Week 13 Ayacucho

Transfer Week is Finally Over :D

A little bit about my crazy little week! I traveled to Lima for some training for all the missionaries on the field for 6 weeks. I got to see my beloved friends from the CCM there. It was a really nice thing to see their growth out on the mission. I also got some amazing council from Pres McGinn. He stressed the Book of Mormon and how it's important to explain it in as few words and as simple of words as possible. He talked about how President Monson's last talk in conference was three things, about the Book of Mormon, in few words, and powerful. What wasn't so fun was the bus ride. It's a 10 hour bus ride to Lima haha. 20 hours in a bus made me so sore haha. I didn't sleep too well either, I was up till about 1:30 until I finally got some off and on sleep haha. A weird thing that happened yesterday is I saw two dogs kill another dog! Okay, I didn't see it's dying breath, but when it ran off with some pretty good wounds to it's neck with the other two dogs chasing it, I know what happened next. My companion and I were just in shock, and the investigator we were trying to teach in the street was just kinda waiting haha. But yeah, that's the weirdest thing I have seen in quite a while. Other than drunk people, they surprise me every time. They don't look drunk until they try to grab you saying "Ohhh kind youth" Yeahh weird things happen here haha.

Well to answer a few questions, Elder Mozo is awesome. He is just a humble little guy, He likes to play Risk, that is for sure haha. He knows a lot of English and is studying every day. Elder Mozo is a convert with his family to the church. The people in Ayacucho are awesome. At times they are pretty mean to the whites but you know the majority outweigh the few that are not as ready for the gospel. Usually they are just being polite, but also a lot of the time, they are ready to listen to the gospel. Commitments are really the biggest hurdle I have with the people though haha. District meetings are each Tuesday morning, except this last one on Thursday with transfers and all. Speaking of which, the package hasnt come yet because the guy in charge of all of that in Lima didn't send the Ayacucho goodie bag. Tomorrow I will recieve it though. Not only is our district in Ayacucho but our entire zone. There is a companionship in a place nearby called Huanta, not sure if it's part of Ayacucho or what but yeah.

It's good to hear about everything going well back at home! My time is running out so I'll wrap it up. Thanks for telling me about what is happening in St. George with music and church and all! Say hi and thanks to everyone who is thinking about me over there!

Con amor,

Elder Olsen

PS did you get my snail mail? If so what day?

Week 12 Ayacucho

Happy Transfers! (And Tuesday!!)

We had transfers this week and that is why my P-day is today.  When we have transfers P-day will be on Tuesday, all the rest, just Monday.  Transfers went well, I will remain in Ayacucho as the area director and being trained by Elder Mozo.  I love Elder Mozo, he is way funny haha.  He is from Trujillo, Peru and will be finishing up my training.  I have had the opportunity of directing our area this week, I was not really expecting it to be pretty tough but it is what it is haha!  I know my area really well, I just need to work on knowing my investigators more personally because when I knock on the door, I'm the only one that knows them and have to talk to them.  But it is going really well, I'm loving this area!

   

We had a good week, we have done a lot of good things around here!  I had the opportunity of teaching a piano class!  Tell Stacie I know now that is a lot harder than it looks haha.  We met with some families in the area this week, one of them was the Alanya Flores family.  They are good people, they have 3 active members in their family, a recent convert, and an investigator.  It is fun to see them progress together.  I love all the families in this ward, they are so good to the missionaries.  I made pancakes with them with all of the substituted ingredients that come with it haha.  I don't wanna be prideful, but they were pretty delicious, I gotta tell ya!  We also had a bunch of ward activities this week.  We had a ward party on Friday that was way fun, all the missionaries prepared games for everyone to play.  Before it started me and my comp were just shooting hoops with the bishop outside haha, that was way fun.  On Saturday we had an Elders Quorum activity, we invited a few of our investigators to play soccer and eat something with them.  The bishop approved the food so we got to eat with them, we got to eat an amazing steak and potatoes, I hadn't had something like that and it was amazing haha.

   

Anyways how are you all doing!?  It's good to see you guys were all good from last week.  It's fun to see how everything is going back at home.  The baptism this week went well as planned, Alex was baptized by me and Danny by Elder Gutierrez.  The next day they were both confirmed by vice versa.  I haven't given a blessing of healing or comfort, but I might on Thursday, a sister in another area needs one because she has cancer and the sisters in the other area asked if we could do it. I have been seeing a lot of miracles these past few days in helping people change their lives and be blessed by the gospel.  It is truly an opportunity to see these miracles in these humble people.  About the sister that's going to Lima West, in our mission the sisters wear dresses as well as the sister in the CCM going to the same mission, ask her about my companion in the CCM when she gets there too.  Sister Coke and Elder Child.  And yes, I have eaten guinea pig, and it is delicious.

   

Well not too much time this week I had to download a couple of pictures and print off some papers, until next week!

con amor,

Elder Olsen

   

PS you can just send it to the office, it'll be easier that way.  I'll probably be getting that package on thursday with the district meeting.  Have a good one!

 

 

Week 11 Ayacucho

Happy Monday!!

First off thanks for all of your birthday wishes!!  It was a great day!!  Haha I knew it was gonna be like any other day so I just made it fun.  I got a FHE plan set up with my Pension family, the Sulcas and I made cookies.  Not my best effort, especially since I had to substitute like 3 ingredients haha.  First off, Brown sugar doesn't exist, second off, neither does shortening or real butter.  Just good ol Margarine, but they were delicious nonetheless!  Haha it was a great day though!  Word got around and I had members wishing me a happy birthday.  Even someone clear across town in someone else's area wished me a happy birthday!  But yeah something funny, I share my exact birthday with 2 people here haha.  Elder Cárdenas and an investigator named Danny both turned 19 on the 9th.  It was a little weird saying I'm 19 years old after saying 18 so long haha.

   

A little about my week now!  We had a pretty good week this time around, we have some great investigators!  One is good ol Jesus.  He is a guy that is preparing to be a Catholic priest haha.  He is incredibly knowledgeable about scriptures but he still listens to us so we still go.  I'm baptizing someone on Saturday!  It'll be my first baptism I get to do, I'm trying not to talk about my baptisms as much but it's pretty cool I'll be doing it!

   

Church was awesome again, I had piano duty and we had the sacrament hymn all good and everything, but the youth weren't ready so I played another verse.  One of the councilors was telling me to stop and I'm like I dunno what I'm doing.  So after the meeting I asked Bishop what he wants me to do and he said that I should continue doing it and that he doesn't know what he's doing either haha.  That was pretty funny, didn't help too much because I'm not sure what to do when they aren't ready haha but yeah that was pretty fun.  It's pretty hard when all the church meetings are in Spanish, well everything everywhere in Spanish.  I only get to speak English for about 5 minutes a day when the district leader calls for our report.

   

Thanks again for the recipes, I made some pancakes and liquid gold today haha, could have used more flour in them but it is what it is haha.  Finding ingredients for cooking is like a scavenger hunt.  Some stores have what I need, some don't!  Dairy is really expensive I've found out.  It's not terrible but it is still pretty pricy haha.  Speaking of finances I'm not struggling in finances, I ran out one week, but that's because I only took out 100, I pressed a wrong button and didn't take out my full 600.  We get 620 soles a month to spend and I've never struggled with money.

   

One funny thing that happened this week is when I was eating lunch I found out savage is a bad word here!  That was a good time, luckily the Pension family just laughed and didn't take offense haha.  Another cool thing that happened was I got to play an investigator's sax!  Man that was a good time.  He has a sax that's worth about 7000 soles (1500-2000 USD) and I could tell it was that much, it played amazing.  He has a Yamaha I wanna say YTS-63 but I don't know much about Yamaha instruments or musical language in Spanish haha.  But it was a fun time playing his sax for a little while!

Con amor,

Elder Olsen

PS yeah you can send recordings, I'll probably end up downloading them onto a USB because I don't have time in internet to listen haha.

Pics Birthday cookies!

Week 10 Ayacucho

Happy Birthday Gramma!!

Tell G'ma happy birthday!!  Love ya grandma O!  

First off thanks for the health wishes, I've recovered well, it was only a couple of days thing.  I've got a little cold now but it's nothing haha.  Thanks to Timberline I know that the cure to most anything I get is to drink water haha.  Timberline has got me prepared for the altitude haha.  I did get to play the piano on Sunday!  That was awesome!  The week before they just had the auto play hymn and this week the Bishop put me on as piano.  I'm glad dad is still doing good as a bishop, I told Bishop Vargas in my ward that my dad is a bishop and told him he is doing a hard job and appreciate him for it, he liked that more than I thought haha.  It was almost as if he was saying "finally someone is recognizing how hard this is!" Especially with how wide the ward boundaries are with all of his visits he has to do and everything.  Sorry about the sunscreen haha, all it takes is one service activity without sunscreen and I'm completely burnt, trust me, I've learned my lesson and will always wear sunscreen hahaha.  It's awesome that everything at home is doing well, I love to hear about all of your lives back there!

   

A little about my life now haha, I kept track of my funny stories this week.  First off the sheer amount of times I get called "Gringo".  As I pass by, (usually not my area, but in central for P-day) they always say "ay un gringo!" and I'm always just like "yeah I know", or sometimes when I'm in the mood I'll tell em its good luck and just keep walking haha.  But it happens all the time!  

I don't know if you heard about the work strike here but that happened.  On Wednesday, all the roads had rocks in the middle of them and all buses were stopped.  I was so confused, I had no clue what to think haha, I only knew that buses would continue on Friday.  It wasn't until Thursday that my white friend Elder Anderson said the roads were blocked for a work strike on potatoes!  Later on in the day we received a call from the zone leaders saying to stay inside the rest of Thursday.  That was a long Thursday of doing nothing but studying haha.  

And dad would like the fact that the member family we are living with has a Venezuelan friend named Gabriel that is staying with them!  He is way nice and he eats with us and talks to us every lunch!  

One of the things I'm doing to soften up the hearts of contacts is to invite them to an English class I teach with one of the Sisters that also knows English (her second language but still) and we had one guy show up for the first week we'd had it opened.  His name was Henry, and he was actually pretty good at English.  He already knew most of the language just couldn't comprehend when people speak fast.  We were just talking and he suddenly says "hey there are a lot of Mexicans in America right?" and I'm thinking "uh oh" and he asks my opinion of US politics and I'm like "Yeahh I'm not allowed to share that" and so that was that, he was a pretty cool guy though haha.

   

Thanks for all of your birthday wishes!  I am having a lot of fun here and I'm glad I decided to accept the call to serve this wonderful people!  It's awesome to see how much the church helps and blesses the people!  I want all of the people to live like the members because it is good!  They are happy and loving to all!  The members give me a lot of joy if you couldn't tell already haha.  

Well I have to go, I love you all dearly and pray for all of you individually by name for all the individual problems you have throughout the week and I feel your prayers of safety and health!

Con amor,

Elder Olsen

  

PS  More I need for my birthday is those floss picks, send a couple of bags, I haven't found them here haha.  Also please send a couple of seasoning packets, that'd be awesome, and just any candy.  Thanks for the recipes and the letters are fine together!  Tell Ethan his car looks way good!!

Pics of Quinua!!  Great place!

Obelisk on the pampa near Quinua commemorating the Battle of Ayacucho

Week 9 Ayacucho

Happy Monday!!

I had a great week!  On Saturday I got to see my first convert be baptized!  And on Sunday guess who had the opportunity of confirming him!  It was an amazing experience, I had to study up a bit on the prayer because I had no clue how to in Spanish hahaha.  But it was an amazing day, Nelson has a very good spirit about the church and loves the welcome he got from the young men.

In all honesty my room is actually really good, I know I'll stay in far worse haha.  The family we are staying with are so nice and made sure our good ol house was built really well!  The Sulca's are amazing people with a great testimony, I love that family.  Gracias for all the wishes of good health, ever since then I'm being quite a bit more careful, especially now that the pressure in our water filter isn't quite strong enough to fill a water bottle without a minute or two sitting there haha.  We have really nice water filter bottles that they gave us Tuesday last week, I now have three, I'll be good as far as clean water goes.  I buy most of my water anyways from all the little shops in people's houses.  We have 3 different stores near us we can choose from so we get along fine.  Before I forget, can you send me recipes in an email or something?  A lot of dinners I'd be able to find here, like pizza, pasta sauce, little things like that, also pancakes and those cookies I always made.  Because my breakfasts and dinner are this awesome nasty lookin bread called panchapla.  It's this actually surprisingly good bread that is almost completely hollow, and usually a little burnt.  But it's my favorite kind of bread though haha, I usually just make a few little egg sandwiches with them.  But I want some change every once in a while hahaha.

  

I am thankful every day for my years of studying Spanish with Coach Ward, tell Brady to tell him thanks from Peru haha, he has made my mission so much easier!  Thanks for all of your prayers I hear them all the time and appreciate them.  I'm praying for all of you by name for all of your daily life well being!  Nothing too strange happened this week sorry for the lack of stories haha, I'll be sure to note some for next week haha

  

I think just the music and the lead refills are fine for the package, also if you could just send some American snacks and a couple of ties haha.  And a small English hymnbook please.  I think that's it, whatever you want to send me thanks for it, I appreciate it a lot.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Olsen

Baptism!  Hermano Nilson

1-4 the sights I see every day, an amazing place

5 My first convert, hermano Nilson!

 

Week 8 Ayacucho

Rainy Monday Indeed!

This has been the rainiest haha.  It's been nice to be emailing because I'm finally dry.  I'm happy about the rain though because when I was in Lima it rained once, and it was just a 5 minute sprinkle.  The rest of ground moisture came from heavy mist sometimes in the mornings hahaha.  The weather here has been really hot or just lukewarm.  At night it's not terribly cold or hot and I sleep fine though it.  But the weather changes quite often, (might just depend on how much I walk that day haha.) but mostly it has been nice weather.  

We got 11 new investigators this week and will probably keep on counting this week, or maybe it was just luck haha, I haven't been here long enough.  Our schedule is usually pretty full and we don't get the opportunity of contacting very much.  Speaking of which, I have a first convert this Saturday.  He is a 16yo youth named Nelson Escalante.  He successfully attended sacrament meeting for his 3rd time and came through for his baptismal interview.  He is being baptized on Saturday and confirmed the next day.  We brought him along to two of our lessons with investigators.  Afterwards he expressed heartfelt interest in becoming a missionary.  The gospel is wonderful and marvelous.  It's like Elder Godoy of the Seventy said, never know how many apples are in a seed.  That was a pretty cool experience.

   

A little bit about my daily life is that we are living in the house of a member, she has a little sub-house for us to live in and whenever we need anything we just holler.  She does our laundry, cooks our lunch and will give us basic necessities when we are in need.  All of this is for a price, she is our Pensionista but she is awesome.  Her and her family are very active in the church.  I'm glad dad and Greg liked my dog problem, they are everywhere you look haha.  The dogs are calm until about 8:00PM when they start to get a bit more territorial.  I've had a few try to bite me, and one bit my pant leg, close haha.  But the majority of them are just extremely loud and follow us for 5 seconds barking really loud!  Tell Greg about when I visited an investigator and her dog followed us without us knowing for 5 minutes.  And we actually took it to lessons and stuff because 1 we thought the dog would eventually turn back and 2 if not, the lady's house was on our way back to home after our few visits.  It never left.  And we had to guard the stupid thing from all the other dogs trying to get after it.  Eventually we gave it back, but wow, next time a dog starts following us, I'm seriously u-turning.

  

I didn't actually have a chance to watch it live (the new First Presidency announcement) but I did watch it at Hermana Esparanza's (Pension) house while eating lunch.  It didn't feel real until I saw him (Pres. Nelson) sitting next to his councilors (Pres. Oaks and Eyring) and then I said, yeah that's 100% our prophet.  It's cool how that works.  The reason I didn't watch it live is I was sick.  My companion and I decided to go, but Hermana McGinn sent me back home after she found out my illness was pretty bad haha, I had a rockin 101.8 fever!  But the next day, I had my prescribed 24 hour rest, then I went back to work still sick!  I didn't shake hands but the work continues, and the Lord blessed me, by the time I returned I was 100% again.  Back to prophet and what I'm studying.  I'm going to print some stuff off after emailing probably to study.  I've started deep scripture study and Jesus the Christ study.  Just getting a much bigger grasp on what I'm teaching especially, and on the way picking up other doctrine.  The language will come, I study in English except for PMG, I study that in Spanish and that's it.  I'm learning more in two weeks then I did two months back at home haha.

   

I'm so sorry about all the sickness, as I said I have had my fair share and I'm not done yet I'm positive!  This place is definitely not America, and I'm in a bit poorer of an area haha.  I'm praying for you all by name, and this week especially for your health!  

  

Sunday was awesome!  We had 4 of our investigators in attendance and I gave a talk about missionary work!  I spoke a bit on how missionary work ties to family.  I gave the classic who has family that is not here smack down and shared 1 Nephi 8 and 11.  I also shared Brady's reactivation of the Nay family in it too!  Gracias for the experience haha.  They need a pianist but last week the power was out, and this week we had to stop by 5 investigators houses to pick them up to go to church and we were 10 minutes late haha.  But next week for sure.  I love church here, the church is the same wherever you go and it is absolutely amazing

 

Companero Elder

25 Sol pizza, not worth it

Ayacucho

My walk everyday

Cuarto

Ethan,

   I miss you too man!!  Just know I'm praying for you that you will get better day and night!!  Keep trying hard in school!

PS Gracias for prepping the package and I need one more thing.  Remember that pencil thing with all the colors?  Send like 3 packs of reloads please.

PPS I sent the letter today, no guarantees if it'll get there or not, I had to correct their spelling of Utah haha.  But let me know if and when it arrives haha.  It's a hassle but I'll be sure to send some every once in a while.

Week 7 Ayacucho

...Unexpected Week!

I'm serious, everything about the mission is unexpected.  I didn't expect to have a ghetto looking apartment with a non-working microwave haha.  I also didn't expect to have a water heater, but I also didn't expect that water heater to not work well!  I didn't expect the sheer number of dogs!  I'm not even kidding!  Sooo many dogs everywhere; sleeping, barking at me, wandering, dead, in stores, in houses, and even in my house!  I didn't expect busses, at all.  They get packed so bad, they fit like 45 in one bus haha.  I didn't expect to know so much Spanish, I also didn't expect to know nothing haha.  I'm still counting my blessings for having studied Spanish for 5 years before but still!  I got into my mission with a good grammar score of 71% (average was about 25-30) and I go out there and forget everything.  But the Lord has a way of putting me back on my knees and praying for the gift of tongues again and again.  I pray for it harder each day, and it works.  I can understand Spanish, I can read Spanish with understanding, I just can't speak it! Hahaha  I'm focusing a little bit more now on gospel study instead of Spanish.  It'll come when it comes haha.

  

 

Anyways my first week was good.  It's gonna be a good two years I can tell haha.  Un poco más sobre Elder Gutierrez.  He is from Salta I believe, in north Argentina.  He has been out for 18 months and he speaks only Spanish except when I teach him English.  I'm lucky to know what he is saying when he is teaching me about the mission life haha, don de lenguas!  We are teaching many people.  We have had like 3 appointments set up just yesterday alone.  They all fell through except one but still!  We have a lot that we are teaching.  Many have baptismal dates, one guy we are teaching is going to go through with it.  His name is Jose and he has a strong testimony about the church.  He bore it when we were in church.  I've got a lot to say about a lot, and I have some snail mail on the way, it'll be sent today or next week depending on my compañero haha, let me know when it gets there reguardless.  About mission prep.  The post class teaching didn't help me too much.  Tell Brady to focus on the doctrine in the lessons and other things about missionary work before the teaching thing haha.  And I personally haven't used family search but I'm sure I will eventually when I meet a member or investigator that has a computer haha.

   

The bishopric in the ward is way good.  Obispo Varagas is my favorite haha.  He reminds me a lot of a Latino version of dad, just always busy busy on Sundays, he was at our 2018 goal training plus how family ties into conversion.  The others in the bishopric are solid too, Hermanos Pedro and Jimmy (not sure if that's how it's spelled but that's what I like to think haha) are equally hard working.  In fact Hermano Jimmy works all the time but is so dedicated he makes time for all of his meetings!  The ward mission leader is also a good guy, Hermano Cabrera is his name.  He works really hard, it seems to be a pretty tough job.  Tell Bart props haha.  The members are the best, they love to talk to their village gringo haha.  One old lady started to speak Kechwa to me and so I spoke English to her.  That was a pretty funny little event, all her friends were laughing haha.  The children are the best too, they just run around and do whatever.  They run up and hug me, give me five, and ask me to speak English to them haha.

   

The earthquake is crazy news!! I didn't see any damage in my apartment but wow.  I also didn't notice anything walking down the streets but it already looks a little run down pretty much everywhere haha.  It's a really poor area but I've heard there is poorer, I'm glad to be serving among the more humble though, it makes my job easier haha.

  

Well that was a few things about my mission, if you want to know anything else about my mission and stuff ask me!  I got some stuff coming in snail mail that's a little more about my first impressions about Ayacucho.  But I probably better leave,  my hour is about up and I gotta finish my president's letter.  I forgot my converter again, I swear I'll have pictures next week haha.  I'm praying for you all!!!

Hasta próxima semana,

Elder Olsen