Yankton #12

Hey everyone! Crazy news this week with transfers! I will be staying in Yankton and will be joined by Elder McCrae AND Elder Hansgen! Elder McCrae is so cool and Elder Hansgen is brand new. So it'll be a party with three of us here and the work will continue to move forward! 

This week was pretty spectacular. We got to meet our friend Jay in person and it was so good! He is so funny and just real and it was so good. We gave him the book of Mormon and he was flipping through and asking us "who's nefee?" And we would explain a little bit about Nephi and he'd go "who's aloman?" And we would tell a little bit about Helaman. He was just so excited to learn all of the stories from the Book of Mormon and couldn't wait. 

Also we talked to our pastor friend Dan! He loves talking to us and learning more about our beliefs. He started pulling out Bible verses about all his beliefs and it was really good because instead of arguing with him we were able to commit him to reading the Book of Mormon with an open mind! The holy ghost is the ultimate missionary and our job is just to put him in a position to listen to it so it was so good.

On Sunday we got 6 inches of snow! It was so much overnight that they cancelled our church. But it turned out to be really cool because we were able to take the sacrament with our friend Luke! He just got baptized so we were able to show him how to bless the sacrament and its importance. 

This week my eyes have really been opened to my shortcomings. At first I was discouraged by how far I have to go, but then I realized that God will be with us every step of the way. We learn in 1 Nephi 3:7 that the Lord provides a way for every commandment that he gives us, and Ether 12:27 says, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." And it is true! It is not a bad thing to receive correction from God, because that is how we can progress. I definitely felt the Lord showing me my weakness and he will help all of us turn weakness into strength! Have a great week

-Elder Olsen

Yankton #11

This has been a little bit of a different week but it has been rewarding!

We had A LOT of lessons fall through this week. So we had to get creative and figure out how to find and talk to people during that time. So our facebook page runs some ads and people will respond and request a bible study or something and it works really well. But we decided to message all of the people who liked our ads but didn't respond. This had been suggested to us and the other Facebook admins a couple of times, but nobody had really tried it yet and honestly I didn't think it would work out. There were also some other hang ups that I thought would make it not work at all. But we tried it and messaged about 60 people the same message just asking if they would be interested and we saw miracles! Almost immediately one guy messaged back and said that he didn't need a bible or anything, but wanted to go to church! So we got him all set up with the missionaries and it was just so cool to see. We also got around 7 or 8 other responses and were able to send all these people out to be taught by missionaries. The Lord really trusts us to be creative in helping gather Israel and he makes our efforts work! 

We also went up to Sioux falls SD for a Zone conference and had a sleepover with about 16 missionaries. We were all just sitting around talking when a guy in a mask kicked open the door holding a pistol in one hand and a rifle in the other and they were both pointed at us! He yelled a couple times asking things like what we were doing. But then he put his guns down and took the mask off and had a big smile. It turns out it was just Phil. Phil is a member who has tons of guns and likes to mess with the new missionaries sometimes. It was so funny to see everyone's reactions to what just happened. 

And then we had Zone Conference the next day! On the way we drove through a crazy snow storm with huge flakes. In October. It was so weird but beautiful. And it was so good to see all the other missionaries in zone conference and I felt that I am part of something big. I learned tons about how I can improve and be a more effective missionary. We also were able to help some people move into their new house and it was just a solid week. 

Something I've been reading about recently is the war chapters in the Book of Mormon. We can compare these chapters to our fight against satan. In Alma 49 the Nephites had prepared themselves and when the Lamanites came and attacked them they were able to gain a great victory. Thousands of the Lamanites were killed while only about 50 Nephites were injured and the rest of the Lamanites were scared away. I can imagine if I was in their situation I would want to celebrate and take it easy for a while. They had just won and the Lamanites were too scared to come against them. But that's not what they did. Alma 50:1 says that they did not stop making preparations for war. They built even stronger fortifications in every land. They even built new cities. And because they had prepared for hard times even when things were easy, they were ready when the Lamanites came against them again. We need to do the same thing in our lives. You might feel like Satan is attacking you with all his armies or it might feel like you have things pretty easy right now. But either way keep coming unto Christ and you will be so blessed and prepared for those hard times that come. And it says that this was the happiest time in their history. And the same can be true for us as we become more like Christ and stronger spiritually. Have a great week everybody

-Elder Olsen

Yankton #10

Hey everyone! Has it already been 10 weeks? Time flies on a mission. 

Our friend Luke was baptized this week!! He got an amazing opportunity to see his family, but wanted to be baptized before he left! So we had a small baptismal service and it was so cool. Luke doesn't show tons of emotion very often, but from the moment he took his mask off to be baptized until he left he was smiling ear to ear. He absolutely loved it and we were able to give him the gift of the holy Ghost and the Aaronic Priesthood as well! It was such a special experience and the spirit was definitely present.

We also delivered groceries to a boat. The people we delivered them to were definitely very high and one of them immediately started telling us about her anger problems and the time she's spent in jail and how she just wants to kill people sometimes... and just going on and on. It was quite the conversation. Apparently they had been just kind of left to live on the boat until they become fat and sober. And then they just randomly showed up when we were studying outside a couple days later! We're going to start teaching the other guy because he seems super interested! And they're sober now so that's a definite plus as well. 

I just read alma 41:7 and it says, "...they are their own judges, whether to do good or do evil." I think that is so cool. We hear about how we will be judged at the last day, but really we are judging ourselves right now. Are we doing good or evil? This judgement is constant and as we continually strive to be better, we won't need to be worried about the final judgement, because we've already been doing righteousness upon the earth. Not sure if that made sense, but I thought it was way cool! 

I hope you all have the best week ever!!

Love, 

Elder Olsen 

Yankton #9

Hey Everyone! I think I've fallen in love with South Dakota this week. Everyone here eats tons of corn and everyone says y'know all the time, and people love Jesus Christ with their whole hearts and it's all just awesome. I don't have tons of time today so I'll just give some highlights.

4 of our really loud neighbors showed up to our door asking us to baptize their two year old... We weren't sure what to do, and they were all talking at the same time and in different languages and it was just crazy, but hopefully we can keep building a relationship with them and start teaching them!

We ate amazing steaks with a pastor! He was super nice and respectful of our church and we had a good civil conversation about the differences between our religions and why we believe what we believe. We even gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'd read from it!

We're teaching someone named Luke who was supposed to be baptized this coming Saturday, but was super stressed about everything and unsure. But we talked to him on Saturday and he told us that he has an amazing opportunity to see his family for the first time in years and is leaving saturday, and he wanted to move his baptismal date earlier so he can receive his blessings! All of his fear and stress was gone, and instead he is so excited. He was telling us about how he's been baptized into two different churches before, but this is the last time! And we were able to watch some of conference with him! It was amazing because as soon as he started watching, all of the talks seemed to be directed right to him and to his concerns. Every one of them. God works in mysterious ways and blesses us. 

I absolutely loved conference, especially Elder Anderson's and President Nelson's talks. Elder Andersen talked about how we need to have Christ at the center of our lives and President Nelson talked about letting God prevail in our lives. If we do these two things, God will give us so many blessings and we will be able to become like him one day, through Jesus Christ! If you haven't listened to conference I invite you to and if you did, I invite you to change what the spirit prompts you to in your life. I definitely felt the need to be more Christlike and more humble in my actions. God will help us to do these things. Have a great week!

-Elder Olsen 

Yankton #8

Wow it's been a good week. I've definitely grown so much! 

We had exchanges twice. Once with the elders from O'Neill Nebraska, and once with our zone leaders. With covid we don't really exchange companions as much, we just all get together and kind of break off and do missionary work with the other companionship and learn from each other. It is so good though! I learned tons from a couple of the really experienced Elders and it just really helped us to receive revelation for our people and was great!

We also had district council! We discussed how to get people to the next step, whether that's another lesson or coming to church, or being baptized. That's something that is really cool with technology in missionary work. Before missionaries would have long lessons with people maybe once a week. But through phone and video calls, we can have shorter lessons with them as often as they need it! It's a lot more personalized and can help people progress no matter what pace they learn at. 

We had a cool experience where we were eating with some members and someone we're teaching named Frankie, and Frankie just randomly asked about gambling. It was a miracle, because one of the members we were eating with was able to share his experience with gambling and how it has ruined so much in his life. This same member also works at the same place that Frankie is about to start working at and they really became friends! It was such a miracle that they could connect.

Something I've been thinking a lot about this week is the part of I think it's revelations where we're told not to be lukewarm. God doesn't want us to do anything halfway. We either need to be hot or cold, but not lukewarm. If you decide to follow God, do so with all your heart, might, mind, and strength. When you are baptized, you need to go completely under the water, not partially. We don't kind of follow Christ. If you are serving in your calling, don't just kind of serve, serve completely and fully. If you are keeping the commandments, keep all the commandments with joy, don't pick and choose. We need to be all in to whatever we're doing, and the Lord will bless us so much more for it. Haha I'm not sure if that really made sense. Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Olsen

Yankton #7

This week was so good! We have been blessed with many people to teach and they are so awesome. One of them is named Luke. He is the most prepared person I've met. He has great desires to be baptized, the only thing holding him back is that he wants to know even more about the gospel so he can share it with others! We've been able to have some amazing discussions with him and the we've definitely felt the spirit as we've talked. We're also talking with Jay and our first 3 lessons with him were bad. Like really bad. We would try to talk about a gospel principle and he'd start rambling about something only kind of related to what we were talking about. But this week we've really been able to get through to him! We're able to talk and teach about our beliefs and he'll talk to us about how that relates to the things that he already believes! 

We have also seen some other big miracles this week. One of them I call the miracle of the dogs in the yard. On Saturday we were going to go to service in the morning right after a zoom call with our mission. But it got cancelled last minute because dogs in the neighbors yard would've made it very difficult, and the neighbors were out of town. So we were very disappointed and were trying to find out how we would use our time that day. During that time we got a text from one of our friends and he was going through a ton right then. We were able to address his needs right away, pray for him, get our zone to pray for him, contact our mission president, and contact those who could help him all within 10 minutes. If we had been at service during that time, it likely would've been two or three hours or more until we could get him the help that he needed right that second. We don't know the end of the story completely, but it is a great miracle no matter what.

Something I've been learning a lot about in the scriptures recently is Amulek. I love his story and the lessons that we can learn from it. Amulek was just a normal man living in a wicked city. He was "called many times and would not hear." But God gave him another chance and he was able to repent of his past transgressions. God blessed him with the spirit so much that he was able to perceive the thoughts of wicked men and preach with so much power to cause an anti Christ to tremble. I also love Amulek's courage. We learn that he gave up his many riches and friends for God's cause. It wouldn't have been easy at all for him. But God blessed him throughout the rest of his life, while those who didn't accept the gospel were destroyed. God will not give up on us. He is reaching out waiting for us to take his hand and will bless us with power as we strive to follow his will. As we strive to follow him, it won't always be easy, but it will be so worth it. I know that this is true as I have had so much happiness when I do my best to follow Him.

Have a wonderful week!

-Elder Olsen

ps. I'm trying to remember to take pictures, but only got one this week

Yankton #6

Hey Everyone! 

Transfers are this week, but nothing is happening with us. So we'll be staying in Yankton, which I'm so excited about because missionary work is so good right now!

Last time I mentioned some referrals we'd gotten. We got to know them some more and they both came to church! One of them is from South Sudan and he is so prepared for baptism. There are just a couple things we will go over with him, but he is doing amazing. The other one is from New York and he is awesome. He's had a really rough past, but wants to learn, and we went and played basketball with him today! 

We're also working with a lady that knows the church is true and wants to get baptized, we're just waiting for her care home to get off of quarantine so she can start coming back to church! Every time we call her she's been reading the Book of Mormon just waiting for us to call and teach her more. Teaching over phone or video call really does work! The Spirit can definitely be present through these lessons as well. God provides ways for his work to move forward!

We also had a mission tour this week! We had zoom meetings every day with Elder Weatherford Clayton and different groups of missionaries. It was so good and I learned so much about how to be a more effective missionary and to use technology to progress the work even more. 

I think that's about all for the week! If you haven't seen yesterday's face to face with Elder and Sister Rasband you should totally watch it. I absolutely loved it! They had some amazing insights for this whole covid thing and how we need to live. 

I love you all! Have a great week!

-Elder Olsen