Mi
querida familia!
This week was terribly
great. I got bit by a dog on Monday. That was pretty grand. The lame thing
was that the dog was a puny little rat looking thing... and it was barking the
ugliest bark and just followed us for almost a block, and so finally I turned
around and took a ''YOU-WANNA-MESS-WITH-ME?!'' step towards it, which caused it
to flinch and kind of run a little back and quiet up. And so I turned around
feeling victorious and cool and bigger than that little puny gross dog until I
felt a delightful rat-dog BITE on my THIGH! Yeah, he wanted to mess with me. I
was super startled, naturally, so I reacted with some sort of scream sound as I
flicked him off because his tooth snagged on my skirt, but with my hand, and he
flew up in the air and then landed oddly and ran away. The dogs here are either
super cool are reeeeeaaaaaaaally weird! Oh yeah I was also wearing like
400 layers of tights so the only harm was a bruise :) Anyway, it was an
adventure....
Our District Meeting
this week kind of put me in a reality check when I realized how much I lack in
my knowledge and my Spanish and clarity in explaining the principles and just all
that missionary good stuff. I think what got me was just that I want to be so
much further in who I am as a missionary than I am! I have such a long way to
go, but I only have 14ish months left to go as a missionary and I don't want to
be at the end of the 'go'' at the end of my mission! I want to be at the end of
the ''go'' now! Well, this probably isn't making any sense, but basically I
just realized that I have to be patient and just let progress take its way and
do its thing.
Anyway, the reunion ended
up beneficial because I smacked myself a few times to just take it humbly and
get excited to improve. We learned a lot about explaining the Book of Mormon
and using it A LOT in every opportunity you have to teach or contact people or
anything missionary!
After that our day was
kind of a lot of rejections. Muchìsimo to be exact (even though that isn't
exact at all...)
I think my favorite
was when an oldish man opened the door, came out on his porch, closed the door,
said ''Dìgame'' (which basically is the equivalent of 'Okay, what do you want'
the translation is Tell me.), THEN looked up at us, did a hilarious shocked
face like he was taken aback and then turned around, opened the door, closed
it, and from his window waved his finger at us.
Chilean fun fact: The
Reject Wave --- they pull open the curtains, see our smiles, and point their
pointer finger and just wiggle it back and forth about 10 times and then you
wave goodbye and then sometimes if you are lucky they after they stare at you
for a second, they start a second round of it. Their faces are also very
grumpy.
Anyway, our day wasn't
so great. We were still animadas, but our citas fell through and no one AT ALL
was listening to us. We were nearing the end of the day and we decided to knock
a few more doors. We talked to one lady and she said to us, ''no quiero ser
mañosa...de hecho, NO.'' And slammed the door. Wooo! Really rude rejections
like that don't happen very much, but today of course it did! haha But I just
had faith that maybe there was a tender mercy coming around the corner... so we
knocked the next door, and a couple answered, saw that we were soaking wet (Oh
yeah, it was basically freeze raining the entire day) and told us to come in
right away! Then we sat down and they were super nice and just started asking
so many questions about us and about the Book of Mormon!
Yeah, we were so
excited! I was just thinking, WOW! How awesome is this! This is too good to be
true!
And it was.
After about two
minutes, they just started attacking us! And it was super crazy how all of a
sudden they changed from these cheery people to really, really mean people!
Anyway, to be quite honest it was one of the hardest situations I have ever
been in, but I can testify of the power of testimony. I bore a simple testimony
to them. They continued to try to attack us after, but it was different. When
we left, it was time to go home. I wasn't embarrassed and my faith wasn't
affected, but it was still not a very delightful 10 minutes or so of my
missionary experience.
But a scripture came
to my mind that comes from another Bible discovery I had a little ago. This is
another one of my favorite chapters in the bible Acts 5. Basically this dude
named Ananias and his wife lie to Peter and they both die on the spot. It's
epic, go read it. All the people get all freaked out about Peter and his
apostles and their preaching. And so they put them in jail, but an angel brings
them out and tells them to continue to preach. Then the priests are all
confused when they see them in the temple preaching again. Then they tell them
we would rather obey God than men. Okay anyway this is all beside the point but
this chapter is just so cool! So then the priests want to kill them and they
take them to a council to be judged, and they get attacked for what they are
doing.
And then they get let
go on the conditions that they do not continue to preach in the name of Jesus
Christ. And verse 41 and 42 are the greatest:
''And they departed
from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to
suffer shame for his name.
And daily in the
temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ''
And there you go.
That's what Heavenly Father's tender mercy of the day was for me; reminding me
of that story so that although I felt worthless to everyone I met that day,
especially in the last fifteen minutes of my Tuesday, I knew that my
companion and I were counted worthy enough to suffer shame for His name.
And if it isn't
obvious in the life of Hermana Olson. A lot of other things worth telling
happened this week, but all the missionaries are basically saying that it looks
like I am writing the New New Testament. So I will end it here.
I love you very very
much! Thank you all for writing. Till
next week!
Love, Hermana
Olson
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