Winter Quarters YSA #2

Hello hello! Not gonna lie this week has been a looong one. But we saw some miracles happen and the work of the Lord definitely moves forward!

So an update on Fu! So she started telling people about the church and has gotten a ton of backlash and people telling her lies or half truths about what we believe. She doesn't necessarily believe them, but she has a ton of questions and teaching her has gotten a lot more complicated. But she still wants to find out the truth for herself instead of just believing everything she hears. And Brian also has been doing well. I think most of his questions are making more sense and he is wanting to come to church more which is good!

We also had interviews with our mission President this week! Usually the president asks you how you've been doing, how the area is, if you have any questions and that's about all that happens. But in this interview we talked about how well the mission has been doing lately and how much God is guiding his work. We talked a lot about how God will help us if we are willing to let Him prevail. And the spirit there was so strong it was crazy! God really does help us if we let Him and are willing to do what He says. 

We also had exchanges this week! It was kind of a crazy day, but we helped clear out a house that had been in a big fire, had a ton of lessons, and got to play volleyball at a YSA activity! The people in this area are so cool and fun to be around and so it has been a blast. 

One miracle from the week was that last night we were trying to find somebody new to teach because we hadn't yet this week. And Elder Powell and I were both exhausted and unmotivated. But we decided to go out any and try to talk to people on the street instead of doing something else and we ran into Kevin! He was super down to talk and read the book of Mormon! God really does see all of our efforts.

Your spiritual thought for the week comes from our institute class. We talked about Forgiveness and how freely God forgives us if we forgive others. And God wants us to come to him so that he can give us this healing gift of forgiveness. So my invitation for you all is to give and seek forgiveness more, and see the difference it makes. Have a fabulous week!

-Elder Olsen

Winter Quarters YSA #1

Hello everyone! So the subject of today's email comes from the fact that I accidentally ate yogurt that expired March 4th. I didn't get sick and it actually didn't taste to bad. But this week has been great and I can't wait to tell y'all about it.

So with being in a YSA ward now, pretty much everything is different. When any of the other missionaries in Omaha find a young adult that is interested, they send them to us. With that and with a lot of new people moving in for college we have been really busy teaching people.

 One of those is this lady named Fu that a member found. He was just out doing summer sales and ran into this lady that was interested in the church. So last week he brought her to church and then since then we have taught her the restoration, plan of salvation, and Gospel of Jesus  Christ! She came to church yesterday and was introducing all of the members who just moved in to us! It was so crazy but she feels so at home in church and we have another lesson with her tonight!

There's this other guy that we're working with named Brian. So a few weeks ago in my last area we were doing what's called cold calling where basically you put in a random phone number from the area and call and see if they want to learn more about the gospel and we found Brian. We had to send him to the YSA elders but he got baptized a few weeks ago and now I'm in his area! He has a ton of questions and we are slowly helping him answer his questions about all sorts of things. But he is so solid and it has been cool to work with him. 

And then we had a baptism this week too! There's this guy John who has been to church a lot but had a bunch of things to work through before he could get baptized. And let me tell you it was a miracle that everything worked out well. We got to the church and quickly realized that the office staff who usually is there wasn't there because it was Saturday. And we dont have a key to that building. So we were panicking and calling everybody we could to try to get in, but nobody was answering. We eventually got a hold of the APs and we had to go to their lesson and interrupt it so that we could get in. At this point we didnt know if the font would fill up in time or not, but we rushed in there and the key only was to the exterior doors and not to the baptismal font. But it turned out that there was 1 door that was left unlocked for some reason that we were able to get through and unlock all the other doors from the inside. The font ended up being filled in time and the baptism went great! God definitely watches out for us!

Something I've been thinking about is just how important it is to have genuine Christlike love towards everyone. The love that the people in this ward have towards their nonmember friends has helped so many people come join in with us at church and start learning more about Christ. The best thing that you can do for one of your friends is being them closer to Christ and so I invite you all to find a way to bring someone closer to Christ. I know that you will be blessed so much for it. Have a fantastic week!

-Elder Olsen 

Bellevue #12

Hello everyone! So i guess I'll start off and let yall know that I am getting transferred! I thought for sure that I would stay in Bellevue but I'll be serving in the Winter Quarters YSA ward! So I'm sad to be leaving Bellevue but I can't wait to see what my next area has in store for me!

Anyways with that said, I had a fantastic last week here. 

Monday we had a lot of lessons and also had a meeting about how the mission has been doing recently. We have been finding more people and baptizing more people and it is fantastic to see the Lord working his miracles even in Nebraska.

Tuesday We had a lesson with Keore and it was really good! We weren't sure if he will be able to meet his baptismal date because he works almost every sunday. And I just want to thank you all for praying for him because he talked to his boss and he won't have to work sundays anymore! So now he will be able to come to church and hopefully still get baptized next month!! We also had a really really good lesson with a recent convert and he was having some struggles. It was really cool though because the scriptures really helped him through!!

Wednesday we had a lesson with Jesus and we think that it really helped him have more of a desire to learn!! We also played dodgeball with the youth.

Thursday we met this lady from facebook and she was super interested in learning more! Her dad was a pastor and so we were a little worried about what the response would be, but we taught her the restoration of the gospel and she really really liked it! She also said that she would read the Book of Mormon so that was really really cool! We also had our district council and we talked about the talk 'be 100% responsible' which really helped me learn how to be a better missionary! And then we had a few lessons with members!

Friday we helped some people move stuff out of a house and then met with King! We ended up not following the lesson plan at all because we got talking about the temple and he wanted to learn more! We told him that there was a temple in Omaha and he wanted to go with us so we set up an appointment for Saturday. We also spent forever at a members house talking about aliens and dinosaurs and such so there's that.

Saturday we got to go to the temple with King!! We gave him a tour of the grounds and the pioneer cemetery and the spirit was so strong it was amazing. He recognized it too. We then went over to the trail center right next to it and took the tour and it was so cool! King absolutely loved it too. We took some pictures and not even 5 minutes after we left he texted us reminding us to send them. 

And that leads me to the thing I've been thinking about a lot this week which is the power of the temple. When we were there I felt God's love so strongly and it brought me so much peace and love. And so I would invite you all to ponder Gods love more this week. Maybe go take a walk around a temple if possible. I promise you that God loves you so much. Have a great week!

-Elder Olsen 

Bellevue #11

Hello everyone! A ton happened this week so I'll jump right into it.

Our friend Ke'ore has been doing well. He was able to watch church the last few weeks and is really accepting of all of the lessons and everything. His main hold up right now is that he works on a lot of Sundays so he hasn't been able to come to church. He's going to try to get work off on sundays but if y'all could pray for him that would be great!! 

We had a lot of cool little miracle this week. One of them was getting in contact with this member that we haven't been able to get a hold of. She is going through a really hard time right now and wanted us to give her a blessing! So we talked for a long time and gave her a blessing and she really liked it! It was way cool. Another one was pouring concrete. We were helping our members to make a little retaining wall and all of a sudden it gets dark outside and black clouds start rolling in. So we moved all of the cement bags to a dry spot and right as we finished that the rain hit. We did our best to cover all the stuff we had done, but it didn't work very well. But the miracle part is that it only rained for 15 minutes and we were able to fix it without too much of a problem! Another miracle was getting back in contact with our friend Steve. We have tried to set up like 4 appointments in the past but they all fell through. But this week it didn't! He is paralyzed below the waist and we had a good discussion about accepting the Lord's will and stuff like that. We focused on the purpose of life and it was really cool to hear his story and perspective and everything!

The other big highlight for the week was going to President Bailey's house for the first time! We had a meeting for all trainers and trainees and honestly even though it was intended for the new missionaries, it definitely inspired me to change and be better as well. It seems like in life we go on ups and downs. We'll be doing really good and really trying to be better every day, and then we start to get casual and a little bit lazy. And this meeting reminded me that I can always keep improving and helped me realize that every little thing counts! We truly need to give all that we have to the Lord. 

Your Spiritual thought comes from Moroni chapter 10. In it, Moroni talks about gifts of the spirit, and he lists a bunch of different types of gifts of the spirit, like the gift of tongues, the gift of knowledge, faith, or healing. And it says that there are others that aren't listed! But the promise is in verse 17. He says, "And all these gifts come by the Spirit of Christ; and they come unto every man severally, according as he will." I know that this is true that if we seek these gifts and prayerfully ask for them, God will give them to us if that's his will! The gift I'm working on right now is the gift of Charity and I invite you all to consider an area in life that you can be better at, and work on it, and ask in prayer for help. I know that God will answer your prayer. 

Have a fantastic week!

-Elder Olsen

classic corn pic

Only in Nebraska

service

service

Bellevue #10

Hello Everyone! Another week has passed and it has now been a year since flying out to Omaha! The weeks are going faster and faster and this one was definitely a crazy fast one.

Monday we went and taught Keore and he is doing so well. He is excited to get baptized and his whole family is super supportive of his decision. We even taught his 4 year old brother a little bit about Jesus! His main holdup is that he can't seem to come to church. He needs to find time off work and get a ride and it is just a lot. His baptismal date is in a month so we are praying that he will be able to come to church and meet with us enough so that he can hit that date!

Tuesday we helped out with the Bishop's storehouse in the morning and then we were pretty busy for the rest of the day with lessons and visiting members. We met with our friend King and were able to set another date for him to be baptized! it's not until mid October, but we all feel good about that because he has a lot he needs to work on and he wants to really make sure that that's what he wants to do. He is so solid though! We also got fed some tacos from a member family and ended up meeting all of their extended family so that was pretty sweet

Wednesday we had exchanges with some of the other missionaries and it was really good! We did some service for a lady in our ward and we moved so many dungeons and dragons supplies for her. We had been having a hard time contacting her so it was super good to help her. We also went out and knocked on the doors of people who had been taught in the past and they all ended up being on the same few roads so we parked the car and walked around and talked to people for a good 1.5 hours. The only downside was that it was over a hundred degrees and very high humidity. But it was a good time! We also taught one of our friends and talked about continuing on the path of faith even when we aren't sure if we are getting an answer and it really applied to him!

Thursday was a crazy one. We woke up from exchanges and rushed off to zone conference. It was our first zone conference with President and Sister Bailey so some things were a little different but it was all good! About 30 minutes in to the conference we got a text from one of the people we're teaching who had brought her whole family to church last week. She told us that she had read some stuff about the church online and would like to stop meeting with us. So that whole zone conference was really hard to focus. We asked if we could call and talk about it, but she told us that she had already talked to her husband about it so no. It was super hard on all of us and the rest of the day was a drag. The good news is that one of her good friends is a member of the church and we found out a few days later that she was texting her the whole time about all her concerns and the member friend was able to tell her that none of what she had read was true and it really helped our friend. She still wants a break from meeting with us, but we still think that she'll end up joining the church at some point

Friday we went and talked to King again and he is doing well! We shared the restoration proclamation with him and he shared it to his facebook! We also ended up editing a video for a long time that day.

Saturday we weekly planned and not too many crazy things happened, but we did have dinner with two of the coolest member families and it was so fun. They had 6 kids between the two families and it was so loud and crazy but fun!

Aaaaand Sunday we had somebody that we're teaching give us a call and tell us that she wants to come to church but her daughter was sick so she needed a ride! And she came and loved it! We were so relieved because we had a member get up and say some things that maybe weren't the most correct or spiritually uplifting, but the rest of the meeting was good! We taught her the plan of salvation and she like it and it was such a miracle that she even came because stuff like that doesn't happen. 

I was able to finish the Book of Mormon again this week and I really liked verses 3-5 in Moroni 10. It promises that if you read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it is true with a sincere heart, God will make the truth known unto you through the Holy Ghost. So that's my challenge to you. I can tell you whatever I want, but the way to find true knowledge is to pray in the name of Christ! Have a great week everybody!