11/10/14

Hello!
Let me just say that I love stake conferences! They are awesome! We
had ours yesterday and it was a bi-stake conference because they
actually made a new stake. That was pretty cool to watch. It use to be
only Orlando South and Orlando stakes, now it is split and there is a
third, The Lake Mary stake (for Peter that one is on the north end and
is the stake that Sanford is now a part of). It is so much fun to see
the work progress and have the church grow. Another awesome thing
about the stake conference is that it was all about member missionary
work. Something sad that I noticed is that whenever the stake talks
about member missionary work, missionaries love it! We totally get
pumped! But it seems to go the other way with members. They just feel
like it's a guilt trip. In reality it should get us all pumped to go
out an make missionary work a part of our everyday lives. Missionaries
are also at fault though, I haven't talked to any missionary that was
anything close to a good member missionary. Another thing, why do we
such a giant gap between missionaries and members? After all every
missionary is a member, and every member is a missionary. And
missionaries are just here to help the members in their missionary
work.
I am pretty sure that most people in fact like people. Everyone likes
having a friend. Everyone likes having people that are close to them.
On the other hand most people have a little bit of a hard time
reaching out and making new friends. In my experience it is always
worth it to make new friends. After all, all of the friends that I
love being around and doing stuff with had to go from being a stranger
to being friends at some point or another. Because I am pretty sure
that I didn't know anyone when I was first born. Had to start
somewhere. People always talk about how hard goodbyes are, because
they don't want to leave the friends and family that they already have
such a good relationship with. It is so sweet to have good
relationships with people. It something that from the beginning that
we were created to seek. Genesis 2:18 "And the Lord God said, It is
not good that the man should be alone;" We need people. Matthew
22:37-39 "37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38
This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like
unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The first two
great commandments, we are commanded to love. For that matter every
single commandment is something about our relationship with others
sometimes it is only between us and God. But most of the time it is
between us, God, and many others. The more each commandment deals with
someone, the harder it is to repent of. Take a look at the two of the
biggest commandments "Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit
adultery." Two things that severely affect others. The gospel is all
about relationships, namely the family. All people are in the family
of God. Missionary work (especially member missionary work) is simply
making friends. That is what missionary work is. Making friends,
seeking to sincerely help others.
In the first few weeks here I bought some really cheap hair clippers.
They only cost $7 super cheap. But I was thinking "well, even if I
only get one hair cut out of it, I'll still save money." So I cut my
hair once with them a while back and then I pulled them out the other
day to give myself another hair cut. These clippers have been making a
ton of noise, it sounds like they are going to rattle themselves to
pieces. So Elder Smith and I decided that we were going to take it
apart and see if we could fix it. We were able to fix it, and it only
took a little bit of duct tape and a few water balloons. It works
great now! Haha
I can't remember if I wrote about it before or not, but a little while
ago a member gave us an ice cream freezer! It was so awesome! But we
didn't get to making ice cream till yesterday. I love homemade ice
cream. So good. :) though I am missing just already having the raw
milk, cream, and fresh eggs. It's a lot easier to make ice cream when
those are readily available.
So there is this awesome sign we found a while back but we didn't get
to taking a picture with it till yesterday. It is pretty great.
Love you all!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Dane Olsen