I was very sad this week to find the letter I wrote to Emily last week in my drafts file. I don't know what happened but I sent it finally on Sunday. I sure felt bad. We will make up for it this week. Sounds like the growth spurt is taking place. Goodness, as I parent I wish I could fix everything but I will leave that up to THE parent, our Father. Thank you for all that are writing to Emily and Peter and keeping them in your prayers.
OH my goodness! Simeon, you´re getting so old! I can´t believe its almost your birthday again! I hope you have a good one, I´ll be thinking about you! Hola familia! I am so glad to have heard from you this week, I only got Elise´s letter last week, so its super good to know your all doing good. I miss you all a bunch. Isaac, I´m not sure where Pete´s ipod is. Lo siento. What animal book did you read Debbie? are you enjoying charlottes web? I remember reading that book, I liked it a lot. Its crazy to think I have a brand new niece! I hope everything is still going well. I have yet to receive any letters from home, I´m hoping some will start showing up. I can´t wait! Things are great here. Last Friday actually was kinda rough. I had the opportunity to teach three times, and felt like I epically failed, all of them. I was pretty discouraged. All day long it just felt like Satan was saying - you can´t do this. You can´t teach teh gospel in Spanish, you can´t even understand what they´re saying. Friday night Hna Madrid and I planned, and she kept having me practice introducing the book of mormon. I was pretty nervous for Saturday, when we would go out proselyting. We went up to our room after planning and she made me practice again, and I just broke down. I think I may have shocked her a little bit, I don´t think she had any idea I was so close to tears. haha Anyhow, She was a sweetheart and gave me a big hug, and talked to me a lot in Spanish and told me that I would be ok. AT least thats what I think she said. My roommates were there too. I have amazing roommates too, and they all helped me. We prayed together, and hna madrid prayed for me and it was amazing, just the completely change. I was feeling so hopeless and discouraged, and as soon we turned to the Lord I knew I with the Lords help I could do it. The comforting feeling i felt is explainable. I woke up Saturday morning, thinking I would be nervous, but I was ok. I still had that amazing feeling of comfort and being able to trust in the Lord. We loaded up the buses and I went somewhere - Lince I think it was? haha We all went to this chapel and they assigned us different areas to proselyte in that day. I talked to one of the Elders in taht mission from Utah and he said they had someone from Manti in their mission, Griffin Aste! Crazy right? Two people from little old Manti and we were in teh same mission. The elder said he'd tell griffin hi for me. Anyhow, two hermanas also worked in the area so they split up and one of the came with us. We knocked on our first door and the two hermanas would do all the talking and I just stood there. They would look at me like k - say something. and I´d just give them this look like - please don't make me say anything! We did the first few doors like that then the Hna that worked in the area said 'Hna Olsen, you need to talk' So the next time half way through the next person we talked to, the hna turned to me and said hna Olsen - will you share you testimony about Joseph Smith? I said yes, and shared a very short very simple testimony, then we moved on. haha I'm not really sure what I said, but hopefully it was good. haha oh man. We taught an 17 year old boy, Eduardo, and I prayed for us and also got to share my testimony - extremely short and simple. They taught him the first lesson - the restoration. We left him with a book of mormon, and he actually said the closing prayer. That was cool. He seemed pretty interested, and I think he'll read the book of mormon. They said up another appointment for next saturday. It was pretty neat. We got to take a break for lunch, then I´m not really sure what we were waiting for but we were all just sitting there and ALL of us missionaries fell asleep in the chapel. Oops. eventually we headed out again. We talked to a lot of people and they'd always give me a chance to share a very short and simple testimony. We worked all day long, and I was SO bored because I couldn't understand what was going on. I kept checking my watch, and I started thinking why the world am I on a mission? This isn´t fun! haha It was a pretty rotten attitude. We had twenty more minutes and we walked by a women with blond hair who didn´t speak Spanish! I got to talk to her in English and it was AMAZING! She shared some pretty special things with me. I gave her a book of mormon... in spanish... haha and told her when church was. She seemed super itnerested. I got to bear testimony of the atonement, and it was amazing! It was such an awesome tender mercy from the Lord. It helped me realize why I came out here, to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world. I am so grateful to be here, even though things are hard sometimes. Its an amazing experience. We practice a lot of Spanihs, but we still have study time, we have opportunities to teach, and we have firesides and our teachers always teach us something out of the Book of Mormon. So ya, we learn spanish and about sharing the gospel. The food here is NOTHING like the Provo MTC. Basically this is what we eat. Bread for breakfast, rice, meat, bread, and some kind of something for dessert. Then we eat rice bread and meat for dinner. Every single day. The elders in my district stopped calling lunch and dinner lunch and dinner and started just calling it rice. Vamos a arroz. all the time. its pretty funny. Hopefully I´ll be able to get more of a variety of food in Bolivia. I actually got pretty sick yesterday. It kinda felt like my stomach was eating me from the inside out. Its still hurting a little. They haven´t really taught us anything about what food to eat, but maybe they will still. We went out shopping again this morning. Its always an adventure. They really pack us onto the buses, and I ended up standing way closer to the elders then any hermana ever should. Its crazy. Me and my roommates were going to fast on Monday to be able to learn spanish, but apparantly we´re not aloud to fast here. I´m not really sure why still. They have a lot of funny rules. Thats awesome grandma and grandpa got to participate in a nauvoo exodus. I would still love to have their address. Thanks for sending me petes letter. I like to hear from him. That was a fun picture to see too. So neat. Looks like work is good for him. Its amazing how much you tend to care about the people your teaching. Oh! Quick story, we were teaching an grandma on Saturday. They asked me to pray so I did. I said amen and the grandma didn´t move. We all looked at each other like what do we do now? FInally hna madrid said amen really loud, and she woke up.. it was funny. Well I´m out of time. I love you all! The church is true. Hna Olsen
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