Another great week as a missionary!!! Oh my goodness I love being a missionary. There is absolutely no better feeling! 

This week was a party. I’m not even kidding. So much happened and it went by in the blink of an eye. For pday we went to the other Hermanas apartment and hung out in the lounge area. We played games and then we all went outside, talked and roasted marshmallows and made smores. Everyone was fighting me for burning my marshmallow completely on fire. It literally tastes amazing and no one will ever stop me from doing it haha! It was a good pday. I got to talk with family and be with some of my favorite people and then we ended it with my other favorite people – our ward! We had noche de hogar at the same members house that we had the barbecue at for mother’s day. We talked about the two great commandments. Loving God and loving thy neighbor. It was nice to be outside and enjoy the weather while also having a great discussion. How amazing to be outside surrounded by Gods creations while talking about Gods blessings and love for us! Afterwards some of us threw a football and kicked a soccer ball around. We all just enjoyed each other’s company and of course had some great food. 

Tuesday I went on an exchange with Hermana Mecham! She is a brand new Hermana and she is so sweet. She is in my district so I already see her all the time so it really was no different since we see our district almost every day haha but it was a fun day! We both are new so it was fun to see eachother grow and work together! I also got to drive and I haven’t driven in almost 5 months! But thats my fault because I still haven’t gotten my stuff to get my tiwi card. Each transfer there is a designated driver and we have a card that we use to log in as the driver. It records everything we do like if we speed or don’t have our seat belts on, stuff like that. If you speed the tiwi will say “check your speed” so that’s our sign to slow down. Anyways I still have to get that done. That’s what the tiwi is.

Wednesday we had Zone Conference and it was so much fun! We talked a lot about faith and it was such an answer to my prayers because that’s exactly what I needed. My mission President and his wife love movies! They love them so much and so for this zone conference they used the movie Karate kid as our theme. They showed 12 different scenes of the movie which were 12 different lessons and he related each clip or lesson to missionary work. It was so amazing. At the very end our President asked us if we recognized one thing that was said in every clip. He said “come back tomorrow”. He talked to us about how sometimes in missionary work we don’t know why we do the things we do or why we have to follow the rules or standards we follow but if we keep coming back tomorrow and keep doing the things that we are asked we will realize why they were so important. We will realize in the end that they have been preparing us the whole time. It was such a powerful zone conference. But in reality it’s true, a lot of the time we do wonder why we have to do the things we do or follow certain rules but if we trust in the Lord, we will realize He knows the bigger picture and He has a plan for each and every one of us. He is helping us prepare and be better through everything. He will never give us something that we can’t overcome because we can do all things through Him.

After zone conference our district went to Canes and we saw the polaroid that they had asked to take of us a month earlier on their community board. It was so cute! There was a security guard in the Canes that came up to us and asked us why we were looking at it and I showed him the picture of us and was like this is us, aren’t we all so cute and he started laughing so hard. He thought it was so funny that that made me so happy. 

Of course we are playing pickleball every morning especially since we have tons of people to play with! People don’t start showing up until around 8 and Hermana Erickson and I will usually get there around 7:30-7:45 to warm up and this guy David that runs it is always there early. He is the best because he’s been giving us like one on one training haha. He has us do all sorts of drills to better our game and better our shot. It literally is the best and I look forward to it every morning! It’s a good boost of serotonin to start my day. 

We went to la casa de la familia Rendon and we helped them more with their trees that they cut down. We have been helping them for the past 3 weeks and we almost have everything done! Hermana Rendon asked me to help her make dinner. We made watermelon juice out of only watermelon and it was so cool. Hermana Rendon is so amazing at cooking. She knows absolutely everything about it and she will just throw random stuff together and it’s so good haha. While we were all eating the Elders were talking about asmr and asked the Rendons if they have ever heard of it and then Hermana Rendon went and got a microphone and everyone made asmr sounds with their food in the microphone. It was so gross haha. Everytime we go to their house you never know what’s gonna happen. I love them so so much and Hermana Rendon is seriously the cutest. I’ll put a cute photo with her at the end. 

One of our friends that we are teaching told us he was moving to Michigan for work so he wanted to take us out to dinner. His name is Alfredo and he is THE BEST! We were so so sad when he told us he was moving. He is progressing so so much and has such a huge desire to learn! He took us to this little Mexican place and he asked us if we have had pupusas and we said duh of course. We all got pupusas and while we were waiting we just talked. He had so many questions and we just sat and answered all of them. We taught about all sorts of stuff and he was just taking it all in. We got to know him a lot better AND the best news ever he said he’s staying another month!! We were so excited that we could keep teaching him and hopefully the next time I write about him it will be that he’s getting baptized

Saturday night there was a dinner for all the ladies in our ward and all the men in the ward served the women their dinner. It was so precious. Some of the men shared stories of their mom and how grateful they are for them. Then afterwards they started playing music and Hermana Erickson and I thought it would be fun to sing karaoke as a table  haha. We finally convinced some of the people at our table to do it. Mostly the guys didn’t want to. So it was Hermana Rendon, of course, and her friend and also our friend Karina that we are teaching and Hermana Erickson and I. It was so fun haha! It was also so hard because we were trying to sing these spanish words so fast and it honestly sounded awful but we still had a good time. We were trying to convince our friend Brayan to come up with us and Hermana Erickson and I said at the same time será divertido, which means it will be fun. We always say the same exact things at the same time. We don’t even know how we do it but it was just funny we happened to say it at the same time to him.

There is a member in our ward, Milka that got her mission call and after church we had a pot luck and she opened her call! She is going to the Santa Rosa California Mission, spanish speaking! So to my friends in that mission, look out for her. Her name is Hermana Perez! Before she opened it everyone in our ward that served a mission went up and shared experiences and people asked them questions about their missions and how to prepare and it was so cute. Afterwards we went to a birthday party of someone in our ward. Anything that is happening in our ward the missionaries are always invited. I love how much they involve us. I just love our ward so much.

I love you all so so much! More than you know and God loves you more!! I invite you all to look for the Lord’s hand in your life this week! You will find out He’s there a lot more than you realize! 

Favorite scripture of the week: 

2 Nephi 25:17

17 And the Lord will set his hand

again the second time to a restore

his people from their lost and

fallen state. Wherefore, he will

proceed to do a marvelous work

and a wonder among the children

of men.

Hermana Olsen ❤