5.30.16

So, yesterday I gave a talk. I tried to get my iPad to record it but
that didn't work. So here are some of my notes.

Because of a conversation I was having with someone a few weeks ago I
got thinking about joy. So often people say that missionary work and
being a missionary brings joy in a way that nothing else can. I often
hear from my friends on missions that the joy they feel as they help
people become converted to the gospel is the most incredible joy they
have ever experienced. I have experienced this joy, but I have also
wondered if I know what they are talking about. They describe it in
such marvelous ways that it makes me question whether or not I have
known that joy. That gets me wondering if I am truly as happy as I
should be as a full time missionary for the Lord, and from there I
wonder if I am as happy as I should be as a member of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Our Heavenly Father is an incredible being. Through his son Jesus
Christ he has created all things. He is the ruler of the universe. He
is all knowing, all wise, all powerful, and all loving. He is
literally our Father, and we are his children. He loves us more then
we could possibly understand. Even with his incredible status, his
mission, his work, and his glory is "to bring to pass the immortality
and eternal life of man." That's us. His whole self declared purpose
is to bring to pass our immortality and our eternal life. Meaning to
help us achieve eternal joy. The neat thing is the joy is not only the
reward. It is not only at the destination but it is here, now, as we
choose to live our Heavenly Father's plan. King Benjamin said of this:
"I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state
of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are
blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual;" I love how he
describes the experience of those that keep the commandments. He goes
on to explain what happens when we continue in that path. He goes on
to say "and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received
into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of
never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are
true; for the Lord God hath spoken it." (Mosiah 2:41)
What an incredible testimony. I can only try to imagine what
"never-ending happiness" looks and feels like. It must be amazing. I
think we all pretty well understand that when we get to heaven it will
be full of great joy and happiness. The thing that I often forget is
the part about the journey. The part about right now, what we are all
going through, this life.
I so often get caught up in the sorrow of this world. And if we look
for happiness in "the world" we will never find it. In D&C 101:36 it
says "for in this world your joy is not full, but in me your joy is
full." That is the powerful part. Through Christ, our joy can be full.
Many times throughout the scriptures we learn of the fabulous joy that
comes only through repentance, only through Jesus Christ's atonement.
In Alma 27:18 it says "this is [the] joy which none receiveth save it
be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness." We will only
experience this joy if we repent. This scripture also expressed a
second part to it. Not only do we need to repent, but we also need to
be "humble seekers of happiness." It takes effort. It takes work. We
need to seek it out.
This is what I learned as I kneeled next to my bed the other night. As
I was praying I asked the Lord "why am I not as happy as I think a
missionary should be?" This is when I had the thought "how happy do
you see and picture yourself as being?" So I said "well, about
average. Somewhere in the middle. I am rarely down in the dumps and I
am usually decently happy. Just not amazingly happy." Then the thought
came "that is why. If you want to be happier get a better self image
of how happy you are." It was an interesting experience. I learned for
myself the quote I had heard so many times. "A man is about as happy
as he makes up his mind to be." So I decided I was going to be more
happy and at I was going to learn how to be from the scriptures. Even
just beginning on this journey I have experienced more joy in my life,
I found an scripture that helped me understand why, even after in some
ways being chastised by the Lord a little, I felt more happy. Job 5:17
"Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not
thou the chastening of the Almighty:" This is why it is so important
for us to be humble. Because as we are humble we can take the Lord's
correction and act on it, and through that, become happy. Happy to
come closer to living in the Lord's way. Just as King Benjamin said
"the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of
God." This is what brings happiness. Living the commandments and
striving to live them better. Striving to become righteous followers
of Jesus Christ. From another scripture in the Book of Mormon we learn
that "if there be no righteousness there be no happiness." Yet another
testimony that as we live in the Lord's way we will be blessed, and we
will know happiness.
To sum it all up, happiness is the fruit of progression. When we reach
Heaven it will be a place of eternal happiness, it will also be a
place of eternal progression. That is no accident. Progression and
happiness are a package deal.

I sure learned a lot as I was getting ready for that talk. It was really neat.
We were able to meet with Denarrius's father this week which was
really good. We are going to start meeting with him too now. We are
pretty excited about that. The sad thing is he works on Sunday's so he
won't be able to come to church.

Happy always, content never!
Elder Dane Olsen

5.23.16

Hello!

So, hopefully the picture of the lighthouse that we went today made it

to to you by now. It was pretty cool. It was the Ponce Inlet

Lighthouse and it is apparently the tallest Lighthouse in the U.S. The

Bishops wife and her ysa son took us there, bishop was supposed to

come but he got called into work last minute. We also ate at Racings

North Turn which was the north turn of the original Daytona race

track. Half the race was on the beach. It was super legit.

Work wise this week has been great we are still super pumped to keep

working with Denarrius. He hasn't made it to church yet but he is

planning on coming next week. So hopefully he can make hat. Well

because we went to the lighthouse we are out of time and we have to go

to dinner. Have a great day!

Elder Dane Olsen

5.16.16

Our week has been pretty good. A lesson we had earlier this week got
me thinking. The man that we were teaching has been meeting with the
missionaries for a while but we just barely started teaching him. His
week we found out that he has a very strong belief in the trinity. It
was interesting that he was so convinced of it and wouldn't listen to
anything else. In John 17:3 it says "And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou
hast sent." From that scripture we learn that it is the purpose of our
life for eternity is to know God so we can become like him. So what
does the devil do? He takes people's knowledge about God away and
tells them that God is not comprehendible. He makes it
incomprehensible. The devil will create false doctrine all the time
that will get people to not believe the truth.
Tuesday night was! We went to the addiction recovery class and I was
able to bare my testimony like a boss! We talked about truth and a few
people actually showed up this week.
Wednesday night was great as well we went to the church for the Book
of Mormon class and it was fantastic! After the class was over we had
a sticker war outside.
Thursday morning was just dandy. We went to ZTM and learned about
prayer and how to help our investigators have meaningful prayers. At
the end we were able to role play and Sister Davis and Sister Larsen
are like the best teachers ever! Seriously it was so cool! After ZTM
we went back to normal old missionary work.
One of the other missionaries volunteered to write part of my email,
so there you go!

Elder Dane Olsen

5.9.16

We enjoyed a great call with Dane on Mother's Day and loved catching up with everyone.  That must by why this letter is super short.

Anyways, this was a great week! We were able to teach Danshel a few
more times and her desires are so pure. She had a lot of questions
about the sacrament. It was neat to watch as the sacrament gained
personal meaning for her as we explained that when we take the
sacrament it is a renewal of any promises at we have made with God.
She still didn't make it to church but it was mostly because her mom,
Sarah, doesn't have much desire to come to church.
Denarrius is 16 year old that one of the young men here referred us
to. We had an awesome lesson with him with the young man that referred
us to him. It was awesome!
I hope y'all had a great mothers Day! My highlight was definitely
talking with family, I love you all so much!

Elder Dane Olsen

5.9.16

We enjoyed a great call with Dane on Mother's Day and loved catching up with everyone.  That must by why this letter is super short.

Anyways, this was a great week! We were able to teach Danshel a few
more times and her desires are so pure. She had a lot of questions
about the sacrament. It was neat to watch as the sacrament gained
personal meaning for her as we explained that when we take the
sacrament it is a renewal of any promises at we have made with God.
She still didn't make it to church but it was mostly because her mom,
Sarah, doesn't have much desire to come to church.
Denarrius is 16 year old that one of the young men here referred us
to. We had an awesome lesson with him with the young man that referred
us to him. It was awesome!
I hope y'all had a great mothers Day! My highlight was definitely
talking with family, I love you all so much!

Elder Dane Olsen

5.9.16

Today's letter was short but we sure had a good visit for mother's day.  He is such a great missionary and a fine and Godly man.

Anyways, this was a great week! We were able to teach Danshel a few
more times and her desires are so pure. She had a lot of questions
about the sacrament. It was neat to watch as the sacrament gained
personal meaning for her as we explained that when we take the
sacrament it is a renewal of any promises at we have made with God.
She still didn't make it to church but it was mostly because her mom,
Sarah, doesn't have much desire to come to church.
Denarrius is 16 year old that one of the young men here referred us
to. We had an awesome lesson with him with the young man that referred
us to him. It was awesome!
I hope y'all had a great mothers Day! My highlight was definitely
talking with family, I love you all so much!

Elder Dane Olsen

5.3.16

Sarah didn't make it to church again. Which is kinda frustrating. She
has the desire and we were able to have a really good lesson with her
about how much the gospel can bless her family in such an incredible
way. Her and her family just need the blessings of the gospel so much,
but she doesn't seem to want it enough to act. If we can't help her
keep more of the smaller commitments we are going to have to drop her.

Saturday was a wonderful day for us. Morning from 10-12 is usually a
hard time to find things to do, except for Saturday. Saturday's are
usually pretty good all day because so many people are home. And this
last Saturday morning was exceptional. We weren't able to set any
appointments for Saturday morning so we just had 4 people to stop by
and we would add more as we needed them. Miracle was, three out of the
four people we stopped by we were actually able to talk to us! It was
awesome! And the one who still didn't answer we were able to talk to a
person at his neighbors house who doesn't live around here, but we
were able to teach him! Then we sent his info over to the missionaries
where he does live. So miracles are there and the Lord will guide us.
That is for sure.

So this week I started the story of Ammon starting with Alma 17 and I
am learning a lot. Something that I have been thinking about is how
incredible of a miracle that really was. Do you realize what happened
in six days? Ammon got there and was bound and carried before the
king. He becomes a servant and starts watching the kings flocks. We are
gonna say this is Monday. Three days he has been serving the king so
now it is Wednesday. The flocks get scattered, Ammon plays with his
sling and sword next thing you know the king still has sheep and Ammon
has killed 7 Lamanites and cut the arms off of "a certain number" of
them. Later that day Ammon comes to the king, teaches him the plan of
salvation and the King faints from being overcome by the spirit. Now
it is 2 days later, so it is Friday. The Queen asks Ammon if her
husband is dead, Ammon says "No, he is gonna wake up tomorrow
morning." She takes his word for it and now they are waiting for
Saturday morning. On Saturday morning the King wakes up, he glorifies
God and then him and his wife both faint again, and then Ammon and the
rest of the Kings servants except one of them. The lady who is left
goes and tells everyone the miraculous things that are happening and
gathers a multitude to the Kings place. One of them tries to kill
Ammon and is struck down. Then the Queen wakes up and the king and
then everyone else and the king teaches the multitude and it says "as
many as heard his words believed, and were converted unto the Lord.
But there were many among them who would not hear his words; therefore
they went their way." So whoever decided to hear what the King had to
say was converted. It sounds like the rest of Saturday was a busy day.
Next it talks about getting all these new converts baptized "and as
many as did believe were baptized; and they became a righteous people,
and they did establish a church among them." And for all we know it
was still Saturday! Do you know what that means? It means for Ammon's
first Sunday in the land of Ishmael  he had a whole Ward to have
church with and for the rest of the meeting just did all the
confirmations! That's awesome! So all of this does have a reason. It was
an incredible thing that happened and the scriptures tell us why it
happened. After all of this has happened it says in Alma 19:36 "And
thus the work of the Lord did commence among the Lamanites; thus the
Lord did begin to pour out his Spirit upon them; and we see that his
arm is extended to all people who will repent and believe on his
name." So really what r miracle was is at the Spirit of the Lord was
poured out upon the Lamanites. But guess what it says Ammon fasted for
at least the Sunday before that and who knows how many times before
that? Alma 17:9 He and his brothers had been praying and fasting that
the Lord would grant them His Spirit so that they could help it get it
poured out over the Lamanites. Goes to show the power of prayer and
fasting eh? I thought it was pretty cool.
Anyways have a great week!

Elder Dane Olsen