Wow wow wow, this week was CRAZY! It definitely was one of the funnest weeks I have had! Also an elder in my district always says “que the freak pasoed” like what the freak happened so that’s the title… 

For pday we got all our shopping and things done earlier so that we could meet at the pickleball courts sooner with our district. It was memorial day so the courts were packed but we got lucky and grabbed one. Two of our members Jailene and Jerald came and all of Jeralds brothers, we had been teaching them before but had to drop them and we hadn’t seen them in a while, so i was super awesome to see them again! We played pickleball with them for a little bit and they were all so good like it was crazy. Afterwards we went to The Original Pancake House because we had all these giftcards that members in our ward had given us. It was a good bonding experience haha we all just talked and ate our pancakes. After that of course we found another pickleball court and played more pickleball. We’re all hecka good now because of how much we play. 

I got asked to give a training at district council and the morning of, during personal study, I was thinking what I wanted to focus on and talk about in the training. I had been given the topic streeting which is talking to people on the street or people out and about. Usually we are given a topic or a chapter in preach my gospel to talk about and give a training on it and have a discussion on how we can improve and share ideas on what works well, what doesn’t work well. Anyways I was looking through preach my gospel to see if there was a certain chapter that I wanted to use or talk about and I kept getting the strongest prompting to use chapter 1 which is What is my purpose as a missionary. I felt that prompting so so strong throughout my whole personal study. I had all these ideas that flooded my head and I wrote them all down but I had no idea how I wanted to structure them. I ran out of time and when I gave my training I just followed the spirit. Oh my goodness. It was such a powerful meeting and the spirit was SO STRONG. I know I was led and prompted to share what I did for a reason. Whether it was for me or for someone else. We all have a purpose and role in missionary work. Each and every one of us. You don’t have to wear a tag or serve a mission to be a missionary. There are so many things you can do to move along this great and glorious work and share this amazing gospel. 

We have a pool at our apartment and Hermana Erickson and I went out and put our feet in the pool while we did calls and did our studies. It has been so so nice out and so hot so it was perfect to be able to just put our feet in the pool. We would have phone call lessons by the pool and just sit on the chairs. We just enjoyed being outside. During any breaks we had we would just throw a frisbee and talk or walk around our building. I love it!

We went to Hildas for dinner! I LOVE Hilda. She is the best ever! She is the sweetest little old lady in our ward and everytime she feeds us it’s all the missionaries. She’s literally 91 and you would never even guess that! She is so funny and is probably one of the happiest people you will ever meet. We hadn’t been over in a while so we were all excited. She showed us her Bible and Book of Mormon that the missionaries that taught her had given her and they had written their names and testimony in it and it was beautiful, one of the most precious things I have ever seen. She told us her story and shared little memories she had when she was little. It was so fun to just talk and hear stories about her. She has been a member for a long long time and she was baptized in 1983!

Hermana Rendon had us over for a little brunch AGAIN and of course it was so fun and delicious and afterwards we went and helped this lady in our ward move. The Elders told us that in the past year they had helped her move like 5 other times haha. We went and helped move all her stuff into her new apartment and showed off our hecka muscles. It’s so fun to serve and just help others. One of my all time favorite things to do! 

This week we had a ton of in person lessons which are my favorite. A lot of the time we have to do video calls because we will be teaching a man and we need a rule of three or the person will be busy and can do a quick video call so when we have in person lessons it’s the best. We have a couple solid families that we visit in person every week so that’s always fun when we get to visit them. 

We had volleyball and played with the members and some of our friends. That’s always so fun. One of our members Yeison, he’s from Colombia, everytime he talks to me I never understand him because he talks so fast. He always gives me a hard time too haha because he knows I can’t understand him and he’ll say something so fast and be like do you understand me and I’m like what do you think. Anyways after volleyball I sat down and was like talk to me and I’m going to force myself to actually try and understand what you are saying to me so we sat and talked and we had a pretty good conversation. Who knows if I was responding correctly to what he was saying but I think it went well haha. 

Sunday. OH MY HECK! Sunday was probably one of the most spirit filled days for me that I have had on my mission. I don’t even know how to describe it. The start of the day was pretty sad because it was the last Sunday we had with our district and the last Sunday we had with Elder Funk who is going home next week. This next week we have transfers and we obviously don’t know who’s leaving and who’s staying so I was pretty emotional. We had our last ward correlation meeting which is always the best and what was awesome was we had 4 of our friends come to church! It was testimony meeting where anyone who wanted could go share their testimony and I was doing pretty good until Hermana Erickson went up and shared her testimony. Oh my goodness I love Hermana Erickson so so much. I look up to her in every way and couldn’t be more grateful for the missionary she has helped me become. I owe everything to her and when she was sharing her testimony I couldn’t keep myself together. Our poor friends were probably like what is happening haha but I was filled with so much love and the spirit was just testifying to me that this church is true. This is the church where we will find pure joy and pure happiness. I know that we will because in this gospel I have found and felt pure joy. Her testimony and example and love for this gospel has helped me in so many ways that I will forever be grateful for. I love this gospel so much and I want everyone to feel the joy that I have felt because of it. That is why I am here serving a mission. To share this joy and happiness and love with others so that they too can experience the joy I have felt and know for themselves that they have a profound purpose!

After church the Richfield Hermanas friend, Licho, got baptized!! It was so fun because other hermanas that had taught him previously came and we all got to see eachother and experience this beautiful baptism all together. It was a day filled with the spirit and there was just so much love you could feel it everywhere you went. I am so grateful for the the people I am surrounded by and I thank God everyday for the experiences that I have had and the love that I feel. After his baptism all the missionaries and some members got together and we had a little goodbye for Elder Funk. We sang hymns and some people shared a few things and it was a precious little moment. 

I hope you know how important each and every one of you are, to me, to your family, your friends, but most importantly to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They are with you every step of the way, through the hard times and through the good times. They are there to bring you joy. They put people in your lives to bring you joy. I am so grateful that all of you were put in my path! I love you all SO MUCH!

Hermana Olsen<3