Assoiffée for the Gospel

Eventful week in the north of France! Our ami karim is doing really well and he's really starting to progress. He told us this week that he is 100 percent ready for baptism and he doesn't care about anything else. Last night we had a super cool lesson with him where he expressed his concern that his family will reject him. He comes from a very strict muslim culture and he knows that once his family hears about this he will no longer be accepted back home. It was super sad to hear that but he said that there was no way that he could deny that Jesus is the son of God and that Joseph Smith was his prophet. It was very powerful i wish you could have all been there!

The week really started on Thursday. We were looking for a home where we could do an FHE and our buff dmp came to the rescue once again. What a stud. We had planned to take Karim but he bailed at the last minute so we were really scrambling to find someone. We called the wife of our DMP and she called one of the families we teach that lives close to them. It was perfect. We hadn't had contact with this family for a while because of some things that were going on and Soeur Caby (that's our buff dmp's wife) called them just at the time where they were really waiting for the gospel. it was so cool. Adil told us that he was "assoiffée" for the gospel which means like REALLY REALLY thirsty! it was so cool to see someone longing for the gospel like that. We had a wonderful lesson, but how could we not when we were at the Caby house? it's impossible. Afterwards Soeur Caby treated us to some taco soup and cornbread with honey butter!!!! it was just like home. sooooo goood! we ate that all up. She said that she was going to make me cafe rio before i leave. I think i can say that's the nicest thing anyone has ever offered me! sooo good! 

Friday was eventful. We had our zone conference which made me start missing the poznanski's already. they are seriously so great. sister poznanski gave a training and i thought it was just directed at me. i really will always count them as my parents. i find that i have lots of parents but they are certainly my french ones. they are just so great. the members made us the best couscous that i've ever eaten in my life so you could say i was in heaven. this is the best ward in the history of the world and that's a fact. i love them so much.  The stake conference meeting on saturday was on the theme of missionary work and i got to see the spiritual buffness of my DMP because he was called to speak. He spoke about his conversion (he's a convert of 4 years) and about how it was all the good influences that made him take the step. it was so cool to hear. I can say that i'd work my entire mission to find one person as converted as he is. luckily i've found multiple. God has blessed me way too much. He gave a talk that really put missionary work in perspective. He is a super good example of what returned missionaries should be. Did you know that he was also a district leader? Man what a stud. Hopefully i can be just like him. I could go on all day but i won't

The search finally came to an end after a year and a half. I found the membré family! They were all at my house the day of my farewell and we all talked together. I've been asking everyone about them for a year and a half and saturday and sunday i had a chance to see them and talk to them. they are so super cool and i can't wait till jules come to the states again.  good times. well that was my week

They call me cowboy!

this is going to be short because i haven't got much time. this week was a little weird because i spent a few days stuck in calais. the sncf decided to go on strike so we were stuck without trains and it was a wild go. it was fun to work with the district leader for 3 days and he is french so my french got a good training. i loved it.

here in lille we had a really great week and we're seeing some of our amis progress really really well. one of the coolest stories of the week comes from a member named pascal. he teaches a few classes and in one of them he said something and one of his students was very touched. he then got his facebook and his number and they started to exchange some beliefs and things. he copied and pasted a scripture from the book or mormon (alma 32:27 to be exact) and the student loved it. he agreed to meet with us and yesterday we had a wonderful lesson at pascal's home. it is so cool to see all the different ways that the gospel can be shared. i also love the desire that this member had to share the gospel. what a great example.

saturday was the american party at the ward and it was so funny. i still can't get my bishop to believe that i'm not a cowboy. he simply drove through logan and he thinks i'm a cowboy. oh la la. i guess when you have a large cal ranch right off main street things seem that way don't they. it was a good night and members brought some of their friends. we met a lot of new people and have a lot of potential amis coming around from that. all i can say is that the ward of v-dascq knows how to do missionary work.

yee haw

elder oliverson

Through everything, I am still loving it here!

These week was definitely one of the weirdest weeks i've ever had on my mission so i'll have to take it daily hitting all the high points

Monday- we had planned an FHE at the home of our DMP (ward mission leader) and we were both so stoked because him and his wife are the power couple. He was an AP in Australia for 8 months and has just recently returned from his mission. She was also an STL in England and has also just recently returned. We couldn't think of a better place to have an FHE with our amis adil and ashna. We went in there and had the best crêpes ever with some yummy soup as well. After the tasty part was over we got to the nitty gritty and we taught about faith and prophets. My comp and i had decided to do faith and we'd left prophets to our dmp and his wife. OF course they nailed it! I can't tell how grateful i am to have such super awesome ward members as the ward members here in V-Dascq. I'm especially grateful for my super smart, super cool, super ripped dmp. what a stud!

We'll skip to wednesday. We woke up early with 10 people in our apt to try and catch our train to paris so we could make it on time to the conference with Elder Kearon. We ended up being a little late but that was alright, they only had to wait an extra 15 minutes to take the picture.. woops! After all that Elder Kearon addressed up and it was awesome. He touched on so many key points that i felt i needed to hear at this time in my mission. my 5 month mark is creeping up and i totally needed all the counsel he gave me. what an inspired guy. It was awesome to see how he kept us all laughing and kept things light while also making things super spiritual and great for all of us. it was awsome to see everyone that i hadn't seen for a while as well. i feel like this conference will really give the mission the boost it needs. 

Here comes thursday. Well thursday was a bit of a weird day. we went about the day as normal and in the evening we were porting and i received a strange call. as soon as i saw the number i knew it was from the US and more particularly from good old cache valley. i answered and my mother said hello elder oliverson it's your mom. weird. She then proceeded to tell me that my grandfather had passed away. It was really hard for me to take at first, especially now that both my grandfathers are dead and they were both such big examples for me. Grandpa O had always been there to encourage me with my sports and always let me know when he'd seen me in the paper. He always had some good advice and i cherished the sundays we spent with good ole glen and francine. His health had been slowly failing but i still held on to the promise that he made when i saw them for the last time before i got set apart. He told me that he would wait for me to come home before he passed. After the call ended and i had that thought in my mind we had a choice as to whether we finish the last 20 minutes of porting or just call it a night. i told elder jones that i didn't want to go back. we did a few more doors and my voice was a little shaky. i felt stupid but we kept going. we finished one side of the street and i said that i just wanted to do one more door. we did the first door on the next side of the street and a guy rejected us so we decided to walk back to the metro. on our way down the street i just wanted to knock on one more and we did and a lady answered. i decided i wanted to approach this one and straight away she recognized us. she let us in and we taught her a little bit about prayer and prayed with her. she is the mother of one young girl and had a husband who had to work graveyard. she said she was very interested in our message and she gave us the times we could come back. it was amazing to see how the lord blessed us when we kept working. 

Friday was a good day but i was still a little bit down from the bad news. we had a special conference with Elder Kearon and all the zone leaders and STLs. it was really cool to see us take special points that had really struck us from wednesday and see how we can make the new vision mission out of those. we had an excellent conversation and the spirit was really strong. when we got back to lille we decided to go porting again. we found a new road in a place called croix and hit that up. we knocked all night and the last door a lady let us in. she had taken the lessons over 20 years ago and she really likes us. She also had children who were less than interested but that's ok.

That's what happened this week. we see that the lord blesses our efforts and it's sweet. I love my mission and i love lille more than any place, it's a close race between brussels, st die, and tours ;) haha