Grand Island #9

This week was pretty uneventful. We got tons of snow this week and got to shovel a lot! It is amazing to see people's hearts being softened through service. One of them was a little bit rude the first time we met, but through service we have built a really good relationship with her! She even invited us over and we got to know her for a little while, and she made us food! 

We also had exchanges this week in a little town called Aurora Nebraska. That day we had nothing really to do, but we managed to find some cool ways to do missionary work and I learned a lot! We got to teach an English class while we were there and it was a little bit intimidating because we didnt know their level with english or what we were supposed to teach them but the gift of tongues is so real and it went really well! 

Also a guy that we are teaching english randomly open the book of Mormon and read a few verses about Abinadi one day, and now he really wants to know more about this prophet and why he died for his beliefs! So we tried to show him the Book of Mormon Video, but it hasn't been translated so we are going to talk to him about it and hopefully start teaching him more about the gospel! And another English class said they really want to come to church but has to work, so we are very excited!

I've been thinking a lot lately about attitude. The phrase attitude is everything has honestly changed my life and so I want to share a little bit. I've been reading about Nephi in the Book of Mormon. As you remember, Nephi and his brothers all went through the exact same things. In fact Nephi even went through harder things such as being tied up and left to die, building a boat, and being tied up for days and almost drowning on the boat. But yet Nephi had joy through all of this while Laman and Lemuel complained and were miserable. The difference wasn't the circumstances, but the attitude. So that's something I've been working on. Some days are just boring as a missionary. Some days we spend all day looking at a screen trying to find people with no success. Some days we can't leave the apartment because of the snow. But complaining only makes things worse, so in the words of Elder Wirthlin, come what may, and love it. I invite you all to try that this week! Have a great one!

-Elder Olsen 

We got posted about! After getting kicked off of their property

I'm just gonna let you guess what is going on here

Our role play with tennis balls

Our role play with tennis balls

Nebraska!

Nebraska!

Nebraska!

Nebraska!

Bomb shelter in Aurora

Auroras church is a rented out office

Grand Island #8

I'm running out of things to say at the beginning of these so I guess welcome to the weekly email!

This week we finally got some snow! It was so much that we couldn't leave the apartment monday or most of Tuesday. But that opened up chances to shovel snow for people and we have met some really cool people! One of them already has member friends and said that we can come over sometime! It's crazy how people's hearts can be opened by a little bit of service and love.

Another example of that front the week is that there is this older couple that we come over and visit sometimes and we went and shoveled their driveway. It didn't take too much time or anything, but it really helped them out.  And then we went over again later that week and their hearts were even more opened to the gospel and we gave them Book of Mormons (Books of Mormon? Or Books of Mormons idk) and they said they would read it! And our service also softened the heart of some random person who found out what we are doing from Facebook and messaged us out of the blue saying he wanted to help us out and be our friends!! 

We had a devotional with the mission and it was with someone who was baptized and served a mission,  and then went anti against the church and for 26 years fought the church and tried to tear it down. He later turned back to Christ and felt his heart changed, and now is a super solid member! A couple things I learned:

•People make mistakes, but as we are more patient with them, God will show kindness to us.

•Our testimony should be founded on Jesus Christ. If our foundation is  church programs, Joseph Smith, tithing, food storage, or even missionary work, it will probably fall. Our foundation should be Christ,  who never fails, and then all those things will strengthen them.

• We never realize the influence we have on people. He talked about all the people that influenced him in his journey even though ay first it seemed to have no impact on him. Slowly his heart was changed through prayer and fasting on the part of other people. So never underestimate the value of a prayer or a compliment or a good example or a smile. 

Have a great one!

-Elder Olsen

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

Grand Island #3

Happy (almost) new year everyone!

This week was Christmas! We got together with our zone and ate a nice Christmas dinner and played some volleyball and spikeball. It was really nice to be able to focus more on the savior and everything that he did for us! And some members surprised us with a few presents so it was a great day. 

Probably the biggest thing besides Christmas that happened this week is when we got a small snow storm and were told not to drive for the rest of the day. Which literally destroyed the rest of our plans for the rest of the day, but I felt the hand of God in that day guiding us and helping us to find some members we haven't talked to yet and in keeping us focused and not going insane. We couldn't have done that without His help so that was really cool.

I also had a cool experience where we were teaching a big english class with like 10 people in it, and it was right during interviews with president and Elder Daniels had to go, leaving me in charge of leading the class with the help of Elder Baumann. And it was the craziest thing. I was super nervous and got a question that I didn't know the answer to, but then all of a sudden I just stopped thinking about being nervous and could understand everyone and was able to say what I wanted to say, without even thinking about it! Elder Daniels came back and I realized just how much God had helped. The gift of tongues is real and it was so cool! 

There was a great talk about new years resolutions on sacrament meeting. It talked about how we all should make the goal right now to grow spiritually this year and one day return to live with God. But we need to make plans or smaller goals to reach them. The smaller goals include things like reading scriptures every day, praying with more real intent, being kinder, participating more in church, etc. And if we end up failing at some point, that is not the end. The worst thing we can do is to give up on who we want to become. Because God can help us overcome our weaknesses, but we have to put forth the effort. So let's put forth that effort! Not just in January, but in July and September and December. Because God wants us to become better as well. Have a great new year!