Peter, 3.28.11

Hey family!

how is it going? i hope your camping trip goes well. it has been really warm here we have had sunshine everyday this past week, but i guess thats why its called the sunshine state. this past week has gone by so fast, it amazes me every week seems shorter than the one before. this past week we had a rough couple days starting out with some people telling us that they don't want to learn anymore about the gospel. we were discuraged but as we moved forward we found some other people to teach. taught a lesson to randy, a guy we stopped on the street, we taught him the first lesson and he understood it really well and felt the spirit, but he was scared because he knew that if everything we taught him was true we than he would have to change his lifestyle. this past week this has been one of our problems that we have had is that people understand the lesson and feel the spirit but are scared to change, if you have any ideasonhow we can help people se that his is a message of great joy it would be greatly apreciated. we had 2 experinces with teaching the first lesson and people just being scared of the change that knowing this truth would require. anyways we will just contine and work to better show the joy that we find in living the gospel and pray that people will se that.

i recently decided to start reading a brand new copy of the book of mormon so that i wouldn't be influenced by my previous markings in my study scriptures. it is amazing how the scriptures seem new and exciting each tim i read. this time i have been paying atention to people that act, and the blessings that come from acting. Nephi didn't get the plates by going to jerusalem and sitting and waiting for the lord to place the Brass plates in is hands but he was actively doing everything in his power to fulfill the lords command and thats when he was blessed it was after all he could do. it was after he had exhosted his ideas of how he could get the plates and he went into the city not knowing what he was going to do,but having the faith  to continue to act and continually work to do what the lord had commanded, and as he continued in faith the lord made it possible for him to get the plates and keep the command that he was given.

the church is true! the Book of Mormon is scripture given by inspiration for our benifit. all is going great here in Florida.

I love you all

 Elder Olsen 

Emily, Happy General Conference, 3.28.11

Oh my goodness, can you believe its already time for general
conference again?! I can hardly even wait. ITs going to be so
wonderful. I am super excited to watch it and to know that our whole
family, wherever in the world we are will be doing the exact same
thing at the exact same time. THanks for always making general
conference a priority. Its amazing! We´ve enjoyed being able to invite
all of our investigators to general conference. ITs so fun to tell
them that we have this amazig opportunity to hear the words of a
prophets today. I really hope that they can come adn feel the spirit,
and learn from our inspired prophets. I also hope that I can enjoy
conference in spanish.... we´ll see i guess :)

I just got a whole bunch of dear elders, THANK YOU SO MUCH! I really
do love reading the letters from my cousins on their missions. Its
awesome. Nat, i got your letter, but still haven´t had time to
read.... but I did see that jake thomas is engaged! Crazy! YOu´ll have
to send him my congrats.

Mom, i haven´t gotten the pills yet. But... Elder F. is in my
district and he received his package today from his mom, pills and all
:). SO it should be coming soon, i hope.

Thats crazy you woke up to snow this morning. Its been raining here
for 2-3 days, off and on. I think its a blast. I don´t know why but
walking with an umbrella is super fun for me. ITs like i have this
crazy power. The rain is falling everywhere but where i go, and i can
walk anywhere i want without getting wet. haha its fun, and it makes
me smile. Ok maybe the sun is getting to me. Its also been insanely
hot. But my body is adjusting. Thats so fun that you get to go
camping! I hope its warm enough for you. Elise is going with her kids,
that´ll be a blast!! I´m excited for you! I´d love to see some
pictures!

Well, this week has been good. We had a zone conference on Thursday
with several zones and president and sister calderon. It was good. The
hermanas are always treated very nice here, and during lunch we got to
sit with president and sister calderon and visit with them. They are
really awesome. We were asking them about their call and how it all
was. They told us that one day President Uchtdorf´s secretary called
and asked if they had time to meet with president Uchtdorf, they said
they could probably squeeze him in :). They had a teleconference deal
and it sounded like an amazing experience. President Uchtdorf started
off by telling them that he doesn´t speak or understand spanish - they
replied that they don´t speak or understand english, and then they
moved on. THey said they talked, he called them to be mission
presidents, they accepted, he told them all they needed to do to
prepare and then it was over. During all this time pres Uchtdorf is
speaking english, and the caleron´s are replying in Spanish. President
calderon said that they didn´t understand all the words, but that they
understood the idea, and it was enough. AMAZING. The gift of tongues
is real. When I think about what faith they needed to have i am in
awe, but why not? The Lord has promised the gift of tongues to his
servants, so why shouldn´t they be able to communicate. Something else
i read in the Conference ensign, I´m pretty sure it was a talk from
the priesthood session, and it said that as long as you have the
spirit with you, it is enough, The spirit will touch their hearts.
THey won´t remember the words you used or how you said, they´ll just
remember how they felt. It was really comforting for me to hear that.

My companion was sick this week, Friday and Saturday, entonces, i got
a lot of study time! It was great! haha she is better now, mostly. :)
We have a few investigators that are super important, with baptismal
dates, and we didn´t want to just leave them hanging, so We called two
hnas, one to go with me to an appointment with Yn, and one to
stay with my companion. I was pretty nervous, for a few reasons
actually. First of all to not have my very experienced companion to
fill in when i don´t know what to say, also because Yn doesn´´t
here good, and its hard for my companion to communicate with him, let
alone me in my awful spanish, and he has a tendency to talk really
fast and quietly, which makes it pretty insanely hard for me to
understand. But, I´d just read about having the spirit and it being
sufficient entonces... I prayed, hna O. and i practiced, and I felt
pretty prepared to teach him the BOok of Mormon. Kind of an important
topic. Hna A. came with me. She is a return missionary, the
relief society president of our ward, and our pensionista (cook).
Basically, it went really good. HOw it went was I would say something,
Hna A. would say it in better, clearer spanish, Yn would understand, reply, and Hna Arminda would say it slower and louder so that I could understand., Haha it was pretty funny. But we taught him the book of mormon, I found a scripture that I felt i should share
with him in DyC. When I found it I wasn´t exactly sure what it said,
but knew it was something about receiving answers to prayers, I shared
it. THen when I got home looked it up in English, showed my comanion,
and we both decided it was what he needed. Also, when I was bearing my
testimony of the book of mormon, and of how I knew that his choice to
be baptized was right and going to bless his life, he understood me,
and I spoke. THe spirit is amazing, the gift of tongues is real, and
the Lord is constantly helping me. I am so grateful.


Saturday night my companion decided she was well enough to head out
proselyting for the last three hours, so we planned and prepared for
our lessons and headed out. When we went every single one of our
lessons we had planned fell through. It would of been a failure, but
turns our that we found a bunch of really neat people who we hope are
going to be able to accept the blessings of the gospel in their life.
Maybe we went for just one of those people. No sé, but i felt like we
were out talking to people for a reason, and one of those people
really needed to talk to us.

Yesterday we had a first app with a girl named gn and her mom,
ml. We got there and brought our neighbor, brt with. Turns
out brt and gn are in the same class. Blessing. But as soon
as we sat down ml started arguing a little with her daughter,
calling her a lier because she didn´t tell her about her homework...
and we´ll just say the spirit was definitely not there. As soon as we
found some space to step in we asked if we could begin with a hymn.
haha. Talk about mood change. Its amazing how i felt the spirit leave,
but how quickly it returned when we sang and prayed. We taught them
about how the gospel blesses families and how they can strengthen
their relationship. I talked a little about my relationship with my
mom, and told them that my mom was my best friend. And i meant it. I
am so grateful to you mom, and for all that you do. I know that I can
depend on you for whatever, and that you love me. Thank you so much
for all of your support.

Well, enjoy general conference this weekend! I am excited to hear all
your thoughts and favorite parts. Thanks for all your support. I love
you all, pray for you daily, and am so grateful to have you all as my
family.

Love,

Hna Olsen



PS We are trying to find a way to be in contact with all of our
investigators everyday, and we  don't know how. We need us, or a
member to talk to them... if you have ideas, please send them our way!
Thanks!

Emily, 3.22.11 Buenos Dias

OH familia! I love you so much. It is so good to hear from you. I
canp´t even tell you how wonderful it is to get your letters. I am so
grateful for all of you and your support and prayers. Thank you thank
you thank you. I feel so so so lucky to have a family like you! You
are amazing. ´

Things here are good. So far missionary work is exhausting! I´´m
pretty sure i´m asleep before my head hits the pillow each night. Oh!
I got some of the dear elders last week! Thanks so much! I enjoyed
your letters about work mom and peter. I read those and the next day I
read 2 nefi 5 - this chapter has natalies scripture in it. We lived
after the manner of happiness... what i enjoyed is all of it that they
had to do before. It talks about work, hard work, not being lazy. It
was a cool chapter to read with the thoughts of work still in my head.
Its crazy amazing how the gospel applies to everything. Its cool mom
that your studying about work, while i am on a mission. I have never
worked to hard in my entire life. Hopefully i´ll learn a little about
work too.

I am experiencing miracles everyday and the Lord is strengthening me so
much! One miracle was Y. He and his aunt came up to us last week
in church and he said he wanted to be taught the gospel. We of course
said we could probably handle that and set up an appointment. We
called him the morning before to make sure he´d be there and we had to
reschedule. I began to wonder if he was serious, but our next
appointment - Thursday was awesome. He doesn´t hear very good, so you
can imagine what its like for me to try and communicate in my sorry
excuse for Spanish and him trying to understand. His cousin comes with
him to translate, shes a member. Anyhow. We taught him a bout
receiving answers to prayers. We also had another member, A, who
is his same age, 19, come with us. A just received his mission
call to La paz bolivia. A gave a powerful testimony of receiving
answers and told his experience of having a dream about his call a
receiving an answer. After Y said he had prayed about the church
(in my head I´m thinking, wait, isn´t this our first lesson?) and had
also received an answer in his dream that the church is true. My
companion asked him straight out if he believed that this was the true
church of God, and he said... yes! We all sat there in slightly
stunned silence. To brake the silence I threw out a hardy "me too!".
My companion challenged him to baptism and he said yes! His date was
for this Saturday. We met with him last Saturday to teach him
everything he needed before his interview and he told us his parents
were having a hard time accepting his decision. They just don´t want
him to jump into things i guess. He said he really wanted to be
baptized and was going to be, but maybe we could wait a little. His
new date is for Nat´s birthday! But, our ZL thought that was a little
much, so did I actually, so we´re going to try to move it up to the 9.
In this lesson HE asked US if we could fast for his parents that they
might come to an understanding of his decision and accept it. He is
super full of faith, and a huge example to me. The Lord really does
prepare people to receive the gospel. amazing.

Another miracle was Saturday. We make goals each week, and daily goals
to meet our weekly goals. Since coming here my companion and I have
yet to meet our goals for a day, and definitely not for the whole week.
Saturday morning as companionship I prayed that we´d be able to reach
our goals for the day. They were pretty high because we were trying to
make up for days that we had missed. Guess what?! We met or exceeded
ALL of our goals! Heavenly Father really is in this work, and he can
help us to accomplish it.

The other day my Hna Ortiz and I were in an area looking for a menos
active and we could not find the house anywhere. We had asked around
in several tiendas and no one knew. We were walking down the street
when this women came running after us yelling hnas hnas! We turned
around. She is a menos active and has a desire to come to church.
awesome! Like my companion put it, maybe we weren't looking for the
other one, maybe maria needed to find us. She is awesome, lived in
Utah for awhile, and knows some English! Hooray!

The food here is good. We have a pensionista, someone who cooks lunch
for us everyday. She is a member, served a mission and the relief
society president in the ward. Basically i eat rice and some form of
meat everyday for lunch. She always gives us vegetables and i eat
them! I eat yogurt and cereal and banana for breakfast... and
generally we don´t eat dinner. Huge bummer. I try to take an apple and
crackers to eat while were out and about. The only thing that I
especially haven´t liked is papaya juice. Everyone here loves it! but
hna maxwell y yo nicknamed it feet juice. It is SO GROSS!

I think its time to go. I love you all. Thanks so much for everything.
With the Lord, I am doing good. }

Hna Olsen

Dad! How can missionaries work in a ward better, your opinion? What
can we do to work with ward leaders. How many are in our ward?

Peter, 3.22.11

Hey

thank you so much for sharing about what you are learning it really always seems to be something that i have been wanting to learn about.

this last Friday we had a Mission Conference and Elder Bednar came as the presiding authority. it was great to be able to learn and grow from him. we were told last Monday to study two talks from "ask in Faith", and "Seek Learning By Faith" both by elder Bednar. when Elder Bednar started talking he told us not to write down anything he said, but to write down what we learned from the spirit. it definitely helped me pay more attention to my feelings and thoughts. He taught us about a teaching pattern found in D&C 88:122 which basically tells us to have  One person to direct a discussion and to let everyone speak and have input so that we can all be edified. this is how he taught us.  it really was a great experience this is the way the lord has set up for us to learn. and it really does help us as missionaries to teach our investigators we are not to talk the whole time but to lead a discussion. this does work I've seen in the lessons that we follow this example. the spirit is more abundant and people learn. it is amazing lots of the time we think we are the ones that are the teachers but we're not the spirit is the true teach and when we follow the lords pattern it can be hear and everyone will be edified.

We have been teaching a lot of Haitian people lately it has been really cool. some of them don't speak very good English and so it does make it more difficult, but it is fun a while ago we had a man that said he wanted to learn about the Book of Mormon but he said Mormon like 'mamon' and wanted to learn about it because he said that the bible says you cannot serve god and Mormon it was really funny when we realized the misunderstanding and that 'mormon' is not the same as 'mamon'. we cleared up that misunderstanding and he is now  more open to the message we share

the church is true and i love it! it is great to be able to spread the message that Jesus Christ has restored his church on the earth!

love

elder Olsen

I'm in Bolivia, 3.14.11

OH my familia!!!!!

Hola! It is so good to hear from you, it feels like its been ages!! I`ve missed you :) I`m glad to hear Nellie's blessing was good. I can`t believe nATALIE`S having a babe so soon. Fruit and dip sounds amazing...Swimming looked like a blast. THanks SO much for the pictures. They made me way happy. Its so fun to see! Debbie would have play dates, ha that little social butterfly. Isaac is old. Dane you`re driving! and running! thats great! Congrats, don`t wreck or anything k? Sim... I love you! ITs cool to hear about peter. When he talks about a missionary strait from the mtc I smiled and thought, hey thats me! Maybe I could have more energy if I could speak the language... That`d be crazy if he is going to Neil's mission, i think it is... wow!

So ya! Im in Bolivia - Finally! THings are awesome. We arrived early afternoon to a tiny airport with one run way and the baggage claim was right outside of customs. It was super easy to find our luggage because all the luggage there was from our flight. I walked out of baggage claim and there was President Calderon and the office missionaries and it was so good to see them! First thing Pres calderon said was welcome to the bolivia santa cruz mission - all i can think is wow! I`m actually here! It was festival when we arrived, entonces... we weren`t really allowed to go outside. Pres calderon took us to subway to eat. Ha they weren`t sure if it would be open because of festival. We pulled up and this was the conversation:

New elder "noooo...... abierto...."

Office elder "elder, abierto means open..."

New elder "yaaaaa!"

haha shows how much we know. We spent basically the first two days in a hotel because of festival. One night we had dinner with the president and it was SOOO good! It was lasagna, and salad, and corn, and brownies and ice cream, and VERY american... and i loved it! I probably ate enough there to last me the rest of my mission!

We got our comps on Thursday, my companion is Hna ORtiz de Peru. She is awesome, very sweet, and very patient. The Lord has blessed me a lot with my companions. Shes very different from me in that she likes to just be in the casa and not leave and not talk very much... and she likes serious movies. but its all good. I`m looking for our similarities and so far we both like to eat! and we`re both serving a mission. So its good! haha really she is awesome and I am learning a lot from her. Her last transfer she trained another north american, which means she hasn`t had a companion that can speak good spanish for awhile, poor girl. I reallly hope i can learn fast. Everyone we`ve talked to says my spanish is a lot better then Hna Brooms was when she first got here, I am so so so grateful that I got to go to the CCM in Peru, I really think it helped my Spanish a lot.

We arrived to our apartment, dropped my bags off, and had appointments all night. Haha nothing like getting right to work. One of the members we picked up was the mother of the district leader of my companions latino districts in the ccm. Crazy small world!

My apartment is slightly ghetto. you walk in and theres a small room, about the size of dad`s office with two desks and book shelf, a small mesa, and a little keyboard... and two fans! Then there`s a room a little bigger than the powder room where we have a baby fridge, a stove top thing, and a shelf to hold food. and a water thing with clean water. Then you leave and we have a little court yard. Theres a small bathroom, about the size of the powder room again - but it has a shower. Its like the showers in taiwan where theres just a head and its all open. Its exciting... then we have a little room thats probably smaller then dads office. Basically it fits two twin size beds and two dresser/closet things... and nothing more. oh except another fan. Its awesome. We also have a big basin thing for washing our clothes! Yep! I washed my clothes by hand this morning. That was an adventure in and of itself. My companion had to teach me, she probably thought I was crazy. Be very grateful for washing machines, it takes so much less time!

Santa Cruz is made up in rings. I live in the 2nd ring, i think. The streets by me are all named for places, so I live in Ecuador and Peru. Maybe you can look it up and find me! My area is called equipetrol, if you wondering if i can pronounce that... I can't. Hopefully someday!

Just so you know, pouch mail and dear elder does work! So keep um coming! :) Thanks so much! Thanks for checking my email mom. YOu can delete the oakcrest ones. There just like facebook updates. We don`t have hot water so ihaven`t been washing my face. Ideas mom? I don`t see a great need for bingo... but I would love some piano music. We have a baptism this saturday and my comp asked if i could do a musical number... not super important..but whatever. I spoke in church yesterday! I think it was good. Was there a tsunami in hawaii? is everyone ok? aaa! I`m out of time. I love you all lots. Thanks for your support. THings are awesome here, the work is good, the language is coming, the church is true. Chow!

Hna Olsen

missing a week of email was hard but so quickly forgotten now that I have heard from her again.

Peter, 3.14.11

Hey

mom i got your package this week. thanks so much. i love when you share insights it is amazing how the Lord works his plans for us. almost everytime i get a letter when someone sharing insights from their scriptures study it helps me and its  what i need to hear. i was studying this morning and yesterday about becomeing a consecrated missionary and then i read your letter and it worked right into what i've been studing and working on to become better. please continue to send insights they help so much.

this past week we helped the Clr family paint thier house. they are moving to idaho and wanted help it was really good to get my hands dirty. it really is so good to serve people. yesterday we had one investigator in church Ml was there. Ml was a man we tracted into the first week i was in the field. we have been teaching him once a week and at first he really didn't understand but now he really is getting a grasp on the gospel and he loves it! one thing that is holding him back from joining the church is his family. he is in his 40's and is married and has 2 daughters living at home one is A(7) and J(13). they have also come to church and sit in when we teach. but Ml is the only on reading the Book of Mormon and he does feel the spirit. miguel does not want to have this divide his family he wants the best for them. and so we are going to keep on teaching them and help them to have spiritual experiences. we are very excited to be their guides in coming closer to christ. it  is so Great be able to serve these people and see the changes in their lives. i feel blessed to be a part of this great work 

Love

Elder Olsen

No email for Emily this week

I asked the missionary mom's if any of them had received an email.  We are all waiting until Monday but one of the mom's sent me a picture from her missionary of the district.  Emily hasn't had a way to download her pictures.  Hopefully in Bolivia she will figure it out and we will have more to share.

Peter, 3.7.11

Hello

this last week has been exciting! to start with we made dinner for a less active family in our ward, hopefully it tasted good.  We haven't talked to them since, it was a lasagna and garlic bread. On tuesday we got a call from the assistants to the president and they said to leave our door unlocked when we went to bed cause they would be bringing another bed to our apartment. So not really knowing what was going to happen we left it unlocked and when they came we ended up talking to them and they said that we were going to have another missionary added to our companionship that is waiting on his visa to go to Brazil to the porte legre north mission (is that where neil is?). and then on wednesday he showed up at our house and he has been working with us since, we are now a three-sum.  At first i thought it would be weird but he has proved to be really beneficial. It is fun to be with someone greener than i am. there really is a fire the missionaries have when they leave the mtc. it is great. it has and will continue to be a great learning experince. he has so much insight on how the work we are doing can inprove because he is looking at what we are doing almost as if from the outside. it is good to be able to gain that experince. he could be leaving any time. it could be tommorrow or in 6 weeks. but we found a Brazilian to teach so he will be able to practice teaching some in Portugues. this past week one of our Zone leaders, Elder Bennet came on exchange with us and told us that we need to think outside the box on ways to find people, so we ended up contacting people in the walmart parkinglot (one of a few places people are out and about) it was kinda weird. as we were thinking about new ways we can find people we also decisided it would be cool to start a Bible/Scripture study class. at the community center or something, we would invite our investigators to it as well as our other contacts. it is still mostly an idea we have but we are working to make it happen. we are excited about it. 

the church is true! it is an honor to be able to share it with others. 

Love 

Elder Olsen

I'm leaving, on a jet plane, Emily 3.2.11

March 2, 2011

Familia! Hola! Momma, thanks so much for writing me. Its awesome to hear from you. Thats so fun that Steph is now in the field! I just realized out of my bunch of friends, I am the ONLY one still in the mtc. Haha great. But not for long. Rumor on the street is that I´ll leave Tuesday morning at six for Bolivia. Crazy! I am feeling so
excited. Nine weeks in an MTC is a long time. I am very grateful for the time that I´ve had to prepare, but I am also very excited for the real work to begin. Its crazy, I can´t believe its March already!
Thats pretty cool they´re doing an MTC special between conference. I can´t believe its almost conference time! That should be fun! The MTCs really are amazing. It is a very sacred place where the spirit can dwell and teach us so much. The teachers are all amazing, and inspired. Its a pretty neat program. My teacher in Provo, Hno Arnell
compared it to the time that Christ´s apostles had after he was resurrected and Christ taught them and prepared them for their missions. This is the closest thing we have to that and I have felt the need to make sure I am realizing that this is a sacred time of learning and preparing. But its been awesome.


So... things are going great! Saturday was awesome. I was a little nervous to go with the three of us, I thought maybe I would end up just sitting and listening and not saying much, but my companions were good to include me. We were contacting in a market place which actually ended up being a pretty awesome location. At first it was my trio, Hna Maxwell and her companion, Hna Avañdana, and the teacher who was supervising/helping us. We were all talking to the same person so Hna Maxwell and I tried to start talking to other passerbyers (is that a word?) Generally all I could get out was an enthusaiastic ¡hola! Or ¡Buenas Dias! and they were gone.. hmmm but then this mother was walking by with her maybe 4 year old daughter and she saw me. She stopped maybe two feet in front of me grabbed her daughters hand and pointed at me and said "¡Esta es una gringa!" translation - thats a gringa! then kepts walking. Haha so funny. Sign me up for the next museum exhibit. Maybe I´ll start offering to allow them to take pictures with me if they will let us come teach them a lesson. haha it really was so funny.
 Later all of our compaions were talking to another lady and so Hna Maxwell and Yo started talking to these two little girls ages 9 and 6 I believe. They were adorable. I really miss children... anyhow super cute and they asked if we were Christians.  We of course said yes and they said that they went to church. When we asked why  the girl said to learn the words of God. Wow! You gotta girl! haha The 6 year old was wearing a Hannah Montanna shirt and when we asked who it was she piped up, "Hannah Montanna!" Ha wow, who would´ve guessed Hannah Montanna is super cool here too! haha she never fails. Once we were talking with the children all the sudden all these people were watching us and listening. It opened up a great opportunity to contact, all the sudden everyone wanted to know what we had to say. It was awesome.

My favorite experience of the day was when we decided we needed to talk to one more person before lunch. I saw one lady who had been watching us and suggested we head that way. We approached her and the two women with her and they were very friendly. My companions started talking to them, and this little grandma started talking to me. I´m not sure if I couldn´t understand her because she was speaking Spanish or because all I could do was look at both of her teeth. Anyhow, she kept talking to me and I reverted to my awesome trick of smiling and nodding. all I got from the conversation was that she was really hot, and that "they make um cute in the US" haha what can I say? Anyhow, she kept talking to me and I was trying really hard to understand her and keep track of what my companions were teaching so I would be able to share my testimony when the time was right. All the sudden Hna Tueros turned to me and asked if I could share my testimony. I responded "sobre que?" about what? and they just smiled and nodded. So there I went. I opened my mouth and out came a testimony of how the gospel blesses families and how her family could be blessed to. Later my companions said it was awesome, and exactly what they had been teaching about. I know Heavenly Father is helping and strengthen us missionaries in his work. I know that when we open our mouth it will be filled, if I can just have the faith to open my mouth. It was really neat.


My Spanish really is coming, and I am learning to trust in the Lord. Life here is... an adventure. The best way to explain my Spanish abilities... lets just put it this way. I had a weird dream the other day and I wanted to tell my companions about it but I didn´t know how to explain what a beauty pageant was... Entonces... ya. haha my teachers are way funny. Hno Garcia served in our mission and he told us that it gets up to 170 degrees Fahrenheit... right.... I just might melt. I´m not ready for the heat, but I´m sure it´ll work out.


My study times have been amazing. I am learning so much. I have never had such a strong desire to study the gospel. I wish I got to just study and study and study all day. It really has turned into a love affair with the scriptures. I love it!


You painted you bathroom? So fun! I can´t wait to see it all when I get home. I´m sure it´ll be beautiful. I can´t believe its turning into spring there. I´m slightly jealous. Sounds like you have a fun weekend planned. Happy birthday Isaac! I hope you have the best day ever! I was wondering if Nellie's blessing would be this week. Wow!  Already shes over a month old. Well. I love you all! I hope things are going great. My next letter to you will   be from BOlivia! Crazy! Thanks for the package mama, I pray it gets here too. Thank you for your support and prayers. Love ya´ll!


Hna Olsen


Taxes? Tithing?