Hey!  This past week I got a little sick. I´ve had a cold and had a fever one day, but I´m better now!

That´s awesome that the missionaries in our ward had that experience! I bet it must be hard to work in our ward, but this example shows that the work is still progressing and the Lord is preparing people for the gospel. That makes me want to come back and teach him! haha. I remember when I was still in the Glenville ward, I never really understood what the missionaries did besides come over and eat with us! haha. When I get back, I´m going to want to help them out with teaching.

We had a multi-zone conference on Thursday, which was awesome.  Sister F.  told us an inspiring story about the faith of their 8 year old daughter. One day their daughter randomly got super sick with a dangerously high fever. Sister F. called her husband while he was in a meeting (which she said she never does) and President told her to rush their daughter to the hospital and he would come as fast as he could. When they got to the waiting room, it was filled with other kids, but after one glance by the nurse, they took her in before everyone else. They took an x-ray of her to see what was going on. A part of her lungs was full of fluid and other parts were filling up with even more fluid. The doctor told Sister F. that it was very serious and that they would have to take her into surgery immediately. Sister F. went to tell her daughter the news. She told her that the doctors were going to perform surgery. Her daughter replied “I´m not having surgery, Mom”.  Sister F. explained that she needed to have surgery or else she could die, it was that serious. The daughter replied, “I just want daddy to come heal me……”. Sister F. again explained that it was a serious problem, but she insisted on having a priesthood blessing by her dad to heal her. Sister F. asked the doctor if they could wait a few more minutes until her husband arrived to give a blessing before taking her into surgery. President arrived and gave her a blessing before they rushed her into surgery. After going into the surgery room, the doctor shortly returned. He told President and Sister F. that he had a really bad feeling about performing surgery on their daughter and that he would take one more x-ray. After taking the x-ray, the doctor returned again and said that the fluid had diminished drastically and that she would not need surgery.

The faith of their daughter was so strong that she could be healed. The power of the priesthood only works in accordance with the faith of those blessing and those receiving the blessing. President focuses a lot on helping us develop faith in the mission field. Faith is just like playing an instrument or sport, President says. You must practice, and it all begins with the way we think. Faith and doubt cannot work in our minds at the same time.

 “And again, to some it is given to have faith to be healed”   D&C 46:19

Have a great week!

Elder Olsen

Street in Elder Olsen’s area

Spider in the Church!

Hey! I realized after I said goodbye yesterday that I never said happy Mothers Day! I was too caught up in the fact that I was talking to you guys haha. so… Happy Mothers Day Mom!!

This week flew by! Every day, besides Monday, we clapped at 80 doors. I got plenty of practice talking to people. Some of the people had intercoms that you have to use to call them out. I usually tell them we want to leave them and their family with a prayer so they will come out and talk. A few times, instead of just saying no thanks, they said “just leave it in the mailbox” hahaha. Lots of people here have prayer cards that they use to say prayers. They thought this is what we wanted to leave haha. It´s sad how lots of people here just say repetitive prayers even when the Bible specifically says not to. A prayer is more than a conversation with Heavenly Father; it’s like a friend talking to a friend.

We found several people who are potential investigators that we still need to go back to visit. On Saturday, the very first door we clapped at, we found a lady who was ready for the Gospel. She invited us right in to talk. She said her aunt was just baptized recently in another city. She lives with her husband and two kids. We talked about the temple and eternal families. She accepted a baptism date without hesitancy and will be coming with us to church next week.

Yesterday we had District Conference in the next town at a brand new big chapel. The meeting started off with a few lady speakers because it was Mothers Day. Here´s a good scripture that talks about the importance of our mothers.

Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.  Alma 56:47-48

President was the last speaker. He told an incredible life story. A few months after he married his wife, they went on vacation to Hawaii. They went to a very nice beach, which had very dangerous waters. There were signs posted everywhere that said not to go into the water. President, thinking he was invincible, decided to go play in the waves anyway, to show his new wife that he was strong enough haha. He had to walk past many warning signs to enter the water. After he got in the water, a wave picked him up and slammed him onto the bottom. He said the pain was horrible and he could barely breathe, but he continued swimming to show his wife he was fine. Another wave picked him up. He said the next thing he remembered was waking up on the beach with heads looking down on him and blood everywhere. His chest was all swollen and he could hardly breathe. He thought he could tough it out but his wife insisted on going to the hospital. He didn´t have insurance, though, so he told them to only bring him to the doctor haha. They put him in the bed of a truck and took him to the doctor. After he got there, he passed away, but they resuscitated him. The injury was a lot more serious than he thought, so they brought him to the hospital. After getting to the hospital, he died again, was resuscitated, and shortly later died again, and yet was resuscitated a third time. In all, he had lost 3 liters of blood due to his injuries. (Most people die after losing 2 liters of blood.) After he was in stable condition, his entire chest and stomach were cut open to operate on him and he had tubes and metal rods sticking out everywhere.

The lesson we learn from his life story is simple, don´t disobey the rules and cross the line! This doesn´t only apply to temporal rules, but also spiritual rules, the commandments. There are only two jerseys in life President always says, that of God and that of Satan. We must stay as far away from the line as we can because as soon as we cross it, Satan has control over us. Medically speaking, President should have died because of this mistake he made, but he is sure Heavenly Father kept him alive for a reason. We can certainly see the reason today. He is an amazing mission president and blessing so many lives!

I love you all!

Elder Olsen

New Church Building

Hey! I am in a new area and my companion is Elder F. from Chili. He is a hard worker and also funny. Whenever he talks about the United States, he calls it Gringolandia (Gringo Land) hahaha. My new area boundaries are a bit bigger than the last, but the church is smaller–it´s a branch. There are more hills too, unfortunately. The city has a ton of little shops and small praças (square parks). The town is very famous for music. All of the people who want to learn music come here. They have a famous school/performance hall here.

The first thing we did when we arrived was go to the chapel for an English class. A 16 year old girl teaches a free English class in the chapel for the sole purpose of bringing non-members to the chapel, where we then can step in and teach them about the church. It´s awesome! She´s really good at English; I just sit there and help if she has a question. When I first walked into the room, I was overwhelmed with a million “Hello’s”, “Hi’s”, and “How are You’s” hahah. It´s super funny when they practice their English. The class members all wanted me to sing a song for them in English, so I sang, “I am a Child of God” (One of the few church songs I know all the words of).

Our first appointment was at the home of a recent convert. He was baptized the week before. He likes to play the violin and drink chimarrão. He also had a Cello too, that I messed around on. It´s been awhile since I´ve touched a cello. Unfortunately, he didn´t have a bass:(

On Friday, we had a multi-mission conference with São Paulo East. When I arrived at the chapel, the first thing I heard was “Josh! Josh! Josh!” I found it very odd, off course, because I haven´t been called Josh in 5 months. I looked over and saw my friend Elder H.  I had no idea he was serving in the São Paulo East mission! It was a sweet surprise. He´s been out for a year and a half now.

At the conference was President L. Whitney Clayton along with Elder Aidukaitis of the 70. We all had the opportunity to shake their hands, all 500 missionaries that were there. They said that was the most number of hands they had ever shaken in one meeting. President Clayton and his wife don´t speak Portuguese, so they spoke in English with a translator translating after every sentence. He did a training for us. He stressed how important it is to have a kneeling prayer at the end of our first lesson and invite the head of the house to do it, asking if The Book of Mormon is true. (He did a little role play with Elder Farnes. haha) This is so important because it shows that we are serious about what we taught and helps the family learn to keep commitments and pray on their own. The promise we read at the end of The Book of Mormon is so simple:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things          are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the      power of the Holy Ghost

And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. (Moroni 10:4-5)

The month of May marks the 80th anniversary of the São Paulo North MissionThe month of May marks the 80th anniversary of the São Paulo North Mission, the oldest mission in Brazil. And for this, President has challenged us to knock on 80 doors a day. We have already found so many people to teach in just these past few days and we keep finding more!

I love you all!

Elder Olsen

Oi tudo bem?!

It was a great last week of the transfer. Yesterday, we had my first baptism and Elder M.’s last!!! The other Elders in our ward had 3 baptisms in addition to ours at the same time. We baptized B, the girl I mentioned last week who´s mother didn´t want to allow it. Her mother realized how bad she really wanted to be baptized, so she allowed it! She is a super firm girl and is progressing super fast in the gospel. After the baptism, we went over to a member´s home for lunch.  My CTM instructor and her family were also there!

Yesterday, I found out I would be transferred. I will be working in another small town with Elder F.  The town has a small branch and is even further in the interior.

Here are some pictures of a fun communication activity that we did in district meeting. I was blindfolded and one person was designated to shout directions. Except, there were also tons of other people shouting false directions. I had to listen for the correct voice to guide me. It´s a great object lesson because in life we always have so many voices telling us what to do and so many people telling us to do the wrong thing. We must tune everyone else out except the good voice, the Spirit.  (The other picture is my Zone from this last transfer.)

This Friday, Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Seventy will be coming to São Paulo for a special missionary devotional. It is for the entire mission plus the São Paulo East Mission.

Have an excellent week!

Love Elder Olsen

General Conference was so good!  Before my mission, I never really paid too much attention to General Conference. When I was younger, to me, General Conference meant being able to sleep in longer and sitting comfortably at home as we watched Conference on TV.  But now as a missionary, after the 10 hours of Conference I watched, I didn´t want it to end!! It´s such a blessing we have to receive counsel from the Church leaders to guide us in the world today.

We watched conference in 3 different places because we were all over the place last weekend. We watched it at 2 different church buildings in different cities and once at a member´s house. Thankfully we were able to watch in English each time! Except when Ulisses Soares (native Portuguese speaker) came on, we all ran to the chapel so we could listen to him in Portuguese and not hear the English voice-over haha.

One of my favorite talks was by Wilford W. Anderson.  I loved the analogy Elder Anderson made about dancing to the music. It´s funny when you pull up next to someone at a stop light and they are dancing, because you can´t hear the music. That´s just like us as Latter-Day Saints; people don´t understand why we do things and make fun of us because they can´t hear the music that we hear. Super cleaver analogy that´s so true! I also liked the talk by Elder Bednar on Saturday afternoon about Fear.  I noticed that several speakers talked about how important it is to always pray to recognize the Lord´s hand in your life and to trust that He is guiding you and will bless you. I could just talk about every talk they were so good!! I can´t wait to go back and read them again.

It has cooled down here a bit, but mainly just at night. It´s chilly enough to use a blanket, now. Last week I bought a blanket to use.

While on a division this past week, Elder G. and I found a 15 year old girl knocking on doors. She is very interested in the gospel, but has lots of questions we need to answer first.

Our English class is pretty fun. There are a couple of young girls who are like 10 that always come and the rest are usually other random ward members. We just teach random topics that we can think of on the spot. There is another kid that we teach in his house, though. He is picking up English really fast.

Love,

Elder Olsen

Thank you everyone for the letters, pictures, and packages! Living in another country is a humbling experience for sure. When I get back, I´ll definitely be more grateful for everything we have there that isn´t here.

It´s awesome how much the church feels the same here. The church is the same no matter where you go because it´s under one head, Jesus Christ. And yes, we have the “Because He Lives” video in Portuguese! #PorqueEleVive. We have cards that we pass out to share it with people.

I am looking forward to General Conference! If you keep some questions in mind, we are promised that they will be answered through the speakers and personal revelation.

Love you all!

Elder Olsen

Here is this beautiful video in Portuguese: