News from Kyle

The last couple of weeks have just been kind of hectic. I landed in South Carolina, got whisked away to the mission home, and then a couple days later i have a companion and I'm out preaching the gospel to people. A little overbearing at first, but now I'm used to the routine and I'm loving every minute of it (except the first few minutes when i wake up).

As for my companion hes from Las Vegas. He has two older sister and an older brother. Hes been out for about nine months now and he has a great desire to get the work done. Hes a perfect trainer for me because hes willing to have fun, and hes not strict in anyway. I don't feel like a trainee but more like a partner. The best thing is that he keeps me focused and on track, because hes serious when he needs to be.

The Hurricane was great! Not the usual answer you hear from people but it was kind of exciting. Obviously we were evacuated because our house is about 15 miles from the beach (although i still haven't been to the beach yet). But we drove an hour inland to a place called Florence. Along with 10 other missionaries. So we had 12 missionaries staying in the apartment, which was fun but i am so glad that I'm back home now. Having that many missionaries was great for gym time we were able to have some awesome basketball games. We got the edge of the Hurricane while we were in Florence. Which I'm happy in a way because, that's not something you want to miss.

So Elder Cramer and i were riding our bikes around knocking on doors. Keeping an eye on the black clouds that were rapidly coming our way (i could be a writer). Then it started to rain a little bit. Which isnt to bad, because I've ridden my bike in the rain plenty of times. But then all of a sudden it REALLY rained. It was like an endless bucket of water was pouring on my head, then it was super windy. Branches were falling off trees (little ones). Luckily a man was standing in his car port and waved us in so that we could wait it our. Since we were in missionary mode we decided to bring up the gospel with him. Evidently he had seen us coming because he pulled out a packet and gave it to us. In big bold letters it said MORMONISM on the top. Automatically i new it was some anti-Mormon stuff. Because people who call it Mormonism are anti-Mormon sadly. So we tried talking to him a bit, new we were getting nowhere and decided to talk about the hurricane instead. I love what i do!

Something else that's great is we have someone set up to be baptized! Shes and older lady and she knows everything that's been taught is true and wants to come closer to Christ by being baptized. Then in that same lesson we gave her two daughters (probably in their late 30s) the book of Mormon and they've started to read! We plan on having them ready for baptism by the end of September. Then there's another man named Jesse who wants to be baptized as well. Unfortunately he cant do that because the girl hes living with he isn't married too. So i cant wait to either tell him that they either have to be married or he has to move out in order to be baptized. Luckily they've been talking alot about marriage, so we shouldn't even have to bring it up. Which is good cause I don't know if a couple 19 year olds can give the best council about marriage. And unfortunately we haven't met with brother Pokey again. But we're going to this week!

Something cool that happened this week that just makes this entire mission fun, is all the kids around here. I'm practically in the ghetto you could say. But all the kids will just walk up and start talking to us. For example the other day we biked over to an apartment complex and it was getting dark so we turned on the lights on our bikes. About 15 kids came up asking if they could try the lights out. In the scriptures Christ says to come unto him as little children. All of those kids were smiling, they were all curious to learn more, they all were laughing and playing around, and they didn't have any worries. They don't care about, politics, or the economy, or the weather, or anything stressful. They just want to smile, laugh, and have fun.

I haven't received your package unfortunately because it wasn't Priority mail. But the package is at the mission home and at the next zone conference i will be able to go get it. I'm just glad there's not anything perishable in there! Ummm, I don't need anything right now that i can think of. Just more letters and pictures! I'm always happy to get those!

Love,
      Elder Olsen

P.S. sooo (ahem) there was an accident with the camera, it still takes pictures but doesn't really zoom.... how can i replace that again?
P.S.S. I LOVE Y'ALL!