Grand Island #7

Another week has gone by already? It seriously feels like I just wrote a weekly email yesterday! But some cool stuff happened so I guess I'll tell you about it.

We had the chance to do lots of service this week and it was super cool! We started a facebook group offering free service to anyone because there are 10 of us here in Grand Island and we're really excited about it! Anyways we got to tear up concrete for a lady in our ward and it was so fun because as missionaries we do a lot of studying, planning, and talking. It was refreshing to go outside and switch it up a bit. We also got to help with a food drive and help a disabled man clean his house! Hopefully these will lead to teaching opportunities, but if not, we still helped make the world a better place!

We also had the chance to go to a funeral service thing to support some of our english class friends! It was interesting they all started singing and then praying and it was unlike anything I have ever seen before. Plus it was all in Spanish so that just added to it. But we were able to support our friends and hopefully that will open a door! 

Also we went door knocking! Kind of. We recently got approval to knock on members doors and there's a bunch of members that we don't have contact with. So we knocked on some of their doors, and I officially got my first door slammed on my mission haha. But we met some cool people!

That's about all for this week, but we are about to start trying a bunch of new things to  find people. I have been reading in Alma about the war chapters and I noticed something that I haven't before. In one story, the Nephites take control of a city because they laid siege and cut it off from all of its resources. It made me think about how Satan tries to do the same thing. He tries to make us feel alone and like there is nobody that can help us. However we are never alone,  because we always have Christ on our side! He is there for us and so no matter how lonely or hopeless things feel, he is there. And then at the end of the war, the Nephites succeed by gathering everyone together and fighting the Lamanites all together. And it's the same with us! We have each other and if we rely on each other and especially on Christ, we will conquer! Have an amazing week!

Elder Olsen

Service pics! And the flour one is for some challenge thing we do with the zone haha

Grand Island #6

Hey everyone! This week was pretty interesting. A couple of highlights: 

We had a guy show up to English class who is already fluent in English! He was the only one who showed up so we asked what he could use help with and he said that he's pretty much got it. We ended up just talking to him and he loves God and loves learning so we gave him a Book of Mormon and have started teaching him the gospel! The next time we met him he went on about this thing called iridology which is where he looks into your eyes and can tell you what health problems you have. So he ran out of the church to grab his flashlight and magnifying glass and read our eyes. He said that I should stop smoking and drinking haha. But he did guess one thing right so that was cool! 

We have started to have more success in bringing the gospel into our English classes and even gave out 4 Book of Mormons from that! We invited someone to church and they couldn't make it this week but we think they'll come next week. God truly provides a way for his work to go forward even through different ways like english class!

We also cleaned a lady's really really disgusting apartment. There was so much garbage and cockroaches everywhere. After I'd been cleaning the bathroom for about 45 minutes, she walked by and said "that bathroom is horribly infested." I wanted to puke haha. But sure enough, I looked in the shower and there were dead bugs everywhere. 

And that is where your spiritual thought comes from! It didn't take me very long until I was sick of cleaning this nasty apartment. I found myself frustrated and impatient. Right at that moment the memory of Alma and Amulek came into my mind. They were beaten and thrown into prison, and they were forced to watch the believers thrown into a fire. And after that they still had patience and faith. While we were cleaning, I watched a member be so loving and kind to this lady even with all of the bugs and everything. So I invite you all to be a little more patient and loving in all that you do, and I'll be working on that this week as well. 

Have a great week everyone!

Sorry only the one photo from this week, but this is what happens when you combine 5 missionaries and a bunch of milk crates

Grand Island #5

Hello hello! This has been a cool week! So our companionship is the third set of Elders in Grand Island and our area is super new. So it's been kind of hard to find people to talk to because there's so many missionaries around here and we don't have any people taught in the past. So we have been struggling to figure out ways to find people, and sometimes it's hard because people don't want to learn more and it feels like all our effort is doing nothing.  

BUT miracles still can happen even when it is hard, and especially when it is hard, and we saw that this week. We had an English class with this one lady and it was our first time meeting her. We shared a spiritual thought from the Book of Mormon and it was so cool because she seemed really interested and we offered her a copy and she told us that she was going to ask us for one! The next day we met with her again and one of the first things she said was "when are church services?" Sadly she has to work Sunday mornings, but that was so exciting, and she seems to really want to learn more! 

And when we were on exchanges this week I had the opportunity to meet a "golden investigator." He doesn't live in our area, but we taught the restoration and he absolutely loved it! Usually there are tons of questions because we talk about strange things and new words like dispensations, prophets, apostasies and apostles, gold plates, angels, visions, etc. But he said he understood everything so clearly it was weird, and when we talked about the first vision he got shivers in his spine! So I am so excited for him and it was really good for me to see that people are searching for the truth even when I can't see it. 

Also you might remember Frankie from my last area. I found out this week that HE IS ON DATE TO BE BAPTIZED!!!! It has been so cool to see the gospel work through him the last 4 months or so. When we first met him he was probably at the lowest point in his life. He felt so hopeless and depressed and now everything has changed for him.

Which leads me to my lesson learned from the week. The youth theme for this year is from the doctrine and covenants and says Be not weary in well doing for you are laying the foundation of a great work. And to be honest, this week I felt a little weary of well doing. But as the week went on I came to realize that God doesn't just command us to work hard when things are easy and you are baptizing tons of people, he commands us to always work hard! And even though I might not be seeing the fruits right now,  even though I won't be there to teach the one guy or to baptize Frankie, that's not what really matters. What really matters is doing your best to spread Gods work every day. And even if nothing comes of it now, I don't need to worry, because we are laying the foundation of a great work. Have an amazing week! 

-Elder Olsen

Grand Island #4

Happy 2021!! This was a great week and a great way to start off the year. I learned tons of lessons this week.

Lesson 1: Don't teach Hispanics the word sheet. Just don't do it. We had this English class and we were learning how to say what is that/this and what are these/those. So we went into the chapel and they asked what curtains and the organ and stuff were. But one of them could not pronounce sheet music right, and it sounded like something very similar but with a very different meaning. I started dying laughing and so did his two friends, but he was so confused and just kept saying it over and over again. But they are super cool and we are going to teach them about Joseph Smith this week! 

Lesson 2: Never underestimate how much stuff you can fit into a car. When there's a will there's a way. We got to help a lady move today and we somehow managed to fit it all in there, but kind of forgot to leave a spot for me to sit! But we got there all in one peace and really were able to help her out!

Lesson 3: There are some strange people out there. And I mean that in the nicest way possible of course. But we got to do a lot of facebook this week. But in one week we got someone who "follows the old gods, Odin thor Freya, loki", someone who started trying to convert me to the catholic church, someone that messages every single missionary that they possibly can and a member sent us some weird new message from God thing. But through it all we found a few people that might be interested in learning the gospel!

Lesson 4: The Book of Mormon is the most correct of any on earth and a man will draw nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than any other book. I had the opportunity to finish the Book of Mormon on New Years Eve and I really had a chance to reflect on how important it really is to me. It is so true and it really has the power to change lives. It has changed mine every single time I have read it. If you aren't in the habit of reading every day I invite you to please do it! I promise that it will help you to become the person that you want to be. Have an amazing week! 

-Elder Olsen