February 6, 2017 New Schedule and Hospital but not Me

Dear Mom and Everyone,

They area is really interesting and about 5 time bigger than my last area. It's made up of about 5 or 6 big nieghborhoods and for the furtherest one away we get on a bus for 30 mins or so. Right now we are working with a few people around the area but we have to plan really well to make sure we aren't walking so much or paying a lot to travel. The area is pretty tough just because it is so big and it's so hard to get people to sacrament, and every night I come home I just collapse on my bed and pass out. Oh and the food here is alright. The memebers make dinner for us or send us to a little comedor like a little lunch place and everybody makes the same thing. But I'm loving the area it's a lot of fun and my comp and I are just bouncing off of each other and I was reading my patriarchal blessing and I realized that I am fulfilling a huge part of it with both my comps.

Well we've got our new schedule that President chose. Heres how it goes: In the morning we get up at 7am and in any order from 7-10 we exercise, eat, bath, plan for the day, and study personally. Then from 10am-9:30pm again in any order we proselyte comp study for 30-60min, lunch for 60, language study 30 mins, and 30 mins of free time,(buy food, nap, study more) and 9.30- 10:30 prepare and go to bed.

It's super cool and shows how much trust the higher ups have for us.

Okay the exciting thing that happened this week. My comps district leader, so on sunday around 5:30pm he gets a call that an elder is going to the hospital, Cook is like what have you called sis madsen? their like no so they call her and she told them to go home and rest for a while. So they did that and we were calmed down and finished the day. Then when we are getting ready for bed We get another call that he got worse and they have permission to go to the hospital. So They go have this guy can't walk every time he does he throws up and he's in and out of consciousness. So we head for the clinic to see whats going on and to inform sis Madsen whats going on because she doesn't have very good spanish. So we hang out there until 2am seeing if he gets better and they decide to hospitalize him so we head home and they are still running tests on him. Were hoping he gets better and I think he will.

Well aside from that nothing too exiciting this week. I love you all

Elder Olsen

January 31, 2017 Zicatela - Puerto Escondido - Elder Cook

Here are the pictures from the second surprise email we received from Mitchell

then some of the photos of my house and area and my comp

we also ate at an interesting resturaunt with some other missionaries

January 31, 2017 Pictures of Last Week in La Joya

Mitchell was unable to send pictures the last couple of weeks and then we received 2 surprised emails with pictures.  Here are the pictures from the first email:

ok to start, the baptism we had last week

Then we had a skit with batman masks

January 30, 2017 New Area/New Companion Zicatela/Elder Cook

Dear mom and everyone,

Okay to start I’m going to do my best to describe everything here without pictures because every computer I find has viruses. I'll keep looking but I don't know if I'll be able to send pictures this change. We'll let’s start with the house. It's tiny but cozy. When you walk into the yard it's like a little jungle with a bunch of plantane and mango trees and a dirt pathway to the door. It's super cool and annoying because it attracts a lot of animals like lizards and iguanas. But there’s a little porch with a place to put a hammock, I'm going to buy one to put there because this place is famous for hammocks and its only like 10 bucks. Then when you walk in there’s one room about 25 by 15 and that’s where our beds our desks and our closet: the beds are super comfy and it gets cool enough to sleep comfortable at night. Ok then off to the right our tiny kitchen with 2 fridges an electric stove and a sink. My comp likes to cook to so we are going to make a lot of fun food for breakfast. ok Then off to the left is our tiny bathroom with a curtain not a door and only cold water, that has been fun in the mornings. And I think that’s it for the house. Oh, I might buy a nice pan in a few weeks for about 15 20$ because my comp has a really nice pan for 300 pesos.

Ok the area is made up of like 5 neighbor that are really far apart, for one of them we have to take a special bus to get there. Well there's a touristic part in the Centro, that’s made up of little stores of nicnacs and stuff. Then the rest are kind of like suburbs but everybody builds their house here so they aren't the best houses. 

Ok my comp is cool, He's from a town outside of San Francisco. He says he knows Hunter so ask him if he knows a Hyrum Cook.

I should be able to see Chacon again but know knows. I got everything packed Sunday night in like 2 hours and didn't leave anything besides a shirt that an hermana was washing for me and never returned only because we couldn't find her on Sunday night. and we just put my keyboard under the bus with my luggage. Yea Puerto Escondido is what the port is called and that’s the touristic part. We don't every see the airport but it’s about 10-15 mins by taxi to the church. I don't know if I’m going to eat much seafood and if I do I think it’s all going to be fried and very plain. but we did find this meat place that actually treats the meat properly by putting it in the fridge and stuff and it’s all really good meat and on Thursday thru Sunday the cook what you buy free so I may be buying some ribs for 7$ a kilo. We can go to the beach on p day and to contact and stuff like that. I'll probably only see him (Mission President) once this change if that he doesn't come here too often and only sends missionaries he can trust here so I have no idea why I'm here.

We didn’t do much this week as far as lessons because almost everything fell 

I love you all

Elder Olsen

Dec 20, 2016 Christmas Party

Here are the pictures that Hma Madsen posted from Mitchell's Christmas Party.

Christmas Activity w/Oaxaca Zones - pt. 2 (Dec. 20, 2016)

Activity with Atoyac, Amapolas, Monte Alban, Mitla and Nochixtlan zones. Actividad Navideña con las zonas Atoyac, Amapolas, Monte Alban, Mitla y Nochixtlán - segunda parte (20 de diciembre 2016)

January 24, 2017 I've Been Transferred - Zicatela (Puetro Escondido)

Dear Mom and everybody,

Whelp, I'm obviously writing today because Yesterday was transfers. You'll never believe it, I actually got sent away, Yesterday I was on the bus for 12 hours. I'm all the way in the coast, I have a beach in my area that we can go to on p days and it's very touristic. My area is called Zicatela and so far, it's super cool, but I've only been here for just over 12 hours so I'll let you know more next week. 

So, the important stuff from last week was we had a lot of rehearsals to the point where we only had like 10 lessons and we usually have 20 in a week. We were practicing for a missionary program that we had Saturday and Sunday. so, that ate up most of our time but the good news is our baptism went through and we had it Friday because of the program. 

The baptism was great, it was the smoothest one we had, almost everyone was there on time and the program was set and people came and everything was great. That night we barely got home on time but that’s ok.

Ok then the first program on Saturday was good, there were only like 20 people there but that was alright, I had a lot of singing parts and I’m sure Hma Madsen is going to put up a bunch of pictures on FB. after the program is when we found out that I was leaving and because we thought that Chacon was leaving he said bye to everybody and I hadn't so I had Sunday to say bye and Monday I left. But it was a good thing that a lot of people went to church that Sunday and there was a lot of people at the program so I got to say bye to everyone I wanted to.

The Investigators are great we had 3 at church all of them are progressing really well. The best experience this week was the baptism and realizing that people are going to miss me and that I really affected someone’s life, well more the spirit but I brought it to them. Oh, and I knew nothing, I didn't even know that conference was happening until last night.

 Well again this computer has viruses so I can't send any photos, I’ll try next week

I love you all

Elder Olsen

As soon as we found out that Mitchell had been transferred, be began looking up his new area.  The long beach is called Zicatela and it will be fun to see how he likes his new area.

January 16, 2017 Baptism postponed

Dear Mom and Everyone

I have no idea what happened to the letter last week, they changed the format of ldsmail and maybe I accidently pressed delete instead of send because they are very close together.

Not a whole lot happened last week aside from my comp being sick Friday and the baptism was cancelled because nobody told the very catholic grandpa. oh, and the hma that fills the food calendar so we were looking for food all week. Don’t worry we have great members that know how to take care of us.

So the baptism didn't happen but don't worry we got things straightened out with his grandpa and rescheduled it for this Friday.

so Tuesday we had two great lessons. first was with someone called Hma Marí. She is a great investigator about 40 years old and is very interested. then we found somebody that is really hard to find because of his work. He told us that he found his answer and this is the true church.

Then Wednesday we had another great lesson with this 23-year-old named Carlos. He is super cool, he’s the one that contacted us and we basically answered all of his doubts in God, because he was doubting that he existed because his mom passed away.

Thursday was when we found out that the grandpa of the kid didn't know about the baptism. So, we went over to his house to go over the baptism questions but he was asleep so we talked with is grandparents a little. That's when we brought up the baptism and the grandpa was like what baptism?! We found out that the kid didn't tell him because he was scared. So, they got it situated as a family and the grandpa saw that he was ready and were going to have is this Friday.

Friday was slow After we ate we ask the daughter who’s about to put in her mission papers if she was busy for the next hour and she said no so she come with us to a lesson and helped out a lot.

Saturday we had to tell everyone the baptism was cancelled and I wasn’t feeling well. We always seem to get sick once a week. So, after we ate we went home so I could rest for a few minutes and ended up sleeping hard for like 2 hours straight I felt better after that and we went to one more lesson and got tlyudas al pastor which are that special meat in a folded tortilla with cheese lettuce and peppers, really good.

Sunday we had 5 investigators at sacrament that’s my highest number here so that was great. Oh, the best experience this week was on Sunday, we taught the atonement that is very receptive and the spirit was so strong. Haven’t found anyone really new but we are looking. So, with my clothes I can't do them all at once because they don’t dry well so I do one or to buckets every other night. We are only allowed 4 visits to the temple on our mission so I’m saving them for if a recent convert gets to go through. Our district is the zone leaders and the sets of hermanas so we do get to work with them but I didn’t know hermana Wilson that well. Oh, and today the package finally came and don’t worry ill use the Christmas stuff next year and the bb8 ornament will be on my desk. For my birthday, I don't know let me think this week and I’ll let you know. Keyboard is great but because I can’t practice every day its something little by little. I think I will be able to play in church just probably not in the near future.

Oh and today I finally found a speaker that works with usb SD and aux so that’s great, Also I found a transfer and a "Truncky" journal. Truncky is a word that has anything to do with home, so like I’m felling truncky is like I wanna watch that movie or go see my family or something like that. and I found rechargeable batteries, and please tell grandpa and sister Haywood thank you because that’s where their gifts went, and a few fun keychains.

Okay I love you all and sorry for the lack of pictures this computer has a virus in it.

Elder Olsen