Lincoln #18

Hey everyone! My mission is finishing up this week and I head home on Thursday! I can't believe it's already here and I'm just beyond grateful for the chance that I've had to be a missionary. It's sad that it's over but I'm excited for the next chapter of life! 

So i don't know how i forgot to mention it last week but Jenna got baptized! It was a really good day and she has been doing awesome since! 

Anyways here's some other highlights from this last week:

We found a bunch of really cool people this week! One of them is named Briana and she is going to get baptized on the 25th! 

We had exchanges and I got to go to the Spanish area! We had a really fun day and found somebody else who wants to get baptized! It was a super good example to me of how if we press on and endure to the end, then we will be richly blessed!

A couple weeks ago this guy tried bashing with us. A basher is somebody who tries to prove their religious point by being aggressive and using scriptures out of context. Anyways we were meeting with someone from a different church named Alex who is very set in his ways, but was open to hearing more. And while we were going there we ran into the first basher! I tried to tell him that we didn't have time, but Alex and him started talking and then they both started bashing each other. It was crazy and one guy was talking about how God already came back and it was just wild. Me and my comp were just looking at each other trying to figure out what to do but it was pretty funny!

We set our friend Sang on date for baptism this week too! He is in Vietnam right now but will be coming back to Lincoln here soon!

Our ward mission leader got us ice cream. 

Our friend T got us free Indian food. 

I got to do a baptismal interview in Spanish!

Another member got us ice cream.

We saw lots of miracles.

I won the Kahoot at FHE. 

God is good and as I was thinking over the last couple years, I realized that the only way that I have been able to get through them is by the constant support that God has given me. Missionary work is hard. Talking to strangers is hard. Working all day is hard. 

But God expects us to do hard things, because it is only though the hard things that we can grow. God asked Nephi to get the plates and then showed him that he could only do it God's way. God asked Moses to free the children of Israel and gave him power to do it. And God asked me to serve a mission and helped me in every moment. He has called me, sustained me, forgiven me, and strengthened me. I will forever be in his debt. I don't regret serving a mission for a second. If any of you are wondering if God knows you, he does. Just pray to Him and ask for His help and he will be there!

I could go on forever about the last two years, but if you want to hear more, I'll be sharing some of my experiences this Sunday! Hit me up for the details!

See you all soon! 

- Elder Olsen

Lincoln YSA #17

Tuesday this week we went up to Omaha and I got to go on exchanges with Elder Powell! We were comps back in the fall, and it was a fun day! We were out in the rain most of the day just talking to people and we didn't have much success but it was a good time! We also had our 700th day as a missionary on Tuesday do that was crazy as well!

Wednesday we had a lesson with this guy named Junior! We met him about a month ago, but this was the first lesson we were able to have with him. He told us that there's been a ton going on bit he wants to start coming to church and changing his life! It was a pretty cool miracle and we are super excited to start working with him!

Thursday we had a sweet lesson with this guy named Sean. He was super cool and was talking about how he needs to get back into everything. He definitely felt the spirit so it was a super cool experience!

So anyways I don't usually like to tell people when it's a little tougher, but this week my eye has had some sort of infection or something. I have eyedrops and everything to take care of it, but it's been an adventure trying to do everything as usual. But the only reason I bring that up is that it has helped me understand the Atonement better. Jesus is sometimes called the healer, and the reason that he wants us to follow him is so that we don't have to hurt. By following the doctor and using the eye drops every day, I can avoid a lot of pain. By following Jesus Christ's commandments and repenting, we can avoid so much spiritual pain and live a happier life. We just need to repent and follow Christ. So the reason he wants us to follow him isn't to help him, it's to help us! Anyways follow Jesus Christ everyone and have a great week!

Lincoln YSA #16

Hey guys! This week was crazy busy, just one of those weeks that feels like there's no way it's just been one week since I wrote.

We ended up running into no less than 4 people who just wanted to try to prove us wrong. They just wanted to tear us and our faith down but God won't let that happen! It's kind of crazy to me that people would go so far to try to stop God's work from progressing, but in the words of Joseph Smith, "persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent..." Anyways because the Book of Mormon is true, there is nothing that's going to disprove it.

We had a couple really cool lessons though! One of them was with Jenna! She is so set for baptism this week and it's really exciting. We went over all of her concerns and she has come to church the last couple weeks and is just so excited. We also met with a guy named Chengen. He claims to be atheist, but we think that he's looking for something. He ended up coming to church and we taught him the plan of salvation and it was really good. 

Something else we've been trying to do is help members make lists of all of the nonmembers they know that they would want to join the church one day. Then we pray about those lists and try to receive revelation about who we should reach out to and how. It's been really cool with them, but Elder Wright and I have been doing it as well with people from home and it's been really cool! We don't have to try to do everything always to be a good member missionary. We just need to do what God would have us do and he will help us see what to do! 

Also we had zone conference and it was really really good! We talked about a lot of great things and the mission is heading in a really good direction. I gave my departing testimony which is absolutely crazy, but I think it went pretty well! 

Other highlights include getting invited to a graduation party, Elder Wright getting poison ivy, playing frisbee with the ward, and having a couple of hilarious lessons. 

Anyways it was a good week! This week I read about how the Nephites prepared their cities for the time when they would be attacked and it made me think whether I'm preparing myself for when the adversary attacks. I think it's something really important to think about. When we study the scriptures are we preparing or are we just killing time. When we go to church are we preparing or are we not paying attention. I invite you guys to ask yourself how well you are preparing and then be a little more intentional about it this next week! I can promise that God will help you.

Have a fabulous week!

-Elder Olsen

Lincoln YSA #15

Hey guys! I hope you all were able to watch the devotional from President and Sister Nelson yesterday! It was amazing and I learned so much. If you didn't get to watch it, I would highly recommend!

Anyways with that being said, it was a pretty good week! 

We met with our friend Jenna a couple times and she is doing really really well! She will be getting baptized on the 27th of May and we are super excited for her. She has overcome so many challenges with the word of wisdom and with other things that have been going on, but keeps pressing forward with faith. After church she told us that the spirit was so strong and that she knew that this was the right way to go. She also watched the devotional with the prophet and loved it! It has been awesome to see her faith grow.

So besides her we have had a lot of people moving out because of school getting out. This week most of our high potential people moved to other states or cities in Nebraska for the summer. But hopefully the missionaries over there can keep working with them and helping them to progress! So we've been trying hard to help everyone else start progressing a little bit more. One of those people's name is T! He came to church this week and he says that he wants to keep learning and maybe be baptized, but he's not quite sure yet. His main holdup is that he's super superstitious and feels like there's a lot of bad trying to control him. Some of the lights in our church building kind of flicker a little bit sometimes and that just freaked him out until we just told him it's a normal thing. So we are trying to help him with that as well, but he's awesome!

We also met with this guy named Daniel and  other missionaries gave him off to us because they thought he was YSA, but he's almost 40. Anyways he kept talking our ears off and giving us this terrible advice. Like one of the things he said was that he used to talk to people a lot more, and then he realized it's a waste of time so now he just stays home and watches movies and feels like it's way better. Just stuff like that and he kept talking so that was a fun one. 

Anyways we also have been working with this lady named Vianka that was found on facebook and she is willing to learn, but just a little hesitant because she doesn't know how her family would feel about it, so if you could all pray for her that would be awesome!

So this week I had my last interview with my Mission President, President Bailey. He is a really wise man and I've learned so much from him. It was a really powerful experience, and I thought I'd share one of the things that he told me. He showed me 1 Nephi 15:24, and the last part of it says, "and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction."

If we hold fast to the word of God we will never falter or fail. We won't have to worry about Satan's darts that he's going to throw at us. We just need to follow Christ as closely as we can and when we get off course, get right back on. And so I challenge you all to read from the Book of Mormon every day this next week. If that's already something you do, then your challenge is to put more effort into hearing God's voice as you study. I can promise that it will have more of an effect than you think.

Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Olsen

Also here's a district picture, a pday picture, me with Elder Perry and me with Sean!

Lincoln YSA #14

Hey everyone! This was a super good week and the highlight was definitely Sean's baptism! Everything went super smoothly and he is definitely prepared. He will be moving up to Omaha here but it has been awesome working with him!

We met this super cool guy on the street named Maragan. We taught him the restoration and are going back tomorrow! I usually don't mention too many new people that we talk to because you never know what's gonna happen, but Maragan was awesome.

Also we had Jenna at church! We were a little worried about how she would like it, but she loved it and can't wait for next week!

We had a lesson with a guy named Tshering.  It went really well and we invited him to Sean's baptism and he said that he actually wants to get baptized too! So we picked out a day, but then things started getting weird. He told us that he feels like there is a secret organization controlling him and that Covid and hurricane Kitrina were caused somehow by this organization. Weird, but we are going to see if we can clear things up a little bit for him!

Anyways it was a great one. In my studies this week I was thinking about how important it is to do what God asks. I can promise you that no matter what's going on in your life, if you put God first, it will all work out the way God wants it to. So follow Him and He will take care of the rest. 

Have a great week!

-Elder Olsen 

Lincoln YSA #13

Well hello again! Happy May! It's crazy how fast time goes but that's life I guess.

The highlight of my week was probably this lesson we had with a recent convert. We were having a moment and he was talking about death and it was a little somber. Then out of the blue he says, ( and he is 100% serious) "I want to be buried in a Power Rangers suit." Elder Wright and I just lost it. We both started laughing so hard but somehow we were able to convince him that we weren't laughing at him so that was good! He said some other hilarious things, (including demonstrating the entire power rangers morph for us) but that one just killed us haha.

We had a sweet church service yesterday! We ended up getting 2 nonmembers there and then some other missionaries got another one, and then we got 2 inactive members there as well! We got like 3 shout outs in testimony meeting, and then this guy that we got there that hadn't been to church in like 4 years shared his testimony an it was sweet! Plus he gave us another shout out lol.

We were super bummed last week because we were supposed to have a baptism for our friend Carson and then he stopped responding. But then Sean showed up randomly to FHE! He told us that he still wants to get baptized and we were able to meet with him 3 times since then and he is getting baptized this Saturday! We are super pumped for him. 

We also had sweet plan of salvation lessons with Alberto and Joseph. Alberto has a super innate understanding of spiritual things and he just totally understood the premortal life and the fall and it was super cool to see. Joseph understood it all and you could see it making sense in his mind and building off of what he already knew. It was so cool to see!

And then we also were able to find a bunch of new people this week so that was super fun! God is good and he loves us. 

This week I have been thinking about my faith and where it lacks. I think that a lot of times it is easy for me and others to have faith in Jesus Christ, but it's not so easy to have faith in each other or ourselves. For example, I know that Christ will forgive us of our sins. But its harder to believe that he really will answer our prayers, or that we will understand his answer. It's easy to believe in God, but maybe harder to believe that God is working through you, or your church leaders. But I love Ether 12:27, which basically says that God will help us be humble so that we can understand that we are weak. And then he promises that through his grace our weakness can become strength. So we can believe in each other because God's promises are sure. We might not be strong on our own, but with Christ we can be!

If any of you have thoughts on this, I would love to hear them! Anyways have a great week!

-Elder Olsen

Me and Elder Steiner who just left the zone, and then pday at the Nebraska state capital!

Lincoln YSA #12

Hey everyone! This week was full of lots of the good, bad and the ugly.

 But the first good was that I'm starting my last transfer of the mission tomorrow and Elder Wright and I are both going to be staying here in Lincoln! So I'm super excited about that. 

The Bad: nobody was able to come to church this week! That was super sad for us, especially but we have a lot of potential for this week. We also had this guy named Carson who was supposed to get baptized this week that won't be able to.

The Ugly: one of the guys we were working with told us that he didn't want to talk anymore and actually threatened to call the cops on us!

BUT the thing that I've noticed is that when you trust God and do what he asks, the good really starts to outweigh the bad and the ugly.  So with that being said, here's the rest of the good that happened!

We were able to talk to a lot of people on campus and a lot of people were interested in learning more! So with campus we get so many phone numbers and a ton of people who tell us they want to learn more will later block us. But this week a lot of the people have really been open to talking more and we have lessons set up with a lot of them! 

We went on exchanges twice this week and had a great time. 

Elder Wright and I stayed undefeated in frisbee golf for this transfer 💪

Sean who hadn't been responding to us for a couple weeks randomly showed up to FHE and said he still wants to get baptized!

I got to use my Spanish a couple times!

I got a burger with blackberry jam and peach jam on it.

Our friend Kirstin really opened up and she is really progressing. She will be gone for the summer though.

We had a lesson with this lady named Pu'u and she is awesome. She wants to get baptized in June!

We taught another lady and she is really excited about the church and wants to get baptized in May!

I've been reading in Alma about the sons of mosiah and something that I thought was really cool was the story about King Lamoni's father. Basically the dad was really mad at his son Lamoni and Ammon and tried to kill them. Ammon stops him from killing his son, and shows mercy to the dad. And the part that I thought was really cool was that the dad's heart was softened because of the love Ammon had towards Lamoni and him. He later became a believer in Christ and it all started with love. So my invitation to you all would be to show love to somebody that maybe you struggle with sometimes! I can promise that God will help you and you will feel His love.

Have a great week! 

- Elder Olsen

Also here's some exchange pictures and a tree that fell down outside our church building