21 Nov 2009

Things are getting really busy as we get closer to the end of the transfer. We have so many things to do this week and not enough time. we have a fireside that we have been planning this next sunday, it will be in 3 different wards in our zone. it is a musical fireside. its called sounds of the restoration. ha kinda cheesy name huh. but its gonna be sweet! we made tickets and fliers and everything! so hopefuly we will have a good turn out. We had a ward thanksgiving party/dinner on saturday night. it was a great turn out! I love this ward its kinda crazy, when it was over and everyone was cleaning up they had really loud music playing and everyone was dancing as they were cleaning, haha it was pretty cool i got it on camera. we had a really cool miracle happen that night. so you know how we have only french kreole speaking investigators right?? well this week we just found more. A lady i fearlessed on the bus her name is mary, she is from haiti and doesnt speak any english at all. seriously none.. but we had an appointment with her a few days after i talked to her and her nease was there with her. so we taught them both, as much as we could. haha and than commited them to come to the thanks giving dinner. well because of communication problems due to the huge language barrier there was some confusion on getting to the church. we went to mary's nease's apt to pick her up(her name is annie) and than we walked to mary's apt and picked up mary her husband and son in law. so 4 of them all together. so apparently they thought that we were pcking them up in a car so none of them had metro cards, so we thought that we could walk. as we started walking up flatbush ave we ran into one of mary's sisters and she decided to come with us. so now there are 5 of them. and as we started walking i realized that it was going to take a very long time to get to the church at their walking speed and it was going to be hard on them. so i called the bishop to see if there was anything that he could do, he asked where we were and i told him, he said i'm right there i will just pull over and you guys can hop in. he pulled over and i looked across the street and his SUV was literally right there. he was with 2 other members picking up a turkey, and he had exactly 5 extra seats in the car! so they all piled in and headed to the church. my comp and i walked.. They all had a great time and liked it alot! the dad said to the bishop I like it alot here, I feel at home! so that was awesome! they are all really awesome! We have another lady named monique also from haiti, she is 80 years old and has hearing problems and doesnt speak any english either. so this makes communicating even more difficult. yesterday was her second week at church. and we gave her a french Book Of Mormon, it was so awesome she was so excited and started reading it right there. I hope that she will be able to be baptized this sunday. it has been hard finding members who speak Kreole to go teaching with us alot. thus making it hard to help these people progress as fast as they could. so its a little frustrating. i am seriously considering learning french, like asking my president to change my call so that the rest of my mission i am only here in midwood or jamaica where the haitians are. i think that i could learn it pretty fast. we are still trying to get french missionaires here. i hope that it happens soon, they would have so much too do! I am talking to president this wednesday about an idea that elder williamson had( and elder that i lived with in south shore for 2 transfers) he wants to pitch an idea to president called "finding missionaires" Basickly williamson and i would pick 6 different areas in the mission and spend 1 week in each area just finding new investigators. we would do it in different parts of the mission that are struggling to find new people. and give all of the people that we find to the missionaries working that area. i think that it is a good idea. if we were finding all the time i would feel confident that we could find over 70 of 80 new investigators each week. it would be hard but we could do it. So this wednesday i will probably find out what i will be doing for the next few transfers. . If president does want to do the finding missionaires i know that i will be one of them. because it would have to be elders that want to do it, know how to find, are fearless, and who really get along with each other. so if it does happen i will probably be with elder williamson. we get along great and he is a great elder, he is now a zone leader in south brooklyn. well please pray for me and my comp! We need miracles! to make this a succesfull transfer. . I love you all and thank you for everything!!
Hurrah For Israel!!!
Elder MIchael Olsen

18 Nov 2009

well we had a good week. stake conference was yesterday it was good. but we only had 2 investigators there. One is franshaw, he is from barbados. i think that i told you about him last week. he is awesome. I found out yesterday that he is 2nd oldest of 17 children and he himself has 8 children. there are well over a hundred members of his family back in barbados. so we told him that he has to go back and convert and baptize them all. he says that he wants to come back here to get baptized. haha but im sure that will change once he actually sees the church there. he is was solid. tyler sounds like he is doing amazing!! i wish that i could be companions with him! we would tear it up! He has such a great vision of what he can do with the lords help. he has the why not? attitude.. which is awesome! why not? why cant we find a family that is ready to be baptized every day? surely the lord has prepared them. he is doing great. not many missionaries have this kind of attitude. please pray for the jagna family that they will be able to get baptized this transfer. i love you all. sorry i dont have alot of time today. Hope that all is well at home. please pray for me!
Elder michael Olsen
HUrrah For Israel!!