20 is scary

this week. was a week of much deep reflection about my life. turning 20 is very scary and i don't feel like i'm 20. i remember looking at people who were 20 and thinking they were so big. oh goodness that's not me. 

this week i had the chance to talk to 2 of my favorite missionaries, elder foley and elder nielson. we talked a lot about life and i don't even think i can begin to thank them for all they've done for me. it really also showed me that the old generation is gone and that it's time that me and all of my friends really step it up and start showing the example. i'm scared.

i had the wonderful and also very tiring opportunity to translate for a german family this week in church. the thing about my translation is that one of the members decided to play a prank on my and only spoke in a tense that is used for formal speeches and writing. it made my brain hurt but it also made me realize that i have been so blessed with the gift of tongues. i hope that because of my service on my mission that i can continue to bless people around me with all the things i've learned.

this week i saw the role of recent converts in helping new people have friends at church. out recent convert chantal took it on herself to befriend our ami anne. she sat by her at church because it was off translating and i looked over and saw her answering questions and doing things i would normally do. i'm so grateful for the blessing chantal has been in my life

Chantel and us

Chantel Baptism

Still dosent like fishing

Hard work always pays off

Great week in the promised land of st dié. we have worked really hard this week and have actually seen a whole lot of success. it's crazy how like when you work you find success. we were porting and we probably knocked on 100 doors in a single night. everyone was either gone or just didn't want to talk to us at all. i was getting fed up. i saw a lady walking in the street and i started talking to her and she totally called her husband and we set up a rdv right there. so we went and they invited a friend as well. these people are evangelical so they looked at the book of mormon as if it were a snake. after some explanation everyone there said they'd take a book of mormon and read it. we have another rdv with them this wednesday so i hope things are going to go well.

another one of our stellar amis is anne. she is so nice and she just loves all things spiritual. this week we saw her and taught her the plan of salvation which was really good. at the end of the rdv she told us she couldn't come to church because she was having people over and she needed to be a good host. we told her we understood and we went on with our week. saturday morning she called me and told me how much she really wanted to go to church but it was too far for her to walk and she needed to walk her dog so it would be hard to do both. thanks to the wonderful branch members we were able to get her a ride and she came to church and loved it once again. 

this week we have to go all over the place so it will be a crazy week once again. hopefully i'm still alive to write another blog entry.

loves

elder oliverson

Ami came to church!!

This week was sweet in good old france. we worked really hard all week and i was feeling kind of discouraged because nothing happened. we taught lessons but they weren't super great to be honest and the amis just weren't really into us this week. needless to say it was tough at the beginning. but friday everything changed. we had a lesson with our ami whose name is anne. she is a super sweet lady but she just wasn't showing much progress. we had just given her the bom and as homework we gave her the introduction to read. we started the lesson as usual by her giving us some exotic fruit flavored syrup in our carbonated water. i was taking a casual sip after asking her if she read the bom. she promptly told me that she read it and that she was going to come to church because she prayed and god told her to go to church. i choked on my syrup and carbonated water and then i was speechless after. my companion hadn't understood what she said and the member with us just looked at me while i tried to search for words to say. i told her that i was at a lack of words and that i couldn't even explain the joy i was feeling. needless to say she came to church and loved it

at church another crazy thing happened. now in st die there aren't any black people in the branch and this sunday whilst welcoming the members to church i noticed a black man walk in and i started talking to him. come to find out he's from switzerland and his soon to be wife lives here so he moved here. he brought his wife to church with him and we should be starting teachings soon. all i can say is that the lord answers prayers

Chantal has been baptised!

The best week ever!! So we got chantal baptized and it was an excellent time. After i baptized her she started crying in the font and i didn't know what to do at all so i just walked out and started changed... it was awkward but i guess that's what happens after 10 months on a mission. This week we have been doing a lot of hard work to find people to teach. I just keep thinking back to chantal and how she was found through really hard work and being a little bit pushy. on her teaching record it says 100 percent athiest but now we can say she's 100 percent christian and that is honestly the greatest gift anyone could give me for my 10 month mark. 10 months have really flown by and in these 10 months the mission has changed so much. i'll write more next week so i hope you're all doing well

Joshua 7

Woah! This week blew my mind! Of course we listened to an apostle of the lord and he just told us straight up how it was. He makes it sound so easy to just baptize people, and honestly it is. I know that if we are doing our part it doesn't matter where we are on our mission, or in our mission for that matter, we can baptize people. It's really up to us and our worthiness. So simple. Elder Ballard talked a lot about how we are conduits for the spirit. We are the link that brings it to them. This is where worthiness comes in. I was reading in Joshua and it talks about the Israelites after they took Jericho. They were commanded not to keep anything from Jericho, they were commanded to give it all to the lord. There was a man named Achan who took some gold and silver from Jericho and of course he didn't tell anyone. Joshua sends soldiers into Ai directly after that and they get beaten by an army of lesser power. Joshua is taken back and doesn't understand because the Lord promised him they would take all the land of the caananites. The Lord then tell Joshua that somebody had disobeyed and had taken spoils from Jericho. All in all the army couldn't win because they weren't obedient. It's the same way with us. we have to do all that we can to have the spirit and to help people understand and recognize when they're feeling the spirit.

Joshua 7

I'm so happy that we got to see Elder Ballard. Talking with members of my district on the phone after you could hear the fire in their voices. We have a goal as a mission to baptize 100 people before Elder Oaks comes in September and I'm so glad that we can contibrute to it here in St. Dié. I'm so happy for chantal and for how much she's changed in her life

till next week!

Always remain worthy of the people you convert

this week was another super week in st. d. things are just going so well here i'm so happy to be serving right here right now.

this week we saw chantal numerous times and each time she just continues to amaze me. she has read all the teachings of lorenzo snow and george albert smith books and she just keeps blazing through. we gave her all our liahonas, which is european for ensign, and she's read like 7 of those as well the gospel principals book. i won't let her see d and c yet or else she will have read the whole standard works before her baptism. she is amazing. she's talked to us a lot about her patriarchal blessing and also about how she wants to go to the temple. i think she is the type of person every missionary dreams of and i'm just so lucky to have this chance to teach her. gotta love it. 

this coming week might be one of the best weeks of my mission. besides the fact that the work is going so so well here we also get to see an apostle tomorrow, tuesday. i've never been so pumped for anything in my life. elder ballard will be able to shower us with his knowledge and i have questions that need answering so i hope he can be inspired to help me out a little bit.

i was reading in preach my gospel and a line really struck me, it says something like: always remain worthy of the people you convert. it just got me thinking about how lives can never be the same after missions and how they should never be the same because you need to always be changing and progressing.

i also found a nice little scripture in my readings of the old testament that i really liked. it's in deuteronomy 2:7 and i think it make me really reflect on missions because sometimes it feels like we have been in the dessert (i'm not sure if i spelt that correctly in english) and we don't know if what we are doing is correct or not

The days feel like Minutes!

this week has been pretty normal but also super awesome. the days seriously feel like minutes now and it's really freaking me out. 

tuesday i had an exchange with one of the zone leaders named elder adams. it was super fun and we found a cool evangalist lady who is pretty interested. not bad for a days work.

in case any of you were wondering i now drive stick and i'm pretty much the boss. it was sketchy at first but now i've really got the hang of it and i'm pretty clutch (ha ha get it) in every situation. that's just a little about my driving skills. yes i still speed from time to time but i'd rather not get a ticket on my mission so i try not to do that anymore

Chantal is basically the best ever. she finished the lorenzo snow book and we presented her an intense 7 days quit smoking program. she's been following it and hasn't smoked since we saw her at church yesterday. sweet! I just can't believe how much she changes every time we meet with her. it's true! the gospel blesses lives and will make you happier i see it all the time. woah! i'm so excited for her baptism! yay

we were porting one day and we found out way into a little apartment building. we call them bats in france which is short for bâtiment so i will refer to it as that. we ported the whole bat and didn't find anything till the last door where a lady opened up. there were kids running everywhere and it was crazy. we talked for a little bit and i found out she way 27 with 6 kids. she looked 40 at least, mostly she just looked tired even more tired than us missionaries. but she said her parents had never really taught her the gospel or anything about religion. she said it never really interested her till she saw her children. it really makes me think of all the times i've taken advantage of how awesome it is to have so much religion in my community back home. makes me cringe as well at all the times i've just taken advantage of all the wonderful blessings right in front of me when there are people who haven't had that in their lives. oh well it takes a mission to realize things like that. i'm just thankful for my family and the wonderful community i grew up in. 

on the 11th we have the wonderful opportunity to go see an apostle speak. elder ballard is coming to our mission and there were only a selected number of zones who got chosen and ours was one of them. i'm so excited to get to listen to an apostles again. that's 2 times already on my mission. woah! i remember when i was getting ready to leave everyone told me how difficult the french people were going to be and how hard this mission was. but i can truly say that our mission is doing things that it's never done and it's definitely starts up top with President Poznanski and all our leaders are so sweet and i'm so happy to be in this mission. not because i'm on france and it's a sick place but really because i know i have a purpose here and that we were all sent here to boost up france. no it isn't easy but that's alright! I love our mission so much! like i said the days feel like minutes and every week just flies by. oh man it's crazy

love you all

elder oliverson