November 18, 2013 {Cara}

Tirrrred

Ohana-

Thankyou so much for your letters Mom and Dad. They really are what keep me going.
Every week I get more and more excited to hear from you! CONGRATS again to all the mamas. Janey! Hip Hip Horray!! And Alyssa- Congrats on your lesson, I'm sure your a wonderful teacher. Being in the YSA ward, I can totally picture you being an awesome teacher over there in good ol OKIE. Aaron- what happened to him? Is he living still? Whats his email?/ address? Gavin- WOW!! congrats on an awesome football season! Dad is so proud of you and so am I! Way to conquer your last year of highschool football:) Abby- Haha I love you.. whats new with you pretty sis? Jorg- Howzit being a missionary in the 5th grade? Jantz- THANKYOU for the update on the pool! I'm so happy you love it. It makes me happy, actually, to hear you guys talk about how much you use that pool! To me- that pool has lots and lots of memories behind it... even though I was only able to put my toe in it....

Here's why- I reflect on the amounts of missionary work our pool provided us in California. And how for the past 8 years we were promised a pool after that. We even left random dirt patches for it! The many years of weeding and throwing rocks out of those dirt patches..... and the wonderful 'bonding' time we had as siblings as we did so...(<--ha ha)

but you guys always promised us a pool no matter what. Now we finally have one:) That pool represents how far our family has come.. It amazes me completely. It represents a father I have been so blessed with, who has worked hard every. single. day. to provide for our family. A dad who knows the true meaning of work, and endurance, and persavierance, and dedication. A dad that exercised his faith and in return was blessed. It also represent the mom I have been so blessed with, who no matter what never gave up. Every day at home she lead us in family prayer, she made sure we had a family dinner, she made sure we were going to wednesday church, and most importantly she made sure we were going to church on Sunday. I wont ever forget that mom! You even got me home for curfew every weekend. You cared about every one of us kids. You never gave up! You guys kept your covenant you made with heavenly Father and the blessings he gave in return are so apparent. Never in a million years, did I think that we'd ACTUALLY get a pool. Haha you guys kept your promise! Ha ha:) But so did Heavenly Father and I love it! So thats what I think of our pool:) It's good to know its 90 degrees Jantz! That's how hot it is over here too:/

And Man.. this work is soooo incredible.. but sooo draining, I'm going to be honest. Its kickin my bum. My bum that has gained (drum roll please..... 17 POUNDS! Yep. So much food.. Ok moving on)

Quick update- The villegas are doing AWESOME! They love the Book of Mormon! I bought them a picture book version and they LOVE it! And we now have 5 out of 7 of the brothers we are teaching!! You guys this family is what keeps me going. They are so happy, yet they have so little. Haha our lesson, we were all sitting on a circle on the floor and had to ask them to put the book of mormons down for at least 15 minutes so we could share the Plan of Salvation ( which they thought was amazing how we can go to a kingdom:) ) Christie - the mom - loves it all too. We have taught the boys how to pray and they love doing it now! The mom records them and watches them while she's at work:)

Update on Mikey- He's so solid. Haha its awesome. The spirit is so strong in all our lessons. So strong! He has been prepared. He knows everything we say is true, he's always saying, "makes sense" . We just keep on teaching him and he just accepts it all! We asked him to start making up question or something, because our lessons just go so fast and so smoothly! The spirit is so apparent too:) I love feelin the spirit! His favorite part is the Spirit world. Alot of peoples are, by the way, and I believe its because it truly shows how much heavenly father loves his children. He's not going to just send them straight to 'Hell". He's going to do all he can to help us. That's what the Atonement is for! And I would love to keep going and testifying but I want to hurry and tell y'all about.........

 

Mark. So in Maui, I remember this one time- after personal study, pondering the thought of teaching an Athiest. And how tough it'd be, but that it'd be a cool challenge. Welp- Heavenly Father has provided me with the challenge here in Oahu. And I've accepted! Mark is one of the YSA's friend, and man- he has got some TOUGH questions... and he's had the lessons before, AND has read a lot of the book of Mormon. When we stopped by his home we introduced ourselves and asked if we could come back and share a message.... haha instead- he said, "no.... I want to hear it right now." and then went off, talking for about 15 minutes on religion and stuff and how we're wasting his time talking with him, haha yet, he was not wanting us to leave, he was- in a way- asking for us to help him? And the spirit was telling us to stay.

 

So Me and Sister Teuscher just pause. We're both just praying to know what to tell this man to try to get him to want to listen to us and learn more. We read Mosiah 5:13. We asked him, what he knows about Jesus Christ.. because he's kinda like.... a know it all type...  and he thought he was answering the question by talking about the bible. So then we asked the question again.. and then he started talking about God... So I asked the question one more time... and explained it a little bit better and said, "Mark what do you know about the man who is named Jesus Christ." He sat there for a good minute............. and he couldn't answer! He said, "The only thing I know about Jesus is what I saw on t.v.... it was a cartoon show... I'm so sorry. Do you guys know anything about him you could share with me?" His face showed he was so embarrassed by that answer.. and it broke my heart! We looked at him and asked if we can read with him a story about Jesus Christ from the Bible. He agreed! We promised him it'd only take 20 minutes. Then he made us shake on it. We are meeting with him Saturday!!

 

Alright family well I truly love you all. I am so grateful to have you in my life. I'm so blessed to know who Jesus Christ is, He is our Savior and our Redeemer. My daily studies and love for everyone here have developed an eternal love for Him. I know true joy and happiness and answers to our prayers come through our faith in him and his Atoning Sacrafice he made for all of us! This is His church He himself established to provide a way for us to find joy and peace while on this tricky time on earth:) His church has been restored and I am SO blessed to have the opportunity to work hard each day and to help the people in Hawaii prepare themselves for the time He will one day come again:) I love it l love it I love it!

 

I hope you guys love it as much as I do, and have the same desire to spread it as well! Olsen missionaries No ka Oi:) (<--the best) This email is soooo long sorry hahaha but its because my companion is doing lots of computer work and I just got carried away typing. Ok love you!

 

Aloha

Sister Olsen

 

Sunday was stake conference and Dieter F. Uchtdorf and David A. Bednar spoke- it was wonderful. Truly Truly wonderrrful