Hey everyone!
Well it was a great week! We had the baptism of Jorge Garcia on Wednesday night. I will send you pictures later cause i left the camera in the car. Margaret(the 77 year old lady) came to church and loved it. She called me a few hours after church just to thank me. It was really cool... She is doing well and should be getting baptized 2 weeks from now. Yury Cruz gave a talk yesterday that was really great, We baptized her my first transfer here. The talk was amazing, I was really blown away. She is leaving for Colombia tomorrow morning :( Her time here is up and she is going back to be with her family. We went to say goodbye to her this morning and she gave me a Colombian futbol jersey. She is going to go back and convert her entire family... We had a cool miracle happen yesterday, A man Daniel showed up at church. The sister missionaries fearlessed him on the train a few days ago. He used to investigate the church when he was like 15 years old. Well he was like an hour and a half late, So it was in the middle of Gospel Principles class, I took him in there. After the class was over I was talking with him and asking him why he came to the church and some soul searching questions. Well in about 1 minute i had him commited for baptism in 2 weeks. So on the 27th he is going to be baptized. It was really funny cause the next class was priesthood and when we stood up to intruduce him i told everyone that he was preparing to be baptized on the 27th. He was really happy and smiling, But everyone else was shocked. Especially the missionaries. . . Afterwards some of them came and talked to me asking how i was able to do it when i had just barely met him and we had never taught him a lesson. haha I said well i just bore my testimony and asked him to be baptized and he said yes. Its easy sometimes missionaries are just so scared of inviting people to be baptized, no one can ever be baptized if we dont ask them too. We had Steven B Allen visiting our mission from Monday to Thursday morning. He is the managing director or the missionary department over the whole church. Basically he is the man when it comes to missionary work. Monday afternoon we had a meeting with him discussing the mission and the culture and than he and Brother MItchell (He is in charge of training at the MTC, as well as training new mission presidents) They gave us a lesson on asking inspired questions... IT was increddible! really i think that i learned more in the 3 days that they were here than i have my entire mission. Than that night Brother Allen went out teaching with Elder Cascardi and I. Brother Allen said that he wanted us to throw our lesson plan out and just go into the lesson and do what they had just taught us to do, Ask inspired questions and than teach whatever the spirit guides you too. So first i will give you a little description of what an inspired question is.
Basically when you are talking to some one and you want to ask an inspired question you really have to focus and be in tune with the spirit. And you just wait.... You dont say anything until the spirit tells you exactly what to say. And than when the revelation does come you ask the question and listen to their response, than you dont ask another question or give a response until the revelation comes. So you just sit there and wait for it. It is really neat to completely rely on the spirit. Well Its not like i have never done this before or that this was completely foreign to me. But the way that they taught it and completely focusing on it was a big eye opener for me. And how much more i could be saying exactly what I need to be saying at exactly the right moment. So we went out teaching and we went to margaret and than to Jorge. Both of the lessons went really well. Brother Allen really liked margaret. He was really funny, we of course were talking to everyone on the streets as we were walking to and from our appointments. He thought it was so cool that there were so many people out on the streets. The next day we had a meeting at the mission home to prepare for our leaders meeting the following day. They did another training for us and showed us allot of the new training tools that they will be thorough out the world in this next month. They are changing allot of things in the way that missions run. we are only going to have zone conference once every quarter as well as interviews. There is just allot of stuff changing to make it possible for the mission presidents to be out with the missionaries teaching more and doing more hands on training. They also showed us allot of the new pmg dvds that are coming out in a few weeks. The leaders meeting the next day was really good, really like the best training i have ever recieved. I think that it really helped out our mission. They focused allot on baptism and our purpose as missionaries and the doctrine of Christ. We had 2 zone conferences the following 2 days. One in long island and the other here in queens. They were pretty good. We have 2 other zone conferences this week, one in brooklyn and the other in queens. As well as we start transfer planning, so it is going to be a long week but it will be good. I dont know if i am going to stay here or not yet but i will probably find out today or in the next few days. I dont care either way. I like serving here and working with president but it would be nice to be out all the time baptizing people and not having to worry about allot of other mission drama all the time. Seriously this mission is like One Tree Hill all over again. haha well i love you all and i hope that you have a great week! The church is true, what else matters...
Hurrah For Israel!!!!!!!!!
Elder Olsen
Monday, June 14, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
9 June 2010
I guess that i am getting old in the mission. No one e mails me more than 2 sentences anymore :( haha nah its okay. Welp i had a great week, we have Jorge getting baptized this wednesday. Today in about 15 minutes Brother Allen from the missionary department will be here and we will start our meetings. Its going to be a crazy week, 2 zone conferences, a zone leader council, and 3 full days with brother allen here with a ton of meetings. Alex got confirmed yesterday, it was great! he is really cool. I love you all have a good week
Hurrah For Israel!!
Elder Olsen
Hurrah For Israel!!
Elder Olsen
Friday, June 4, 2010
This is one out of order because of my broken arm 17 May 2010
Hello Family!
Here are some pictures for you... The beach baptism was really cool. It was actually really hard to baptize her, the waves were huge! and the wind was blowing really hard. But its a good thing I'm a pro at baptizing ha ha. . We did the baptism in Long Beach, there is a member in the Long Beach area that owns a house on a private beach. so it was really nice, there was no one on the beach and no trash. We had planned on staring the baptism at 5:30 so we left the church here in Rego Park at 4:30. . . But because of traffic it took like an hour and a half to get there. I hate NY traffic. But i am getting pretty used to it, now that i have been in a car for almost a year. and my parallel parking skills just keep getting better and better. I think that i could enter into some kind of competition or something, I think i could take the whole thing. haha but really i am pretty good. And right now i am driving a mini van if i haven't all ready told you. I know that i have probably said it many times in My life that i hate mini vans... But let me tell ya.. I never have these things a fair shot. They are actually pretty sweet! ha i never thought i would be saying that. Ours is the Dodge Caravan, it has the "stow and go" seating. So basically if we need to transport anything we can in just a minute or two make all of our seats disappear under the floor and we have a large open space in the back of the van. Or as we call it our "living room" cause we spend allot of eating our lunch in the "living room" But anyways i have gotten allot of good practice parking this mini van into some pretty tight parking spots here in the heart of queens. Well enough about mini vans huh. Jorge committed to be baptized the 29th of this month. So we are really excited for him. He is really good. He will be the first person that i baptize that doesn't speak a lick of English. ha so pretty much Elder Cascardi and the members do all of the teaching and I bare my testimony. But i am trying to pick up on the Spanish. It is just hard with no extra time. We also have Alex whom is Luddy's friend committed for the 30th of this month. But we are still trying to get him to go to church in a different ward out in Long Island cause that is where he lives. We had quite a crazy week. and this week is not looking any less nuts, We were able to finish up our transfer planning with president about 30 minutes ago(that took up the entire morning) And everything looks pretty good for next transfer. We have Elder Michael Ringwood coming to visit our mission this week(of the Seventy) He spoke in Conference 2 conferences ago. So this Wednesday we have a Zone Leader Council that he is going to come too that we need to prepare for, And than on Thursday and Friday we have Zone Conference with the entire mission that we also need to get allot of stuff ready for, and than both Thursday and Friday night Elder Ringwood is going to do a fireside for the wards and branches, 1 of them will be in Long Island and another one here in Queens. So yeah it will be quite a crazy week. We are really being blessed, we have hardly any time to proselyte but the time that we do use the Lord is making it really effective. I feel like right now for the first time in my mission that we are only teaching people that i feel confident are ready to be baptized this month. It is really cool. Well i love you all and i pray for you everyday. Please pray for a woman named Deborah, last week we were coming out of a pizza shop and i saw this old lady and i could tell that she was looking at us so i waved to her and said hi! she walked over and asked if we could pray for her daughter who is very sick. We got talking to her and eventually led to us just walking over to her house right than to give her a priesthool blessing. We walked into this ladies home and her daughter was lying on the bed, I dont know that i have actually seen anyone closer to death than this woman. She is only in her 30's and she has 2 kids a boy and a girl 15 and 14 years old. The 14 year old daughter was there. We shared a message
Here are some pictures for you... The beach baptism was really cool. It was actually really hard to baptize her, the waves were huge! and the wind was blowing really hard. But its a good thing I'm a pro at baptizing ha ha. . We did the baptism in Long Beach, there is a member in the Long Beach area that owns a house on a private beach. so it was really nice, there was no one on the beach and no trash. We had planned on staring the baptism at 5:30 so we left the church here in Rego Park at 4:30. . . But because of traffic it took like an hour and a half to get there. I hate NY traffic. But i am getting pretty used to it, now that i have been in a car for almost a year. and my parallel parking skills just keep getting better and better. I think that i could enter into some kind of competition or something, I think i could take the whole thing. haha but really i am pretty good. And right now i am driving a mini van if i haven't all ready told you. I know that i have probably said it many times in My life that i hate mini vans... But let me tell ya.. I never have these things a fair shot. They are actually pretty sweet! ha i never thought i would be saying that. Ours is the Dodge Caravan, it has the "stow and go" seating. So basically if we need to transport anything we can in just a minute or two make all of our seats disappear under the floor and we have a large open space in the back of the van. Or as we call it our "living room" cause we spend allot of eating our lunch in the "living room" But anyways i have gotten allot of good practice parking this mini van into some pretty tight parking spots here in the heart of queens. Well enough about mini vans huh. Jorge committed to be baptized the 29th of this month. So we are really excited for him. He is really good. He will be the first person that i baptize that doesn't speak a lick of English. ha so pretty much Elder Cascardi and the members do all of the teaching and I bare my testimony. But i am trying to pick up on the Spanish. It is just hard with no extra time. We also have Alex whom is Luddy's friend committed for the 30th of this month. But we are still trying to get him to go to church in a different ward out in Long Island cause that is where he lives. We had quite a crazy week. and this week is not looking any less nuts, We were able to finish up our transfer planning with president about 30 minutes ago(that took up the entire morning) And everything looks pretty good for next transfer. We have Elder Michael Ringwood coming to visit our mission this week(of the Seventy) He spoke in Conference 2 conferences ago. So this Wednesday we have a Zone Leader Council that he is going to come too that we need to prepare for, And than on Thursday and Friday we have Zone Conference with the entire mission that we also need to get allot of stuff ready for, and than both Thursday and Friday night Elder Ringwood is going to do a fireside for the wards and branches, 1 of them will be in Long Island and another one here in Queens. So yeah it will be quite a crazy week. We are really being blessed, we have hardly any time to proselyte but the time that we do use the Lord is making it really effective. I feel like right now for the first time in my mission that we are only teaching people that i feel confident are ready to be baptized this month. It is really cool. Well i love you all and i pray for you everyday. Please pray for a woman named Deborah, last week we were coming out of a pizza shop and i saw this old lady and i could tell that she was looking at us so i waved to her and said hi! she walked over and asked if we could pray for her daughter who is very sick. We got talking to her and eventually led to us just walking over to her house right than to give her a priesthool blessing. We walked into this ladies home and her daughter was lying on the bed, I dont know that i have actually seen anyone closer to death than this woman. She is only in her 30's and she has 2 kids a boy and a girl 15 and 14 years old. The 14 year old daughter was there. We shared a message
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
31 May 2010
Hey Everyone.Well we had a great week! Alex got baptized on Saturday! it was really cool. We did it on the beach again, but this time we did it in a different location than Luddy's baptism. There was allot less waves. Elder Casacardi baptized him. Luddy gave a talk on baptism and that was really good, its really special when you have the opportunity to see people that you baptized talk and bare their testimony. We have Jorge who is getting baptized this next Sunday, he is doing really awesome! We are really being blessed with so many miracles. If you remember Debby and Margaret (i talked about them a few e mails ago) Debby is the one that was really sick, she has 2 kids boy and girl 14 and 15. Margaret is her mother. Well we finished a meeting a few nights ago and i was on exchanges with a Zone Leader in zone 7, and i had a new missionary with me. He came into the mission last Monday and got out into his first area which was Jamaica, and totally freaked out. He was having panic attacks and depression and all kind of problems. So he was staying with us for 3 days until he was going home, which was Saturday. And we had planned to stop by and visit Debby and Margaret earlier in the day, but because allot of stuff came up we didn't have time. We had tried to contact her a few times in the last week but hadn't had any luck. Well we got into the van and i really felt like we needed to go right than. So we drove over there (in our super cool mini-van ha ha) and knocked on the door. Margaret answered the door and just started to cry. She told us that Debby had passed away... We shared with her parts of the plan of salvation, it was really spiritual and helped me realize how blessed we are to have the knowledge of God's plan. It is a really weird feeling that she died, I was just visiting with her last week. But it was really neat that i was able to give her a blessing before she died. I really felt when i was giving her the blessing the love that God had for her and how strong of a lady that she really was. She had endured so many trials in life. I have no doubt that she will be in a happy place and will accept the Gospel on the other side. Now i just hope that we will be able to baptize her mom and her 2 kids. So please pray for them. Janine called me last night and told me that she doesn't want to meet with us anymore :( It was really sad for me... I'm not sure why this always happens but i'm sure that there is something that i am supposed to learn from this happening over and over again on my mission. I really do try to love all of those that i teach, and i think that i do. But for some reason through out my mission there have been a few people that i have taught that i felt different about. It was a stronger love, and i have really desired their salvation and acceptance of the gospel. And every single person that i have taught that i have felt that connection to have not gotten baptized and have stopped investigating. (Ebony Downy and her family, Miranda, a few others and now Janine and her family) I dont know i suppose Heavenly Father is trying to toughen up my heart. Or help me to learn to love people that way and than when they let you down not getting discouraged or down. It just occured to me that these experiences have really helped me understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ allot better. He was perfect, he had a perfect love for everyone! And we let him down all the time, I let him down all the time. I guess this is giving me a taste of what he must feel everytime that i or anyone does something wrong. Elder Holland said in a talk (Missionary work and the Atonement) Why would we ever expect it to be easy, when it was never easy for him! When we take the name of Christ upon ourselves and do his work, we need to expect to feel at least a fraction of what he felt.
That is not quoted exactly, but it basically says that, you can find a version of the talk on lds . org. but the original was given at the mtc and you cant get that copy anywhere. I got a copy from my mission president that he got somewhere. Well I love being a missionary. And i love doing this work. Next week Steven Allen is coming to visit our mission, he is going to come teaching with us for an entire evening. I am really nervous, so please pray for me. If i mess up on something they are probably going to use me as a bad example in the next version of PMG haha. I love you all have a great week!
Hurrah For Israel!!
Elder Michael Melvin Olsen
That is not quoted exactly, but it basically says that, you can find a version of the talk on lds . org. but the original was given at the mtc and you cant get that copy anywhere. I got a copy from my mission president that he got somewhere. Well I love being a missionary. And i love doing this work. Next week Steven Allen is coming to visit our mission, he is going to come teaching with us for an entire evening. I am really nervous, so please pray for me. If i mess up on something they are probably going to use me as a bad example in the next version of PMG haha. I love you all have a great week!
Hurrah For Israel!!
Elder Michael Melvin Olsen
29 May 2010
well we had a really busy week. Transfers was a headache. and we ended up making our last change Tuesday morning the day of transfers ha ha. But everything turned out okay. Alex is getting baptized this Sunday! It is going to be another beach baptism ha. All of our investigators want to get baptized in the ocean or a river, ha it is pretty funny. We are doing it in a different spot than Luddy's baptism. Hopefullly the waves will not be as big. And than we have Jorge who is supposed to get baptized this sunday. But he will probably get baptized next week. This last week we had Elder Michael T. Ringwood(1st quorum of the Seventy) do a mission tour. I was able to spend allot of time with him, it was really neat. We did 2 different zone conferences for the whole mission. They were really great! and i really learned allot. He gave a talk 2 General Conferences ago, I think his talk was called an easiness and willingness to believe. He was a great speaker and i think really helped our mission. We also had a Zone Leader Council with him that was great. In two weeks we have Steven Allen (the director of the missionary department) coming to visit the mission as well. I am really scared. He is going to come teaching with us for an entire night and we have allot of meetings with him and president that we have to go to. he is basically going to be judging the mission based upon our performance. This is the man that basically trains all of the mission presidents. He is really legit. So it should be really exciting. Please pray for me and my companion. We are trying to do everything exactly the way that PMG says to do it. I do have one thing however to talk to him about, The PMG dvd's are wrong, and some parts dont go along with what PMG manual actually says to do. haha I think that it is pretty funny. the missionaries that they show in the dvd's doing their daily planning do it wrong. So we are planning on talking with him about that. Well everything is going great. we have way too much to do and not enough time to do any of it. But the Lord is really blessing us with plenty of miracles, I have never done so little missionary work in my life and seen so great fruits from my little efforts. We only teach people that get baptized. haha that is the way that it should always be. Our ward council got really mad at us last week, (well actually i wasnt there i was on exchanges with someone else to pick up and investigator) BUt they got really mad at my companion. Because they said that we cant just baptize people so fast that no one in the ward has time to even know who they are. Ha they are just used to people investigating for months! That is not how i do it. No more than 4 weeks. that is the max. So they are just going to have to get used to it. But I love you all and i love doing this amazing work. Hurrah For Israel!!
Elder Olsen
Elder Olsen
1 May 2010
I do not have a lot of time today. You really need to start preparing for your mission now! Make up your mind today, right now that you are going to be a great missionary. Do not ever settle for less. Once you have made that decision it will guide your actions, attitude and eventually the results of your whole mission. Do not settle for mediocrity. You will find that you will go into the mission field and there will be all kinds of missionaries, some will be good, some will be average, some will be poor... But only a few in any will be great. A lot of missionaries when they first come into the mission field get discouraged and they lose a lot of faith and desire and vision of missionary work because of the poor examples around them. They lose the original vision of what they originally thought missionary work is like, and what a missionary is supposed to be. All of us have this "idea" of what a missionary is and what he does, when we are in primary we learn about them and they are heroes to us. Well Justin this is the right "idea" and that is what missionaries are supposed to be. Don't let other peoples ideas and actions and examples influence you for the negative. No matter where you are called there will be Elders that will justify breaking mission rules, they will say that it is only in this mission that "that" happens.. They will say we don't and cant baptize like that in this mission or in this area. Don't listen to this garbage, Be the missionary that God wants you to be. I want you right after you open your call to go to a quiet place and ponder about how you feel, Pray out loud and tell God that you are thankful for the opportunity that you have to serve. Than i want you to think of what you want to accomplish on your mission, make sure that you write down the things that come to your mind. Think of how many people that you want to baptize. Write them down. And than pray and ask Heavenly Father if this is his will, Promise him that you will do everything in your power to help these people to be baptized, promise him that you are going to be exactly obedient your entire mission. That you are going to work your absolute hardest! After praying wait and ponder and wait for the conformation of the spirit. You will feel the spirit testify to you that you can do it. And you will know that God wants you to do it and that he is going to help you to do it. Justin you are a child of God, I know that. I have felt the love that he has for you. Never forget that. And never forget that every single person that you meet and see every single day is also a child of God and that he loves them just as much as he loves you. Try to imagine the way that God really feels about all the people around you. Start studying the Atonement of Jesus Christ and applying it into your life everyday. If you don't know how or what to study refer to PMG and dad and Steve. But please study the Atonement. I promise that it will help more than anything else to prepare you for a mission. for with God nothing shall be impossible" Luke 1:37...
Hurrah For Israel!!!
Elder M. Olsen
Hurrah For Israel!!!
Elder M. Olsen
1 May 2010
Hey Mom and Dad
Hey I'm writing you cause i need to ask you a favor. Mom dad and janessa and well anyone else that would like to write their testimony to this family can read this below and send me their testimony. Actually i think that it would be really good for Justin to send his to Julia as well. So Justin you better do this or I'm gonna beat you up. haha
So I think that i have told you about Jennine and her family at least a few times. They are the ones from Brazil. We have been teaching them for a while now. Jennine is awesome! She has come to church a few times and wants to get baptized. She all ready considers this her church. She does pretty well at keeping her commitments but she has been struggling a lot lately because life has gotten a lot more crazy. This always happens anytime anyone makes any decision or progress for good, Satan will try even harder to keep us from our potential. So this has really been happening to her. Her husband Edison is really cool, but has been really cold lately. He will not come down and sit in the lessons, Well I'll talk more about him in a second. So Julia is there 16 year old daughter, She is really nice. But is going through a tough time right now. she is really rebelling. she stays out sometimes late at night or just doesn't come home at all. She is not going to school every day, she is smoking cigarettes. But yet she is still a nice girl. she is just lost. Like last Sunday night we went over and we were teaching Jennine and Julia just came in and sat in the lesson and wanted to learn, her and her mom got along great. we asked her what was it throughout her life that has made her truly happy, or like the moments in her life when she felt the most joy and happiness. She said that the times when she felt like that were when she was bonding with her mom. So we committed them to read and pray together every night and they said that they were going to do it. But than next thing we hear from Jennine is that Julia was out way late and didn't tell anyone where she was. and just the same old stuff. I know that she is a good person and has a desire to choose the right. She is just wounded by sin right now and doesn't know the way out. Last week she stole 300 dollars from her mom and the car and crashed the car. that same week she also got caught shoplifting and spent the night in Juvenile jail. ha ha i know this sounds a lot like my teenage years. So as a result of this Edison(the father) has started to drink. and went to pick up Jennine last week with there other son Nicholas(who is 6) and Edison was drunk. so Jennine got really mad at him and he has basically lost a lot of trust with her. and Jennine pretty much treats him like a child. So Edison cause of all of this is of course feeling really bad. and awkward because he knows that Jennine tells us everything. so this is probably why he is not coming into the lessons anymore and he is avoiding us. So yeah this is all a big mess... I hope that any of that made sense. I really love this family a lot! and i know that the Gospel could really help them right now. Jennine would do it if she just had a little more support. and i think Edison and Julia would come along as well. if only they could be softened a little. So mom i was wondering if you could write Jennine a letter, well actually just e mail it to me and i will print it off and give it to her. cause that will be faster. But i think that you would be able to help her, you having been a mom of a few wayward children. Just bare your testimony to her and tell her that you know that she leading her family in the gospel will solve all of the family problems and they will eventually be a "happy family" Just pray about it and follow the spirit as you write the letter. I really know that your testimony will be able to help her mom. Dad i would love for you to write a letter to Edison, Just whatever you want to say, Bare your testimony to him of the atonement(but don't use that word cause he doesn't know what that means) tell him that you know that there is a way to find peace of conscience and happiness in life. Tell him of your testimony and experience of how our family was blessed and saved by the gospel. And finally I would like to ask Janessa if she would be willing to write a letter to Julia, and since Becca is always over at our house maybe Becca would like to write her as well. that would be awesome! Tell them to write their testimony about the atonement as well. and how having the gospel and the church and faith in Jesus Christ has helped them find true happiness. not the fake temporary happiness that comes from doing the "cool" thing in high school (drugs, alcohol, smoking, sex etc...) Tell her about how it has blessed your life knowing that you are a daughter of a Heavenly Father who loves you, and tell her that you know that she is such as well. Just seek and follow the spirit and i know that you will know what to write. I really love this family, I can imagine them as a family 1 year from now all dressed in white in the Manhattan Temple! They are a awesome family. I would really appreciate it if you guys could do this for me. i know that it will help.
So if everyone can write these and e mail it to me that would be great, than i will print them off and give them to her this Sunday night, this is when our next appointment with her. Let me know if you have any questions. I love you all so much! I know that this gospel is true and i know that Jesus is the Christ. We all can find comfort and true joy by experiencing the blessings of his Atonement. I love sharing this with people and helping them to find that peace and comfort.
Hurrah For Israel!!
Elder Olsen
Hey I'm writing you cause i need to ask you a favor. Mom dad and janessa and well anyone else that would like to write their testimony to this family can read this below and send me their testimony. Actually i think that it would be really good for Justin to send his to Julia as well. So Justin you better do this or I'm gonna beat you up. haha
So I think that i have told you about Jennine and her family at least a few times. They are the ones from Brazil. We have been teaching them for a while now. Jennine is awesome! She has come to church a few times and wants to get baptized. She all ready considers this her church. She does pretty well at keeping her commitments but she has been struggling a lot lately because life has gotten a lot more crazy. This always happens anytime anyone makes any decision or progress for good, Satan will try even harder to keep us from our potential. So this has really been happening to her. Her husband Edison is really cool, but has been really cold lately. He will not come down and sit in the lessons, Well I'll talk more about him in a second. So Julia is there 16 year old daughter, She is really nice. But is going through a tough time right now. she is really rebelling. she stays out sometimes late at night or just doesn't come home at all. She is not going to school every day, she is smoking cigarettes. But yet she is still a nice girl. she is just lost. Like last Sunday night we went over and we were teaching Jennine and Julia just came in and sat in the lesson and wanted to learn, her and her mom got along great. we asked her what was it throughout her life that has made her truly happy, or like the moments in her life when she felt the most joy and happiness. She said that the times when she felt like that were when she was bonding with her mom. So we committed them to read and pray together every night and they said that they were going to do it. But than next thing we hear from Jennine is that Julia was out way late and didn't tell anyone where she was. and just the same old stuff. I know that she is a good person and has a desire to choose the right. She is just wounded by sin right now and doesn't know the way out. Last week she stole 300 dollars from her mom and the car and crashed the car. that same week she also got caught shoplifting and spent the night in Juvenile jail. ha ha i know this sounds a lot like my teenage years. So as a result of this Edison(the father) has started to drink. and went to pick up Jennine last week with there other son Nicholas(who is 6) and Edison was drunk. so Jennine got really mad at him and he has basically lost a lot of trust with her. and Jennine pretty much treats him like a child. So Edison cause of all of this is of course feeling really bad. and awkward because he knows that Jennine tells us everything. so this is probably why he is not coming into the lessons anymore and he is avoiding us. So yeah this is all a big mess... I hope that any of that made sense. I really love this family a lot! and i know that the Gospel could really help them right now. Jennine would do it if she just had a little more support. and i think Edison and Julia would come along as well. if only they could be softened a little. So mom i was wondering if you could write Jennine a letter, well actually just e mail it to me and i will print it off and give it to her. cause that will be faster. But i think that you would be able to help her, you having been a mom of a few wayward children. Just bare your testimony to her and tell her that you know that she leading her family in the gospel will solve all of the family problems and they will eventually be a "happy family" Just pray about it and follow the spirit as you write the letter. I really know that your testimony will be able to help her mom. Dad i would love for you to write a letter to Edison, Just whatever you want to say, Bare your testimony to him of the atonement(but don't use that word cause he doesn't know what that means) tell him that you know that there is a way to find peace of conscience and happiness in life. Tell him of your testimony and experience of how our family was blessed and saved by the gospel. And finally I would like to ask Janessa if she would be willing to write a letter to Julia, and since Becca is always over at our house maybe Becca would like to write her as well. that would be awesome! Tell them to write their testimony about the atonement as well. and how having the gospel and the church and faith in Jesus Christ has helped them find true happiness. not the fake temporary happiness that comes from doing the "cool" thing in high school (drugs, alcohol, smoking, sex etc...) Tell her about how it has blessed your life knowing that you are a daughter of a Heavenly Father who loves you, and tell her that you know that she is such as well. Just seek and follow the spirit and i know that you will know what to write. I really love this family, I can imagine them as a family 1 year from now all dressed in white in the Manhattan Temple! They are a awesome family. I would really appreciate it if you guys could do this for me. i know that it will help.
So if everyone can write these and e mail it to me that would be great, than i will print them off and give them to her this Sunday night, this is when our next appointment with her. Let me know if you have any questions. I love you all so much! I know that this gospel is true and i know that Jesus is the Christ. We all can find comfort and true joy by experiencing the blessings of his Atonement. I love sharing this with people and helping them to find that peace and comfort.
Hurrah For Israel!!
Elder Olsen
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