to Pachacamac to go look at a green pond and run around on a beach.  That was fun, we also ate mexican food, first time I've had that for like my whole mission. Adjunto las fotos.


Con mucho amor,
Elder Olsen

A mixture of photots from green lake, beach, and breakfast in a super high quality bread place

Week 81 Office

Dimetilciclopropanocarboxilato de N-Fenoxibincilo

Still learning new words haha. That one comes from one of my adventures this week. We had so many adventures this week I dunno if I can tell all of them in one sitting. I'll write about them but I'll have to tell a little more in some Skype call tomorrow at 6:00PM. ;);)
I went on a field trip this week! I went with the financial secretaries, Elder Moore and Elder Craythorne. We went to look for Permethrin, a bug killer. There were no instructions whatsoever on how to get Permethrin so we just had to roll up our sleeves and look around Lima to try and find it! So we went to this big company thing called Drakasa, they told us that they sell it over there and it turns out they only sell it in huge quantities and not in amounts of three liters. So we had to go over to this other store which was also a really big distributor. We had to pay a lot of money to get it, but we finally did get it. That's about as close to real life as I'm gonna get honestly, sitting in a conference room was kinda weird haha. Not to mention contacting more than one organization only to get what we need hahaha.  Also contract signing.  12 page warning packet as well, that's always good.

We had a super fun little day this Pday.  We went to the temple and did a session.  It's always weird going to the temple because when I went to the temple in Utah I never bumped into someone I know.   But here it Peru it happens every. single. time.  I saw a family I knew from Chincha, an oldie from San Gabriel, a high priest from Pisco, and an MTC helper.  The world gets a whole lot smaller in a temple hahaha.  We also went to this super rich mall.  Like, more rich than the ones in the US.  It's called Larcomar, we went to a TGIFridays over there to eat.

Question time, this week, we didn't have anyone at church this week, but a few people came by just to go and we are going to teach them this week.  We have started prepping for transfers,  I'm getting a lot of documents ready for the Limatambo health secretary, also prepping the dead missionary schedule.  San Juan and San Gabriel still has no clue what is gonna hit them.  The zone leaders of San Gabriel say they are 85% sure they are going to Limatambo haha, they are definitely suspicious.  It starts when the new president comes in, July 1st.  I know that this transfer and the next transfer we are going to have small groups come in, but in October we are going to get a pretty big group of missionaries most likely to replace those that went.

That's all for this week, thank you so much for your love and support, you guys are the best. I LOVE YOU


Con amor,
Elder Olsen

Temple trip

Random shark doodle

Permetrina adventure

Week 80 Office

Happy Saturday!

We had another great week!  We actually had a lot of weird stuff happen this week.  I'll have to write about a few of those adventures haha.  This P-day we played some basquetbol and some soccer.  That was pretty sweet, gotta love a good four on four.  After I get my hair cut we are gonna go and eat and then are gonna go to the mall del sur to go wander for a bit. After that we are gonna go to the office to watch Narnia 2 because last week we watched the first one haha.

One of our little adventurecitos was doing some room inspections in San Gabriel and San Juan.  My companion is the guy that inspects rooms in some of these zones every once in a while and I get to come with him.  It was kinda wierd inspecting one of my old areas, we got to inspect Miguel Grau II haha.  It's been a while since I've been to that side of town.  Word on the street is that San Gabriel and San Juan are gonna get transferred to the new mission, I think that's why we went in the first place.  It was pretty fun.

We've been slowly towing this place out of a hole haha, after finally getting used to my work here I can start to focus more on our investigators and their needs.  Right when that little hand hits 5 I'm ready to go out and teach.  Lately I've been just putting in 100% and it's a lot better that way.  We have been hitting parks lately and just contacting everything that moves, that's been pretty successful actually!  We still have Gladis slowly progressing.  We are still working to get her to be baptized.  She is loving her experience at the church, our only worry is that she was seated next to someone who was joking with his buddy the entire time haha.  We did get some success this week, we found a new investigator, now we just gotta hope him and his family go to church, we are gonna do a follow up visit with them today to see how it goes.

Question time, we really do finally have a normal week.  It's actually wierd, half of it is super poor and the other half is super rich.  The rich side is full of tourists and usually we don't go there because everyone speaks German, English and Portuguese.  It's a huge tourist spot called Barranco.  I didn't get to shake Elder Bednars hand.  I think that's what he was doing there, stopping by for the mission split.  We lose two zones, they are cutting us back.  It used to be an office district in the Chorrillos zone, now we are the office zone.  It's better that way because we were just kinda bonus points for Chorrillos, now we are just here.  We actually do use the come and see and come and help videos, they are pretty cool.

Thanks for reading my note, I love you all and pray for you!!  Thanks for all of the support!!!


Con muchísimo amor,
Elder Olsen

Week 79 Office

Another Happy Landing!

It has been a week and two halves for sure!!  We have been super busy with the transfers and everything.  It was a doozy this time for sure though, I had to do a lot of flights with the missionaries to and from Ayacucho, instead of the 10 flights we had last time we had 18 this time.  Everything went well though, everyone that needs to be home is home and everyone who needed to come came.

To confirm rumors and Facebook page posts, we DID see Elder Bednar.  It was amazing. He had accompanying him Elder and Sister Held from the Seventy.  Elder and Sister Held were talking about the retention of recent converts.  Sister Bednar talked about having faith to open your mouth.  Elder Bednar just started to give his little speech thing and he just says "you were all expecting a talk, I'm not gonna give you a talk, I'm gonna have a conversation with you."  After he talked about that he started being super funny with the way he was talking haha, he also said "Now when I say 'I'm going to have a conversation with you' you are probably terrified.  If I asked you what the three parts of the baptismal covenant you wouldn't remember it!  If an Apostle were asking you that, you wouldn't even remember your own name!  You would probably be thinking you are serving in London!"  It was super funny because he used a lot of Spanglish.   He would be talking in English then he would throw in some Spanish words like Espiritu Santo, fe, poder, Cristo, and others like that haha.  He talked a lot about using inspired questions that aren't searching for a specific answer.  He told us about opposites in the gospel like "losing yourself to find yourself, being last to be the first."  And he talked about how to do everything we can, but also getting out of the way so that the Spirit teaches.

The investigators are doing super well!!  They loved the capilla abierta activity.  Patricia and Gladis are now progressing a lot more toward their baptism in July!!  We are super excited
Thanks for all that you do!  I LOVE YOU!!!!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETHAN!!!!


Con mucho amor, maletas, y en camino,
Elder Olsen