I Found Sushi - April 24, 2017

Dear Mom and everyone

This week was pretty interesting and we got to get to know the area a little while getting a little lost and looking for a lot of less actives.

Tuesday, we went out contacting looking for people to teach in a place called la Barra. It's a little neighborhood to the side of a river in our area. We walked around and knocked on about 20 or 30 house but nobody wanted anything. So we took a path that we thought would get us back to the highway but we just ended up getting lost and didn't want to turn back so eventually like most paths here the path took us to the beach. It's was completely empty for about a mile so we walked towards in the direction of our house. We came by someone after about 20 minutes of walking on the beach. There was a guy that freed baby turtle for the tourists to see. Having drank all our water we asked him for some and kindly gave it. while we were, there resting a little we started talking and he was really interested in what we had to say. We passed over the restoration while casually talking and accepted to read the book of Mormon. that was cool and we are going back this next week. After we had to climb two hill/mountains and pass for a part where we had to dodge waves to finally get to a beach we knew and could get back from.

Wednesday, we had a cool lesson with a less active, we talked about the plan of salvation and how knowing it blesses our lives and puts into perspective our life and our potential.

Thursday, we got lost again. We were looking for a less active but we read the map wrong so we ended up on someone property by accident and had to jump a small fence. We did end up finding them though and talked about pray and how important prayer the scriptures and church are and the committed to come to church.

Friday, we had divisions so I was with Elder Ventura, He likes sushi too so that night we went to the touristic walk along the beach and found a sushi restaurant we brought it home. It was ok but I was really missing Masa.

Saturday, we had a super cool lesson with our probable next baptisms their names are Felix and Maricrus. They’re super cool, she reads the book of Mormon and helps remind her husband. He's been to the church twice but she still needs to get there. Well we talked about the resurrection and the kingdoms of glory it was super cool. 

Sunday was super cool because we weren't expecting too many people it's usually 20 to 40 people but then all of the LA we have been visiting came and so did Felix. It was super cool to see the chapel so full. 

What we've been doing lately with people is reading Alma 32, It talks a lot about faith and how that the word is like a seed and we need to take care of it by reading and studying the scriptures. I challenge you guys to read that chapter and STUDY it. Think about how it applies in your lives and something more you can do to help yourself or someone else help their seed grow. 

Well I got a few cool pictures of when we got lost on Tuesday and when we got sushi.

I love you all,

Elder Olsen

April 17, 2017 Easter Week

Dear mom and everyone,

I'm so jealous of you all :P especially because I could probably do everything you guys did there here in hidden port (Puerto Escondido). So, to start out I'm going to tell you guys how Easter or holy week is celebrates here in the coast, it should like it was a lot like how they celebrated it there in Rocky Point. Everyone from northern Mexico the state and south comes to the beach for their whole week and because everyone here is catholic they all ride with their virgins on the front of the cars buses and motorcycles. It's kind of funny but there were a bunch of people on the beach. It was crazy and I forgot to get a picture of it

Well Because everyone was on vacation we didn't do much, but on Tuesday we bought hats because it is getting really hot here. and it's has been a blessing. I still get a little burnt but not that bad. We also go to the beach now to do comp study that's super cool to just listen to the waves in the sun studying.

Thursday, we found out the changes and I get to stay here and we got two gringos coming in. One of them is Elder Verkler, He was sent home a few months ago and is now coming back, while he was waiting for his visa he served in the Tempe mission, he was in Yuma and southern phoenix. He had iPad cars nice houses and everything, And now he's in Oaxaca Haha. Oh, we also went to a little colony called Colotepec. In the center of this tiny little pueblo is a huge catholic church about the size of a temple. It was full of Catholics but the people we met did seem interested. Oh, and while we were walking through everyone was looking at us weird, we thought it was because we were Mormons but we realized they were just looking at me. I was probably the only gringo in 10 miles.

 We didn't do anything for Easter, I actually forgot it was Easter until today. 

Well I love you all and I forgot to take photos again I promise more next week

Elder Olsen

A Gringo in a Mexican Hat

April 10, 2017 Sticky Pizza

Dear Mom and Everyone

So this week was really good but again we didn't have a lot to do. Monday we went to an FHE to make pizza. We ended up being there for almost 3 hours trying to figure out the dough, It came out really sticky so I think we ended up putting in almost double the amount of flour. It still it came out ok just stuck to the pan.

On Friday we went to another hermana's house and she has a huge wood fire pizza oven. It took up way to long to start the fire because we had forgotten to take off the top to let the air in so it just wouldn't catch and stay lit. But we finally realized what was wrong and got the fire blazing but the dough again turned out really watery. 

My Comp is great we get along well and we have had some really good comp studies. I could always communicate, but like have fun in Spanish is what I lack. We don't really cook together. People hear eat really simple and I'm going for something more fun, and he hasn't expressed interest in it. He brought a lot of music most of which is in English so that's cool. The package would be cool my comp said that is would cost about 400 pesos or 20 dollars to send it, Oh yeah I haven't told you yet. The new president was the stake president that sent my comp here. He says he's cool and very direct. I'm getting along the other missionaries pretty well. Oh, I found a restaurant that sells sushi I've been trying to go down there and take a look to see if we can because it's also a bar so I'd have to take it to go. The sleep has been getting better. And yes I can print off the recipes just fine so don't worry about sending them in a package.

Well sorry for the short letter but I can't think of anything else noteworthy to write but I do have pictures of the two pizza days, and oh and one of the sisters here wants me to make cookies for an FHE so that should be fun.

I love you all

 Elder Mitchell Olsen

 Elder Mendez and sticky dough

April 3, 2017 General Conference

Dear mom and everyone,

I'm fine now. It was really only one day the next day I felt a little sore but that was all. The thing that made me sick was a chicken soup with a lot of oil. The sleep thing I have no idea, I told Pres and he basically just gave me a few suggestions and told me to be strong, pray, and stick it out. The week was slow a lot of people where no and a lot of appointments fell. but that’s fine. You don't have to worry about my attitude I’ll be just fine because I love the work and I’ll always do my best! Conference was awesome it was exactly like Spencer said the gringos go in their own air conditioned room to watch it in English it was awesome, but sadly I didn't have any monkey brains :(. And yes, I'm eating fine. I almost always have breakfast with a vitamin and eat dinner when I get home and I eat a lot of fruits and veggies. usually with eggs. I think I'm going to be here one more change, but I could be transferred in two weeks but I have no idea. Weather is hot and humid and because of that I’ve lost a bunch of weight it's great Haha. cooking is good but really simple, we are going to make homemade pizza for a fhe tonight and I found Prego here so it's going to be good. The pan has been bought and what a blessing it is. It's super nice and cleans really easily I love it and hope I don't lose in it another area. the kitchen is really small, I haven't taken a pic of it because I can’t get a good angle but it works for my needs. 

Conference was awesome I got a lot of notes and I’m going to download a lot of talks to listen in the house but we didn't get everyone over there. The week was really boring we only had like 3 good lessons and the rest was just walking around looking for people to teach.

Whelp I love you all 

Elder Olsen

 I actually took pictures this week 

the first was taco soup, literally taco soup, she put tacos in chicken broth and it was pretty good.

the next ones are when we got a little lost contacting and we got to an area that was supposed to have crocodiles but we didn't see any

and the last is we changed up the house a little. The hammock is my comp's it's one of the nicer one I want to get at the end of the mission because el ismo is famous for their hammocks.