Nov 28, 2016 Happy Thanksgiving

Dear mom and everyone,

It's hard to remember that this is the season of thanksgiving but I still have a lot to be thankful for. Being here has made me realized how blessed I am to be born in the gospel with loving parents and sibling. I am thankful for all the opportunities that growing up in the states gave me. I am thankful for the call to serve and all the blessings we have received because of it. I am thankful for the people here and the help they provide. I am especially grateful for Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us. I know he loves each and every one of us.

A lot to be thankful for and so little time to type. Well this week was interesting. Tuesday we try to find a reference from other missionaries We spend all night trying to figure out where his house is at and we had called him and set a cita but he wasn't even there. We were told he would be there Wednesday but nope. so that was interesting. 

Thursday we get new mattresses to replace the bedbugy ones so everything should be fine from there.

Friday there was a ward activity, here ward activity means oh the missionaries will take care of it. So the assumed that we had everything set but nope. So now we have to got download a movie from a computer place and get it to the church. During this whole time my comp is sick and really shouldn't be out but oh well. Well we get to the church and the projector isn't working so we find a small tv to play it on. We watch the Johm Tanner storey and it turned out nice but we should have been resposible but oh well.

Saturday, almost the same thing happens with an 8 yearolds baptism. He's 8 and his mom is a member so it should have been the wards thing but again no. so we threw together a program started an hour late but it was still nice.

Well because my comp was sick for two days we didn't get anyone new but he is better now which is good. Food is the same nothing new. This week we had a less active come to a ward activity and bear his testimony so that was cool. I don't know if it will come through but this less active roasts pigs and there's a picture of him preparing one. Right now I am just finding and marking scriptures to support what i say in lessons.

Well I love you all hope everything goes well. Glad you had fun at rocky point definitly want to go right when i get back.

Love,

Elder Olsen

 Mitchell practicing his keyboard

 Asher's Baptism

Nov 21, 2016 New Missionary Training

New missionaries and their trainers receive instruction in the 12-week training program and adapting to missionary life.

Nov 21, 2016 Elder Olsen is seeing success

Dear mom and everyone,

Everything is great here, Sorry I haven´t been doing more than answering questions I just type really slow and it takes me a long time to get things typed out. But this week was ok. We have this really awesome guy named Didir, he´s this stubborn Christian I told you about a few weeks ago. but it seems like ever cita we made with him feel this week. His hija was sick and then his esposa and when we tried to come by to give them a blessing they weren´t there. but its fine we will keep plucking along with him. We also have an hermano with a wife (we hope they are married) and 3 kids that seems really interested. I am very hopeful for them that they will be baptized at the beginning of the year. We also have two active Catholics that accepted fechas which is interesting but they are really cool. And finally, an hermano that kind of answered a specific prayer we had. Before contacting one day we ask to find somebody ready that has two hijas and that’s how we would know. well we didn´t meet him until a week after that and we realized last night that he has two daughters, so that´s super cool. Oh, so our baptism, that was interesting. We have one of those bishops so we were playing games with him all night. He said he was two hours away when we were supposed to start and both counselors were busy. he said it was fine with his permission. We called president to make sure of that and when he found out that we called president he magically appeared about 10 mins later. The hermana to be baptized was so close to leaving because of it. We ended up starting an hour late and the hermana to be baptized had back problems and the hermano baptizing hadn´t done it before. Long story short he had to baptize her 5 times and she eventually had to kneel down so that was fun. Other than that, not much more exciting. We are taking care of the bedbugs we fumigated and cleaned really good before we left today to get my keyboard. It ended up that this was like black Friday week so I got the one I wanted from the same store for 2,210pesos instead of 3,400.

We do have a lot of less active that we are working with but slow it goes. Generally, we have 30 to 40 members attend each week and I almost had to give a talk yesterday but other than that no. The food is good nothing too interesting and yes I would like recipes

Love you all

Elder Mitchell Olsen

PS sorry for no pictures I don´t trust this computer. 

Oaxaca Mission New Missionary Training Day Oct 31, 2016

Happy Halloween and Welcome to your Mission.

 The new Hermanas

 Learning about the Mission

The Mission Assistant to the President (AP) 

 President and Sis. Madsen

 Welcome to the Mission

 Lunch Break

More training.  Poor Elder Olsen looks tired. He's been up since 2 am 

 The Trainers waiting to meet their new companions

 Oh yeah, we have been there, too

 Ok, let's start introducing the trainers to their new companions

 Elder Chacon is assigned to Elder Olsen

 "Father and Son"  Trainer and Greenie

And they are off.  May the Lord bless you in your efforts to share the Gospel

Called to Served the people of Oaxaca

Mexico, Oaxaca Mission Oct 31, 2016

Elder Olsen had to get up at 2 am on Monday, Oct 31, 2016 to travel to his mission in Oaxaca, Mexico.  His flight left at 6:55 am and arrived around 8:30 am.  He traveled with 12 other Latino Missionaries all who had been at the Mexico MTC (CCM).  Mitchell was the only blonde Gringo to travel with the group.  They were met by their Mission President and his wife, Pres. & Sis Madsen and the Mission AP's.  They arrived at the mission home and enjoyed a french toast breakfast.  They were able to rest for a while, had in interview with the President, and met up with their companions.  He companion is Elder Chacon from Venezuela and was assigned to the La Joya Area.  We were able to email a little bit with him once he arrived to his area and the first thing he said was, "I am so happy!"  Let this journey begin.  Here are the pictures from his Mission President.