January 25, 2016 The Usual Thing that Usually Happens Happened to Us!!!!

Bam shabang. Cambios came swerving around the corner a lot faster than you'd suspect, and I was already well, basically certain that I was going. Odd. Because a trainer is a trainer for two cambios so you can just relax when it comes to cambios, but long story short I was pretty certain I was a gonner. A few weeks ago I almost went to president to set things straight, but I didn't want to interfere with whatever the Lord is expecting of me. So I really didn't tell anyone about anything and decided I'd just take it to the Lord. And well, I'm terrible at asking things, but I wanted to ask that I stay in Francke to finish the training. ...but I didn’t know how to ask that, so on Wednesday night I tried the asking thing and asked for someone to spill water on my face on Thursday. And we went to Subway right before a worldwide missionary conference from the apostles and as I was sitting down an innocent Chilean citizen spilled water on my face! Imagine that! Well, it works. There you have it, Heavenly Father takes care of His business. So I asked for me to stay if it be His will. That's a curious thing there, His will. Because He really does know what's around the corner and exactly how it will all play out. Well, we got the call in the morning, and boy oh boy are there cambios! Literally every single companionship is changing and two sectors in the Osorno area are having a white wash (an entire companionship leaves and a new one comes in), 30 missionaries are going home on Wednesday and every. single. companionship. is changing! ...except for ours. (Oh and the assistants to the pres.)

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Looks like the cambios slammed on their brakes just in time for Hermana Gardner to cross the street. Oh what a fantastic cherry-on-the-top relief! I laugh now just because I don't think I changed anything, Heavenly Father already knew it was going to turn out this way, but I guess He wanted me to at least learn how to ask Him for things more clearly. Little by little I'm learning how to align my will with His but also being deliberate and not taking a lazy river inner tube float down His plan he has for me. We gotta work for it because you get so much more out of it! 

Okay as far as the week goes. Surprise surprise: THIS WEEK WAS EVEN BETTER THAN THE LAST! 

Bullet points go:

·  On Friday Claudio got baptized and his girlfriend Amparo miraculously got one of her daughters back home with her (long story with an amazing miracle). 

·  On Friday, Juan Carlos also got baptized

·  On Saturday, The ward went on an amazing paseo (outing?) to a camping park with lots of pools (cool mixture right? almost as cool as Ohanapecosh just without the brain freezing glacier water and avalanched giant trees to make forts of...) 

·  EVERYONE WENT. And when I mean everyone I mean every. single. active member of the ward, and many less actives AND almost every single one of our investigators too! They all left at 9:30 am which is quite a Chilean miracle if you ask me because to go to a paseo they can show up on time, but to church it`s as if they all had a heart attack and just couldn't make it on time! bahaha anyway they all left cheery happy and shabam we passed by Claudio later at his carrito to see he wasn't at the paseo!!! So we called up another investigator that wasn't going to go in the big bus and go separate with her family in her car (not very many people have their own cars here) and she and her husband (investigators) decided to take Claudio and his family on over!!!! When we got to their house, Claudio was introducing himself with all the good pride in his heart saying that he was just baptized the day before and that they should highly consider it because it feels great! haha It was pretty neat and the family told us that they had a great conversation on the half an hour ride over. 

·  Needless to say everyone had a blast and the fair skinned Chileans got sunburnt. They call it allergy to the sun. I guess it's not all that common to get sunburnt because they were all freaking out. Well, I gave them the special ''California girl'' tip of using the aloe vera plants that all of them have in their gardens for the sun burns! hahahaha And well, they had a great FULL day of fun. They left at 9:30 am and didn't get back until 8:00! 

·  Well, it was pretty strange to stay in this little square of a town without all our buddies to visit, but we are missionaries so we just made like Jack and hit the road with street contacting! Boy oh boy did we find some great people!
Ok...no time, but one of my favorites was a woman who answered her door with absolutely no interest to hear what we had to say. I usually don't like to beg for the people to listen to us, but we asked if we could at least give her a picture of Jesus. It was of Jesus appearing to Mary after his resurrection. She grabbed it and looked down at it, and did a very solemn double take. She stared for a few moments and then began to silently cry. We waited for a while and then she said, ''I had a dream last night with this picture. This exact picture. You were sent from God.'' Well, she suddenly became very receptive and she was rejecting us because her heart was needy and a little bit hardened. I'm glad a little card had sufficient power to soften her heart! Her name is Irén.

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Okay so those are the extra bullet points that you will need to multiply by forty three million sixty seven thousand and eight times to remind me what other amazing stuff you weren't able to read this week. Maybe one day I'll write it all out. For now the time beats me. 

Boy oh boy am I excited for this week and the more things to share with you. 

I guess I'd just like to finish with a spiritual thought:

The Book of Mormon.

Yeah, there you go. Read it. That right there is the pure dew from heaven. I LOVE IT! 

Okay fam, I love you. The time will never permit me to do all I want. So just enjoy the little I write! Love you all!

Hermana Olson

This is a picture someone took of us reading our emails.

January 18, 2016 And Then My Brain Went Splat

Hey family! This letter was going to be super d duper longity long long in my brief attempt of telling you literally every juicy detail of probably every single moment and thought that can pass through my brain in every day of this great week here in Chile Chile lindo. And well on the bus I was trying to rewind to the beginning of the week and HOLY COW, I can't believe that this was but a week! Because, here's news to you: a lot has happened. 

So getting off the bus my velcro shoe strap got stuck in the metal fold of the bus stair and I face planted off the bus. And well, after a good laugh I realized that whatever was passing through my brain to write kind of just splatted on that corner and stayed there. 

So I am literally just drawing a big flat splatted blank for this letter. 

Wow. 

uuuuuuhhhhhhhh.... 

Okay well I'll just get down to it. 

That family that I told you about last week is soaring in their progress. I honestly cannot believe that it has hardly passed one week since we met them.... We've seen them every day and they are the epitome of a family that was prepared by the Lord. They accepted to be baptized on the 31st of this month! And they are basically eating the Book of Mormon. Every time we go over, they show us some verses of their daily scripture study that they have marked. A few days into visiting them, the wife said, "Would you be able to give me a separate Book of Mormon because every time I go to pick it up to read it, HE'S reading it! And he reads way faster and so I don't want him to spoil it!" hahahaha So we gave her one and then their daughter that is 11 asked us for her own as well because she wants to get ready to serve her own mission. 

This family is unbelievable. But I believe it because I get front row seats of it every day. When we first started teaching them, the dad, Ademir, was a little taken off because he just hadn't heard of any of this before. Then he prayed and meditated and he is more excited than ever because he knows it's true and feels like he's made the greatest discovery of his entire life. Carola and their daughter, Belèn are right there with him. They love this gospel. 

You'd think that they just never had the chance to receive the missionaries before, but this week, Carola told us something super interesting. She said that out of all the churches the one she rejected the absolute most was us! 

She told us in a lot of frustration because she wish she had found it before, but it was her own decision to avoid it all. 

Well, then after a sudden realization she said, ''It was because Satan didn't want me to know the truth! But here I am!'' 

They asked about the temples and what sealing means one day when we showed up, and so we took advantage of the situation and taught them about eternal marriage to find out they aren't married, not a surprise. So we very simply taught the law of Chastity and challenged them to get married. They said, the only thing that holds us back from deciding to do it is having our own house. We want to be more stable and I want to be able to give her more for the married life. They said they had been waiting for 12 years for a house. 

We shared 3 Nefi 13:31 a 35 with them and promised them that if they search the kingdom of God first, Heavenly Father would bless them with a house. They said, ''Yes, we need to keep this commandment of God. We will do it.'' An hour later, they called us and said after 12 years of waiting the house was granted to them. WHAT?! 

Anyway, this family has faith, enthusiasm, and love for the Lord and this gospel. I could go on forever now. But I won't. :)

This week was super successful. We now have 7 investigators getting ready to be baptized and Juan Carlos had a miracle happen this week too! And he's getting baptized on Friday along with Claudio! We are working with the members a ton and the work is progressing so rapidly! We decided to meet with the bishop this week and he gave us 16 references. It's great. 

I am still drawing blanks because I don't know how to explain everything that is happening here! I love my comp. 

Love,

Hermana Olson

okay woopdeedoo. Looks like my camera card went splat too. 

I don't think I'll be sending pics home for the rest of my mission, family. Sorry! I just don't like the viruses. 

January 11, 2016 Go to him, bring them home

This week Claudia was baptized! Part of me feels like I haven't mentioned her before, which is a pity because she is a treasure! And her family is amazing. 

Hermana Laguna and I started teaching her about 2 months ago because she had showed up to church with her 10-year-old daughter saying her daughter wanted to be baptized. Pretty handy, I'll say. Her older children, Luis and Yesenia, had been baptized in another ward 10 years ago, but after a few years they all sort of slipped away. She hadn't been baptized because she wasn't married and her man didn't want to get married. Well, to keep the story shorter, two years ago she separated from him so she could get baptized and they moved to Francke in a house in the backyard of a house (never to be found!) Nevertheless, the Lord knows his children and takes care of them pretty darn well, so after two years of never having the courage to go to church in a new ward, her 10-yea-rold daughter had a random desire to be baptized, thus giving Claudia the courage, now having someone to accompany her. 

So she showed up to church, we visited her the next day and Clyda was already bored with church stuff, but Claudia was found! 

She came a long way and now (to keep the story still shorter) her whole family has returned, and we are teaching her mom and Yesenia`s boyfriend!!!! 

It was a glorious day and the ward has really done a fantastic job of taking care of her. The bishop invited her family to a family night in his house tonight and yesterday, Claudia asked if she could go with us to teach our other investigator, Nancy, who was sitting next to her in the Principles of the Gospel class! Woo! 

Ok so that's a teensy bit of Claudia. 

Friday was supposed to be the baptism of Claudio too. Unfortunately, we got a call an hour before from a very exasperated Claudio saying NO. The owner of his carrito that he sells salchipapas and completos was supposed to come by the same hour of his baptism to basically end it all. End his job. Which meant he would be leaving Francke the next day for Entre Lagos (an hour away) and try to find a job there and live there.... So he just mentally wasn't comfortable with the idea of being baptized. We talked to him on the phone for a while and his no turned into I'll think about it and call you later. Well, half an hour passed and we were thrown off big time so we prayed. 

The words that clearly came to our minds were, ''Go to him, bring them home.'' 

We thought for a while on what it could mean, but then realized there wasn't any time to just think because we had 30 minutes left before the baptism! So we ran over to his carrito thinking, perhaps we are supposed to bring him and his wife to the church? But we didn't know so we just kind of went like Nefi, knowing not beforehand what we should do. 

We showed up, talked to him, and really could feel that that day really wasn't supposed to be his baptism. Then we drew a blank after getting that settled... So we came. What else are we supposed to do! Then a family showed up and interrupted us asking for some salchipapas. They sat down and my comp and I were still a little shaken up, and then a random member from another ward showed up asking for a pamphlet on the Plan of Salvation for his friend. We gave it to him and then began talking to the family because Claudio was inside his carrito working. In a few short minutes we shared about the plan that Heavenly Father has for their family. We put an appointment for Tuesday and they told us more or less where they live. Then realizing we had less than 15 minutes before the baptism we tried to get up. I wanted to leave them a folleto for the plan of salvation to give them some sort of commitment, but that man had oddly robbed us of our ONLY lesson 2 pamphlet! hahaha How’s that? So then I got the impression to invite them to the baptism, but felt strange about it, it being so short notice, until my awesome comp beat me to it and they VERY excitingly said yes! 

Okay, this family surely ate their salchipapas like pigs because 15 minutes later, they were there! And they loved it. The next day we left a card on their doorstep (guessing the house from the description they gave because it didn't have a number) explaining our purpose as missionaries and leaving the folleto for them to read before Tuesday. We didn't want to be too pushy, but we left the note with hope because there was something special about that family! Sunday, we passed by running because we had taken the wrong way to a cita (appointment) and were 10 minutes late. Then we heard, ''HEY!'' And out from the house came running, Carola (the mom). We ran back and they invited us in. We were having a bit of small talk and then somehow began talking about the Atonement and how it helps us all in our personal challenges. Her husband, Adimir, gave her a big hug and said, my wife was full of pain today. We got your note and realized we needed you sooner than Tuesday. We just said a prayer and looked out the window as you two ran past. 

Wow. 

We were late to the planned cita, but somehow Heavenly Father even diverted our course to put them in our path. They are coming to a family home evening tonight in the house of one of their daughter's friends, consider that! 

What a blessing it is to be used in the Lord's hands so precisely. I would usually say I can't believe it, but I can. I can believe it because I know that Heavenly Father knows his children and is a loving Heavenly Father with servants here on the earth that he gives us the privilege of experiencing such joy, such love, and just such a simple solution to living a better life, one that gets better even into the eternities. 

So I guess that's what the Spirit was trying to say when it told us to go to Claudio and bring that family home. 

Oh! And yesterday we passed by the carrito and saw that Claudio's carrito was open... He approached us with a broken heart and said God had given him a second chance with his job! ...however he had broken the Sabbath and absolutely no one had bought a single completo. He said, I will never work on Sunday again. When can I be baptized? 

The timing of the Lord is perfect, we should always look to what He has in plans because they are, in fact, for our benefit. 

Last Monday we went to Subway with our investigator Patricia and had a spontaneous trip to a park. We were afraid about talking too much about other things not related to the gospel, but instead we realized that she really recognizes the purpose of the missionaries and told us about how she has been repenting every day and says that although she has seen so many types of psychologists to help bring peace to her, there was no peace more surreal than that she found by applying the things we teach her and going to church with her husband and daughter. Later in the week she said the first day we showed up was divinely organized by God because that day she and her husband had been considering separating. She said we saved their marriage. And we kindly told her, the Lord saved their relationship because he needed them to be married. 

Okay so there have been very many prepared people sprouting up out of the blue and it's absolutely worth marveling because I have never felt so full of joy. Here in Francke, the dandelions all just bloomed at the same moment it appears because they are everywhere! I guess they have some kind of power or something because the same is happening with so many people! 

I think the tender moment of the week would be yesterday in Sacrament Meeting sitting next to our investigator Nancy. She's almost deaf, but has read more than half of the Book of Mormon. She loves coming to church, but also gets a little disanimated because she can't converse very effectively with all the ''super loving people'' and so going to church is a little overwhelming. Also she isn't baptized yet because she is terrified of water. Anyway after the sacrament, I just wrote on a mini sticky note, ''Hermana Nancy, we love you very much!'' and passed it to her. When she read it the sweetest smile came upon her face and she looked at me and then showed it to her nephew sitting next to her. After looking at it a little more, she got very solemn and unzipped her jacket and stuck it on her shirt right over her heart. A few moments later, she pointed to her eyes to show me she was crying. I love Tìa Nancy. She is so loved by the ward as well! To have made her feel so special from something so tiny, made me realize the promise that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass! 

OH! And well I'm out of time, but I just have to tell you! On Thursday President called us and said he and his wife wanted to accompany us to whatever cita we had! It was Patricia! ...but she had to go to work. All of our investigators were unavailable and then we decided to take him to an inactive family that held lots of grudges from the ward. ....and the bishop very accidentally had forgotten to give the wife a health blessing the day before. Anyway we showed up, knowing they hated us coming with members, but they received us and they, not knowing who the Obesos were said, first thing, ''You are sent from God. I need a blessing, I cannot walk.'' Before giving the blessing they were very direct and simply taught that they need to go to the temple, her husband should be holding the priesthood to be able to give the blessing and their daughter should serve a mission and her boyfriend (recent convert) should too and that his mom (that was present) should receive the missionaries. And then he gave a blessing to them all. And well, they all came to church, the mom was literally healed and they have a conviction in themselves. You can just note by seeing them. It was amazing. The spirit the president and his wife brought to teach literally changed those two families' eternities. Yesterday we taught them how to make banana bread. haha So that's fun! 

The Lord really is blessing us with our work and like the scriptures say, it is precisely in the occasion that the Lord blesses his people, they harden their hearts and forget their Lord. Well, it's a very easy cycle to fall into, but seeing so plainly the Lord's doing in literally all that we do, it would be pretty foolish to forget him. 

AH! I love being a missionary! I gotta go. I love you all! Hermana Olson

January 4, 2016 New Year. . .New Me! (Not so original that one.)

Wow what a week! 

We started the year with sleeeeeeep. Or at least that was our intention! On New Year’s Eve we had to be in the house by9:30 so we got everything done for the night and got in bed by 10:30!!!! A whole half hour extra of sleep! ...until our District Leader called us at 10:42 and I let out an involuntary sort of wail. I was in-between that sleep and wake so it startled me pretty bad haha

Then right at the stroke of 12, fireworks went off. I, in this same mid sleep and wake trance, sat up and moved the curtain, half realizing they were fireworks thought, WOW! 

...Apparently I thought out loud because yesterday my comp told me I did another one of those wails and said WOOOOOOW! hahaha Anyway, I watched 20 minutes full of fireworks while IN MY BED. It was pretty neat. 

I guess my first words for year 2016 were a good start. 

I can't believe we are only 4 days into the New Year. This week I feel like have transformed drastically. Tomorrow will mark 3 weeks that Hna Gardner has been here! The other night, we were getting into bed after our personal prayers and at the same time said, '''Do you know what?'' 

After laughing and saying oh, you first. No you first (haha mom remember After you and Me first at the drinking fountain? Can't get that out of my head!) 

I told her, while I was praying I was thinking about who I was just a few weeks ago and I can't believe the difference. She was going to say the same thing! hahaha 

So apparently, when we asked, ''Do you know what?'' We did know what. Needless to say, we have learned a lot together and are truly united. 

THUS, the work continues just ABSOLUTELY MARVELOUS! 

Hermana Gardner really heightens the sky of expectations and our limits are literally just our righteous bedtimes, nothing else. She has such pure faith that we can do everything the Lord expects of us. There was no coincidence in the timing of the success her first week--she has nothing to compare it to and so her goals are high and her efforts constant. She's amazing. She gets frustrated here and there with the language, but she knows how to follow the Spirit and therefore, an excellent teacher. 

We truly love each other and we LOVE this work! It's become a passion. And we are trying to contage as many members as we can! The time has passed exceedingly fast, but we feel like we've been working here together for WAY more than 3 weeks. I love it. Things are happening. 

This week we focused on listening to the Spirit, which actually guided us in everything! Most of the decisions we made weren't confirmed until after we had acted. One of the interesting ones I guess I'll share because I've never had one like it before. WE were buying salchipapas from our investigator Claudio and a man we had contacted 2 months ago showed up. Ariel. He looked super troubled. I said, “Hi Ariel! How are you?”

“...good. I'm good.” And then he turned away. We were there to teach Claudio so I was trying to finish up talking to him so we could get talking to Claudio. So I said, “that's good. How was your Christmas?” And he said, “I was alone. I have no one. I just went to bed at 10.” I felt bad but was trying to finish up... And then he began saying “I'm tired. I'm tired of it all. I just want to end all of this. Yesterday I almost killed myself, I just don't know how to do it.” Then, I felt a sudden urgency and I don't remember what it was that I said to him, but Claudio handed me a Book of Mormon and I explained it to him in a very personal applying way, it was very special. He began to cry and said, “Would you let me borrow this book?” And we said, “No it's yours to keep.”
We set a time to come teach him that same day, as he asked and he walked away with his completo in one hand, the BOM in the other. Later that day we stopped by the house and an idea popped into my head to take our banana bread loaf over to him. The hour came and he didn't answer his phone. But some miraculous way I found his house from the first time we contacted him (he lives behind a house in a shack from the owners.) He wasn't home so we asked the owners to give it to him and they thanked us. 

Later that day we found him in the street. We were already on our way home and he apologized for not being at the cita, but with tears in his eyes he said, “Do I matter to anyone?” He explained that he has no family at all. He is basically dying from stomach cancer and just right after he had talked to us, the owners gave him a month to leave. He said he read a bit of the Book of Mormon and didn't understand it but felt good. We said, “Yes, you matter to us because you matter to God.” 

Then he said, ''I had no more food and no more funds. I didn't know if I really was going to try to get around to sticking through today. But your bread showed up just in time. ...thankyou. Maybe I'm important to someone.'' 

We had to leave and we said, ''Ariel, you are important to God.'' Ariel is great. I had never felt so much love for someone I didn't know at all. Heavenly Father truly loves his children! And it's amazing to sometimes be so directly his hands that provide so much fisicamente tanto como espiritual. 

This week was great! The one that comes will be even better! The mission is better every moment! Gotta go! Love you all! 

Happy New Year's second week! 

LOVE,

Hermana Olson

December 28, 2015 Becoming, and How the Grinch didn't Steal Christmas!

Buenas Tardes Familia!!! 

Okay first of all I'll just say that skype was fun and interesting! Definitely not what I was expecting...but now that I think about it, I didn't even make any expectations. So! That just smoothly leads me right into my next point. 

This week was better than the last! And that is pretty hard to believe because last week was what I had thought was the best week of the entire mission. Well, Hermana Gardner sure liked how we started out for her first days in the mission and now she doesn’t have anything else to compare it to, which means she doesn't settle for anything less than our effort and our success we got her first week. And it is SO AMAZING. I absolutely love her drive she has! We worked harder than we did last week and reaped even greater fruits. We decided to make a better plan to increase the church attendance of not just the investigators but of members too (thanks for the consejo Dad!). And this week was absolutely perfect for our plan because it was the Primary Program (so much cuter in a small Chilean ward!). So many people came! Our attendance grew by 20 people and 6 investigators came again (still haven't met our ward goal of 10, but we'll get it this week!). It was a great week. And I don't say that about very many weeks. But in this mission I'm pretty sure I've said it 45 times. (Whoa...That's actually pretty possible because I'm coming up on a year here soon!) 

We are dying of tiredness. I'm more tired than I was when I got to Punta Arenas where the excessive cantity (is that a word?) of Oxygen literally poisons you of tired bloatedness and you can hardly keep your eyes open for a week (especially when you eat 37 pounds of pig fat filled hash browns for lunch), except there you have the ripping wind to keep you awake or at least up in the air....almost literally :) 

Ok. Point is we are SO tired! We can't figure it out because we can't even leave until noon because we have more study time for the training schedule and so it's not like we are out in the sun more or anything, but we are really putting in our all! I think I've said that a lot of times on my mission too, but this week my understanding has expanded EVEN MORE on the concept of ''giving your all.''

But we aren't suffering. Al contrario in fact (aydirdirntevernneraywuzsteryingder! (Ignore that (unless you are Samuel (Samuel will get it)))! I have never felt more energy for the work and everything! And everything is the work! That's the truth! That's what it is! This past week my body has woken up at 6:45 every day just naturally, 15 minutes before the alarm--how frustrating! I would just sit there trying to get back 15 minutes of juicy sleep, but it never worked. Today, I told Hermana Gardner and she said it's been happening with her too! Hahaha so we both have been laying there for 15 minutes in silence this entire week. We decided that we are just going to get up from here on out. It's pretty handy having a personal alarm clock. Now instead of seeing it as a frustrating defect, we are kind of excited about this newfound super power we both discovered in ourselves! Haha (just ANOTHER similarity)

This week we have been focusing a lot on becoming. The gospel always teaches that there are only two ways of becoming: deliberately and accidentally. After looking more into this principle and then more into the depths of my soul (muhuahua), I realized that for the most part of my life and even in my mission, I have been one that seems to go with the flow and see whatever life makes of me. I'm easily content with what comes and try to make the best of it, but I wonder what the difference would have been if I had deliberately made the effort to become whatever it was that I never really envisioned! 

Well just in time to realize all of that! Strolling around the corner is the New Year! Lo cual half I'll be in my mission and the other half....home! Wow! What an opportunity to take advantage of! So here's to resolutions, expectations, visions, efforts, becoming!!! 

I'm excited. I'm always excited, but now I'm DELIBERATELY excited :) 

Okay. I'm out of time. I guess I could tell you more about Christmas another opportunity perhaps in the Spirit world since there will be time to wait and we all know how long my stories (still) are. :) 

I love you! Oh! So Claudio had a great trial this last week with his business and he's about to lose everything, but we had great lessons with him and he showed so much faith! And he's still in the meat of it all until Wednesday! I know that Heavenly Father is going to take care of it all. He's so prepared for baptism and so excited even though he's really on the teeter part of the totter. Keep him in your prayers. Miracles happen. 

I love this gospel. It changes lives because the whole plan that Heavenly Father has for us was laid before our lives even began. I'm trying to align my will with that of my Father Heaven and it's the happy way to live even when the life part gets tough, I can know I'm on the right point in the grand scheme of things. Woo! What hope! 

I love you all! Merry Christmas! 

Love, 

Hermana Olson

Christmas Eve we ate PORKRIBS! That was a great and fabulous time. 

The dog named Toby. 

                                                                                And the weather on that ''wintry'' Christmas day.