6.28.15

I have already had a few people ask about how L baptism went, and
sadly it did not happen. He is working hard but still having a hard
time with the Word of Wisdom, though that was last Monday so he has
been doing pretty good. We pushed his baptismal date back to July
11th. It is still neat to be a part of this growing process for him.
It is interesting that even though he was serious and sincere about it
in the beginning he is growing more and more serious about really
turning to Christ and gaining Christ's strength. After all that is
what we all need to do. We all need to turn to Christ, and trust
wholly and completely in him. He is the only way that we will be able
to change.
So a little while ago we received a referral . A young man referred
himself on Mormon.org, which is always fun. We have been trying to get
a hold of him and we were finally able to set up an appointment this
week. We met with him and it turns out that one of his friends, Elder
McBride, left on his mission six months ago. (The McBrides live here
in the ward.) He told us "I don't know much about what you actually
believe. My friend just always had a Book of Mormon with him and told
me some about it. What does it take for me to join your church?" Wow.
That was cool! He is super awesome and already knows, through what his
friend has talked with him about, that this is true and it is right.
Christ's gospel as many know is all about love. Loving others and
making friends really is missionary work. Sometimes it is going to
take some effort on our part. That is for certain. We sure put a lot
of effort into it out here, sometimes we see the fruit of it,
sometimes we don't. The important thing is that I remember what I am
out here doing out here and that this really is God's work. I am very
grateful to be a part of his work.

The church is true, the work is great!
Elder Dane Olsen

6.15.15

Hello!

This week has been a great one! We have been able to meet with L several times and at this point he should still be ready to be baptized on the 27th. He will have his baptismal interview this week, so that will be really good. I am a little worried that he is still struggling with the word of wisdom. So we will make sure he is good there and prepared for the interview. We'll be meeting with him tonight and I am excited for that.

We also started teaching a man named K this week, and he is awesome! We had already made contact with him before but just hadn't caught him at a time when he wasn't busy. In our first meeting with him on Tuesday we had a young man from the ward with us. It was a great lesson and the young man did great in adding to the lesson. We were able to set a return appointment for Thursday. While we were talking with him on Thursday I asked him. "K, What are you hoping to get out of this? What are your expectations?" He then said "I just want to know which gospel is true." My jaw about dropped in surprise. I was a little blown away. So I followed up that question with another. "How committed are you to getting that answer?" He said "Oh I am willing to do anything!" There is not two better responses then the ones he gave. He truly has been prepared. We then set up an appointment with him for Sunday night because he had a prior commitment during church time so he didn't make it to church. When we got there Sunday the first thing he told us once we sat down is "I got my answer. I was reading the Book of Mormon and I prayed and then two words jumped out of the page at me. IT'S TRUE! and then just a little after that I heard the same two words. IT'S TRUE!" It was so awesome! He is such a high energy funny guy. The best part being that he really does want to know the truth. I am so excited for him. We set a baptismal date with him last night and he is already on his way to being ready for it. 

I also had the opportunity to give a talk in church yesterday. They even let me know the week before so it wasn't a last minute thing. (Which was good by me.) For any of you keeping track that makes the fourth year in a row of me giving a talk somewhere from May-July. I Think it is pretty cool, though this is the first one in these last 4 that Mark hasn't been my companion in giving talks. Though trend of going a little over does continue with the help of the others that I spoke with. I was asked to speak on Preaching the Gospel. It was a good topic. I wanted to take it a bit of a different way then I felt most people would expect me to take it as a missionary. It started with the parable of the Talents. (One of my favorites.) If you define Talent and go to the origin it tells you that it is a measure of money but is now defined as a natural skill or aptitude because of the parable of the talents. For me that opens up the parable of the talents to all kinds of new levels. Basically it applies to everything. God gives us stewardship over so many things here as part of this earthly experience. It is one of the biggest things that aids our growth and development. What is a steward though? Well again if you got to the origin it literally means "house guard". So if we are given stewardship over something we have the privilege of guarding it for our Lord. Taking care of it while he is gone. There are so many parables that are all about stewardship. For that matter from what I remember most of them are about stewardship. 

So if I am talking about preaching the gospel why am i talking about stewardship? We have all been given this stewardship to take care of the church and the truth and really the gospel. We all have it, and it is ours to share. When we share the gospel a neat thing happens. To best illustrate this principle take a look at The Vision of the Tree of Life. As Lehi starts out he himself is lost. He doesn't know what to do. As time passes he begins to pray. Each of our own testimonies begin with prayer. As he prays he starts to learn. He learns that he is in a field, and that in this field there is a tree. He goes to the tree and partakes of the fruit on it. He discovers that it is most desirable above all other fruit. Now that is a statement. If you want take it this way. About the only thing they had in their day that was sweet was fruit. He said that this fruit was most sweet above anything he had ever tasted. Basically he said this fruit is the very best tasting dessert I've ever had. Better then ice cream, better then brownies, better then cookies, even better then home made pie. Now that sounds pretty good to me. What did he want to do as soon as he tasted of this wonderful fruit? He wanted to share it with his family. As he was looking around for his family he notices a river. He gets Nephi, Sam, and Sariah to come and partake of the fruit, but he doesn't stop there. He wants all of his family. As he searches for Laman and Lemuel he learns that there is a Rod of Iron, and beside it a strait and narrow path. Even after all that he has done two of his sons still don't come and have some of the best food ever. Though the interesting thing is even as Lehi was seeking to share the gospel and got rejected he was still blessed with a better understanding because of the experience. He continues to seek more people to come to the tree and as he does so he learns that there is a mist of darkness, he also learns that there is a great and spacious building. God will always bless us as we seek to share his gospel with others. He will bless us in more ways then we can count or even come close to keeping track of. He must love us a whole lot. That is for sure. 

I know the this is the true gospel, I know we have been commanded to share it, and I know that God will always bless us for sharing his gospel. He will bless us with joy as we do the work. He will bless us with more joy as we see people change through the work. He also blesses us with more knowledge of his gospel, whether we succeed or not. No effort is lost.

The gospel is true.

Elder Dane Olsen

6.8.15

Hey hey!
It's been a great week! We have been busy and happy. Because of a set
back L is planning on getting baptized on June 27. So we are excited
to keep working with him to get to that. He is just awesome and is
neat to see the changes. I know I keep saying that but it is great!
The last time we met with him he told us that he has decided to start
over on reading the Book of Mormon because he wants to finish it,
cover to cover, by his baptism. It is neat that as we teach the truths
of the gospel and these correct principles that people aren't forced
to change, they are inspired to change. That is what the Light of
Christ does to people. It inspires them to change.
So we have a complex in our area that is three or four different
hospitals. Because of that we are often called to go and give
blessings, which I am very grateful to be able to do. It is a neat
thing to be able to administer to those in need. I bring this up now
because on Saturday we had a call that told us that their mom was in
the hospital and they wanted her to get a blessing. So we stopped by
at 3 shortly after we got the call. We were able to find her but she
happened to be asleep, after talking with the nurse who was looking
after her we decided that it would be best to come back later when she
would be awake. Fast forward to just finishing dinner. We had plans
for the night that would have kept us away from the hospital and it
would have been easy to stop by he hospital on our way to church in
the morning. We didn't know what would be better, so we said a prayer.
We both felt impressed that we needed to go that night. (Not gonna
lie, neither of us really wanted to bike all the way up there.) We
headed out and made it almost half way there when I heard Elder
Oxborrow behind me go off of something and then I was pretty sure I
heard his tire leaking. ( We have had a lot of flats lately, don't
really know why.) So we stopped and and took his tire off and tube
out. As he was doing so I was looking through my bag to find my
patches and they weren't there! Well this stinks, we are trying to do
what we have been impressed to do, but we had come to a screeching
halt. It would take us an hour to walk to the hospital, it would take
us an hour to walk home. I knew I had a little bit of duct tape, not
much but a little, that probably wouldn't work. I pulled out the phone
trying to think of a member who might be available to help us out, I
had a few in mind so I went to call and I got the prompting to just
try to fix it with what we had. Hm, ok. We can do that. I have done
crazier fixes before. So we took a look at his tube, it turns out that
he pinched it really good. So he has four holes all in the same area.
Oh wow, that would have been hard to patch even if we had four
patches, and we only have three inches of duct tape. So I put half of
the duct tape all the way around the tube, and then with the rest of
it I folded the tube in such a way that it put a little more pressure
to push the tube with holes tightly against another part of the tube.
Then we put the tire back on and pumped it up. It is holding! So we
start biking carefully and we made it the rest of the way to the
hospital. We went in gave the lady the blessing and it all worked out
great! Now we had to get back to the apartment. I was kinda expecting
the tire to be flat when we went back out. It wasn't, it had a little
less air in it then before so we put a little back in and rode home.
We rode about ten miles with it like that in total that night. It is
amazing to me that just as Nephi tells us in 1 Nephi 3:7 the Lord will
prepare a way to accomplish the thing which he has commanded us. Even
if it doesn't go as smoothly as we want it to, even if there is a few
bumps in the road, it will still be accomplished.

I will go and do, will you?
Elder Dane Olsen

6.1.15

Hello!
This week has been pretty good. L is still doing great! If it all
works out he will be baptized two weeks from yesterday. I am so
excited to keep working with and even getting him to the temple.
Everything just makes sense to him and then all he has to do is pray
and study and he will slowly and surely gain a testimony. The best
part is that he knows that is how it works. It is just neat to see him
grow.
Anyways we had a neat miracle this last week. We were biking around at
about eight. We were headed to a potential investigator we found  a
few days before and as we were biking through the neighborhood this
guy from his porch eating area said something to us. So we stopped are
bikes so we could hear him and he asked us if we needed our water
bottles filled or anything. We said yes we sure did and walked over to
him. He was sitting out their with his teenage son and once he invited
us to sit down he invited his wife out too. He is somewhat familiar
with our beliefs and surprisingly he knew the this that most people
get wrong and what the real answers were. They started asking
questions and we answered and quite naturally taught the Message of
The Restoration of The Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was really a neat
experience. At this point it is hard to say where T and his family
will go but it will be neat to find out. We'll be meeting with them
this week.
This morning I was reading in 2 Nephi 11. In verse 4 it says "all
things which have been given of God from the beginning of the world,
unto man, are the typifying of him [Christ]" now most of you probably
already know what that means. I didn't this morning, but I do now. The
dictionary defines Typify as represent or symbolize. That is pretty
cool. You are telling me that everything, and I mean everything, that
God has given to man has been a representation and a symbolism of
Christ? That is quite incredible. The more I think about it the more I
know it is true. Anything and everything that God has given us is a
testimony of Christ and His atonement.

Elder Dane Olsen