Week 30 Santa Ana

Are you enjoying your mission?   OH and yes I am really enjoying the mission. I am excited to receive a new companion. His name is Elder M. he is from Mexico.  Will you be senior companion?  No Elder M. is senior companion and District leader. You should be able to learn a lot from your new companion.  Elder M. was also the District leader, so I have done divisions or splits almost every week as his companion. I have heard that my new companion speaks English perfectly.  It sounds like you speak Spanish well.  I don’t know because I am comparing myself with people who have talked Spanish their whole life.  Elder M.is going to Santa Barbara, he will travel with other elders and the elders who don’t have transfers stay here in the ward building.  Are you going to take your companion around and say goodbye?  Yes that is what we will do for the next 2 days.   

Did you move back to the other apartment? We haven’t moved back to the other apartment but there are some pictures that I put on drop box of the construction, they put down some tile and are putting a ceiling in so it should be pretty nice. OH we also got cabinet doors. 

Did your baptism happen on Saturday?  Yes we had the baptism on Saturday. We spent practically all of the day getting ready for it. Hna A. R. had her interview in the morning. While she was in her interview we filled the baptism font. About 2 hours later we went to lunch then we went and brought the clothes to the chapel and we waited for people to arrive. As it is Honduras nobody arrived for 1 hour so we ended up starting the baptism at 5 that we had planned for 4.   We ended up having 4 baptisms this day.  3 were from another ward, their font didn’t work, there was not water, and so they came to our church.

Did you do any service for somebody this week I don’t remember because the people here really don’t give us opportunity’s to serve them. 

What was the most spiritual experience of the week? I think that the most spiritual thing that passed this week was seeing Hno R. direct the baptismal meeting. He was so excited to help and serve. I loved seeing him direct the meeting. Just think of how much good that he will do in the church. He has a son that is 7 years old so he will have the opportunity to be baptized in the next year.

Also I have felt the spirit really strong contacting sometimes trying to find the chosen person in all of them. Like yesterday we were just walking and well I stopped and shook the hand of a man, and come to find out he is an inactive member.  He just moved, he has a family but they are not members.   We had to do something in the secretary’s office and while we were there, I found a paper with his name and that he was localized to this area so we will be working hard with him. 

What did you do for p day? We went to the terminal another time and we also washed some clothes, I bought some cake and an ice cream cone.

How was church this week? Church was good this week we are having some inactive or less active members that are coming sporadically but not too many. We had 3 investigators in the meeting, which was good. 

Are you excited for conference?  Yes I am excited for conference but i don’t want to be sitting for 2 hours at a time way too hard. But yes it is better when there is conference because it brings more people and they are more excited.

Do they celebrate Easter there? They do celebrate Easter and almost nobody works. 

We had fun showing people your machete; did you use it this week?  Yes I usually buy a coconut on the way home from lunch so almost every day. 

What’s on the cake? It was the birthday of two of the elders in our district so we bought them a cake with their names written on it.

I don’t think that I had the chickenguñya at least I don’t think so. But I had a lot of stuff in my throat so I have been taking a cough syrup and well now I am coughing but it is dry. No I haven’t gone to the dentist but I will call the nurse this week and ask for an appointment at least to clean my teeth and see if there is a cavity. 

Also you guys can reserve the names of some of the brothers of grandpa on the family search because one of them needs work done. 

When will your apartment be completed?  Will you still be able to use your hammock?  I think some time this week they are just mudding and taping the sheetrock so they have to paint and then we can move.  I wont be able to use my hammock. That's too bad, have you enjoyed the bigger place?  Yes but the bathroom sucks there is no showerhead and there isn’t a p trap on the sink and all these bad gasses are escaping so I am happy to move back. Yeah that doesn't sound good.  Is it super hot there?  Yes it has been super hot like more than 100 with high humidity and a brutal sun. Do you know how many months it will stay that hot?  No I think it will be hot all of the time until next September.

Well I don’t have any more time, but it has been really fun to email you guys. I hope that you will enjoy the time you have in California and that you can return safely.   Love you all.   Elder Olsen.