Elder Mitchell Olsen: Dec 25, 2017 The Christmas Call

Elder Mitchell Olsen’s Christmas Call

We were fortunate enough to visit with Elder Olsen on Christmas Evening. We weren’t sure exactly what time he was going to call because we had to find out what his brother Garrett’s work schedule was the day (he works at the movie theater and has to work on Christmas) and we didn’t find out until Monday night after his pday was over. So I emailed him and asked him to call at 5 pm and that way Garrett would be home and be able to talk to him. Well, all was going well, until dinner was going to be an hour late. I wanted to be done and cleaned up before the call. So I announced to the family that I didn’t care what the kitchen looked like, we would all sit down and talk to him and then clean up. Well, it ended up he was going to call at 6 pm. We were able to finish dinner, clean up and sit and enjoy the call.

We were all together as a family. Allan, My dad, Grandpa Ray, Grandma Linda, Grandpa Clarke, Lauren, Dennis, the kids, Spencer, Dani and Aaron, Connor, and Garrett were all there. We used Google Hangout and recorded the call. He called from some member’s house (it looked very nice) and he used an IPad with head phones. We had pretty good reception and we could hear him perfectly because we got a new sound bar for our tv. He had had a pretty low-key day. They had a few appointments and visited some families during the day. The weather was nice that day, about 85*. It’s very humid there and usually always warm. He looks good and skinny. He begged us not to let him drink pop when he gets home. He was never this thin even when he was in the middle of band. All of his cloths are too big and I told him to go buy some new pants. He said he would. His shoes are holding up and he is doing good that way. He has 2 companions. One is a Zone leader with him and the other is training to become a trainer. The one that is Zone leader is from somewhere in Mexico and the other is a gringo (can’t remember where he’s from). They just got new bunkbeds and mattresses and the poor newbe is sleeping on a blow up mattress that deflates every night. They were working on getting him a mattress. He likes his branch and there are about 120 members. They are in the largest branch and area. They live about 10 min from the beach and they go running past the beach every morning. There is a cruise ship that comes in once a week and they like to go down and greet the people. He just had a baptism in the branch that is about 30 min away. And they are working with a family that the husband is already married and needs to get a divorce. This is very common in Latin America and makes it hard to get people baptized. They call the wife a dry Mormon because she can’t get baptized until they get married and he has to get a divorce first. So we will see how that turns out. The likes the food and they get fed every day around 2 pm. Sometimes the members send food home with them and sometimes they eat with the members. He likes to eat with the members and visit and get to know them better than going back to their apartment to eat. He has access to most everything there and there is a couple of grocery stores he shops at. There are also little stores on every street so he can get anything he needs. Water is delivered to them so they have clean water from a 5 gallon tank. He is having cold showers right now because there is something wrong with the water heater. The tank is on top of the roof and it doesn’t work. He ate cricket (a delicacy there in Oaxaca) in front of us. He doesn’t like them but he doesn’t hate them. (I cringed). He likes his Mission President. He is hard nosed with some things and easy on others. He’s a good teacher and has learned a lot from him. He got his package and opened it up early with Elder Vasquez because he knew he was getting transferred. He also gave the gifts out to his Zone that I had sent them (socks and homemade caramels). They ended up with two new sisters after I had sent the package, but he shared the caramels with them. Br. And Sis. Johnson had left and that was hard to say good bye. They took good care of the missionaries. They always had food at their house and Mitchell was there a lot especially on Mondays pday. They aren’t being replaced so now he has to have his laundry sent out. He was able to wash cloths at their house. We talked about movies and which ones he needs to see when he gets home. He was going to go see Coco at the theater that week. Pres. Conde approved that. There’s no earthquake damage near him and he’s only been to the area hit the hardest once. They are still having earthquakes and people are afraid to go into their houses because they are not built well. He wants to send a package home of the things he isn’t using. We talked about school and that he wants to go to BYU-I in January. Connor is going to get him set up for classes next year. There are 4 parts to his mission, the capital, the beach, the mountains and the desert. He just doesn’t want to go to the desert area. The only time he will go to the temple is if one of his investigators goes through the temple and he has to live in the capital. It would take 3 days for him to go to the temple now in the area that he lives in. It’s 9-12 hours on the bus and then they would have to stay over an extra night to get the bus back. So going to the temple isn’t an option right now. His brothers had fun teasing him about his Mexican Spanish but to me he sounded great. We were able to talk to him for almost 2 hours. He finally said it was time to say good bye. We all gathered around to take a group picture. Then we had him bare his testimony in Spanish. We told him we loved him and that we couldn’t wait for Mother’s Day and then he was gone. It felt so good to see him and hear him and listen to his stories. He is doing well. He loves the people of Oaxaca and loves the work. We are so proud of him and we know he is where he is supposed to be. I love being a Missionary Momma. I miss him tremendously, but I wouldn’t want him anywhere else.

Saying Hi when we first connected