Yankton #17 (no letter for Yankton #16)

Happy Thanksgiving! 

So this week we were talking to some people that we have been teaching english. We've just been sharing short scriptures and such after our English classes, but we asked if they had any questions for us as missionaries or if they wanted to talk to us more about Jesus. And They Did!! They said that not only do they want to talk about that, they also want to meet us in person and buy us food! They live over an hour away so that was just a miracle. 

Thanksgiving was great as well! We went over to Vermillion South Dakota and met with our district. We played some games and some sports together and then went to a community thing and got to meet some nonmembers and hopefully establish some good relationships with the missionaries there. And then we went and ate our dinner! It turns out that 8 guys can make a pretty decent meal if they really try. So we had turkey and ham and potatoes and rolls and pie. Not bad for a missionary budget. 

For me the highlight of the week was a lesson that we had. We discussed the persons needs and how to help them out the best way that we could. We decided some topics that we wanted to bring up and a verse to introduce the lesson. So we read the Mosiah 3:19 about the natural man and asked what they thought about it and what they thought the natural man today was. And it was so crazy. We listened to him talk, and none of us felt like we should really try to teach the lesson. So we just listened. We listened as they opened up to us even more and talked about what they were going through. And they actually brought up all of the things that we had wanted to discuss. But instead of coming from us, it was coming from deep inside of them. It was a witness that we have been following the spirit. We never felt any super strong promptings, but we just did what we felt was right and it turned out so good. So whenever you sincerely try to do what's right and follow God, he will help you and make it so much more than you could do on your own!

I listened to a talk this week and it was talking about the difference between believing in God and believing him. I found this very insightful. Because a lot of people believe in God. Christ's apostles believed in Jesus. But in their times of doubt, they didn't believe him. In so many instances they doubted. It's the same way with us. We may have a firm belief in God, but it is worth nothing if we don't act on it. If we have faith, but choose to watch that one movie when we know we shouldn't or spend time with these people who are a negative influence, how much faith do we really have? God promises that it will be worth it, but do we believe him enough to act on that? I have found that before I really decided to serve a mission I believed in God. But I didn't believe him. I didn't believe that God would make all of the hard work and time and money worth it. But the moment when I started believing him is when that switched. And he has made it so worth it already. So I invite you all to think of how you can show God that you believe him! Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Olsen

Pics!

1&5 last week's devotional with president Uchtdorf

2 o'neill nebraska

3&4 service at a farm!

Yankton #15

Hello hello! It's been a crazy week and Yankton is doing splendid

Tuesday we got about 8 inches of snow! It's all gone now, but it really opened some doors for service! So we drove around looking for people to help and jumped out when we saw someone struggling to shovel. And then we went down a random street shoveling the driveways and it was really cool! The first house was a lady in her 70s with a husband in a wheelchair so they couldn't have done it on their own. There were a few other people who were super cool and we were able to give out our number and spread a good image of the church! 

Frankie is progressing so well! He has great goals for life and it is so cool to see him getting closer to meeting them.  Because of his faith in Christ he is being blessed not only spiritually, but also temporally, emotionally, and mentally all at the same time. He is headed in the right direction and is so much happier than at any other time in his life.

We also had a crazy experience where we were getting something out of the weird tall fancy walmart pickup vending machine thingy. We got our stuff and some people were watching and thought the vending machine was pretty cool. So we were walking out and one of them ran after us. He told us that he was a member living up here for school and that he had been looking for the church. He asked about church services and is going to start coming! And he also asked if there was a Samoan ward here. But God's moves in mysterious ways and his gospel can spread even in Walmart!

Your thought for the week actually comes from a song we will be singing for sacrament meeting (and may be found on Facebook in the near future as well:). There's a part of the song that says, "no storm can shake my inmost calm while to that refuge clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?" Some of you may know, but recently I've definitely felt those storms. But Christ is our anchor and when we rely on him, we become unshakeable. Although things can be hard sometimes, Christ makes it so much easier. When I think of all the blessings that come from Him, it is hard to keep from singing. So I invite you to think about the things that God has blessed you with and thank him for it! Have a great week everyone!

Love Elder Olsen

Yankton #14

Hey Everybody! Thanks so much for all the birthday wishes!

We had some really good lessons this week with our friend frankie. He has decided for sure that this church is the path for him and that he is willing to make the changes in his life that he needs in order to become a part of it. He is working on living the word of wisdom right now and it's really amazing to see the power of the atonement working through him. From when we first got in contact with him to now, he has been able to completely turn his life around.

We were able to do a ton of service this week! All of saturday was spent helping people move, or do yard work, or just put up Christmas decorations and it was so cool to see how helping people can make them so happy! Because we have been given much, we can give and it makes other people's days. One lady was so excited that she was taking pictures and talking about how amazing it was.

We had a couple of exchanges this week and it was super good! I could really see the difference that it makes when you turn your heart to God, and the missionaries who had done that were so much happier. 

I've been thinking a lot about how we need to become like a little child. We need to make sure we are as pure and perfect and sinless as when we came into the world. Mosiah says, "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as (a) little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." So if we humble ourselves and repent, we can be so blessed from God. 

Sorry it was kind of short this week, but I hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Olsen

Yankton #13

Hello hello! Things have been pretty grand here in Yankton. 

My new companions Elder McRae and Elder Hansgen are super great! They are excited to work and love missionary work. We have started to see some miracles here.

We have a ton of turkeys always around the apartment and Elder Hansgen happened to bring some turkey calls. He has already established himself as their leader so now we have an army of Turkeys at our disposal haha.

We put out an ad on Facebook for free Spanish classes at our church and we got dozens of responses! We are completely booked with classes every week for the next two weeks already. Elder McRae had tried something similar in his last area and they've seen so much success and so we are really excited! 

Yesterday we brought our friend Frankie to church. About halfway through testimony meeting he leaned over and asked what was happening. We explained about how anyone can go up and share and he decided that he wanted to go. So he went up, wearing his jeans and hoodie, and shared from his heart. It was so beautiful to see how God has turned his life around in the last few years since meeting with the missionaries. He has been through so much but God has made the impossible in his life possible. He has so much faith and wants the gospel in his life so bad. 

And that brings me to my thought for the week! I was telling this story to my amazing family and they pointed out that Frankie wants this so bad and he will do so much to come closer to Christ. But for many of us it was just given! The atonement of Christ can change people and bring so much joy into our lives, but often I take that for granted. We forget what a great blessing this church is in our lives and forget to thank God. We owe everything to him, because without him we wouldn't have joy or hope. So that just opened my eyes a little bit. I hope to never take this church for granted. 

I hope you all have the best week ever! 

Love,

-Elder Olsen

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