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Hello, hello

Well this week was pretty awesome actually! It was funny because on Wednesday we had all of our plans fall through... even our dinner plan. But we made up for it that day because we got an Applebees card and i got steak and shrimp. So i was pretty happy. Also just to let everyone know how awesome i am eating i had Steak twice this week, and i had ribs twice this week. Plus i ate tons of other stuff... so yeah i definitely didn't get sent on a starving mission.

David didn't get baptized on Saturday but luckily he came to church and is pretty solid for June 2! It's great because he actually participated in Sunday school this week, which is great for him because he's kind of a hermit. Plus he reads all the time and watches BYU tv. Oh! last night we were teaching at his house and i got to see a firefly close up for the first time! It flew right in front of my face and it's awesome because it's like a floating light bulb. 

So a couple days ago we were driving down the road and when we pulled over and got out of the car we heard air coming out of the tire. Luckily when we were a mile away from home so we got it home and it was completely flat about ten minutes later. So Elder Harding and I changed our first real tire that wasn't during a mutual activity. So make sure that you do that mutual activity again with the youth because we actually remembered that!

Okay so this is really exciting! This last Thursday i was looking at my family history tree and i was looking back on the Guy side of the family. So then i looked on familysearch.org and found information for John W. Guy which is my great, great grandma. Well i gave that information to a member here who loves doing family history work on Saturday and guess what happened Sunday? She found three more generation on the first click!

So John W. Guy was born in Maryland on June 13 1885

His father was Samuel Guy born in Maryland 1885

His father was John Guy born in Old Monkland, Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1824!

And his father is James Guy born in Ireland in 1801!

So I have a lot of family history work to do but I'm really excited to get working on it. Plus i descend from Scotland and Ireland. 

Anyways i love y'all!

 

Elder K. Olsen

Missionary I Am!

We had a great week this week! On Saturday we were able to meet Elder Gonzalez of the presidency of the seventy and Elder Giddens of the seventy. Now if you watch Elder Gonzalez on conference you can see
that he is a great man. But it turns out that he's one of the funniest guys i've ever met! He just had the missionaries laughing the whole time. Then Elder Giddens is awesome! I think he just has the scriptures memorized. Because he would stand up and tell us to look up a whole bunch of scriptures and how they tie into another whole bunch of scriptures. But i was shown how amazing the Book of Mormon really is and how it is the key to missionary work. When it all comes down to it the Book of Mormon is how people are converted because the spirit tells them it is true. But the point of being a missionary is really getting them interested in it. So i have to know it really well so that i can liken the scriptures unto them.

Sunday was a really bitter sweet day. Elder Harding and i were talking about how satan was just beating us into the ground because nothing seemed to be going right. But at the same time we just had a good attitude and were happy all day. Plus we ended up teaching four lessons. So i really cant tell yall if yesterday was a good day or a bad day.

Unfortunately David was really sick yesterday and wasn't able to make it to church. We need to talk with him and with the mission president to find out if he can still be baptized on the 26 even though he hasn't been to church twice. But even if he doesn't get baptized on the 26 we can still baptize him on the 2nd of june so it
will still work out.  We haven't been able to see Bro. Connor again because we have been going by at all of the wrong times. But we'll get him eventually!  But on the bright side of everything is that our companionship goal for this month was 1 baptism and the districts goal was 3, and we did it! And the way june is starting to look we can see it is going to be great! I really really really hope that i'll be able to stay here in Hartsville for one more transfer with Elder Harding.

So Bishop Ensign here made Elder Harding and I promise to tell our moms something. We have gotten a reputation in Hartsville! That reputation is that we are hard workers and none of the members want us to leave. So that was a pretty happy moment for me.

I got to sing again in the choir yesterday and it was really fun! We sang "How firm a foundation" and we actually sounded really good. I'm probably going to be part of the choir when i get home because even
though i'm not a very good singer it's still really fun to do.

So on friday we had a dinner at a members house and they let me choose what i wanted to eat. So guess what everyone!? I got steak and potatoes, and sweet potatoes! I haven't been able to have a steak my
entire mission and i probably won't be having many more but i cherished every single bite. It was delicious!

Also just for the heads up i was able to think up a few more things that i would like to have for my birthday: I still love ties, I really love watches of every kind, I could use a bigger CD case (100cd+ case), and also some more music. Some CDs i would suggest are: Alex Boye, Mindy Gledhill is good, I like Donny Osmond, theres a Mormon Tabernacle Choir 100 greates hits or something. It has something to do with 100. Plus any other good music that yall can find.

So i really enjoyed the package that y'all sent me. I'm pretty happy to have an awesome baseball card. And i'm gonna have to use that writing tips card as well. That should help me out. Also i've been using those scripture reading cards. I hung it up on the wall. So thanks! I love packages!

But anyways I love y'all!


Elder K. Olsen

Probably our Best Week

Hey I'm back!

So it was really great to talk to everybody! But i've got to admit i'm thankful in a way that we can only do it twice a year. I have to say that i had absolutely no focus on missionary work for the rest of the evening. So luckily today is P-day and i have time to recuperate.

But just to restate, BAPTISM! We baptized matthew and he is such an awesome kid. Elder Harding was able to baptize his first person! Plus David was able to come to the baptism and he was also there at church this sunday! So right now he is really solid for May 26th. I know that all yalls prayers helped Matthew get baptized. So if y'all could do the same for David now that would be extremely helpful.

Sunday was actually pretty hectic. We got there and talked to Bishop and then i found out i was confirming Matthew. Which i don't mind doing. I'm actually finding out that i would rather do the confirmation than the baptism sometimes. I love having the spirit move upon me to give a blessing for a new member of the church. Then since it was mothers day it was a really emotional Sunday and everyone seemed to be crying a lot. Then we went into gospel principles class and found out that the teacher wasn't there so we just took over and began teaching. Luckily the lesson this week was the Church of Jesus Christ today. So basically a detailed restoration. Again a really spiritual experience. Then we went and talked to David and he really enjoyed church. Now that he has come once we believe that he can be baptized. He's not much for being a people person so coming to a packed church was a big leap of faith for him.

Also we sort of had a blessing in disguise the other day. Bro. Conner who is an extremely knowledgeable lawyer who we've been teaching has had no time to read the Book of Mormon. Elder Harding and I believe that if he can just read the Book of Mormon that he will be converted and become a bishop. Also the Conner family is a family of five. But anyway it turns out that Bro. Conner got staff infection in his leg and he has to stay at home for the week and he said he had all the time in the world to read the Book of Mormon and promised that he would. So pray that he will get better of course, but more importantly pray that if he reads the Book of Mormon he will find the truth in it.

Its going great in the district though! We both baptized this week. Cheraw has a baptism on friday! We have a baptism on the 26th. Plus when we get in contact with Maurice again we are going to put him on date for June 2nd (Which Cheraw also has someone on date for that same day). Then we have the Rodrick family who we will put on date for the 9th. John and the Johnsons (Family of 6!) we are planning to put on date for the 16th. Then we're fixin to put the Conners on date for June 23. So the work is amazing here and miracles are happening! I hope Elder Harding and i can both stay in Hartsville together for another transfer because we are planning to baptize every week in the month of June! Happy Birthday to me!

So i made fried chicken wings the other day. We went over to a members home and he believes in interactive dinners. So i cut the wings and fried them and put the sauce on them and they were ridiculously good! I'll have to make some for everybody when i get back because they are way better than KFC. Especially when you dip them in blue cheese dressing, which is actually the original way buffalo wings were eaten just to let you know.

Today was probably our best week. Its great that i almost say that every week isn't it? But we were able to practically hit all of our goals this week. The only one we missed was sacrament. We wanted four and got two. But i'm not complaining. Its actually really cool because Elder Harding and i have hung up some big graphs in the apartment that are keeping track of all of our numbers so that we can see the progression. In most areas the graphs are exponentially growing. Which actually coincides with whenever we sacrifice something and try to be even more obedient. Obedience brings blessings!

We drove to a place called Moncks Corner this week and it was a whopping 200 mile round trip! Yay! Did i tell y'all that one of our mission mottos is "I love tough things, I am the first to do tough things, I do tough things first!" So we are going to lose another 160 miles this Saturday, 360 miles down the drain! I love tough things! But the funny part about driving to Moncks Corner was that it made it possible for me to finally have and egg and cheese mcmuffin! Usually i can't because we leave the apartment after breakfast is over. So in this 100 mile trip we only passed one Mcdonalds! And it was five minutes from the church. We had to be there at 8:30 and we pulled into Mcdonalds at 8:25. So we were almost late to conference over a Mcmuffin. But it was totally worth it!

Plus we still passed car inspections because since i knew i was going to get Mcdonalds and that would cause the car to smell like Mcdonalds. I made sure to bring a can of febreze. So that when we got there we threw away the Mcdonalds trash and sprayed the car down with pumpkin spice. Which just reminds Elder Harding and i of Christmas. So basically we sprayed the scent of happiness in the car, which i believe helped us pass inspections. So i'm doing that for the rest of my mission.

Well I love y'all and i love being a missionary!
Elder K. Olsen

Chat with Kyle :)

We had a great chat with Kyle today.  It made it a Happy Mothers Day for myself and Paula -- and everyone else!  I snapped a few pics during our chat. Enjoy

This is the back of Kyle's missionary planner.  Awww...so sweet :)

He said he found this hat at the Walmart.  

 One happy missionary!

 

What...7 months until our next phone call :( 



The Spirit Wins Again!

Hello Erebody! (nope not a typo)

So this week has been great! This Sunday Matthew came again because he's such an awesome kid and we have now taught him everything. He will be getting interviewed for his baptism on Thursday, so i want to thank you for your prayers because i know they've been helping, just a little closer!
Then Maurice who is the referral from the Kings came to church yesterday as well. We were able to answer a lot of questions, all though i have to say i get stressed out during testimony meeting when investigators are there. Because sometimes, people just go on about their family and their life, when what i really want to hear for the investigators is what they believe in. But i think he enjoyed it anyways!

We also have another person on date. I think we told you about him, his name is David and he is awesome! We taught him the word of wisdom and when i said coffee, he said "well can i replace it with hot cocoa?"  Then we came back the next day and we asked him how the word of wisdom was going and he said "fine, i actually didn't have any desire to make a pot of coffee which is strange cause i usually would make two or three a day." So the spirit wins again!

I got to go up to Cheraw this week on exchanges and it was really fun. Because while we were up there we put someone on date which i am extremely jealous of because they aren't in my area! The spirit was just to strong and when we told her the first vision, shes all "that felt really good when you said that, that's true isn't it?" Then i explained to her the priesthood and told her that her last baptism didn't have it and really needed it so we asked her to be baptized by that authority. Well she said of course and she also said that whenever we come back she will just drop what she is doing to listen to us. Also her grandson has been reading the Book of Mormon, so that home is just a goldmine of awesomeness!

Also while i was in Cheraw i was able to do my first baptismal interview with someone that Cheraw has been teaching and he will be getting baptized on the 12. I thought that if i ever had to do that i would be really nervous. But surprisingly it was extremely relaxing. The strangest part about it was if you looked at what was really happening. Here i am some 19 year old kid and i'm counseling a 60 year old man, about tithing, and sabbath day, and even marriage counseling. Only with the spirit taking over could i do something as crazy as that sounds.

Okay and we just figured out when we can do the skype thing. So unfortunately we'll have to make y'all wait (well technically we have to wait longer.) But if we could use facetime on dads ipad at 6:30 my time so 4:30 for y'all. Then i will skype my mom at 7:00. We're only alotted 30 minutes for each family this time. So i'll make sure i have some things to talk about!

I have to write a shorter letter this week but i will talk to yall soon!
Love
Elder K. Olsen

 Kyle with The Lovells.  They are senior missionaries in Marion SC, and Sister Lovell made the tie Kyle is wearing in this picture

 Elder Olsen with his new companion Elder Harding.  Elder Harding looks a little confused in this picture

 And our favorite missionary, showing off his new haircut. 

Missionary of Awesome!

Hey howdy hey!

So i got stuck on the really slow computer in the library that probably hasn't been updated in the last ten years. Luckily i've studied a lot about patience lately so everything is a-ok!

This was actually a really awesome week! At least i think it was, unfortunately this is one of those weeks were i sit down look at the screen and just zone out and forget everything that i did.

Oh! We put matthew on date for may 12! So we could use a lot of prayers so that that really happens! We're trying to figure out by the end of the day what we want our baptismal goal for the month of may
will be. Whatever it is we are going to do it.

So during sacrament this Sunday i was sitting and enjoying the talks that were being given. Then we sang a song in between the speakers. Which after the second counselor stands up and says "Bishop has asked
that Elder Olsen bare his testimony" So of course i stood up and walked up there and did what i was asked to do. But the best part about it was that i wasn't nervous at all. I've learned over my life and especially on my mission that i love to bare my testimony to others. But no matter what i always try to bare testimony that the savior loves us, and god loves us. Because those two gospel truths can be tied  to every gospel principle. But anyway i gave my testimony that sat back down, it was fun.

Another great thing that happened this week is that my bike finally got fixed. I truly haven't been able to ride it the past six weeks here in hartsville. Luckily i took it by a members home and he fixed it up in about 30 minutes. It runs great now and i went to wal-mart and got me a bike lock and a cool bag that sits below my seat that holds my pocket scriptures.

I've learned that one of my favorite dogs is a jack russell. They are so much fun to play with, the member who fixed my bike has one and every time we go over i'll play fetch with him in their big yard. It's
really funny because whenever he runs he puts up one of his back legs. We just say that he's putting up his landing gear. But this Jack Russells name is J R, not junior but J-R. Which is a really great name
when you say it with a southern accent.

Speaking of dogs there's this one dog that lives around us who is kind of the alpha dog. He just this little mutt who we have named scruffy, and whenever we ride down the road on our bikes we yell "scruffy!" and
he'll just come bolting at us barking up a storm and then other dogs will start chasing us as well. But the other dogs won't chase us if scruffy doesn't. If you can't tell dogs are a big thing here in the south.

We were able to teach a lot this week as well. Actually there was one great time when we were at a members house about to present the letter program to them. But when Bro. King came home he drove up with a guy that works for him. Well Bro. King gave us a referral at church last sunday and we've called this guy a couple times and he always said that he would call us back. Well it turns out that Bro. King just
brought him by and we taught him a first lesson with the kings instead of showing them the letter program. I did not mind it one bit!

So my studies have been going great lately. I've been able to find such a greater love for the scriptures. Because since i've been reading and studying more effectively i've been able to better tie stories to peoples lives to help them. Someone will have a question and i can usually find an answer in the scriptures to answer them. The scriptures are absolutely amazing and true heartfelt study can help you find an answer to any question.

But now for a funny story! Over the last week i've been playing a game with Elder Harding. So in the morning i was reading my old spice wash, which had some funny things on it. Then i read his old spice, same
thing. So then i read his shampoo and conditioner bottles, not funny. But anyways the next day i came in and his shampoo and conditioner wasn't in the bathroom anymore. Then i remembered in his last area other missionaries were using his shampoo so he took them out and only brought them in when he used them. So i decided i would have some fun and see how much stuff i could get him to take out. I'm proud to say that i got him to take out his body wash, acne stuff, and toothpaste. And he never said a thing about it! I was waiting for him to explode one day or say something. The last day i did it he actually moved my
stuff around, i laughed pretty hard. But i finally told him about it and we laughed a lot. I probably laughed more. But anyways it was really fun to play a small prank on him.

Well that's me!
Elder K. Olsen

Week of Miracles!

So first of all i was able to go to the dentist and i had to get three fillings. Well that wasn't really the fun part because they were all on the top and i guess that area is more sensitive so he had to put three shots in so that he could fix them. Not a fan of that. But anyway my teeth are perfectly fine now and the best part was when we were done, he said that he wouldn't make me pay extra and that whatever the insurance was able to pay was enough. So if you want me to i will gladly send back that money that you gave me.

It's always comforting to hear that y'all were able to get the memory cards, it worries me to send three months of memories in an envelope across the country. Speaking of which did y'all ever get my package that had all of the letters in it?

Now for the rest of the miracles! We were blessed with 8 new investigators this week! David, Cynthia, Tom, Matthew, Deckers, and Mr. Connor! It was amazing how many lessons we were actually able to teach. So let me tell y'all about them.

So since we had to go to the dentist on Thursday we took an hour and a half out of our pday last week to go knocking. While we were knocking we ran into Cynthia. Cynthia is an older lady who at first told us that she didn't have time right then. So we set up a return appointment for Wednesday. But before we left i said "I don't mean to be to pushy but you seem really sad, is everything all right?" Then she expressed to us that her daughter passed away a couple years ago and that she was raising her three grandchildren. So we testified that our message could bring comfort and happiness into her life. We came back on Wednesday and gave a plan of salvation and the restoration to her. She seemed happier but concerned that if she found out that the book of mormon was true that she would have to become a mormon, she was raised baptist. But i feel that she will honestly read and ponder the book of mormon.

Back to Monday we were still knocking on that same street and we found David who has become one of my favorite people in the world. At first he seemed a little slow but it's just because he takes his time to answer everything. We came back later and asked him if he had read, and he had read all of the testimonies and the introduction. He understood all of it as well. We've had some great discussions with him and he is most likely going to become a member of the church but he wants to study more.

Tom was a referral from the letter program I've told y'all about and that went fantastic! I didn't realize it until we left but we were there for a while. We got home at 9:30 and we just lived down the road. But we were able to answer all of his concerns, i was able to answer questions that i never thought i would be able to. I was able to give several good reasons why we don't have the gold plates anymore. Reasons that i truly believe came from the Holy Ghost. We gave him the book of mormon and he really wants to read it and we are having lunch tomorrow with him and the referring member so i bet that he will have read some by then.

Matthew is a nine year old boy who just really wants to get baptized! He lives with his grandpa who is a member but doesn't want to come to church because he's not a "people person" but he's loves the church and the idea that Matthew is getting baptized soon. Matthew came to church yesterday and he loved it, when he was leaving he was skipping away saying "i want to come to church every week!" Now why can't every investigator we have do that?

The Deckers were another letter referral and it was another humbling experience because their son was murdered a couple of years ago so they are really humble people. But they believe that all the churches have a lot of good but are just close to the full truth. Bro. Decker also talked about the Native Americans at one point saying "you know they were a lot better people to this land than we ever were, and it makes you wonder, who told them to be that good?" Then i held up the book of mormon and said "would you like to find out?" It was awesome! So we're invited anytime back to their home and they really want to read the book of mormon as well.

Last but not least is Bro. Connor, who is actually a lead from past missionaries and someone we met our first day in Hartsville. But this whole time we haven't been able to have a great discussion with him, we've been able to talk to him in his front yard and present the book of mormon and what it is and he promised that he would read it. Now let me tell you that Bro. Connor is a lawyer and he is also very well educated in the scriptures. But we sat down with him last night and had a very long educated discussion with him. Which i think is why we weren't able to do it when we first met him because honestly we weren't ready when we first got here. But last night he said "whats the message?" and we asked him what he would like to know. He said "how about the trinity?" Whoa! I wasn't ready for that but decided that i would explain the whole restoration so that i could show him why we believe in three separate beings. But he took everything into honest consideration and came to the conclusion that he now needs to read to the book of mormon to find out if what we're saying is true. It was funny though because he asked us if we had gone to a theology school when we were finished. We told him all that we know were from our studies (I'm so proud of my humility). He also expressed how he wished that he could get us over to our church. I then told him that he would have to completely disprove the book of mormon. So our next visit will be interesting.

Now for a great story, I've gotten a lot bolder over my time being a missionary. For instance we were talking to a baptist minister in training on his front porch. The whole time he was quoting scriptures that had absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about. But at one point we were talking about prophets and writing scriptures and he said "well i can write scripture i.." Then i cut him off mid-sentence and said "that's not scripture." I wish y'all could've seen the expression on his face. He didn't know how to respond, and i couldn't believe that i had just cut him off like that. But then he finally just quoted a random scripture and eventually i said amen to something he said, and he said thank you very much, and then he went inside and we left. Missionary work can be interesting.

Also everyone transfer calls came on Saturday and Elder Harding and i are both staying! So we got six more weeks to make everything work here.

It took us a while but we are in a really great place here in Hartsville. We finally got all of our records up to date, we're teaching a lot of people, we've gained the respect of the ward council, and now we're getting a lot of assignments from everyone. Finally we are busy again!

Ugh! I forgot to this week but next week I'm going to bring my study journal to the library so that i can tell y'all the amazing things that i have been learning!

I love y'all!
Elder K. Olsen