30 Dec 2009

Hey everyone !
Well it was really cool talking to everyone on Christmas! It sounds like everyone is doing great. I am so happy to be here on a mission. The work right now is going so great! Yesterday we committed a few more people for baptism on January 17th. We should have 7 baptisms on that day! I am really excited. It is going to be stressful getting all of them ready, but I have learned that stress is a gift from god. At least that is how I look at it. When I am stressed I am always on edge. I am always thinking about what I can do to help my investigators progress, my brain never stops thinking, constantly looking for opportunities to share the gospel and bare testimony. It is very tiring but the lord gives me the strength that I need. We have a few other people that are eligible to be baptized on the 17th, one is the Richards family! They are really awesome and they need all the prayers that they can get... So please everyone pray for them. Also the Jimenez family. They have been to church many times. The kids all want to be baptized but the dad will not let them. He is the boyfriend of a member in the ward, and the missionaries have been teaching him and his 3 kids on and off for the last year. But he has read a lot of anti Mormon stuff and he has seen a lot of bad fruits from the church directly in his life. Example… the bishop in his home country Ecuador disappeared with everyone’s tithing money. Just a lot of stuff like that. He says that he really does want to know if it is all true and that he prays but doesn’t get an answer. I committed him to live the law of chastity and than pray to know if it is true. He said that he would do so. Please pray that he will be able to recognize his answer, and that he will have the strength to live the law of chastity. Really the kids would be baptized next Sunday if he would just give them permission. Pray that his heart will be softened and that he will see the truth. Everything is going great! I hope that I will be able to stay here in Jamaica for another transfer… but you never know what the lord has in store. This is my 11th transfer in the mission!! I am getting old… I am going to set a goal to quadruple the number of baptisms that I have had so far before I go home. Please pray that I will continue to be able to find those that are prepared and that they will be led to me and my companion. And please pray for the people to be baptized on the 17th. I love you all and I know that this church is true. I know that families can be together forever! How amazing is that! We are really going to be together as a family forever. That is my favorite thing to teach. Hurrah For Israel!!!
Elder Olsen(michael)

21 Dec 2009

well we had a pretty good week. we got dumped on here with the snow! there is seriously tons.. but it looks like alot of it is going to melt today. my back hurts pretty bad today, we did alot of shoveling yesterday. All of the snow made it really hard for people to come to church(or it just gave them a descent excuse not to come) haha ... we only had 26 people at church yesterday. but we were able to have 8 investigators there! I was calling all of our investigators at around 8 am in the morning to see if they were coming to church. Marcia richards one of our gators told me that she would come but she cant get her car out of the driveway.. so i told her that we were going to be there in 20 minutes to shovel the driveway and get the car out so they could come to church. well i went into the other room to inform my comp and well he was still asleep :( so i had to wait for his slow butt to get ready and it took forever! but oh well.. really though its kind of rediculous what kind of zone leader sleeps in till 8 o clock. so when we finally made it out to our car we realized that we didnt have a shovel and our car was buried with snow. so we ran down the street looking for some one with a shovel, we found one and ran back and dug out our car as fast as we could. when we got to the richards it was about 8:55.. church starts at 9 am. luckily there driveway was not that bad and i was able to shovel it in about 5 minutes but the family was not ready to go yet. so we waited for everyone to get ready which took about 30 minutes and than they followed us to church, marcia drives extremely slow in the snow. she is from jamaica(the island) and probably hasnt experienced much snow driving. so they missed sacrament meeting but made it to the sunday school classes. they liked church alot. after church i was taking marcia around the church and showing her the different pictures and explaining it. when we got to the one portraying the second coming she flipped out. she said that she had seen that before, she was really in shock. she explained to me that 5 or 6 years earlier she had a vision and saw the second coming and she said that is exactly what it looked like. ha it was really awesome! she is really prepared to recieve the gospel. their family is going through some really rough times right now tough. satan is trying everything he can to keep them from the truth. the husband/Dad is in jail on what marcia believes to be false charges, and their house just got forclosed on last friday cause marcia got scammed somehow. big long story but anyways just pray for them. . right now we have 5 baptismal commits for this transfer. and i think that marcia and her kids will accept a date for this transfer this week. we set a goal at the begining of the transfer for 6 baptisms. i think that we will be able to do it. Well we had a zone leader council this week and we talked about the finding missionaires again. it looks like if I do do it i will not be finding all of the time. rather i would be a full time finding trainer, basicly go on one day exchanges with everyone in the mission and train them on how to find more effectively. we are planning on doing a trial transfer next transfer. i guess i can tell you more about it on friday. well please pray for our baptismal commits and those that are really close. i love all of you and i pray for you often. i know this church is true and i love sharing this gospel. pray for these people. (richards fam, Nijiyah edwards and mom, david watson, felicia and saquan bethea, antoinette finley and fam, penny, miranda, JimeneZ family. . thank you i love you
Hurrah For Israel!!
Elder Michael Olsen

Elder Michael Olsen Address

For those of you that would like to send Mikie something for Christmas here is his address..



88-20 parsons blvd, # 4A...

Jamaica,Ny 11432

15 Dec 2009

well we had a good week. it is good to be back here in jamaica, its a little weird being back in a car. i am not able to talk to as many people everyday :( it kinda sucks.. i went from talking to hundreds of people everyday on trains and buses and on the streets to talking to well alot less. but its okay. we just have to set time apart everyday that we can go finding. we were able to commit 3 people for baptism this week. they are all pretty solid. please pray for them, their names are Jijiyah haighs edwards, felicia bethea and antoinette finley. they all need alot of help. so please pray. i know that it will help. my comp is elder good man. i was with him before for 1 transfer when i was here before. I am excited for this transfer. there is alot of potential in this area. and alot of people that i think are prepared to be baptized this transfer. we will just need to work really hard to help them and do everything that we can to keep their commits. Being on a mission has been an interesting thing for me, i just never feel satisfied. i always want more. as i study and apply the atonement in my life everyday i get a stronger desire to do this work better and harder. I feel more and more determined. our zone did okay last transfer, about the average of what this zone usually does. I am hoping to be able to help change that this tranfer. please pray for me and my companion. that we can set the example for the zone. i love you all and hope that you have a great week! Hurrah For Israel.!!!
Elder Olsen

7 Dec 2009

well i am getting transfered after just six weeks here in midwood brooklyn :( its kinda sad, well its really sad. i really love this area and the ward and the people that we are working with. but i guess the good news is that i am going back to jamaica. yup i guess i just took a six week break from jamaica and now im back. there is alot of work that still needs to be done there and so im ready to work hard. I will be with elder goodman whom i was with last transfer. the zone did good last transfer, pretty much the whole zone is changing from what is was when i was there before everyone is getting a new companion. there will only be a few of the same people that were there before. And i will be back in a car :( which means less talking to people and me getting fatter. haha i'll be okay. Mom dont worry about the package that nannie sent, the sign language missionaires can take it to the office for me and ill be able to get it next monday if it arrives by that time. ummm i dont know what other questions that you asked. oh yeah my camera broke!! i know it totally stinks,

30 Nov 2009

Well I had a good week. It was a very busy week with a lot of meetings and planning type stuff. We had a street sweep last Saturday that went well. We went to the Atlantic Center with the whole zone. Its a big shopping center in the downtown part of Brooklyn, so we had to plan that out so that it would be effective. But it went well, everyone was really motivated and talking to everyone. I was able to commit two people for baptism on December 27th. They are in park slopes area. One of them is a couple, the wife is actually a member of the church all ready, she was baptized 2 years ago and moved here a year ago and never came to church. But her husband is way cool. He is a really big Spanish guy. The other man that I committed is really cool too. he totally agreed with the apostasy and said that he had been researching religions and looking for the true church. We had 4 investigators at church yesterday. After church I taught a lesson with some of the Creole speaking members to Mary Elie, she doesn’t speak any English at all. She is one of the people that came to the ward thanksgiving party last week. Her husband couldn’t come because he had to work. And were not sure why her nease was not able to come because we cant call her(we don’t speak Creole)_ ha-ha its been really hard helping these investigators progress. I committed her for baptism on December 20th and she accepted but she said that she and her husband were not actually married. Apparently her husband died and his wife died some time ago. And so they are living together and not married. At least she knew that it was a sin and that it would have to be fixed before she could get baptized. So we are going to get them married and than baptized! Yeah another wedding!! Elder Pape met with a man named Moses after church; he met him on the bus. He is a 23 year old Dominican kid. He is really cool and he committed him to be baptized on dec 27th. he is really excited about it. We had our musical concert in the English and Spanish ward last night. It was really good! I mean really good, the only thing that stinks is that not all of the members came.  but we are going to do it again in about a month and hopefully we will be able to get more members to come and bring their friends. It was basicly every principle in the restoration with a explanation and than a testimony and than a musical number. Everyone that came really loved it! I gave a talk in church yesterday about happiness, I thought that it went well. Well this is day 1 of week 6 of the transfer! I am certain that I will be staying here. We had zone leader council last Wednesday, elder Williamson and I talked to president about the “finding missionaries” he really liked the idea and we will be doing it not this transfer but the next. He wants us to plan it out a little better and everything. I think that it will be really fun. It will be hard but really fun and rewarding. Well please pray for me and my investigators. We need more Creole speaking members to help us teach all of these people that we have. This next transfer is going to be sweet! We have a lot of people that are ready to be baptized. Please specifically pray for Mary and family, Moses, Annie, Monique and peter. Thanks for everything I love you all so much!