Hey-
well i had a great week! it was good that we found allot of new investigators, we had a huge miracle happen yesterday. A man just showed up to church. A missionary talked to him on the bus about 2 months ago and gave him the address for the church and he just decided to come. After church we were talking with him and invited him to be baptized and he accepted. We have some really good potentials that we are trying to work with. It has been hard getting blinded into an area and getting a good teaching pool started. We have been doing some serious organizing! That is definitely one thing that i have become a little OCD about on my mission is organization. We are working on the ward list right now, there are over 550 people on the ward list and only 70 or 80 "active".... So there are obviously a ton of people who have moved or who do not want contact from the church. So we are going through all of the old ward lists that we can find from old missionaries and copying all of their notes onto one list. That way we dont waste allot of time looking people up who dont live there. We are also trying to identify all of the part member families. This month is all ready over, August is right around the corner. We really need to baptize allot of people in August. So please pray that people especially families will be placed in our path that are ready to be baptized. Everything is going great I am loving it here. I love you all
Hurrah For Israel
Elder Olsen
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
19 July 2010
Hey family!
Well this was one of the most rewarding weeks of my mission. So i don't know if you all remember Craig Lento? I baptized him about a year ago in South Shore Long Island, when i was serving with Elder Alder. Craig is 26 years old, He got his mission call to serve in the Las Vegas mission about a month ago. He will go into the MTC on August 4th i think. Well this week on Thursday I got to go to the Manhattan Temple with him, he asked me to be his escort. For him to receive his endowment. It was really special! He liked it allot and we got to talk with one of the counselors in the temple presidency. It seriously was one of the crowning moments of my mission. Craig is a completely different person now i cant believe it. Maybe Justin and him will be in the mtc at the same time? It is pretty cool to see a man that you baptize on your mission go on a mission before you finish your mission, it doesn't happen very often. Well the work is going... We are trying to find a family to teach and baptize. I love you all and i love the Lord Jesus Christ
Hurrah For Israel
Elder Olsen
Well this was one of the most rewarding weeks of my mission. So i don't know if you all remember Craig Lento? I baptized him about a year ago in South Shore Long Island, when i was serving with Elder Alder. Craig is 26 years old, He got his mission call to serve in the Las Vegas mission about a month ago. He will go into the MTC on August 4th i think. Well this week on Thursday I got to go to the Manhattan Temple with him, he asked me to be his escort. For him to receive his endowment. It was really special! He liked it allot and we got to talk with one of the counselors in the temple presidency. It seriously was one of the crowning moments of my mission. Craig is a completely different person now i cant believe it. Maybe Justin and him will be in the mtc at the same time? It is pretty cool to see a man that you baptize on your mission go on a mission before you finish your mission, it doesn't happen very often. Well the work is going... We are trying to find a family to teach and baptize. I love you all and i love the Lord Jesus Christ
Hurrah For Israel
Elder Olsen
Monday, June 14, 2010
14 June 2010
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
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
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
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