Happy New Years!

This week was surely a crazy one. Christmas Eve was nothing short of amazing when we went to the Curtis' and had a very traditional meal of pizza and mashed potatoes. I really didn't mind at all because they are like 2 of my favorite things. Also because the Curtis family is just so stinking awesome it almost kills me.

Christmas was just kind of whatever. Only it didn't really feel like Christmas sure i got to see my family but through a computer. I hope everyone is feeling super bad for me while reading this because it is kind of sad. But life moves on so oh well!

Wednesday might have been my favorite day of the week. We had exchanges and I got to go with Elder Nielson who, apart from Elder Barr of course, has become one of my best friends on the mission. He is an ambassador at Utah State and we are so similar in almost every way. Except that he has to stay true to his phili sports team. We had a little tiff about the Boston Celtics. Ha! We did really good work as well so had a lot of fun. Nielson is a great guy and we plan to go on a double date when we get back. So girls if you are reading this and would like that chance then those letters better start flowing. Look at how pathetic I am begging for letters on my blog haah.

The rest of the week was just a regular week. Soeur Grandfils is awesome and she gave us a whole ton of food. She also said she loved us which really made me reflect on everyone in the ward. It's so crazy how important ward members are to the missionaries without families like the Curtis family and Soeur Grandfils I don't know what I would do. It's such a great blessing to have all the wonderful members of the church. It's awesome.

As far as this week goes we have another nice day off tomorrow because it is new years. YIPEE!! time to make some nice missionary resolutions! Tonight we are having guys night out with the Elders from Louise which is the southern half of Brussels. It's going to be so weird to just like hang out with guys tonight... AHHH!

Love you all,
Elder Oliverson

Black Santa

We went to the party for noel on saturday and the funniest thing happened. the guy who was supposed to play santa didn't show up. and so we had to get an african guy who spoke english and french to do santa. it was so funny to see an african guy who had to play santa. only in the strombeek word would that happen.

we have lots of investigators but they are all super busy with their finals for school. so lately we haven't got a lot of lessons but it will pick up after the exams are over. keep note of the french things and thanks for the packages. i'll e mail you all the details next monday! love you. Merry Christmas
elder oliverson

We went to the Eiffel Tower! Finally!

So this week has been one of the craziest thus far on the mission. Monday we just had a nice relaxed P-day oh except for the fact that we went to grand place to check out all the stuff for Noel and it started pouring. It seems that every time I go out without an umbrella I get soaked. I ended up just putting my glasses in my pocket. My hair was literally dripping on the metro. I looked like a mess, it was great.

Tuesday we went out and taught this super cool guy named Fabrice. I must admit it was one of the best lessons I've been apart of. We just testified of the truthfulness of the book of Mormon. If anyone could have felt the spirit in that room they would be changed in an instant. It really shaped my week a lot. Some times I have difficulties using some of the more complicated grammar in French. I found myself flowing and just using the subjunctive like it wasn't anybodies business. The most often used subjunctive trigger is afin que. I use it in prayer a lot but I was just talking and it made sense and I just used it. It's hard to explain on here, but it is an awesome feeling. I feel like my ability to understand everything really skyrocketed this week. There must be some people praying for me back home haha.

Wednesday was a very frustrating day. Our whole day got shot because we got stuck with an elder waiting for his companion at the train station. So frustrating. We ate some great fries though. Belgium is all about beer, chocolate, fries, and peeing babies haha. It's great. I love it. It's like every time i see mannekin pis i see little Crew or Fin just peeing away! Haha.

Thursday was so super awesome that I would need to put like 4 more adjectives to describe the awesomeness. we woke up at 4 which was not so super awesome because we had to catch a train to Paris. The best part about it was we rode first class with the zone leaders. That means we got free breakfast, yay! i had some yummy speculoos sandwiches. yummmmmm. when we got to paris we had 3 hours till the conference started so we went to the Eiffel Tower! Finally! It is just really huge! I feel like i'm actually serving in the paris france mission now that i've seen it. The conference with the leaders of the mission was so dang cool. There were a lot of good things presented about being a successful missionary. It isn't about baptisms it's about loving people which was really cool.

Each week I like to pick a different Christ like attribute and work on it. This week I picked charity. Now before this week I though charity was just giving to people who are less fortunate. If you look in bible dictionary that proves to be totally wrong.

Charity is the pure love of Christ. It is the love that Christ has for the children of men and that the children of men should have for one another. It is the highest, noblest, and strongest kind of love and the most joyous to the soul (see 1 Nephi 11:23)

I love this definition so much. This is an excellent scripture. Sorry i couldn't pull up the bible dictionary one but this works too. But really this week I have tried to focus on really having that pure love like Christ did. It's really shown me a lot. Shown me how much the people I love actually do mean to me. I invite all of you to study a Christ like attribute each week and try to apply it in your lives. It helps a ton.

The other days kind of dragged on till Sunday where we got invited to eat at an Italian guy's home. His name is Antonio and he has a wonky eye but i think he may be my second favorite person i've met on my mission

So as people around me know, I love Italian food so much. I was so excited to go eat. We had such good food like wow like honestly wow it was so good i nearly died from joy. Rapture. There's a good way to describe that food. But the food got stumped by what happened after. So we shared a scripture from Alma, it was alma 7:11-14 I believe. Now one line stuck out to me big time while we were reading this. It's weird because we read the scripture a lot because it's about the atonement and I just never really took much though to it. Anyway, it just talks about being born again, nothing we don't hear all the time. But for me I felt I really needed to put a lot of emphasis on this part about repenting and being born again. The wording is a little different in the French one though. When my time came to testify of this scripture I just said that I was so thankful for the opportunity we have every day to literally be born again. It hit me like never before the truthfulness of that statement. We really can be new people everyday because the lord has suffered for us. It was so strong that it made antonio cry. It was hard hold tears back for me. Maybe it was the thing we all needed. I hope all of you have the chance to read those few verses in the next week and really apply the atonement in your life because repentance is such a wonderful gift we have. use it. As missionaries we use it daily.

I almost forgot to mention that I gave my first blessing to a sick person ever. And it was in French haha. So scary. There was this lady at church who is apparently having a really rough time with some things. We were just all chatting in the foyer after ludovic got the priesthood. Oh ya ludovic got the priesthood and it was the coolest thing ever. so samuel grabs me and said we needed to give a blessing to this lady. So we just went and I almost forgot the words and it was scary but i ended up ok haha

There's me on a soap box for a little while, sorry! Ha really this week has been so great and so quick WOW!
I love you all.
Avec Amour
Elder Oliverson

This week has also been hard because of all the hobbit posters. i will talk more about that next week

Thanksgiving chicken dinner

Well, the week is finally over. I guess we will start on Tuesday with our exchanges.

Tuesday: So we had to exchange companions for a day and I was more than a little nervous. Elder Garcia, who I would be exchanging with, might be a little strange. He is nice, kind of, but strange. We made the exchange and then it was just me and him. Immediately he just took over and started replanning everything that elder thomas and I had planned to do. It was very frustrating. The funniest thing that even happened was when he got angry at these people for calling us Jehovah's Witnesses. Man he has a temper. you just had to be there.

Wednesday: We had our lovely zone conference on Wednesday and it was just wonderful. President and Sister Poznanski are such great people. I'm very pleased to have them as our mission leaders. After the interviews and training we had a lovely Thanksgiving chicken dinner. It was about as good as thanksgiving gets in Brussels has. Even though it was only Wednesday. Then came the time for the chicken bowl. Now correct me if I'm wrong but a whole zone of missionaries playing football sounds like a recipe for disaster. I knew there was a blown knee waiting to happen. Luckily we all survived and we all ended up muddy but jovial. I tried playing quarterback without my glasses but that didn't work out as well as i hoped. i blame the people for not catching the ball. I mean i guess the worst place to hit them is in the hands isn't it? This ended and without even thinking twice me and elder thomas were on our way to tie any loose ends we had with ludovic. It went smooth as usual and he passed his interview with flying colors.

Thursday was a lovely day of course. We celebrated our American heritage with my first taste of Macdo. yuck. I payed more euros than i should have for something that was certainly sub par. Well now i will try my hand at quick and see if anything better comes from that. I sure hope it does because I was not pleased at all with the European Mcdonalds. I'm shaking my head while writing this, that's how bad it was. After some hardcore work we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner lined up with the best family in the whole wide world. they are the curtis family and they are so awesome. It was just so much fun having another chicken dinner. ha. so much fun. When we were stuffed to the point where buttons could burst we lined up to take a picture. I was put in the most awkward situation i've had on my mission. 3 of the curtis kids tried to sit on my lap. contact with children is a very touchy subject in the rules of a missionary. We are to avoid things like holding kids and having them sit on our laps like people avoided the plague. So i threw both my hands up and showed that I could take no part in this lap sitting that was wanting to be had. it was funny and i feel bad but rules are rules you know. I am very grateful for wonderful families like them and for all the wonderful members of this wonderful church. everything is wonderful

the next to days just went. they were just days. i likened these days to the 23rd of december. it's not christmas and it's not christmas eve so you are just looking forward to all the wonderful presents that are to be had.

No worries, Sunday was certainly like Christmas. We prepared all the stuff for the baptism and i prepared my talk on top of all that. I really had so much going on that I went up there gave my talk and we soon after left the chapel. Nearly all of our investigators were at church and we also found a new one who is looking to (I'm using his words right here) "do what that guy did" that guy he is talking about is ludovic and doing what he did is called baptism. Ludovic brought his mom which was so cool. she really liked the spirit there and decided she wanted to see us and be taught. It is just so awesome seeing ludovic's testimony grow. Ah I can't even describe the feeling. I'll describe it as cake. Cake is really good. I just said cake so you could put in your mind whatever cake you want. and the best part about this cake is that it is super healthy for you. So you have this super delicious healthy cake and you just eat it, all of it, and it's that feeling when you've eaten the right amount. Ya that's how his baptism felt. It almost felt surreal. When we gave him the holy ghost it was also just such an awesome feeling. this feeling was like getting a free gps system because really that's what the holy ghost is. It's like we said, "Here Ludovic have this gps system that will guide to anywhere and tell you anything you need, oh and it's free." If we were to look at the holy ghost as some technological gift the overview would be something like this

Can tell you anything you need to know concerning your life
Can guide you to make right decisions at all times
Works as long as you have faith
Will always be there if you keep yourself worthy
Can be charged every sunday when you partake of the sacrament
Is very simple and easy to use

Wow now that does sound too good to be true doesn't it?

All joking and lame analogies aside it was one of the greatest days of my life. Just the spirit during the whole day was choice. It is something that I hope to feel a lot more in the future. ludovic is a great example to me. I'm very proud of his decision.

Just a few pictures

The Craziest week of my life, and the glory days of playing football.

Well the craziest week of my life is now over. I guess I'll start on Monday. Monday we had this lesson with Christian. Christian is a French speaker who Elder Thomas had met with once before. He has had a really hard life and loves American stuff. Anyways, we taught him a cool lesson about some of the gospel principals and in the end we committed him to baptism on the 8th of December! He works a lot so we will have to see if we can meet with him in enough time to teach him all the lessons.

Wednesday: Wednesday we had a lesson with Natacha. We brought a really cool Priest aged kid with us named Jeremie. We taught her prayer, reading the scriptures, and keeping the sabbath day holy. After our lesson Jeremie told us he now wanted to serve a mission after talking with us for so long and seeing that we were actually people. It was way cool to see that happen. After this Elder Thomas and I walked to our tram so we could finally go home (Natacha lives way far away) to our surprise there was just a van sitting in the middle of the tracks. We were both very confused at how the van got there and what they were going to do to get it off. All the sudden there comes two enormous trucks and also a garbage truck. Why the garbage truck was there I do no know, but it was so I feel the need to mention it. They pulled out these huge chains and drug the van off the tracks. The van was off the tracks and now I could see a couple, who was on the tracks, making out. Now call me crazy, but I don't think the middle of the tracks is somewhere where people should be doing that. My vision quickly turned to this man standing about 10 to 15 feet away from us. He looked super suspicious and so i gave him a little more than a glance. Turning so that I could see him from the front I saw that he had A HOOK FOR A HAND. Yes, it was true he had a hook for a hand. He was a regular Buster Bluth if I've ever seen one (any reader who knows who buster bluth is without searching it deserves a special something, so e-mail or write me and i'll send you something) Thomas doubted that he truly had a hook for a hand but we did our detective work and came to figure out that he truly did

Friday: Elder Andersen was so awesome! Ah! He really built our faith. Afterwards we were about to miss our train so we briskly walked to a train to connect to our (I like to call these trains bullet trains because they are really fast and because i can't remember the name) bullet train. We were on a metro which connected the 2 when we realized we had 9 minutes left. by the time we got off the metro we had 5. we sprinted through the train station. And by sprinted I really mean sprinted. I felt like I was back in my glory days playing football. I was juking people out left and right. They had no chance. I may have thrown a few bows here and there, but i made it to the train nonetheless. Me and Elder Thomas were the only companionship that made it. We were left with 2 other elders and a sister. the rest had to take a train at 10:00 and got home at about midnight. I think that our companionship can be deemed as most athletic in the district. Maybe we should take a new route in contacting and just challenge people to athletic competitions and if they lose they must hear every lesson from us. After that the spirit will just take over and we will have baptisms left and right. I have played the scene of me running through the station numerous times. I think I might need to drop all the baseball offers and try out football, I mean sure I'm super small and didn't play my senior year, but I can juke out standing pedestrians like nobodies business! Ha!

It's been a great week and we get to baptize ludovic in 6 days! I'm super excited! We have a turkey bowl this week and a member is feeding us thanksgiving dinner so I'm super excited. I also ate a baked potato! We have this awesome senior couple from idaho called the Okelberrys. They cooked us dinner and I ate bacon and a baked potato. They are so awesome and I am so glad to have them. I am actually e-mailing from their computer right now. I am blessed I love it I love you all I love the church
Avec Amour
Elder Oliverson

I made the NEWS!

http://www.rtl.be/videos/video/421074.aspx

I will never look at a bath robe the same.

well the longest week of my life has finally come to an end. ha it was so dang long i nearly died, i made it though just so i could write my faithful readers. i understand that people are actually reading my blog. this surprise is pleasent as well as, surprising for lack of better words. i also have come to the knowledge that oodles of people are putting their mission papers in. hooray!!! prepare yourselves and get ready to be rocked because it is surely a rude awakening. ha but i love it.

this week i had a run in with someone i now hold very dear to my heart. i dont know the least bit about her and i dont know her name, but she will always be with me. you may think im talking about a long lost love or someone i fell in love with, but that is quite the contrary. i will now tell the story of this person. porting is an act that can be compared to taking the act, or going to get your driver's license renewed. porting, or tracting as the non frenchies would call it, is going door to door and just trying to present the message of jesus christ. you see, and smell, all different types of things during this act. you get the door slams, you get the people holding off their dogs, and more often then not you get the lazy europeans speaking to you through their stupid little speaker. i am proud to say that this story involves porting and none of that stuff. we knocked on this door, and nobody answered, typical right? we began to walk away when we hear the door open and out steps a lady. the thing that was different about this lady was that she was in a bath robe, sopping wet. i honestly had no idea what to do. i just sat there and looked. she said

sorry i was having my bath what did you need.

my companion replied with typical missionary lingo

she replied. no i was having my bath and i cant see you now. but you can come back another time

this was a mixture of awesomness. yes a woman had answered the door in a bath robe and she was wet and it was weird, but she said we could come back. thats the first person who ever said they could come back. obvoiusly im more jovial than my companion about this. well i got on the computer late so thats all i can even write, i will write more next week. love you all be safe 

 

elder oliverson

It is true! I love French food!

this week has definitely been eventful. tuesday we had a rendezvous with ludovic and it went about as well as it possibly could have. by that i mean we engaged him to be baptised on the 25th of november!!! it was so cool the feeling in the room when we asked him. his friend, samuel, helps us teach him and when we asked the question and he accepted you could just feel love in the room. love that you just dont feel anywhere. ah i wish i could re create that feeling and like keep it in a stinking bottle so whenever im depressed, and im definitely depressed from time to time, and just have it. ludovic is such a cool guy. he already has a strong tesimony and knows what he has read about the book of mormon very well. he is smart enough to point out the holes in the catholic religion, thank heavens, and sees how our church truly is the church of christ. its a good feeling to have someone like him this early in the mission... who says european missionaries dont baptise? that isn't true at all!!

i love french food so much. i love being a little frenchman with my pointy shoes walking with a baggette for lunch. although the city is filthy its cool to know that we have something that definitely changes the lives of people. theres a lot of dutch people here in brussels but its mostly french for any of you who were wondering. and for all you byu fans out there reading... noah hartsock is in my ward!!! so tell rick to contact him and tell him to feed us. ha ha. the ward is split half english and french because of all the americans that live in brussels. overall its a really cool ward.

now for the stuff i find funny but my mom might find scary. so there are a lot of muslum people in my area. and by a lot i mean that you can walk for an hour and a half and only see muslums. by a lot i mean that you can look in the shops and some of the mannikans are wearing those muslum head dresses. goodness you'd think i could spell mannikan it's a stinking french word. anyways. ya there are tons of muslums. and for the longest time there was a wall spray painted by our apartment that said vive israel. if i can get my camera to work i will put up a picture of it. basically i have no fear out here. i dont know why because my french isnt quite fluent yet, but one night i just decided i wanted to take every single door we were knocking on. and i did. lots of people are lazy here in europe and like to have cameras and little speakers so they don't have to answer the door but can still speak and see the person they are talking to. i like to carry around a book of mormon now. it attracts attention on the metro and is a good follow in if we ever stop a non muslum person. which is hardly ever. so when the person turns their camera on and the light is shining in my face i usually use the bom to "block"the light. ha its really funny my trainer always tell me to stop.

ive also started speaking with young women more. i am trying very hard to not lose my ability to communicate with members of the opposite sex. usually the girls seem excited to talk to me till i tell that i have a message for them about jesus christ. then their faces fall and they just say maybe next time. ha its funny because my trainer think im bold for doing that.

nothing extremely crazy has happened. we've been working hard and having some good success. i hope to hear from everyone who reads this at one point of another.

oh wait i have one story that was pretty funny. so after the awesome baptismal date with ludovic we had this lasagna which might have been the better thing i have ever had. i was eating away and then samuel asked if i cooked well. although i though that he asked if the food was good. with a half full mouth a said loud and proud, oh oui oui tres bien. he asked oh what do you cook. at that point a realized that id make a mistake. everyone laughed at me and i just sat there and giggled along as well. ive learned that laughing at myself is the best way to go. nobody cares. everyone knows ive been in europe for 2 weeks. we also eat each with this one armed guy who looks just like perry chirstensen. minus the gold chain. he is really funny. there is a lady in the ward named souer grandfils who fed us this week. she forget the pizza was in the oven and burnt it to a crisp. she is pretty old and helps with the missionaries a lot. i love most the ward and everyone seems to love us. well have a good week i love you all and oh ya..... GO GIANTS and sv girls v-ball as well! woot woot

Week one in Fance, Belgium

ok well this is on a french keyboard and i really don't want to try to figure anything out so the grammar will be terrible. ok so my first day in paris was a little overwhelming. they hand us boms and tell us to hand them out on the metro. me and elder barr successfully tag teamed a lady and gave her a pamphlet. we are stellar. that day went by super fast and ended with an american burger. the burger wasnt so american the bum was like a crouton, like the things on salad i cant spell of do parenthesis. we woke up the next morning and took a tram into paris. after seeing notre dame, i hope my mother puts pictures up it was pretty stellar, we got to meet our new trainers. my trainer's name is elder thomas and he is such a sweet guy. i'm very thankful to have him!

i took a train into belgium, im serving in brussels in case you were wonder. Brussels is the capital of Belgium. The first day we went contacting and had no success whatsover. I'm definitely fluent when it comes to being rejected. The days went by and we really didn't have much sucess. We got stood up by all our all appointments until we met with Nadia. She is an African woman. the lesson went very well and we taught about the gospel of christ. the gospel of christ is faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. Let's just say i endured to the end with this lesson and asked her to be baptised at the end. You may think it was just blue fire, they call greenies blues in the Paris mission, but no it was real. She accepted the baptismal invite and we told her we would pray about a date. Mission work is easy right? ha ha. right after that i was on cloud 9 and we talked to an African guy named goody. he actually reminded me a lot of dalton goody.

Our other golden investigator is named ludovic. He is super interested and is friends with a member named samuel. we are going to teach him tomorrow and have a baptismal date that we will run by him which is the 24th of november. he has already read all of first nephi and he is apparently posting a ton of stuff on his facebook from general conference. Can you say golden? I think we will teach him the restoration tomorrow and then i will once again pop the baptismal question. keep tuned for the results in the next e mail

Brussels is amazing. of course it is super filthy and I would never raise a family here, but it is so sweet. there is history, as well as fashion, everywhere. oops mom i just bought another pair of shoes. dont worry they are very fashionable you would be proud. my companion is very cool but i do miss elder barr, wilson, and the others too mostly them, but i miss the soeurs so much as well. it is just me and thomas in the apartment but thats ok we are good friends already. we had our first burrito fete on sunday. burrito fete is when you make burritos because we all get pretty hungry for that good ole mexican cuisine. you will see everything in the pictures. i will explain everything more then. oh ya GO GIANTS!!!!

Love you,

Love elder oliverson

my teacher brother larimer, he is so sweet!

me with brother sybrowsky. he might be my idol

me and my french pals

He made it There!! ALIVE (-:

Dear Brother and Sister Oliverson,

            Sister Poznanski and I were delighted to welcome your son, Elder Jason David Oliverson, into the France Paris Mission on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012.  He and his MTC companions were enthusiastic and all arrived in good health.  He spent his first day eating some home cooked food, napping, visiting with me, contacting non-members in the heart of Paris, and sharing testimonies in our home.  We enjoyed his spirit.

            The next morning, after a mission orientation, Elder Oliverson left for his first assignment to work in the Strombeek Belgium Area with Elder Thomas, who will be his trainer.

We feel very privileged to work with your son.  We also realize the responsibility we share with you to help him continue to grow spiritually as he faithfully performs his duties.  May the Lord inspire us all to sustain him in this challenging and exciting assignment.  We hope you will join Sister Poznanski and me in praying each day for your son, his companion, investigators, and all of us serving in the France Paris Mission.

            A positive, supportive letter from home every week does wonders to sustain a missionary’s morale.  Proverbs 25:25 states:  As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.

Final WEEK!! 10/16/12

So for quatre carre, 4 square in French, we all chose presidents or presidential candidates to represent ourselves. Elder Barr is Ron Paul, Elder Wilson is Mitt Romney, Elder Wallace is Barrack Obama, Elder Louis is Hermain Cain, Elder Calves (If you remember Elder Calves he is the one who told me he loved me when he was teaching me, he is a short dark haired frenchman, he is actually sitting across from me and I'm helping him translate a letter from French to English) he is Napoleon which is so funny and fits him so well, Elder Joly (Formerly known as the baker) is Nicholas Sarhcozy, and I am, of course, Abraham Lincoln. After a devastating put out by Ron Paul I began to gave my Gettysburg, or rather, my MTC address. It goes as follows:
"4-Square and seven weeks ago we can to this MTC looking to learn French. We found something else along the way, that thing being love. As I speak of love you may think of your copine (girlfriend in French) but I think of another I find my love in 4-squares, 4-squares that define a district a district of Englishmen trying ever so hard to be French, in vain of course. If I learned one thing, It's that a district cannot stand divided, the district must be one in their desires for 4-square. thank you, avec amour (with love) A dieu (to god)
As you can see I've been deprived of anything that involves the outside world. If any of my readers (they probably number around 6 or 7 including my family) want to just write me and give me all the info they would think I would ever need that would be fine. As I look back on my MTC address I realize that it is a wonderful thing to be put together with 8 people I had nothing in common with and slowly and surely you find them to be some of your new best friends. I'm sad as well as very excited to be leaving the MTC, the only thing that I know is that quatre carre (there is an accent on the e so it is pronounced car ay) will live with me forever!

The next story I have might have well been out greatest prank while at the MTC. So my mother decided to leave me a message at the front desk. The last time someone from our zone got a message from the front desk they got their mission changed. It was a haitian creole speaker who got transferred to boston. Of course it was just a message to get my suit dry cleaned, but we decided to have a little fun with our zone leaders, Elder Louis and Elder Wallace. We decided we would tell them I had troubles with my visa and had to be relocated to Washington DC for a couple of months till things got straightened out. This honestly worked better than I ever hoped it would. We all decided to put our sad faces on and pretend something was wrong and when they walked in the room you could cut the tension with a knife. The reason this was extremely bad was because we got our travel plans that day and everyone was just really excited because we were finally going to France. They came in with the highest of spirits knowing that we all were supposed to have our travel plans. When they came in it was like someone had just died. No one said a word or even looked up.
Elder Louis, being the caring Boston man from the hood he is, said, "Yo wa's da deal wit dat note?" (Try hard to do that in your best thug accent, if you don't know what a thug accent is open another tab and youtube it)
I swiftly and harshly replied, "Rien" ("Nothing" in French)
The zone leaders were taken aback. No the ever so jovial elder Oliverson is mad about something. This can't be.
I then began to storm out of the room.
After I was gone the soeurs told the story just as we plan and I understood it was with much conviction.
Wallace then said, "Keep him in your prayers."
Gym went by ever so sluggishly and I put my best, "my travel plans have been changed and I'm not going to France" face on. This went on till almost dinner. Let me tell you it started at lunch. Finally after TALL (TALL is our language study that hardly works, it told us that the napkin and briefcase were the same thing) Then the leaders pulled me in and began interrogating me. They asked me every awkward question you could ever think of. Honestly think of an awkward question and they asked me. It was so hard not to laugh and finally I said, "Can I show you guys something?" I began to show them my travel plans and they were so worked up I honestly haven't the words to explain it. The MTC doesn't focus too much on insults or ways to tell people they're a joker so they proceeded to call me things like a small dog and a large cow. I found that more comical than the fact that we punk'd them. It is now the ongoing joke in our district that I'm not going to France.

The MTC is something I wouldn't trade for the world but wouldn't want to experience again. For all the readers out there be sure to read next week, it will be funny I assure you.
Avec Amour
Elder Oliverson

Saran wrap at its best!

So this week Elder Wilson came across some serran wrap, I have no idea if that's how you spell it so I will refer to it as wrap throughout this stoy. Nobody knew he had this wrap, he had taken it from the give away box and was secrectly hiding it with his delicates. Wilson is a speed showerer, by speed showerer I mean he is always the first one finished. I'm usually the second to last one finished. The last person is always Elder Barr but we will get into that later in the story. I finish my post-gym shower and methodically begin putting on my clothes when I realize I can't find the shoes I wore that day. It was so strange because I looked all over the room and there's only one place shoes could really be. As my sickness kicked in I medaphorically "gave up the ghost" (I'm not sure if that's ok to say, but we have an ongoing joke that when someone falls asleep during a talk or something they "gave up the ghost") I just decided to put on my other shoes and find the missing pair later. Wilson told me that I needed to look under my pillow for my shoes. This was odd but of course I lifted the pillow and looked for my shoes. Nothing. He said, "No, more under than that." I looked under my bed and of course I found my shoes there with a ton of wrap on them. This sparked Wilson's mind and we began to wrap some of Barr's possessions. We had time for this because he took an exceptionally long shower this day and we just kept going. After we had wrapped his watch and his pillow we decided that was enough.

 

The day went on and Barr had no idea that anything was wrong. Little did he know Wilson and I were hatching an ever so devious plan. Barr likes to read or do things like that till it's time for lights out. He usually forgets to brush his teeth and ends up doing it while we are all lying in the dark. Lately I have been playing mother and reminding him to brush his teeth, but this day I would not. This day I would let him read to his little heart's content. He then would need to brush his teeth and after he left the room Wilson and I would work in the dark and make a wrap wall from one post of his bed to the other. I guess my nagging had gotten to Barr (my mom would have liked him because her nagging did nothing to me :) ) and he decided that he would brush his teeth at 10:20 which is ten minutes before quiet time. We had almost admitted defeat but then at about 10:26 Barr needed a bathroom break and once again there was a little light to our plan. As soon as Barr left we scurried out of our beds, turned the lights off, and began work. We knew it was early for lights out but we thought we could overpower Barr with a 2-1 type of thing. We made a wall the likes of the great wall of china from his bed posts which made it impossible for him to enter bed without going through it.

 

Barr came back from his potty break and said, "Oh, is it lights out already?" I quickly replied with, "Yes will you bouche le port." bouching the port is french derived. It means to clog. We clog the bottom of the door so the light doesn't sleep through. This way we can sleep like the spiritual bats we are. I'm sorry the verb boucher is to blog. I wouldn't want to be preaching false French. We conjugate it. I don't know how to spell I'm sorry. Anyways. The light seeping through from the open door was just enough to put a slight glare on the wrap. Wilson lept out of bed like a cougar (Wilson goes to BYU so there's the joke) and slammed it shut. This was strange behavior nontheless. All the sudden my boyishness crept into me and I began to giggle at the thought of what happened next. Between laughs I tried to cover it up by saying, "Bouche (ha ha ha ha) that's such a funny word!" Barr was jovial after bouching the port (port is a door or doorway or something like that, sorry I forgot to mention it and bouche is pronounced like boosh) I could see nothing in the pitch dark room but I knew he was heading towards his doom and Wison and I's pure ecstacy. It seemed like hours till he got into the bed and then, finally, I heard it. "AHHHHHHH." It was like nothing any other human could muster. Only that of a ghost who'd been long dead for hundreds of years. In your mind think of a groan and a moan and then find a happy median in between that's where this sound was. Laughter erupted from me. I'd lost all sanity and the giggles took over. I could see nothing but I heard the rustling of the wrap and the discomfort of Elder Barr. As he folded the wrap up he threw it at me and I went to bed a happy person.

 

Final story I'll make it short because I'll be gonig over my alotted time.

 

So one day I came across our old friend the baker in the laundry room. Coincidently it was right after I sent off the first e-mail involving our 4-square. We struck up a conversation in broke French and English. I began to ask him about his favorite American films. He said he loved the avengers and we began to discuss the movie, at this point another Frenchman named Demuynk (or something like that) chimed in and was talking. I told them how much I loved Thor and they all agreed.  Some smart dude who thought he was funny from across the table said, No, no, no Captain America is clearly the best. We all had a good laugh and then I said, Maybe one day they will have a captain France!" The baker found this to be very funny he said, in his wonderful French English accent. "yez zen we could 'ave a super'ero wiz a baggette, a barret, and some cheeze. Zat would be great. I can juz imagine a man 'itting villians wiz 'iz baggette and spreading bottles of wine everywhere." We had a nice little laugh and we became ever better friends

 

 

The four square legend

At the MTC things get to be pretty repetitive. It is so horrible most times but really allows creativity to flourish. Gym is the only way the over anxious teenage boys get to release some of their cooped up energy at the MTC. For our district gym time had gotten to be one of the repetitive things, but one day our fate was changed for the better. We were doing some district abs (we consists of Elder Barr, Elder Wilson, and I) and began to watch the 4-square game going on in the gym. One particular French native we love, and which we have nick-named the baker for reasons I will explain later, was playing with all the smoothness of a baker flattening dough or cooking a wonderful pastry. We call this man the baker because if you put a white apron on the guy and put one of those goofy hats that bakers wear, he would look exactly like a stereotypical French baker. With that picture on mind think of this baker effortlessly slapping the ball and dominating the game which is 4-square. Sure his mobility was limited, but if you hit it anywhere near his area he was all on that. In other words he doesn't miss. This sparked interest in members of the district and we decided we would try our hand at the 4-square court outside the MTC. We all came prepared and we began playing. The competitive nature of 4-square matched with all our athletic abilities led to a great gym time. There was joy there was pain and most of all there was hard competition. Everyone is a threat in 4-square. The best part of all happened saturday. We began our game outside fully believing that it would be another inner district game. We were the only district brave enought to play 4-square. As we played we beheld the most pleasent surprise of the day, we saw the baker walking towards our 4-square game. To play with the legend was a dream I had since that Thursday. He was the baker and he didn't even know it. As usual this game of 4-square had a lot of hard fought competition and it was a lot of fun. There will be videos soon and I hope that my family is capable enought to post them on my blog. I would never want you to miss out on the great joy of 4-square at the MTC.

 

Along with the great games we play we have amazing teachers in Soeur Larsen and Frere Larimer. Larsen is a former Paris missionary and is so much fun. I have got her to break character 3 times while teaching out "Investigators." The reason investigators is in quotes is because it is our teachers playing the parts of people they taught on their missions. Although I've got Soeur Larsen to laugh 3 times only 1 was on purpose. Oops! She laughed during my baptismal commit because she said it reminded her of my law of chastity pitch. Nevertheless we are now done with our second investigators and we asked brother Larimer where his character Jean Michelle went. He promptly responded with, "He was walking to church and got hit by a bus, he is dead, c'est la vie. It sounded much funnier in my head and in French, but it was still great. he kept saying things like c'est normale and things like that. Just the fact that we'd been speaking French all day and our day was almost over made us tired and everything extremely funny. Oh life at the MTC. I can't wait for France I'm anxious and excited and I just want to be there!

Stories of the MTC

One day when we were all at wits end, and I was far beyond that, I saw a shimmering light of hope in the window. Just the thought of being outside was taunting me, I wanted to go out. It was a perfect day, not too hot, not too cold just how I like it. I climbed over the AC unit in our room and climbed on the window frame. Placing both hands on the window I saw the shrubbery and different variations of foilage outside. Needless to say it was a wonderful sight for such tired eyes. Words escaped my mind and all I could conjure up was, now get ready because this may sound weird, a raptor noise. I don't have the slightest idea where it came from or why it happened all I knew is that I couldn't stop. I shrieked for a good three minutes while everyone in the classroom laughed at me and told me to keep going. After I was done and had released my feelings I felt much better and I feel like the rest of the class felt better as well. At our cleaning check only two days letter we received a "needs improvement" their reasoning: There are hand prints on the window.

 

Another fun think that stuck out in my mind this week happened yesterday (Monday) but it honestly seems like it happened an eternity ago. For this story you need to the background of my relationship with the one Soeur Rhondeau. We have what the multitudes would call a love hate relationship. Although we know we are good friends down deep it always seems that Rhondeau is eager to disagree with my regarding music or whether or not people should speak their language during basketball games in Ogden, but that is a whole other matter in and of itself. Our wonderful teacher, Soeur Larsen, had come down with some terrible sickness that kept her from working that day. We had a substitute by the name of Soeur Pace. During class we are learning what you would call the passive voice and it is rather boring and has already proven to be rather useless. nevertheless we are all extremely bored and unwilling to share ideas or even attempt to answer questions. Rhondeau, who is a French major in college, of course has all the answers but she says them in the most mouse like voice I've ever beheld. There is a particular question that none of us are particularly inclined to answer but Rhondeau keeps muttering under her breath. I finally say, "Speak up Rhondeau." Such a simple and sarcastically said phrase that our sub mistook the nature of our relationship and promply made me stand in front of the class for a good five minutes. This is the biggest form of public embarrassment that I've encountered in the MTC yet.

 

Final story. They say save the best for last and oh boy I have. During our zone resource class on Thursday I had the opputunity to teach a French native. The nature of the teaching went this way. When he was teaching he would say something in English and I would respond in French. When I was teaching it was all French all the time. He started teaching and gave me the role of one of his investigators. My name was Tom (I found it funny that they use Tom for investiagors, I've never met anybody named Tom) and I had neglected to do the reading assignment which this wonderful French missionary had given me. He said this to me, "Tom, I want you to know about this book like I do, because I know that this book is the truest book on earth. Please re read the first line if you aren't reading in a French accent right now. I also neglected to mention that he is explaining third Nephi chapter eleven. he continued with, "If you would have read you would have read about how Jesus came down from the heavens and teach the people of the america. Tom, do you understand why I want you to read this book?"  I promply responded with, "Je ne sais pas." He then said the phrase I'd been longing to hear for such a long time. He replied, "I want you to read this book, because I love you." Three simples words is all it took. I blushed. Never had someone been so bold about their feelings for me. I felt the blood rushing to my face never had I encountered such flattery. And it was only the second meeting! As he watched my face flush red he realized that those three words were not the words he thought they were. Stumbling over English he said, "We love you."

 

I will never forget when my first Frenchman told me he loved me. And honestly I do recommend you read that story in a thick French accent because it makes it so much better honestly. If i wrote all that and you don't start me a blog I will be extremely peeved. I usually am content with writing such things in my journal so don't make me regret this. No one wants to wait two years to read such marvelous stories. It also really helps because I haven't been able to write anything creative since I got here.

 

Love, Elder Oliverson