January 22, 2018 Hammocks, Huaraches and Tlyudas

Dear Mom and everyone,

This was a really fun week, so we started out the week with that service project, we just destroyed that church, it was very destressing. Tuesday, we had more special changes in the zone so we had an extra elder with us all day. I’m still not used to being in a trio. but we had a cool day, I started to learn Zapoteco, the dialect here, it’s really interesting and kind of hard to pick up. But I’ve only been trying for a week so well see how it goes. 

Wednesday, we took a half Pday because of their service project, and then in the night I meet one of our investigators that progressing really quick. They started teaching her about 3 weeks ago and she’s going to get baptized in two weeks but she’s super cool and already has a really strong testimony.

Thursday, we had a super busy day and we had two baptisms fall through because the mom doesn’t want them to be baptized that was disappointing but we are going to see, their uncle is a member that I knew really well in Zicatela. 

Friday, we went the baptism that we had tis Saturday, he was super cool also, he’s had a lot of problems but he’s still frim in his decision to be baptized to that was a cool experience just to hear all that he had went through and he still wanted to go through with it. Then we went to a family that we contacted on Wednesday. It was a really nice family of 5 and they all listened intently and the dad even said the prayer at the end. That was another cool experience.  

Saturday, we had the baptism, normally here the missionaries do everything for the baptism program but here it was super different. If my comp didn’t baptize him I think we wouldn’t have participated, so that was really nice. 

Today my comp got a hammock of the American flag and it looks really cool. I think I’m going to sell mine and get a better hammock then I bought in Huatulco. The hammocks have grades of string and my is the 2nd best, but he got the first and its really nice, it would come out to be like 2000 peso in total but I’ll sell my hammock for about 800. Yes, my comp is Elder Loosle the area is cool but its two wards so that’s hard we stay at church for almost 6 hours on Sunday.  That’s too bad about Aunt Vera but she’s resting now. We will probably end up working on more houses but right now we don’t have appt for it. Oh, and yes that’s my hammock its super comfy but like I said I want to get a better one. That church is still getting taken down so well see how it goes. 

Random Pictures from his WiFi Camera

 Mitchell's Hammock.  He wants to sell this one and get a better one.

 I read Elder Loosle's blog and he said that his new companion is Elder Olsen and he bought a dart board and they were having a lot of fun with it.  That's funny.

 Looks like it could be a monkey!

 Elder Loosle Hammock. Mitchell wants to sell his and get a good one like this one.

 The Zapoteco Dictionary Book

 How fun that Mitchell gets to learn a different Dialect. Nothing like being challenged even more.

But I love you all until next week

Jan 15, 2018 Special Changes - Juchitan

Dear Mom and Everyone,

Another interesting week with the big event of special changes. I also got better so we started to work normally again. So, the first day back we were contacting a lot. We were able to find a few people kind of interested. Oh, and we were having some problems with the house owner so we gave them a 30-day notice so we were looking for a new house to. So, we were walking a lot to find a place. We did find some really cool houses but they were all super expensive so we didn't find one while I was there. Thursday was really cool we so we had contacted a guy that was outside his house leaning on a truck. We started talking and he was like hey, can you pray for my dad? So, we went and offered him a blessing. The dad had an accident about a year ago and can’t walk well anymore. It was cool because they said if we came and helped them out they would do want ever. we invited them to pray and they did, and the read everything we gave them. But the funny part was on Thursday, after we taught they were asking about the misión and I was like well maybe I’m heading out of the area pretty soon because I had like 4 months there, and my comp gets a call from Pres saying that I was going to Juchitán. So, Friday we had a Little activity and I got to say good bye to most of the members. Saturday, I left.

Them today we got to help destroy a church that we are going to rebuild you’ll be getting the pictures soon. 

 P-day last week with his 2 companions

 Eating with his Companions last week

 The Apartment Wall

 Goodbye Party for Elder Olsen

 And his bags are packed  

 The Bus Depot saying Goodbye

 Onto a new adventure.  Off to Juchitan

 Demolishing a Church

 Let the Service Begin

 Love our Elder Olsen

I love you all,

Jan 8, 2018 Divisions Again Still Sick

Dear mom and everyone,

This week was slow again, Tuesday I went to Rio Grande. It was a good day I got to meet another kid in my zone called Elder Christensen. He’s a little quiet but a good kid.

Wednesday, we had divisions with Elder Knapp the assistant. I was still a little sick so I stayed in the house that day but we went out for English class and branch council. Thursday was the same, Friday I went to the doctor and he gave me some pills to take. and in the afternoon, we went to the mission prep class to help out. Then we had our branch family home evening. Saturday, we had one lesson but I barely remember anything from it. And Sunday I was starting to feel better so we went and had a few lessons with some recent converts and an investigator 

Sorry about the short letter but I just didn't do much this week. They do set goals here but I think they give it up in 3 days instead of 2 weeks. The new class was cool, a lot of good idea in how to help other and yes, I go to elder’s quorum. It’s hard to be in a trio because there are more ideas and its was already hard with 2 heads Haha

Well I love you all

Jan 2, 2018 Happy New Year

Dear Mom and everyone,

These last two weeks have been fun but a little slow on the work. Like I asked in the call, I got two new companions, Elder Galeana and Elder Ellsworth. Galeana is from Michoacán he has 6 months left in the mission, He’s the other zone leader with me. Elder Ellsworth has about 5 months in the mission, I think we are supposed to help him with his Spanish because he’s going to train soon. He’s from Las Vegas. 

This last week Was a little bad. Monday, we had the call. That was super cool. Tuesday Elder Ellsworth got sick and we did divisions so I was in the house all day. Wednesday, Thursday I got sick so I was in the house all day. Friday was ok I had to go do an interview and we needed an interview so we did divisions again and I got to work normal but in the other area. Saturday was super cool. An RM, Elder Orrock came to baptize one of his ex-investigators so that was cool and we got another baptism. Sunday was completely dead everywhere so we went to a member’s house and made Tlayuda. We bought a bunch of stuff to put inside of them and they were super tasty. After that we went home and just talked till like 1130

Today we had our district activity. We played a bunch sports, soccer Volleyball and then I made Hamburgers then came out really good.

Oh, sorry I was in the house all week so I haven’t been able to send pics so I’ll start doing that again.

Well kind of short but we couldn’t do much. 

 Mitchell Loves Klondike Bars.  They remind him of his Grandma Joyce

I love you all

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

 Elder Mitchell Olsen looks happy and healthy and skinny

 Laughing that the members call him Elder Rojo because he turns red everytime he laughs or gets embarrassed. 

 Bearing his Testimony and Saying Goodby.  Mom telling him how much she loves him.  Doesn't want the call to end.

 The Family Christmas Picture