Week 34 Santa Ana

What was the spiritual event of the week? The spiritual event of the week I think was when we had our interviews with President Dester. It is always really fun to talk to him because he is so uplifting with everything he does and says. I remember how I felt in his presence and it was special it because the spirit was there. 

We had to speak in church this Sunday and it wasn't that bad I only had 5 minutes and my companion 5 minutes because the bishop talked about activities for 30 minute during sacrament meeting.  I had to speak on missionary work of all things. 

What did you do for p day this week? We did absolutely nothing for p day we stayed in the house, I read the Liahona and washed my clothes and now we are writing. My companion can’t do that much because he is still in pain from the tooth. He didn’t leave some of the days and then we did divisions with some of the priests and well I went to work.  Did you do any spits with the other Elders? Yes we didn't do splits but we did a have a companionship of three persons 2 times. We had the Elder A. and A. over to do splits with them and give them an example of how we need to work. It is always fun. I bought an air mattress because there are only two beds in the house and well I’m not going to share mine.   Do you have bugs on the floor where they slept?   There really aren’t that many bugs our apartment is clean compared to others.   What was the picture from last week of that thing in the toilet?  We have some sort of moss that is growing in the toilet and it is really weird, every day it gets longer and longer.  Have you heard of a toilet brush?  We have a toilet brush but it won’t come out, it’s in the tube that connects the tank with the bowl.  Put some bleach in the tank and flush it thru it should kill the moss and might make it come out.  Its not hurting anything so I will leave it. 

How many investigators do you have?  We have tons of investigators but they are not progressing unless they are going to church so right now we only have 1 person who is progressing. She didn't come to church this week, but she came last week. But other than that we have many people to teach but they aren’t progressing. We also have been working with many inactive members and we had almost a whole family come last week. They had to walk from the Lempira in the morning so like 20 minute walking and I hope they will come again next week.   They live in an area that is far away; there are 150 stairs you have to climb to get to the colony. It is hard for the people who live there to come to church.   There is only one active family and the inactive family that came yesterday to church, that live in that area.

Do you have any baptisms lined up? We have a lady with a date to be baptized the 22 of May. But we will see because she is not married but is living with her future husband and with their newborn. She is 16 and her husband is an inactive member.

Did you receive your package last week? No I have not received my package yet. But I hope that it gets here this week. 

Do you have a funny experience from this week? Yes we went to the dentists, a lot of the missionary and well my companion went in because he had a cavity and well they filled the cavity and then after that they took out one of his wisdom teeth. So I got to sit there and take a video. He was there in the chair over an hour and they only took one out. Good entertainment.

They filled one thing on my tooth but said it wasn't a cavity so they just cleaned it a little and put a sealer on it. It still hurts a little but it is good for the rest of my mission. 

Have you had any good food this week?  This week we had pizza one time that a member made and it was really good. I had fun watching my companion eat it because he was in so much pain from his tooth.  Was it the wisdom tooth that was bothered him?  No his cavity had been bothering him for 4 days; he didn't even have pain from his wisdom tooth. He showed up to have a cavity fixed and they decided to take out his wisdom tooth.  What were the sores outside of his mouth from?  The sores are because they had to pry so hard to get the tooth out, it had a lot of bone around it; they spent over an hour pulling that sucker out and finished in many small pieces.

The people that bought the Lambs house, their daughter had her home coming on Sunday.   She served in Mexico.   She had that funny South American accent. 

I have the same problem I can’t talk English to save my life because I start mixing things.  It's called Spanglish   Yeah I know. The part that’s hard is I try to spell English words with the Spanish alphabet sometimes.  Do you dream in Spanish?  I really don’t know if I dream in Spanish or English because I can translate so fast it’s as if they’re one.  Does your companions speak Spanish pretty fast?  He talks really fast. President Dester said when my companion got here to the mission it was hard to understand him.  Do you understand him?  Yes I can understand him. 

It says it feels like 119 degrees in San Pedro Sula right now, it sound very hot. It is very hot but I still sleep with a blanket and I don’t know how, but I am cold in the night. 

What are you doing with your hammock on the bed?  Are you walls peach?  Yes our walls are peach and the hammock on the bed is to block the light and channels the air blowing from the fan. 

Well have another good week and be sure to send me some more pictures. How I love all of you and I hope that all will go good. It has been fun to talk with you. I hope that its not that hot there because here it’s so hot if you try and think your mind overheats.  Make sure that every one of you reads your scriptures every night this week, including dad. But this is all that I have to say for this week.  Next week I will try to have more pictures to send you. 

Love Elder Olsen

Week 33 Santa Ana

What was the spiritual experience of the week?  I think that the spiritual experience this week was when we were teaching Hna C. one of our investigators, she is 16 and she has a baby and her husband is an inactive member but I think that we can activate him. I know that it will be hard to marry them but it is possible, because the family has money and all the brothers and sisters of the inactive member are active and many return missionaries. We just taught one lesson that was so bad that I couldn’t even teach, we had some members and they came back and said we have problems and can’t teach. Our next lesson was powerful and I was ready to share and I had found the scripture that I was looking for the last time and I could share what the spirit was prompting me. 

Did you do anything fun for p day? Besides wash clothes and rest at home. We did do something fun this p day. We went and played soccer in a synthetic field. We went with one of the members and all the other elders’ form the zone came to. But it was so hot, I drank like 3 liters of water in under an hour and my clothes were so wet. 

Have you had any good food recently? Really I haven’t tried anything new, but this week we cooked with a family. My companion cooked chilakilas which are were very good.  The members give us dinner every night.

Are you tired of mangos yet? Really we haven’t had that many mangos because there not quite ripe, but I have eaten 3 or 4 this week. I am just waiting because soon they should be free, I don’t want to buy them.

It looked like it was 105 last week, does it feel that hot? It feels like I am in a furnace because you are always wet even in the nights. I have been really hot in the nights, but I still sleep well and it is hot enough, that the bed dries during the day from all the sweat. But for some reason in the mornings I am always cold and have to use the blanket that you guys sent.  Have you had any rain?  There has been no rain, there has been the opposite because all of the water evaporates and rises. Sometimes my feet feel like they’re on fire. Are the mosquitos worse now that you are sleeping in your bed?  No I don’t really have a problem with mosquitoes, I don’t even use mosquito repellent.  Are you getting use to the bed?  Yes but it is hotter.  How often will you wash you sheets with all the sweat?  Your sheets must smell funky by then.  No they don’t smell that bad they dry so quickly.

Have you been sick? Not really sometimes I have a lot of mucus but they say that this comes when you sleep with a fan. 

How are you doing looking for new people to teach? We are always looking for new people but with my new companion he doesn’t really like to contact. With Elder M. we would contact like 100 people a week and well with Elder M. we had less than 14.  Everything is good with my companion, he is fun, but sometimes a little straightforward and thinks about things excessively, but other than that everything is good.   He walks a little fast. I like the scripture in D&C that says that there is no need to move swiftly because if you do this you won’t see the opportunities on the wayside. 

Did you do any splits last week?  Yes we did splits 2 nights. We are doing them different but my companion and I went with two other companionships we all slept in the house of Chamelecon.  I just took a few things. They said that it was impossible, but I hung my hammock in-between the doors and out a window and all was good.

I will look at the brakes in a few weeks; Randy’s bug needs a master cylinder replaced so I will watch him for a few hours before I start ours.  Brian said, “Its really easy just disconnect the tubes and the wires and pull out the sensors and then take out the two bolts on the back side and your good to go. Put the new one in, put the parts on it and bleed the brakes, then drive.” Dad said, “Sounds easy I just need to quit being lazy and do it.”

We're did you find that Cacao fruit?  We got the Cacao contacting. Could you dry it and then grind it into chocolate powder?  You have to cook it and then do a lot of weird things to make chocolate with it. 

Yeah well I don’t have any more time but it has been fun to talk with you guys.

Week 32- Santa Ana

This week I have been thinking about myself as a boat. I knew that I was at sea and that at one time I had a hole and the water was gushing in and I had to make the choice to patch the hole or sink the boat. I made the choice to fill the hole because I knew that the journey ahead was going to be long and treacherous but that it was possible. I talked with an engineer and filled the hole but I felt as if I had only put a band-aid on the problem.  The boat had a sensor that told me I was sinking but the sensor was wrong. Many times in life I think we get distracted with false alarms from a sensor. We look at things and we think we are going to sink, but really we just need to do a quick check to verify that we are ok, to verify that there is no hole in our hull, to make sure that we will remain afloat in whatever trial that will pass through our paths. I am grateful for the Master Mechanic, our only Savior, Jesus Christ and for the power of His Atonement, without this every one of our boats would be resting lifelessly at the bottom of the sea of life. I know that through Him we can mend whatever hole, big or small, and even if torpedoes and icebergs strike us, we can still remain afloat. I have learned this week a lot about the complexity of the Atonement and how every one of us, with our boats beaten by sin and affliction, can be restored to a perfect state, as if it had never happened. 

Do you have any baptisms planned for this week?  No for this week we don’t have any. We had 3 people to be baptized the 25 and they all fell through, one didn’t come to church yesterday and the other separated with her husband because he was trying to go illegally to Mexico and was deported last week.  Are the people you have helped baptized doing well?  Yes all of the people we have baptized are still active.  

My week was very good and very interesting. I don’t have any money because I spent 25 bucks printing pictures on Monday. How are you doing with your companion and have you moved yet?  Yes we moved back to our other house but it isn’t that fun to sleep in a bed, I miss by hammock.  I will upload some of the pictures from the week, there are only pictures of a chair that is really comfortable that I want to make. 

What did you do for p day?  Nothing. We washed clothes and we cut our hair. My comp doesn’t like to do that much for p day.  How hot is it there?  It’s really hot, and humid here.  How much does your daily coconut cost you?  They cost 12 limperia ($0.56) Are mangos is season yet?  Yes they are in season. There are so many, I have heard that in a few weeks there will be baskets of free mangos in the streets. There are at least 10 or 12 mango trees per block.  Are you making smoothies with them?  We bought a colander or strainer to get all of the fiber out so we can have a really smooth smoothie.  Yes they really eat green mango here and it is good. Depending on the mango you can make a juice that is good. Some of the mangos are sweet when they’re green some are sour so you have to find the right mangos. 

How is R. doing?  Yes he is doing better but still has a cast.   Sometimes when people give us food we don’t want, we give it to him.

This week I stood in the door of this man’s house for 2 hours as he told the this story.  This man was working as a successful mechanical engineer for CLOVER (they make cooking oil and shortening). He had a wife and 2 children. Well he went to a party that his wife said not to, he got a little drunk and then some girl hit him in the face and he was mad, he even said that some evil spirit was in him and he began to destroy everything. He beat up his wife and destroyed the building, throwing chairs and tables. Well he did so many things that they had the possibility to imprison him for the things that he did to his wife. The wife wanted to press charges for all of these things and divorce him. Well he wasn’t so happy so he went and found himself a lawyer. His lawyer said that he had the rest of the week to fix his relationship with his wife so that she would drop the charges. So he did what the lawyer recommended he went to his house got out his pistol and shot 3 shots into the front porch and then did this every day and every night on all sides of the house.  He told his wife if you don’t drop the charges I will kill you, he also told her that it would be her fault because the kids wouldn’t have a place to stay, they wouldn’t have family and if he was going to go to jail for life he might as well kill her because it wouldn’t make a difference for him. Basically he scared his wife into dropping the charges. But this isn’t even a good story because I don’t have the time to give all the detail of how he did it. 

I hope that you guys will have another good week. I don’t know what has passed with the time because I feel like I have only been in the mission 2 or 3 days. Love you all and I am so thankful for all of your support. 

Week 31 Santa Ana

How was your week with your new companion?  Very good I have loved it, we work really hard and study really hard and we have had some very fun doctrinal debates which are always fun. We have been doing very well as a companionship but he walks way fast, but that’s ok, I just have to sacrifice a little more so that I can keep up with him.  How tall is your companion?  He’s pretty short; he is like 5 foot 9.  Grandma says that's tall to her.  Yes I know that it is a little tall.

Do you have any baptisms planned?  Yes there is a baptism on the 25.

What did you do for p-day?  We played soccer and monopoly. Did you move back to the other apartment?  No we are still in the new apartment and it isn’t very good because there are more problems with this place than it’s worth.  What is the problem in the new house?  Sewer gasses and we have trouble with the doors. The locks don’t work. One broke and well sometimes its hard to enter the house. But other than that it’s great.  How long before they finish your apartment?  They said 4 days when they started to renovate and we have been in the other house like 2 weeks.  And you can still sleep in your hammock?  Yes, but I can’t use my hammock when we move back the old house.  All they need to do to finish up is paint it. 

How do they celebrate Easter there?  Most all of the people go the beach or swim in the river, because it is so hot. The Catholic’s are walking in the street with these big idols and statues that they are carrying. 

Have another good week; I will always have you guys in my prayers.