December 21, 2015 Transfers, and I am Companions with Myself

Wow. It feels like a year has passed since the last time I wrote you all! 

Okay as you can tell since I'm writing on Monday, there were cambios! And Hermana Laguna left Francke to train the next nurse, who was actually called to be the official mission nurse, but she stayed in my district so that's fun. 

And now I am companions with myself. Yeah it was some pretty interesting inspiration that Presidente got there... 

He called me on Sunday and asked me to train Hermana Gardner! We usually meet the new missionaries on Wednesday, but Hermana Laguna and I had to give a presentation about the health and so I met all of them on Tuesday night! So I had the privilege of participating in the President's devotional that he gives to the new missionaries and then the group dinner after. In the dinner I by chance ended up sitting in the exact same seat that I sat in for the dinner MY first night in the mission. When I realized that I turned to President and said, ‘‘It was here that you said to me, Hermana Olson, in this mission you will get fat, but don't worry, it just happens to all the sister missionaries.'' And his wife said, ''What you said that to her her first day?!'' And then president with a smirk on his face said, ''Well, did you gain weight?'' And I said, ''YES!'' And he said, ''So my prophecy was correct then.'' haha it was fun reliving my first day. And now I am just having a blast reliving training! 

Well actually it started a little bit WAY different than I expected! The planes here went on strike and so no one could fly down to Coyahique or Punta Arenas and there were two new sister missionaries that were going there to start their missions. Their trainers didn't come up north to meet them and they were going to have to wait four days before they could go down. President asked me if I would be alright having three little ducklings working with me. And I said OF COURSE! It was a blast. There was not a single experience in the mission that compares to walking around with three new gringos on their first day in the mission field. I don't have much time to talk about all that! The four days ended up lasting just one day, but in that ONE day we got so much work done! And we went around caroling in a chorus to a lot of people. 

At the end of the day, we passed a menos activo in the street that I didn't even know existed, but the member we were with recognized him and so we turned around and asked if we could teach him a lesson. He asked his son who owned the house, not member, and he said he doesn't like to listen to stuff about God. But he let us go in. We invited his wife, Patricia, to listen and each one of us taught separate parts of the lesson. There was so much faith in that lesson because there were 3 new missionaries just trying to bring the spirit through their broken Spanish. Anyway, it made for a very very awesome lesson with a powerful Spirit. Patricia accepted to be baptized in January, but said that she is worried about how her husband would react. Then, upon leaving their house, to our pleasant (understatement) surprise, we found the mission president and his two assistants contacting Hector, Patricia's husband, out in his yard! Apparently they had stopped by our house to pick up the suitcases of the other hermanas that were going to be leaving the next day, and we weren't there yet, so they decided to kill some time and find someone to teach. It ''just so happened'' that that same house they decided to walk to was the house where we had been teaching! I know it wasn't chance, the spirit took care of that one, because they helped Hector understand why he should accept the gospel. And now we are teaching all of them. 

Amazing right?! But that's not even the half of everything that has happened this week! I have learned so much from my wonderful companion, Hermana Gardner. She has so much faith and is so fearless. She's soaring in her speaking abilities and struggling with the crazy velocity of the Chilean dialect, but she has no problem trusting in the spirit and following the whispers. 

We focused a lot on finding and meeting the individual needs of all of our investigators this week and the spirit has really been able to manifest their needs. And we both have experienced profoundly what it means to speak and let your mouths be filled with what it is that they need to hear. This week we challenged 8 people to be baptized and every single one of them said YES! Four of them accepted a date to prepare to be baptized and 2 of them want to meditate and pray about it. 

Claudio, our investigator that sells Completos, had had a date set for his baptism on the 12th but had only gone to church once, so his date fell through. On Thursday we went to teach him, and the first thing he said with a very puzzled face, ''Why didn't I get baptized this Saturday?'' In my mind, my mouth dropped! He thought he was going to be baptized last Saturday!!! And we hadn't realized he didn't understand what he needed to do to be ready. So we changed our lesson plans and taught him about what the covenant means and focused on the commandment of keeping the Sabbath day Holy, what the sacrament was, and why it is so important to set a habit before we are baptized. After explaining all of that, he said, ''So I shouldn't be working on Sunday.'' He's struggling a lot with his little business, and so he is very worried about giving up a whole day of work, but we promised him that to put the sacrifice, Heavenly Father would bless him. After thinking for a while in silence he said, ''I am going to push myself to keep this commandment. Now I understand why it is important. Can I try to prepare to be baptized for January 9th?'' 

We basically said, ''Um. OF COURSE.'' So this Sunday he didn't work until 12, so he only missed half an hour of church. Even though it wasn't the whole sacrifice he is getting there. It's amazing the clarity of the gospel that was notable in his conviction. On Sunday we were walking passed his stand, and he was sitting out on his little picnic table reading the book of Mormon. What progress! 

That's one story of the eight baptismal invitations. They are all equally amazing and individually special. There isn't any more time. 

Two of our baptismal invitations were towards people that weren't even our own investigators. On Friday and Sunday our zone along with the members of the stake did a huge contacting Christmas campaign in the plaza in Osorno and La Union with the stake choir and posters and balloons and cookies. It was so great! One of the contacts on Friday was just barely looking for a church to be baptized with her daughter but was confused on which one was the right one to be baptized in, (sound familiar to anyone like a 14 year old boy?!) So we taught her, invited her to be baptized she said yes, now the elders in another ward are teaching her! And the same thing happened with a really awesome contact with a 20 year old skater boy last night in the plaza in La Union, but we taught him about the plan of salvation. And now he wants to get baptized so that he can serve a mission! The elders met up with him and we just saw them today and they said that kid is amazing and so ready! 

OK. Well as you can see this week was amazing. We had 15 lessons with a member and 21 others. We are really developing as better missionaries. Hermana Gardner is awesome and I'm learning so much from her. She and I almost never speak in English because she wants to get as immersed in Spanish as we can. In the streets we are never talking about anything but the work and what we can teach or what we could do to help out our investigators. So we still have yet to get to know each other better, but from these six days we've been together the ONLY difference we've found between ourselves is that she likes the smell of gasoline and I don't. 

OH YEAH, AND JUAN CARLOS GOT MARRIED!

Yes! This actually happened! It was one of my favorite moments to see them LITERALLY GLOWING from happiness. Last night we visited them and they said that they never thought there would be such a difference in how they felt actually being married. But now, after 10 years, they said that they have received a purer testimony of the spirit you can receive when living all of the commandments of Heavenly Father! We are so happy for them! Now he just needs to get baptized so he can start preparing to be sealed in the temple! 

I. LOVE. THIS. WORK!

December 5, 2015 Radio Waves and Freckles

Alo familybamily,

Tuesday night I was laying in my bed staring at the ceiling because there is a pattern in the wood that looks like a bird and then I felt something on my face, and pinched it and BAM! It was a flea! I had finally caught a flea!!!! I called down to my comp that was in downstairs in the bathroom to bring up some tape when she came up and decided to just pinch my hand like crazy to not let it go and decided to wait for Hna Laguna to come up. About 5 minutes passed and my hand was starting to cramp because I was pinching it so hard and my face itched. I scratched my face and PLOP my fingers broke open and SHPEW! Out of my fingers jumped the flea INTO MY EYE! And it was in my eye! Oh it was terrible. So after it was crawling around in my eyelid I finally got it in my grip again. ...after about 5 minutes. Then my comp came upstairs BUT WITHOUT THE TAPE! So I ran downstairs and got the tape and taped it and it crawled out of the tape before I sealed it in there good. And guess where it went. IN MY SHIRT. ooooooggggggghhhh. Yeah it was a complicated night. But whatever. I hate fleas. And I feel like that could have been solved a million times faster and more efficiently if I just had Split it with my fingernail or something...

Okay so moving on to better and more interesting things.

On Wednesday I woke up feeling terrible, apart from the battle loss to the flea.. I felt super sick and very unmotivated to exercise. Nevertheless I rolled out of bed, got dressed, and went downstairs. My comp was already sick and she asked me if I wanted to just stay inside and do exercises there in the house instead of running. I almost said yes just because I didn't want to put any effort into exercising. I knew that that morning, if we were to stay in the house, I would probably do some lazy sit-ups or something and that I wouldn't be putting in any effort into actually waking myself and exercising. I also felt this giant dooming temptation to crawl back into bed and I hated it. So I said let's go running. We both weren't very enthused.... at all in this decision. We don't usually say a prayer to start exercising...But this time we decided to say a prayer for help to feel awake and to be blessed for obedience. And then we left.

Our sector is super teeny I think. We live at the start of it and when we run in the mornings we touch a Wall at the very end of our sector and return and we do all of this in 30 minutes. So it's pretty small in comparison to others I think. Anyway we were a few blocks from the Wall we hit every day and we passed a lady in the Street that was in exercising clothes. In the mornings here, my comp and I are the only ones we see out and about exercising, but this day there was this lady.

And we just passed her. After a few seconds we Heard a distant Yell, ''Hacia donde van? which means Until where are you going? ...I don't know how you would say that. How far are you going? Something like that. So we turned around and invited her to run with us. OH! It was so much fun! Her name is Nancy and she's married and has 4 kids, 2 that are still living with her. And she is super fun and we've gone running with her every morning since and we have an appointment with her tonight in her house!

Anyway after that huge chunk of words.... It was a really neat blessing and divine occurrence of events to have ''run into'' Nancy in our run that we almost didn't do. And that's not even all of it! Nancy told us that for the past 6 months she had been telling herself that she wants to leave to go running in the morning, but just never brought up the will power to actually leave; that JUST that morning she said a little prayer for strength to leave and to be able to start a habit. And that was the first time she left in the morning to run! And now we know her and she knows us and even better we are all RUNNING BUDDIES! hahaha Isn't it remarkable the way Heavenly Father Works?!

Well we are super excited for later today.

This área of Francke is so immensely amazing. It's a small sector, but it is full of people truly humble of heart. I feel so privileged to work here. The people here in Francke are progressing a lot! All of us! The members, the missionaries, the investigators, and even the random citizens that we have yet to meet. We are all progressing! And we can feel it. Some are slower, some are fantastically quick to change, and there are many that are progressing without even knowing it. I really love the scripture in Ephesians 4:12-14 perfecting of the saints is a powerful ability that all of us have. It feels great. Many people lie in wait to receive more understanding. We all have this duty as witnesses of Christ to bring this gospel to the lives of others.

I cannot express to the fullest of what a difference it makes in the missionary work when the members work! Last week we had 16 lessons with members and other members were bringing us to their friends to teach and invite to activates and church and we were brothershipping the members with the people we had met and it all went around in a big eternal circle of happy success until we showed up to church on Sunday to find EIGHT investigators (including Paulo and Lydia in case you were wondering) ready to learn more. Every single one of these investigators came to church through the means of a member that picked them up, or stopped by their house, or called them!!!! OH it was so amazing!!!! We have four people right now with a baptismal date and I know there will be a lot more because the work of the Lord is coming forth in the faster easier way! You all have a huge and very enjoyable duty to help out the missionaries in your Ward and also help out your friends and neighbors to come and see the great joy the gospel offers to everyone.  

Take advantage of this great season! I love you all!  I know you are great missionaries, but just know that Heavenly Father expects more because D and C 18:10,15,16 :)

Summer is here. This week the heat really came in. And wooo!!!! A full year and a half has passed since I have really truly felt heat. It's marvelous and my freckles are coming back! I've missed those silly sporadic dots. It's a strange Christmas feeling though. I feel like jumping in a pool not drinking hot chocolate. Woah. Christmas is coming soon. That's strange. I keep thinking, darn it, but there has to be snow when it's Christmas! ...and then I remember that there was never snow in my life when it was Christmas....hhahahaha I'm just a confused California season-changed missionary.  :) It's SO HOT!

We will be having a zone conference with President Obeso two days before Christmas. I'm excited. Also this Friday we are having a misión wide conference with Elder Texeira de the seventy. He's from Portugal and his wife is from Sweden. He speaks Spanish and his wife does not. So on Monday, President asked me, ''Hermana Olson, you're Swedish right?'' And I said, ''Yes.''

'With a big mischievous smile on his face. ‘We need a translator for Elder Texeira's wife. You can translate for us right?'' 

(I knew I should have paid better attention to those Swedish lessons in that family reunion 10 years ago!!! ) I said ''I know how to say I'm tired, I'm full, good morning, and count to 6. It will be a very spiritual translation.''

He laughed a lot. He's full of corny jokes. And has a very corny sense of humor. It's great.  

Anyway, he said he was just joking because she speaks English, he just wanted to pull my leg. But then he explained that Elder Texeira's wife still doesn't speak Spanish. So he asked me to be the translator for the conference. Wow. Kind of nervous, but also still really excited for the conference!

Also I don't know why this came to my mind right now, but there is a batch of kids that run around in our neighborhood on their bikes or playing make believe villain games and they are always out and about. It's a group of about 8 8 to 10 year olds. Sometimes we give them candy.  A few of them made up some handshakes with us, one time we passed them after they had gotten into a big dogpile fight and one of the boys had a super bloody nose and the other boys were telling him to stuff leaves up his nose so that he would stop bleeding and they wouldn't get in trouble. haha Anyway that day I had just bought one of those little to-go tissue packets and I gave them all to him, so we are pretty tight. hahaha No anyway this group of little boys are super silly and cool, one day we'll have to get a picture with them all. They're goobers. BUT what I wanted to tell you was that today they were all out riding their bikes two on one and when we said hi to them they said,

Hola, TU MAMÁ!

Which I am assuming is the equivalent of ''Hi, YOUR MOM!'' And even though I hate the your mom joke things, it gave me a pretty big laugh. Apparently, that absurdity exists even here in the south of Chile among little cabritos. hahaha

Well, I love you all big time.

Keep righteous and stay grateful.

That's all I got for now, Love, 

Hermana Olson

November 28, 2015 Just To Tell Ya

I remember this phrase would always get on Mom's nerves. ''Hey, Mom, just tuh tell ya...'' because I was explicitly saying that there was no point in me saying what I was about to say to her besides just to let the words leave from my mouth and perhaps be heard by a nearby set of ears, which usually ended up being....Mom's. :) And well.....I've noticed time and time again that my entire life has been filled of long detailed sentences and stories that I end up sharing having the core purpose of just to tell ya.

And besides Mom saying here and there, ''WHY are you telling me this then?'' I have seen the exaggeration of this interesting aspect of my talkative brain as I sit down to write every Monday. My letters are so detailed and sometimes I don't even know if I am even making sense of the words leaving through my fingers being transmitted to the other side of the world and if maybe they have more meaning that just to tell ya.

So I want to try out at least for this week a letter with more caution on the thoughts. But not caution like my thoughts are dangerous.... just being less type everything that just comes to mind haha.

So family, Just to tell ya...I love my mission. I know you all know this, but I thought I'd just tell you all once again. And here is one of the 30 thousand reasons why.

Last week or so we met a couple that were just leaning up on their fence one fine sprummer day taking in the sun. We talked to them a little and they invited us in. Their names are Paulo y Lydia, and they have been married for 54 years. Lydia is practically blind and has been for maybe a year or so and as her sight was declining her oldest daughter passed away, thus not feeling confident to do much or leave the house, she stays inside and cries for her sad condition that life has given her.  Her husband is a jolly old man and very supportive, but it's obvious that he struggles in seeing his wife's suffering. The first day we met them, her entire body shook side to side as she wept and literally wailed for her pain. The second time we brought with us a priesthood holder that we had promised them beforehand and taught the restoration of the gospel of Jesús Christ and the priesthood, explaining that now men have the access to the powers of heaven. At the end of the lesson, Paulo, her husband, asked if we could give his wife a blessing with this power. So we did. We kept passing every day, but Lydia was having a hard time listening to us because she was so distraught she couldn't focus.

We asked her a question that ....maybe we should have asked the first time, ''Lydia, do you believe in God?''

We figured that she had because Paulo was so receptive and comprehended so quickly. But our assumption was proven incorrect when Lydia looked up to us and said, ''...um....no...'' We asked her if she had believed in God at one time in her life, and she said she hadn't ever thought much about God. We took a few steps back, guided her a few steps forward by explaining the nature of God, who He is, why He is, and what all of that had to do with her. The Spirit was gentle in these moments.

We taught her of prayer, what it means, how she can do it, and why it's important. Then she said her first prayer in her life. We invited them to pray together and they committed to do it.

A few days later we returned to see how it went. It was a very sunny and gloriously beautiful Osorno summer day. As we were approaching their house we saw just Lydia leaning against her fence and gazing to the dark world her eyes permitted her to see. As we came up to her, she turned her head and smiled! It was a very soft smile. We said hi and my companion asked her, ''Are you out here enjoying the sun?'' And she said, ''No, I can't see the sun. For the first time, I'm thinking about God, and it's almost as if I can see the sun again.'' 

We taught them another lesson and they testified of the good feelings that came from their prayers! Then they told us funny stories of her ''blind mess ups.'' Which was a giant and cheery change from her crying relentlessly of how she can't do anything in the house. There was a stark contrast of the Lydia that didn't understand the light the góspel brings and the Lydia that can see the light.

This couple is very precious and I love the progress they are making. They'll be coming to church tomorrow. 

Anyway there's a reason.

I'm almost out of time, but ....

Just tah tell ya.

Here in Chile the last Friday and Saturday of November, all of the TV channels unite in a telethon for 48 hours straight to raise money for the disabled people here in Chile. Everyone donates and people in the street do a lot of things to raise money or be able to do more donations. There was a lady here with an alpaca and cotton candy and people with old cars giving rides around the plaza and a man painted in platinum that looked like a statue and lots of other festival kind of things like a Zumbathon and Marathon lots of thons. It was neat to walk around and see fun festivities everywhere. 

The Francke Ward cooked sopaipillas and sold them around town. So we ran into them in the street and bought a docena from them and a little further down the street ran into one of the Castro family and they invited us to a secret picnic!!!

What a great invitation to take up just as it was our PDAY! So we climbed up the hill to the railroad tracks, walked down the railroad tracks for about 5 minutes and spent 10 minutes hacking, might I add, WITH A MACHETE (Hermana Crystina is a pack of secret bombdiggity) through wild BlackBerry bushes (snacks along the way). Then we strolled and jumped through the tall grass, hacked a little more through thorns, crawled under barbed wire and WOOOOSH.

We arrived at the greatest and most dreamy picnic spot in all the world. I sent undonejustice pictures for you to maybe understand a fraction of where we were. We climbed the hill, rolled down the hill (I have lots of bruises), climbed the tree, ate empanadas and queso sufles (basically Cheeto Puffs chile style), and took a little 10 minute nap, mooed at cows without tipping them, climbed the tree some more, picked flowers, drank juice, told stories, and awed. Lots of aweing because this place is a wonder.

 

And it's right down the way RIGHT where we walk every day!

Needless to say, today was probably my most treasured p-day memory. The family we went with is very special to us and the girls are great adventurers so it made for a great 4 hours of cloud hopping :)

Thank you for your letters! ...I guess I ended up just telling you all a lot of things and too many things...But I did read the letters! Thank you! I'm so glad you are having such a fun time as the ''small'' family of five. I love you all very much. Mom I am so glad you are having fun organizing and putting together your house. I love the walls with pictures. I love you Dad. Thank you for your update and wisdom and fun. And John and Daniel I hope you had fun surfing! Good work on the pies! Samuel send me a pic of that 500 piece puzzle. Seth I love you very much, enjoy the great outdoors. Jarom and Nichole I hope all went well with your great thanksgiving! And Sara and Jacob! Send me picks of your tropical honeymoon! I bet it was fun.

Ammon, I sure love hearing about your ccm enthusiasm. Keep up the learning and prepare yourself more! It's great!

That's all I'll just tell ya for now, I love you!

 

Hermana Olson

November 21, 2015 Ice Cream Makes the World Go Round

Today we left the house after noon. This entire week has been full of rain, so everyone was out and about in our little neighborhood enjoying the sun and riding around on their bikes and pushing their kids on the swings and all that great fun in the sun activities. It was pretty neat to just look around on our short little walk to the bus stop. But then we got on a bus with absolutely no one on it besides the driver. The majority of the time, the buses here are like a giant game of twister and the rest of the times it’s at least half full. But we got on and there wasn't a soul! That was strange. No one to talk to. When we got into centro, we saw five cars and nothing else. We got off the bus and started our walk to the plaza and there was absolutely NO ONE! Here we are on a gorgeous SUNNY, SATURDAY, SUMMER day and there was no one in sight. The shops were open with people in them, but there wasn't anyone entering because there wasn't any hubbub of people in the Street to enter the shops! And here in Osorno, especially on Saturdays, the streets are filled with people! It was so strange that Hermana Laguna said she was just waiting to find a mannequin in the street just to confirm that we were bound to be devoured by the ''I am Legend'' zombies. (It makes me smile that she has such a similar train of thought as me, because I totally understood what she meant). We felt like the world just stopped turning and we were walking in a sunlight zone.. I wanted to just sing ''Ollie Ollie OXEN FREE!! (I don't know what the real words are, but it's the phrase you say when you give up in the hide and go seek game).

AND THEN we saw a peculiar ice cream kiosk with lots of colors. So we bought ice cream. And swoosh! Six people showed up in a line behind us!

We got our ice cream, looked around and the streets were filled with people. FILLED! We are still kind of in shock. But we finished our ice cream cones on our way to the cyber and now we are here. So there's that.

Perhaps today was the annual hide-and-go-seek-in-the-center-of-Osorno and we just didn't get the memo.

Speaking of random stories, yesterday we were in centro again because a sister missionary needed new shoes that were better for her back and we were getting her back from her therapy and we passed this man in the street with a table full of jewelry. My companion stopped to look at the earrings, as I was standing there he was trying to talk me into buying earrings too, but I told him I don't have pierced ears. So he pulled out a ring that basically looks like a wedding ring and asked me to try it on so that he could sell it to me. I wasn't interested in buying anything from him because it was all super fancy looking and I don't like wearing super fancy stuff as a missionary, but I grabbed it to try it on to be nice. And right as I put it on my finger, he screamed and folded up his table super fast and just TOOK OFF, crossed the street and there we were just standing there with his jewelry in our hands!!! He was about a block away and we chased after him to give them back to him and found him hidden and shaking in a corner! haha ....it was super sketchy. When he saw us he waved his hands as crazily as Dad when he was on the phone with the robot person from the bank and we were making noises that made him have to start the phone call all over again. And he told us to just go just go! ''LOS CARABINEROS!'' or the police. And we were reaching out to him to give him the ring and the pair of earrings my companion had. But he just told us to go. He looked super scared and didn't want to take the ring back.

....So now I have a pretty fancy ring. I wonder if it has a curse or something. Maybe I am Frodo. I don't know what to do with it. It looks like I'm engaged. And if I wear it on the right hand everyone will think I'm engaged because that's what you do in Chile. I think I just won't wear it. But then I think it will be worse wearing it after my mission. Maybe it will just be my wedding ring. That would be easier. haha

 This week was great. The work is REALLY moving and it's exuberating! But really! Yesterday we had another Ward activity and FIFTEEN investigators came! It was fantastic.

I'm kind of completely out of time. But I'll have you know that I sincerely love you all. Tears always come to my eyes when I read your emails and not because I miss you or I'm home sick. I am truly just 101 percent grateful for this wonderful family. I am so glad Ammon is doing so well in Guatemala, John is so so smart in school, Daniel is busting it in soccer, Mom is sharing her delicious talents, Dad is enjoying his free time with the family, Jarom and Jacob are happily married, Seth is doing the great bigbrotherSeth things in Idaho, and Samuel is an excellent goalie with a great smile. Heavenly Father really loves his children. I hope you all cherish your family. I sure cherish you all. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, thank you for the reminder! haha

Have a splendid week! Go and make someone feel special!

With lots of love and gratitude,

Hermana Olson

P.S. EAT LOTS OF FOOD

November 14, 2015 Catching Up . . . I'm not a Multi-Basker

This calling as “the companion of the mission nurse” really is not the “typical” experience of what everyone said it would be or even that which I expected.  Supposedly, I would have always been traveling in the mission (which this mission is very extense) to accompany my companion to the doctor appointments of other missionaries and then the days that I would be in the sector, we would not be leaving until 6 if even that.  Well, I don’t really know how it all changed, but it definitely is NOT like that at all.  I know an eensy part of it is that there aren’t as many serious things happening in the mission, but even when there have been surgeries, my companion just calls the doctor and talks to him in 10 minutes, instead of traveling the whole 6 hours to that hospital haha.  Anyway, it’s been a great blessing because my biggest and most set goal I put with myself when I got on that plane to go to Mexico EXACTLY 10 MONTHS AGO was to not miss a single day of work even if I was sick.  And I had managed that in my mission even when I was throwing up (which actually usually conveniently fell on the P-days) and then I was changed to the companion of the nurse where those responsibilities are higher than the work because it’s a calling for the mission that my companion has.  I was nervous for the supposed possibility of missing a day of work, NEVERTHELESS (a million words later) Heavenly Father really takes care of things when He sees that you desire something.  And well, so we didn’t have hardly anything (double negative. . .sorry. Spanish does that to you and I don’t want to put the effort in to grammatically correct that even though I am writing an unreasonably long between-the-parenthesis explanation) too serious happen in the last cambio and as the new cambio began on the 4^th, we forgot to knock on wood and BAM! We went to the mission home to give a training of “health in the mission” to the new missionaries that arrived that day and while we were there, a situation occurred with a missionary that showed up from another part of the mission, and President asked us if she could be our companion for the next 15 days and so we took her home. . .and ok to keep it simple, lots of things happened in regards to her health and it all escalated very quickly and we ended up being in the hospital for the entire day almost and then the next day we were about to go to Peru but ended up just going to Santiago and back and then when we got back the whole Chile Osorno Mission world of missionaries were having problems and it felt as long as this run-on sentence.

However, in some small miraculous way, we didn’t miss a day in OUR sector—time? most definitely—but there wasn’t a day that we didn’t put in any less than 3 hours and we tried our best to do the most we could with the time we had.  We got back from Santiago with an hour to use before the Missionary Family Night with our ward!  So we went to Jonathan and Familia Rivera and brought them to the church JUST in time to start (our super fantastic ward mission leader prepared A LOT for this because thankfully we had planned the family night the night before the week flew into craziness.  Well, anyway, things have calmed down and I’m back to being the companion to the mission nurse, practically normal missionary.

Ok, so due to all of this, it has left a hole in my letters home and I apologize for that and the hole wasn’t just in the letters, but obviously affected Francke and there was a lot to pick up and bring back together to make up for the lost time.

Apart from all THAT, other news you missed out on from this last week, the mission did a fast on Nov 1 for the strike to end in the Registro Civil and that week it ended!  That was pretty neat.

Ok, well, moving on to now. This mission is amazing.  The surroundings are gorgeous.  The people are great.  I am speaking another language!  The pastries are absolutely delicious.  So many things remind me of my family and magnify my gratitude.  Everything is just fantastic and on top of EVERYTHING, I am bringing souls to Christ!  It’s so fantastic for me that I just want to bask in it all, and it has been very overwhelming for me to take it all in.

On Tuesday, we went right up to the outskirt edge of our sector to a less active sister named Leslie.  She lives right next to the forest and a nice gorgeous dirt trail that leads to her humble cabin.  When she answered the door she was very distant and said she didn’t want to accept us anymore because she has started to be very involved in another church.  We talked a lot and she finally let us in.  And we taught her and in some kind of happenstance she listened to us, but I felt very unprepared to help her out and felt completely unable to help her. I don’t know how, but she accepted another visit from us and it’s for today.  When I left, I was very frustrated with myself and my lack of focus on her.  I didn’t know what her need was.  As I thought about it later that night, I still hadn’t figured out what her need was because it was difficult and required effort.  Band I basically slapped myself when I realized that I wasn’t putting in the extra effort to think about Leslie and HER needs.  I’m a missionary!! WHAT ELSE WOULD I BE THINKING ABOUT?!

So with this in mind, we went to our zone meeting the next morning to determine a focus and vision of the month.  This time the zone leaders had prepared an activity.  They made us a soccer team, gave us positions as companionships and sent us down to the court in the cultural hall. (I thought we were going to really be playing and BOY was I excited, being that it isn’t allowed in the mission.)  Basically, we had no clue what was going on, and we were all in our positions and the zone leaders were going around to everyone explaining stuff. . .but they didn’t get to us!  And all of a sudden three was a camera in our face and 2 very excited elders asking us, “Hermanas! Who are you going to attack on this field of missionary work?!”  . . .What came out of my mouth?  “DESIRES TO EAT!”  And they said, “Alright, sounds great!” and laughed and went on to the rest of the missionaries, doing the same thing and they were all saying things like “Pride,” “Lack of creativity,” “The natural man,” and all those profound real enemies of missionary work.  Apparently, we were supposed to decide as a companionship what was our greatest enemy in our work and commit ourselves to the camera to attack it this month.

And we said FOOD. 
Yep, that’s our focus. 
We felt pretty crummy.  (Pun not intended. . . but it was. Hehe)

UNTIL WE DECIDED, “YAPO, LET’S DO THIS.” And we eliminated our unreasonable desires to eat.  Swoosh! Everything changed!  My spirit is aligned with my body, and I’m more susceptible to the counsel of the Spirit, who has plainly brought me to realize that I was NOT focused! First of all, just by the fact alone of “the desires to eat” being the answer, it is obvious the food occupied a lot of my focus. And secondly, I have realized that my entire mission I was too flabbergasted with this false responsibility to MULTI-BASK in all the basking-worthy aspects of the things in this mission.  THEREFORE, I was not focused on the principle purpose of me being in this amazing mission—“Faith, hope, charity, and love, with an eye SINGLE to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.”

“Remember (in Spanish version it says “have present”) faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence” And after all of this there is the promise: “Ask and ye shall receive. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

(That’s the end of the photographed pages that Annamarie sent, maybe not the end of the letter, but I didn’t get any more.)

October 25, 2015 I Climbed a Volcano and Flew

Dear Family,

This companionship of ours gets left out of the loop quite a bit (for example we were not notified of the Concepcion temple first shovel scoop broadcast until all of the missionaries and the mission president went last Saturday) and we found out kind of last minute-ish that our zone was going to Volcan Osorno today. So that's why you didn't get anything from me on Saturday. And welp we were able to go to Volcan Osorno anyway! It was supposedly supposed to be covered in snow and absolutely gorgeous, but it ended up being fog thick and black.

It was a blast nonetheless. We hiked to the top. Half of the zone got lost and we had to yell out to them in the mist. It was pretty awesome. We found them about an hour later.

On the way back down I decided to try out my super velocity speed powers with Hermana Laguna and I forgot that molten lava rock is my ultimate super power weakness and after I hit a fair speed of 130 miles per hour, the ground couldn't hold me anymore, and I flew. Which also means I came down at some point in the day (4.78 seconds to be exact). It was a glorious fall. I really went flying. And I didn't even bust my head open on a lava rock.

 

So there's that.

This week was fun. I learned a lot.

On Wednesday I went worked in a sector named Rahue Alto, and the house I stayed in was the very first house I stayed in here in Chile. It was pretty neat to relive a little of my mission's first impressions in a second impression. We also ate lunch with a sister from that ward and a dog ate at the table with us and cut his t-bone steak with a knife and a fork. Before that I saw a real life Bumblebee, and it was so fat.

Also we ran into a few bigger health problems in the mission and I had to do a lot of translating between my companion to the doctors in Santiago that are from the states, and the parents of a missionary and lots of English speaking people. It was an interesting week and my brain was hurting from mixed communication. haha

Today, I woke up on the floor with my tennis shoes on... I was very confused, but my companion told me that I got up at1:30 am and put on my tennis shoes. She said that when she asked me what I was doing, I said, ''What are YOU doing?! You have to get up! We need to run run run run RUNNNN!''

And then she told me I need to sleep because we still have 5 more hours of sleep. And I said, ''Whaaaaaaaaat???'' And then stared at my pillow and that's all she remembered because she went back to sleep. I didn't recall a bit of that haha But I guess the habit is instilled within me. Woop!

As always, there is so much to tell you about my experiences of this week, but I just spent a solid 2 hours driving along the Osorno countryside and I can't grasp one thought from another. This country is beautiful.

Congratulations Jacob and Sara! I'm happy for you.

Ammon, I can't wait for you.

Oh family....I don't know what to say.

I bet this week was awesome. I hope the next to come is great too! I am extremely excited for Ammon to start this adventure. It's way more than an adventure. Ammon, you'll understand what I mean when you get on that plane. And when you get off. And when you put on your tag. And then when you just get blown away by the greatness this missionary life.

I love you all more than using all the ink in a pen TIMES THIRTEEN!

Till next week with a better letter!

Hermana Olson

P.P.S. I just realized that next week I'll have a letter from Elder Olson too! Woah.

P.P.P.S. I just realized there isn't a plain old P.S.

P.S. I love you.

...darn it. Isn't that a movie?

October 17, 2015 It IS how it IS and the IS Keeps Going

This week we harvested and plowed more! It sure is a treasure being a missionary. You get front row seats of the purposes of God  bringing brought forth (ha....wow. I am 78% positive that ''bringing brought forth'' is not a grammatically existing group of words. But maybe you'll get the idea of what my Castellano influenced brain is sending English signals to say?) OH *BEING brought to pass!!! (There does that have more reason?) So yes. As a missionary you get the front row seats of God's purposes being brought to pass. And well, naturally, there is opposition in ALL things because, if not, ''wherefore, all things must have vanished away.'' And what is the opposition of the purposes of God? The purposes of the devil. God plans to bring about liberty and eternal life of man. The devil seeks to bring about captivity and DEATH. ''for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.'' Hence, the front row seats of the battle is a little better explained as the front line of defense. And as a missionary, you are called to be a defender of righteousness! And frankly, it’s a bittersweet experience-- super bitter, overtriumphingly sweet. And I'll tell you why. It's simple: Jesus Christ has overcome the world. 

We have a family we are teaching that have been investigating the church for 9 years. They lack the marriage part (just like basically everyone else in Chile). Out of these 9 years they have tried getting married twice. And it seems like they have experienced perfectly well the opposition part in the marriage thing. The first time they tried getting married, they chose 2 of their best friends to witness and the day before both of their friends died. Then a few years later they got up the courage to try to get married again with a couple they knew as the witnesses, but due to certain complications, this couple ended up divorcing a week before! And well after that, they figured it wasn't worth it to get married and continued investigating and pushing back the date to get married. Okay well I don't want to go into too much detail here, basically last Sunday, a miracle happened! We taught them a normal lesson, decided we wouldn't talk to them about marriage and after the prayer they just looked at each other and said, ''We need to get married.'' With a pause. They looked at us and one of them said, '' This week.'' 

WHAAAT??!!!

They had put a ''definitive'' date in December, but WOW now they just decided to do it NOW! And they felt so relieved! So she went into the Registro Civil a few days later to set the appointment only to find out that Registro Civil went on strike THAT DAY. And it's a nation-wide strike. So now they are just....waiting. 

And of course...the devil squeezed his way into the situation a little more. 

On Wednesday we went by to teach Sonia (she's getting baptized the 24th) in the house of this family because she is the mother of the wife. She doesn't live there, but she was there. Anyway, we taught the lesson everything was great and we went on with our day. A little later, it started to rain, and we realized we forgot our umbrellas in their house. 

We didn´t have to go back because we were on the other side of the sector, so we just went on with the day and returned back right before heading home. When we knocked on the door, it was opened to a very chaotic situation going on between Sonia and the family. I won't explain all of it, but they were arguing for a long time until my companion and I finally asked them to take a break. We talked to them about the importance of the Spirit in the home and the necessity of love and unity inside a family. They were very hotheaded and the only thing that came to my mind was one of Mom's old tricks. 

I asked them to all sit down and said, ''We are all going to sing I am a Child of God until we love each other again.'' 

They were reluctant, but their little 3 and 6 year old helped it move along. And just like little Annamarie used to, with my grumpy hot head face, they all mumbled the first verse.. and then warmed up (or a guess you could say cooled down) a bit on the 2nd verse and by the 3rd, we were all laughing pretty hard. Afterwards, we knelt in a circle and had a family prayer, then my companion and I grabbed the umbrella and left. 

Yesterday we met with that family again and they were all cheerful! They told us they can feel the Spirit in their home and it has been the best few days that they have been in the same house together! 

Heavenly Father knows his children and wants us to be happy especially in our families. Satan on the other hand delights in the contention in the home. And, obviously, Heavenly Father knows that and sees it fit to allow two missionaries get soaked in the rain because they ''inconveniently'' forgot their umbrella in order to help a family come together and stay together. 

''Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me, but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and by small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.'' Alma 37 6 y 7

The strike hasn't ended, but it will. Heavenly Father knows what is happening. They plan to be baptized the 31st. I'm so excited for them and for the difference the gospel is making in their family. 

Other things:

We went into centro this morning to find a woman named Yolanda we had contacted last P-day in her shop. But her shop was closed, so we decided to get a little bit of shopping done and come back. When we returned the shop was still closed. So we decided to just get on a bus and go back home. As I was stepping on the bus with my 350 pesos in hand ready to pass to the driver, out of the bus crowd and right towards us walks Yolanda! She recognized us so we just followed her off and walked with her up to her shop. All the while thinking, ''Wow! How neat that we found her just in time!'' We got to the shop and talked to her more only to be kindly rejected to share more of our message. So we walked back to the bus stop wondering why she was put in our path seemingly just in the nick of time only to not have any interest...

We got on another bus and started our way back home. About 5 minutes down the road we hit a bunch of random traffic. Little by little we inched forward until we saw the cause of the backup. A collection of ambulances were blocking half of the road because they were surrounding a bus that had driven off the road and run right into a giant tree, dividing the bus right down the middle! As we got closer my companion and I realized it was the exact bus we nearly boarded, the one Yolanda came off of. The one I STEPPED on! There were many people injured and I have never seen such an accident in person. We're both still in shock and all I can feel is true gratitude with the mysterious ways of God. 

And other things:

I stubbed my pinky toe a few days ago and when I got home at the end of the day my whole shoe was full of crusty dried blood! Apparently my eensy teensy toenail came off. FOR ONCE A STUBBED TOE DEMONSTRATES THE PAIN ONE FEELS INSIDE! 

Also I have officially forgotten how to pronounce my last name. I didn't realize until I noticed my companion correcting everyone including myself on the pronunciation of my last name. I just say yes to whatever pronunciation that people make because I don't know. BUT IT'S NOT EVEN A HARD NAME! 

So this is where it is right now ''OHLSONE'' But sometimes I wonder if it is ''ALLSUN'' or ''OHLSEN'' ???? To be frank, I can only solidly remember Dad's pronunciations of OLTZEN with a ''t'' ...but I don't think the rest of us said it that way, right? And I get embarrassed inside when people ask me how I say it and then I say it and then my companion says, ...but you said it was this way... 

FOR GOODNESS SAKE SOMEONE SEND ME A RECORDING OR SOMETHING! THIS ISN'T RIGHT. 

Last night Hermana Laguna got really scared all of a sudden, basically to the point of tears and asked if we could sing a hymn. ...and said of course, but asked her why? She was very hesitant but finally confessed that I look like an older version of the girl from ''the Exorcist'' and sometimes it freaks her out. And welp, she woke up this morning and said she had nightmares. 

GREAT. 

The other day Hermana Laguna asked me if I knew how to speak alien and I said NO. Why? She said I'm always singing a strange alien sounding song. And she imitated what she could remember from it and I almost died laughing. 

Apparently I sing that Finnish Gibberish song that you using in your nose and it's like Hainahnomehenunuooojainumanumanmahnainai that we sang in Carnegie Hall my senior year. I had no idea! But she brought it to my attention hahaha. After I told her what it was she laughed and now we both do it :) hahah

....maybe this didn’t help too well with the whole I'm a scary person to live with because of my face. hahaha 

Last week I got a call from the office saying that my suitcase that traveled by land arrived! I was rather surprised that it arrived on time and thought it was too good to be true. And well.. it was! haha The purple suitcase that arrived wasn’t my purple suitcase. So we had fun calling around the mission to see where it could be. It had gone north. So I think maybe some point soon I should be getting it. The office told me they never have problems with suitcases and every

problem of the matter just seems to magnetize to me. hahaha I told them not to worry, I probably just should plan on coming home with a carry on. ;) Wouldn't that be nice! 

Ooh! What DID work out though was the package!!!! I got the birthday package mom!!! Okay well it didn't get her on time, but it go here! And on Tuesday the 13th (here in Chile it's basically the same thing as Friday the 13th) and JUST in time for my 9monthiversarry! And WOW! Honestly, getting just letters was the greatest thing I could get in my package! Thank you so much family. Reading your silly and heartfelt letters really was special experience for this faraway missionary. I really felt like you were all here with me for a brief moment. I sure love you. AND MOM THANK YOU FOR THE SLIPPERS! hahah Normal Annamarie would have thought how random! But they were exactly what I was needing! I actually had plans to buy some today, because it is freezing to walk in bare feet! And whoosh just in time, I get them from my amazing mom. Thank you! 

Oh yeah so I completed 9 months in the mission on the 14th. How odd. Half of my mission is in the yesterday and the other half on its way. Sometimes I get scared for the end of things or the stress of being more than what you are now... I really imagined the half point of my missionary self...different. But I guess it is how it is and the is keeps going. That's so dreary sounding and probably has no sense to anyone outside the Annamarie mind, but life is in the present tense because this life is a gift ...a present. So yep. Here's to a marvelous 9 months MORE! 

And UM! WOW! Happy Wedding Jacob and Sara!!!!!!

Ooh how I wish I could be there! I sure am excited for you two! I hope everything goes fantastic! And Sara, welcome to the family. 

Nichole and I are thrilled to have another sister. You have no idea how long I have waited for sisters! .....okay well maybe like 20 years, but I look forward to the rest of eternity with you!!! I hope your special day is super! 

AMMON! I can't believe you are coming so close to THE TIME! Enjoy your family time. Obviously you’ll have plenty of it in a nice road trip to the wedding. I seriously cannot wait to be in the field with you. Too bad we won't be companions like we used to hope :) But we got the next best thing. 8 months of missionary life at the same time. I can't wait! 

OH HEY: So in the craziness that this week might be for all of you, I was thinking it would be fun to all have one scripture to ''meditizar'' (I don't know what the made up word was in English) for the next week to do together! Next week let me know what scripture you decide! 

And well... I am going to go. ... So much for more organized thoughts to make for a shorter email.... 

I love you all. And I love this Osorno world! 

Good luck with all the events and love each other because I love you all! 

Your trusty too-long-letter missionary,

Hermana Olson

So I was going to send pictures, but next week. The time has come to work.