Hola hola hola!!!

 OH my goodness it’s been a sec, but here’s my AMAZING week! This week was actually so awesome, and full of so many little miracles!

First off here’s a quick little update! I’m still in Lakeville and I am trio training! Hermana Pister and I are training Hermana Taylor! She’s a cutie and I love her so much! My heart is full of love and gratitude! I couldn’t be more happy! 

For pday we went to Northfield, this cute little town in the middle of nowhere. It’s feels like we were in Italy. It’s right up against a river with all these little shops and there are so many old buildings and antique shops. We just walked around and got ice cream and went to all the antique shops. It was super fun! We go up there about once a week because we have some friends that live there and it’s my favorite. We just spend the day there since it’s far away from where we live and we just hang out at the library or sit by the river and do our studies. I LOVE IT! 

This week started off so good. We have been teaching this family for a little while and we go over every Monday to teach them and we always leave with seriously smiles plastered on our faces. They just don’t go away. I love them so much! They are a cute family from Honduras and we are teaching Adriana and her 10 year old daughter and her mother in law and this past Monday her father in law was there too and it was such a POWERFUL lesson. We taught them the Restoration and first off the Restoration already has so much power but idk it was seriously just such a spirit filled lesson and we just connected so much more with them. They are so fun and full of energy and just have those big fun laughs that gets everybody laughing. Seriously always a highlight of my week when we get to go over and teach them. Adrianas 10 year old daughter is SO CUTE and is just so excited to read in the Book of Mormon or say the prayer. She always runs and grabs the Bible and the Book of Mormon when we come over haha. The only thing is we are having a hard time getting them to church so pray pray pray that they will have a desire to come to church!! 

We teach this one girl Daphne LeBaron, and for anyone who knows the last name LeBaron it’s pretty crazy. She grew up in Mexico in a polygamist family. She believes pretty much everything we do and has read the Book of Mormon, she just doesn’t believe that we have a living prophet. We have been going over to teach her and she really is so sweet and loves having us come over! 

We had our first zone conference with our new mission Presidents! We had Elder Gimenez from the seventy and his wife come and speak! It was awesome. They are from Chile and so afterwards I went and had a conversation with them in spanish! They are so cute and they are just so fun and loved being around all the missionaries. I also just love zone conference because we get to see other missionaries! We FINALLY had zone conference with the other spanish missionaries! Our last mission Presidents always split the Spanish missionaries up so we never got to see them but this zone conference we finally got to be together! At zone conference we learned a lot about immitating good things and good habits while on our missions and judt throughout our lives. I loved that so much! They also talked about having a desire and how no one can teach someone how to have a desire for something, that is all up to them and all up to us to decide. We need to figure out what fuels our desire. Something that has helped me a lot when I have a desire for something is I think “I am doing this because I love my Heavenly Father and I love Jesus Christ”. That has helped me a LOT! Sometimes it’s not always easy to keep up the desire to do something but when you are doing it for the right purpose and for the right people it’s always worth it. One last thing that they said that I really liked was “Your success does not depend on how others react.” Oh my goodness that one just hit me. 

Ok so miracle!! When I first got to Lakeville Hermana Pister and Hermana Flores had been teaching someone named Fran and he was SO cool! Like the absolute coolest and then all of a sudden he just never answered or texted back or anything so we were like what the heck? Anyways we were doing stop bys at an apartment complex and we got off the elevator and there was a guy chillin by the window and we looked over at him and it was FRAN!!!! We were like Fran!!!! Oh my goodness he just smiled so big and started laughing. We were like what happened? He said that he had dropped his phone off a roof while working so he had to get a whole new phone and new number and he didn’t know how to contact us again. We got his new number and oh my goodness it was such a miracle that he was there and we finally found him again! It had been 3 months! He is THE best!

Ok ANOTHER miracle! This was oh my goodness, this makes me so happy. A different day this week we were doing stop bys in a different apartment complex and we stopped by this one ladies house and we were talking with her for a little while and we kept saying like ok we gotta go. So we eventually left and while we were walking down the hall we heard what we thought was spanish music oops and knocked on the guys door and it definitely wasn’t haha but he gave us the name of the song and we left to go out to our car and as we were walking down the stairs this one guy was walking up them and so we said hi and we started talking. We told him we were missionaries and he immediately said I want to learn and we were like yeah!?? Ok!! He was so cool and he just started giving us all his information and we set up a time to go over to his apartment for a lesson! As we were walking to our car we all were like oh my goodness all the things that happened before led us to run into him! He was so cool and we were so excited! 

We went over a couple days later to have a lesson and when we knocked on the door and a different guy answered and we were like is Noé here and they were like he’s out in the parking lot, he should be here soon and then we heard all these voices coming from the stairs and group of like 5 guys start walking and Noé was with them. He lives in an apartment with 10 guys. He invited us in and it was one of the guys birthdays and he was like come celebrate with us and we were like uhhh ok. We went in and it was funny because we were obviously there for a lesson so we just had all of them sitting around us and we were teaching the 2 great commandments. They had expected this party but instead we taught them a lesson haha. They were all pretty interested but would get loud and cut us off and talk over us a lot. We were trying to read some verses and none of them were really listening and then Noé yelled yo chicos listen and all of them immediately went quiet and listened. It was like the craziest thing haha. We talked about how no matter where we are in life and how far from God we may think we are, there is always a way back to Him. It was honestly a really good lesson and something I think they all needed ro hear. After the lesson they pulled out their guitar and asked us if we knew how to play and we didn’t but they still had us try haha. We did terrible. Noé was super eager for the next time we would come over for a lesson. PRAY that things keep progressing! 

We are trying to grow our Facebook spanish page so we made a cute post of all the Spanish missionaries in Minnesota so if you want, go follow Venir a Cristo en Minnesota and like and share our post haha!

I got these white slip on shoes from Walmart so that I can have missionaries write or draw on them for fun and one morning I was eating one of my favorite Mexican candies and decided I wanted to draw it on my shoe, so I did and it actually turned out better than I thought! I was hecka impressed haha. I got the idea from one of the Elders to have shoes that people draw on as little memories and I love it! 

Saturday we did service for Sleep in Heavenly Peace and we went to the warehouse and helped make beds again! As always it was amazing and by the end of it we were covered in saw dust from head to toe. It was everywhere. It is seriously the most rewarding feeling afterwards knowing that because of our hard work, all these kids get their own beds to sleep on! 

We have had a hecka ton of lessons this past week and it makes the day go by so fast! We also have been streeting absolutely everyone. We have met so many cool new people because of it! We were driving one day through a trailer park and saw all these people picking up branches from a tree they had cut down so we quickly parked and went to help them clean up! We got to talk with all of them and tell them we are the missionaries and they were all so so grateful. It just feels so good to serve and we met some cool people and got their numbers! 

Sunday we got a text from a referral that we had gotten, but had never taught, and he asked us what the address was to the church and that he wanted to come! We sent it over and he came! His name is Fredy and he’s so cool. The members in our branch fellowshipped him so so well and after church when we went to go find him, tons of the Hermanos in our ward were just talking with him and getting to know him. It made my heart so happy! I love our members. 

We went over to Lupitas house to have dinner with her and her family on Sunday, like we do every Sunday and seriously every time we go over I just feel at home. They are one of the most amazing families I have ever met. They open the front door to greet us and immediately give us hugs and a fat old kiss on our cheeks and call us their princesas, hermosas, preciosas, bonitas, niñas haha literally every time. They are just so loving and just give give give. They are so so thoughtful and selfless. I love them with my whole heart! 

I am so grateful for the gospel and for the opportunities it has given me to meet such amazing people that will stay close to my heart forever. I love you all so much! I know our Savior lives and that He loves you! 

Hermana Olsen<3