Emily epistle 6.20.11

Wow, Elder Bednar came to pageant! That is AMAZING! It so great to
hear that the church is growing in all parts of the world. I read one
of the talks from general conference and I loved how it said that we
are 14,000,000 members strong, but this is only the beginning! So
awesome! ITs gonna fill the whole world. People are being prepared,
people are accepting the gospel, people are starting to taste the
happiness of our Father`s plan for us. Its so great!.

Haha thats to bad Joseph didn`t show up, to meet the angel Moroni. How
rude! :) I hope that never happens in our life. God sends us an angel
or is trying to give us more knowledge and help us out, but we don`t
show up. And where is that we can learn more, where are the angels of
God? In the temple (hill!), church, in your scripture studies in the
morning, in your family home evenings. It is so important that we are
always "there" when God wants to give us these blessings, this
knowledge, if not, who knows what we`re gonna miss? Hmmm... Maybe if I
can get enough vocabulary I`ll share Dane`s experience... we`ll see :)

Well I`m on a mission! Can you believe it. Sometimes I`m walking down
the streets, surrounded by a whole bunch of people that look a lot
different then me, and I think, WOW, i`m in BOlivia! I`m serving a
mission! What a blessing to be here! and sometimes I think, wow. I`m
tired. I kinda wanna take a nap. haha  Today I feel really grateful to
my Heavenly Father. ITs amazing how well He always takes care of me.

We had a really awesome district Meeting this Thursday. Our district
leader is Elder Guassardi, from argentina. He talks with a crazy
awesome argentenian accent, probably how Cami talks :) But hes a
really awesome elder, and he talked about the importance of receiving
personal revelation in our areas. That God has trusted us to move the
work along in our area, and He hasn`t left us to do it on our own. He
also asked people to share spiritual experience that they`ve had in
the mission. It was kind of discouraging because I couldn`t think of a
single really awesome spiritual experience that I`ve had in the
mission, and I`ve been on a mission for awhile. It was a really
powerful lesson, but it left me a little discouraged. I went to my
room and prayed, a bunch. Then we prayed before we left and it was
during thsi prayer that I had the strongest feeling, that I absolutely
must write in my journal, and I need to write down all of the little
miracles that happen every day. I really believe there are miracles
that happen every day, if we will just take the time to see them and
realize them. So, a list of miracles that I`ve seen in my life this
week...

- We have a bishop in our ward now! The bishop of braniff has been
traveling, or working in chile for about 4 or 5 months, and they`ve
been without a bishop all of this time. crazy! but yesterday they
called a new bishop, and he is great. I am excited to see the work
progress with this new bishopric.
- Thursday we jumped on the bus to go eat lunch at our pensionista`s,
and I ended up sitting by this lady. She was showing her little boy
how blue my eyes were, so I jumped in and started talking to them.
Super friendly. I asked how many kids she has and she said 5 sons, but
they killed one of them.... What?! She said they assaulted him, and
killed him... and thats basically all she told me. crazy. But I
whipped out a plan of Salvation pamphlet, bore a quick testimony of
the plan of salvation, that she`s gonna see her son again, but she
needs the gospel! told her where the church was, and she had to
run.... The truth is maybe she read it, maybe she didnt... but please
please bless that she did. She doesn`t live in our area, but hopefully
she went to church, and is gonna live the gospel, and have this hope!
- Thursday again. During lunch Hna Patzi gave me this awesome talk to
read about missionary work. It talked about how the field is white,
ready to harvest, and that we as missionaries just need to find the
fields! Or something like that. But I was feeling all pumped and ready
to go and excited about finding the elect. We headed out to knock some
doors.... and NOBODY wanted to listen. Figures. haha Slightly annoyed,
and slightly as a joke, I asked "where are the people who wanna
listen???!" I looked across the street, and thought. RIght there! We
went a knocked this door. It was a bigger house with an intercome -
pretty much a recipe for failure.. no thanks I`m busy, without even
seeing the face of the people we were talking to. But we rang the
intercom, and the door opened. What the world? I started introducing
us as representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of... and she
finished for me... Latter Day Saints? Exactly! haha she said oh ya, I
went to your church a few times when I was younger. I`m catholic, but
why don`t you come in... This was when I was pinching myself, thinking
maybe I was having a good dream. We sat down, she fed us lunch (we ate
lunch... again...where`s it say that missionaries have to eat,
EVERYTHING? Pretty sure its our curse to have to eat... and eat... and
eat...), but it was good, and we talked about the gospel. She didn`t
let us schedule another appoitment to come teach her, but we`re
definitely gonna keep going by her house, and hopefully we`ll find her
and be able to teach her.
- Wednesday morning we had an appointment with some members to get to
know them a little. Super nice and friendly, and they invited us to
eat lunch. A really big lunch. We can`t say no, so we ate it. Then we
left for the pensionista, to eat lunch again... We were talking on the
way, wondering if we could ask to only eat the second, and not the
soup, but didn`t know if that would offend her. We had pretty much
accepted that we`d have to eat, again. wowch. She always has soup,
pop, and a really big meat, rice, potatoes, tomatoes dish, but when we
came they had run out of soup, and we only ate second! Heavenly Father
takes such good care of us! ;) They`d had a lot of people come that
day and she thought it was because she blessed the food for everyone
(pre-blessed food, NAt!), but I think its because Heavenly Father knew
if we had to eat more, they`d have to roll us out of the restaurant
and to our next appointment.
- Another miracle. Yesterday. Its crazy how much Satan works on me to
make me feel like I^m not doing enough, like I stink at being a
missionary, and no one is ever going to progress. I was discouraged
again last night as we counted up our numbers... Like really
discouraged. But I prayed and its amazing, because I was praying and
the Hermana Merrells ipòd was playing "Count Your Many Blessings", I
stopped to listen at the line "Do not be discouraged, God is overall,
Count your many blessings, angels will attend, help and comfort give
you till you`re journeys end." I just felt like wow. God is over all.
All he asks is everything I can give, and then everything else is in
His hands.
Another miracle/blessing. Hermana Merrell. She is one of the most
amazing people I have ever met in my life. She write me notes,
encourages me, puts a bunch of colored papers in my refrigerator and
all my food, and always makes me life. I cant tell you how grateful i
am that we`re roommates. She also knows the perfect thing to say. I
love that girl lots and lots.

Well... One more thing! I found an awesome scripture today. Mormòn
9:11 - it says to doubt not, but be believing. Pretty much spoke to my
heart. Don`t doubt myself, the work, my companion, the spirit,
nothing. Believe in miracles. God is over all. This is the gospel.
Heavenly Fathers loves us so much! I love you all so much! Thanks for
being so awesome!

Love Hermana Olsen

PS Did Lisa Bishop receive her mission call?!