6.27.16

Hello!

This week was great! It has been great being with Elder Gentry we have
been talking a lot about the people we know back home trying to figure
out what all is going on with everyone. It is a lot of fun.
The work is going well. We had a few neat miracles this week. We
stopped past a guy named Willie that missionaries had talked to once
before on Wednesday and had a good talk with him. We invited him to
church and he said he would come, but that he would need a ride. We
told him that we could get him a ride as long he really would be there
and ready to go to church. We also set up a return appointment for
Saturday so that we could make sure he would still be good for church.
When we showed up on Saturday and someone else that was there told us
he wasn't there at the time. So we figured it was like so many of our
other people where he wouldn't keep the appointment or come to church
or anything. Nothing new, that is how the majority of missionary work
goes.
On Sunday morning we are in our coordination meeting with our ward
mission leader when we get a telephone call. What do you know, it was
Willie! He asked if we had a ride coming for him. Now, because he
hadn't kept his appointment the day before we didn't worry about
getting a ride for him. So we scrambled around and found someone to go
pick him up. He came to church for all three hours and loved it. He
told half the Ward that they would see him next week. We are pretty
excited about meeting with him this week.
Another miracle that happened yesterday has to do with Sarah. I
emailed home about her a little over a month ago. We haven't seen her
at all since that time because we couldn't get a hold of her. Her
phone didn't seem to be working and whenever we stopped by she wasn't
at home. We decided to drop her because there didn't seem to be
anything more we could do. During gospel principles somebody walked in
and sat down. I didn't really turn around because we were in the
huddle of the lesson. After we said the closing prayer I stood up and
turned around and would you believe it? It was Sarah! She decided to
come to church for the first time after having no contact with us for
over a month! It was incredible! I was so happy to see her there.
While we were working with her we were really trying to help her come
to church. Week after week we did everything we knew how to help her
get to church and she just never came. We gave her the space she
needed to realize what she was missing in her life and she came
looking for it.
The gospel is true. If we chose to not make it a part of our life we
won't have the happiness that our Heavenly Father would have us have.
When we feel his love in our life we will recognize it if we are
looking for it. And it is always there.

Elder Olsen

6.20.16

Hello y'all!

So this week has been a bit humbling. Or at least that is a nice way
to put it. A lot of things fell through. Not much happened. Not
exactly a fun week. But they do need to happen. I definitely learned
from it.
My favorite part was Sunday. In a few different parts of church I was
just writing answers to my questions throughout the week. It was
interesting how it all came together. Here is one note: "God does not
intend for all of us to be as successful as each other. For that
matter he doesn't intend us to compare anyways. He intends us to have
different levels of results. This is to help us learn what we need to
know. It is to help us with our own individual growth. It is also to
help us know what we need to focus on. He has given us weaknesses for
a reason. And that reason isn't for us to to wallow in our inadequacy.
That is not his intention in any way at all! If he wanted us to be
miserable then we would all know what true misery is, none of us would
escape that. Instead of wanting that for us, he wants us to have joy.
But how are we to have joy in the weaknesses he has given us? We
aren't. Plain and simple. We are to have joy in overcoming our
weaknesses through his strength. That is where we are to find joy. As
we rely on him wholly and completely we will obtain his joy. Which is
the greatest of all joys. That is when our joy is truly full."
I definitely have a testimony of my Heavenly Father's love. And when
he is guiding me like that is when I feel his love the most.
Our stake president, who happens to live in our ward, gave a talk
yesterday and something he said was really powerful. "The feelings you
are having of not being enough, are not from God." Simple, powerful,
truth. God would have us find joy and happiness in his strength.
One other thing that God taught me is all about relying on him. "How
much are you going to rely on the Lord? Because whatever that answer
is, is how much He relies on us. If you are going to rely on him
wholly, he will wholly rely on us. If we hold back, he holds back. If
we want to be able to accomplish the things he wants us to, we have to
rely on him. There isn't an option there. If we are going to
accomplish the things the Lord wants us to, we absolutely have to,
rely on him."

It's pretty important to rely on the Lord. That is certain.

Elder Dane Olsen

6.13.16

Hello friends and family!!
    Wow what can I say this week was about the best week ever! The
sisters had a baptism, we got to use a vacuum to seal our bed bug
protectors, and Elder Oxborrow danced for me on our dinning room
table. It was fantastic and totally made my week.
    So we came to the church early to help the sisters fill the font
on Saturday and we forgot to clean it out, so there were all of these
bugs and stuff it was gross! So Sister Larsen got into the font and
was cleaning out all the bugs with cups. We attached a cup to the end
of a mop stick and tried "helping". Aka pushing stuff around and
faking to pour water on Sister Larsen. Elder Wilde drank cups of dirty
don't water with bugs in it.... 😲 It was pretty gross..
   On Monday we had a pancake breakfast with the Spanish and New
Smyrna and Elder Baklay held elder Oxborrow up and he was stacking
lays stacks... It was pretty cool...

Well that ^ was from another missionary. I hope you enjoy it, it was
based on actual events.
Other then the afore mentioned things that happened this week there
was some other good stuff too. We have been doing a lot of finds which
has been great! We have seen lots of little miracles that just
reinforces my knowledge that God is involved in my everyday life. It
is quite incredible.
This is some of my thoughts from my study this morning. I have been
thinking about is teaching in the Saviors way. How did he teach? The
main thing that comes to mind for me is that he taught in parables. He
was always relating the gospel to things that people already knew. He
would take something that people knew how it worked, often times
farming of some kind, and he would relate it to things of the gospel.
Because of how he did this, he would take one subject that the student
knew pretty well and he would take another subject that the student
didn't get. Then by showing the student the similarities between the
two he would expand the students knowledge, not by teaching something
new, but by helping the person learn that the truth that they already
have is also a spiritual truth, not only a temporal truth. It is a
very beautiful thing.
The problem today is we read Christ's parables and both of the
subjects are foreign to us. I have no experience with fig trees and
vineyards. Before I can understand the spiritual side of it I need to
understand the temporal side. Which means I have to learn two truths
instead of already knowing one and using it to realize another. It is
a very different process.


Elder Dane Olsen

6.6.16

Hey Y'all!

Life is great! We had an awesome rainstorm last night. That is one thing I love about Florida, the rain and lightning storms. They are incredible. Makes me happy. Apparently there is a tropical storm headed our way. Which seems to meean nothing more then a lot of rain. They said 6 inches of rain between today and tomorrow. Kinda excited.
Anyways, this week was good. We have been making a big focus on talking with everyone because Elder Oxborrow and I decided we have fallen out of the habit of talking with everyone. So we are getting back into it! Even before we started making that push I had continued the thought about joy in a missionaries life, and if we want to be happy as missionaries the thing to do is talk with everyone. I have officially decided that a missionary that talks with everyone and teaches everyone is a happy missionary. It feels great!
Last night I decided there is a difference between the fun times and the happy times. Before it just made sense that they would be the same, if you were having fun, you would be happy. I found out that they are different. When something is fun it means that activity is enjoyable, it is about a specific thing and how you feel while you do it. Being happy is about a state of mind, a state of being. Two different, but still related things. Over my mission I have had times when I was happy and I have had times when I was having fun. Sometimes they were both happening at the same time, but a majority of the time they were happening without the other. In my experience on the mission the things that are fun are often things you do outside of missionary work, for example p-day activities. Where as things that make you happy and happier over all is the missionary work itself. When I, as a missionary, am quality work and a lot of it, I am happier. Even though I may or may not be engaged in other "fun" activities. When you are happy the actual activity seems to matter less at which point most activities become "fun". Whereas if you are not happy it is hard to make any activity "fun". Hopefully that makes sense. This whole idea is changing how I think about a lot of things.
One neat thing that happened from talking with everyone happened yesterday. We were going up to a door looking for a former investigator. Right as we were knocking on the door somebody was walking down the street. The house looked like nobody was home, so I shouted out to the guy that was walking down the street in front of the house and asked him if he knew who lived there (because we were not sure if the former investigator even lived there anymore) and he said he did not know. So I asked if we could share a message about Christ, he said sure. So we walked down the street and started talking to him. We talked about how when Christ was here he set up a church and how after him and his apostles died that church did not continue on. We talked about how it has been restored today and that we have a prophet here on the earth today. We asked him what he thought about it all and he said "sounds good to me". He continued "some of my family are Mormons and so I have been to church a few times. We were able to set a return appointment with him this weekend and when we went to report the lesson we found out he was already in our areabook because he has been taught before. The amazing thing is we didn't have a good way to get a hold of him before, so it really was a miracle to make contact.

That's all folks!
Elder Dane Olsen