Hey
guys!!!! I love it here!!!! It is soooo awesome. We are too busy to think about
it. We just have to learn and do our best. We have an hour and a half of sports
every night which is fun but they don't let us play soccer or true futbol
because we only have a basketball and volleyball court. Since today, Tuesday, is
my p-day, a group is going to a nearby park to play soccer. I need to get my
skills up so I can spread the gospel on my mission. They are leaving right now
so I have to go. Just know that LOVE you guys and I am so excited for this
work. I'll fill ya in on the nitty gritty later. Also I need emails. Love ya.
Elder Olson
(Later the same day)
Before I say anything, AAAALLLLLLL credit to the spirit. For those of you who know me well, I did well in school, but didn't really pick up on Spanish too well. One of the gifts of the spirit is the gift of tongues if you have enough faith. Faith is an action word. You need to act inorder to show it to God. First of all at the airport, my whole generation, the influx of missionaries that you arrive with, was there. Hermana Colo who we met at the airport is in my generation but not in my district. Anyway, on the plane, My amigo, Elder Madero, sat in the aisle seat next to my aisle seat. I tried to use my Spanish as much as possible and Hermana Stoor sat in front of Elder Madero. She is one of two hermanas in my district. Well, I was asking the nice man next to Elder Madero, who is Latino and fluent in Spanish, how to properly say things, only the phrases I was asking about were, ¨Have you ever spoken to the missionaries before?¨and ¨Have you read the Book of Mormon before?¨ We ended up placing a Book of Mormon in Spanish (I brought one) and Elder Madero bore his testimony to him, then I asked him to read Moroni 10: 3-5. This is a beautiful scripture, if you want to read it, you can just go tolds.org and click on the scriptures then The Book of Mormon. Well around 2:30 a.m., a light flips on next to us and he starts reading. It was awesome. We landed around 6:30 a.m. so we got to see the sky view. Guatemala is BEAUTIFUL. About 70 miles from me is the biggest mountain/volcano I have EVER seen. All the other mountains are normal size like those in California, Utah, or Washington, then there's the volcano. It is three to seven times bigger and taller than them. The plushness or greenness (sorry it is surprisingly hard to write in inglish right now) is so thick. We have thick green hills right outside our window. Well it is about 80% humidity here but I don't feel it until it is time to sleep. I arrived and during my interview, the thought came into my head about the scripture open your mouth and God will fill it (if someone could find that reference that would be great). Well the thought progressed to if you want God to fill your mouth, you have to open it. I have taken that upon myself. I sit with the Latinos every meal and talk to them the whole time. Of course remember, I'm a skinny little gringo, everything amazing is because of the spirit and not my own doing. Well the first meal, I understood everything they said. From then on, I have been able to say whatever I want. It's mind blowing. I haven't said any words yet that I have never known, but I've used word after word that I have only heard once in my life. My companion is Elder Rock. He is from south Ogden, Utah. He runs and swims and has a family of six. We sat down and both want the best experience. When President Cox asked me to be the district leader he challenged me to have the best companionship. We have taken that to heart. We work as hard as possible. May I just insert that there are so many guns and motorcycles here. You cannot look anywhere without seeing 30 of each. And SNICKERDOODL'n AWESOME buses. They are all school buses but tripped out completely. In district Santiago, there are 10 missionaries. I'll give their details later. My teachers are awesome. We have Hermano Abadillo in the morning who served his mission in Houston Texas and lives in Elder Grover's ward. And in the afternoons we have Hermano Baján. They are both super duper cool guys. Hermano Baján finished his mission 6 months ago in Argentina and Hermano Abadillo is engaged to a girl going to BYU Idaho. I think her name is Elise . . . no. Well um. We are too busy here to think much. Writing in my journal every night is a struggle. I spend all day trying to translate my thoughts into Spanish so that when it's journal time, I can't think of words or I have to translate back into English and I can't spell for my life. I am thinking and dreaming in Spanish now. Even with a limited vocabulary. When I don't know how to express a feeling, I get puzzled and then remember I can write it in my journal in English. It is awesome here. It is crazy tough though. I FOUND MY MISSIONARY SCRIPTURE!!!!!! (To go on my plaque at church at home) I have been praying for this and prayed for the courage to ask President Cox, a really old guy with the most energy you ever saw in your life, for his opinion. Instead, he gave it to me on Sunday during his devotional on repentance. That was my coolest most favorite devotional or talk ever. I'm pumped! My scripture is Mosiah 28:3: "Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble."
Well unfortunately I
don't have that much time because I had to take district Santiago to the
distribution center for books and stuff and the temple took longer than usual.
The temple is gorgeous and insanely small. I was able to have the opportunity
to do it in Spanish. I love these Guatamalan people so much already. I am
soooooo stoked. Well I do have to go. Let me know what details you want to
know. The church is true. and it is for EVERYONE!!!!!!!. I really do love you
all. Dad can I please be unshunned for my last email? Also I can't send
pictures while I'm here because they had issues with cameras recently. The
president and vice president of Guatemala got arrested a few weeks ago! yippy!
turmoil! more guns!.
Love you all.
-Elder Olson
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