Special Assignment

 

Masterpiece!!

I put the "I" in Christmas!

This week has been a bunch of craziness and fun!! First off, this week was super hard to meet with people. Everyone was basically out of town or just super busy with family and prepping for the holidays. Because of this, not too much teaching was able to happen. We were able to swing by and see most of them, but it was for the most part just to check in on them!

Also, this week was pretty awesome because it was CHRISTMAS!!! WOO!! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and were able to celebrate with lots of fun, food, and of course...Family! We had quite the successful Christmas here in Melbourne Florida! We started our day off eating breakfast at the bishop's house, which was super cool! His family gave us some pretty sweet socks and a tie! THEN we went to the Gilgers' and had left over Christmas Eve food for lunch, (they fed us Christmas Eve as well) and Skyped our families from their house. I had an AMAZING time talking to family and friends. Thank you all for being there and for your love. You are all amazing, and have impacted my life immensely and changed who I am today!! I love having that opportunity, that is obviously the best gift in the world. I love and miss you all! You make my holidays away from home a lot easier. Thank you! Words can't describe my appreciation!! After our Skype, we had dinner with the Elders Quorum president. It was a good day full of fun, food and family!!:)

This week we also got our transfer call!  And let me tell you....this one has brought me a TON of confusion and stress! Saturday afternoon, we got a call saying that Elder Anderson was leaving. Then around 10pm that night we got another call from the Assistants saying president prayed about it and I will be the one leaving, but not for another week and a half AFTER transfer meeting?! Apparently I will be taking part in a "special assignment". I'm thinking that I'll be whitewashing/opening a new area. But I should find out about it more tomorrow! Sorry I don't have any details, I will let you know more about it next week.

Just quick like..here is one of my favorite quotes from Dieter F. Uchtdorf - "Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you with an infinite love. Just think of it: You are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful, and glorious Being in the universe! You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting time!"

I love and miss you guys! Thanks for everything, sorry this email is somewhat shorter. Love and miss you!

-Elder A. Olson

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

First off, I might as well say Merry Christmas!! I'm super excited for this Christmas and it has already been pretty awesome. Just the events and spirit that has been leading up to it has been great!! We have some amazing members really taking care of us this upcoming holiday. They have signed up for multiple meals, and have offered their homes for our calls home. They've been really supportive and no matter what it'll be a great Christmas!

This week was pretty wild and it actually started off on the beach again. The day after our beach p-day, we had lunch with a lady in our ward who's backyard is the beach. hahaha! We didn't touch the sand but we could see the ocean! Then we had a dinner with a super cool family, the Holmquists. They have a tradition that you have to sneak a picture of you and your comp in one of their frames, without them noticing, or you become a "forgotten" missionary!! And well, all I can say is SUCCESS! They said we had the second best strategy of any missionaries!! The mom left to go get one of their daughters, and we "forgot" our iPad in the car, well...I stole the frame and put it in while I was by the car and hung it back in the wall when I came back inside!

The weather here has been outrageously warm! It's still crazy to think that it's December and yet the temperatures have been in the high 70's and low 80's...super different than last year. But hey, it'll be quite the experience to come back to a cold Utah winter next time around!! I've heard that Utah is getting down pretty close to zero lately? My yahoo weather even says that it'll be getting into the negatives!?

Anyway, just a few random things that happened this week: We helped paint a non-member's house, so that was a ball!! And we had another exchange. I stayed in Melbourne with our District leader, Elder Olsen, so that was pretty crazy! We confused a lot of people with that one hahaha! We had them thinking we were brothers! We also had the annual Missionary Christmas Devotional!! ALL of the missionaries were there in attendance. It was really neat to see all of them there, and get to talk to the old buds! It was super awesome though! WOOO! So I got a few pics with the missionaries going home next week that I've served around. (Elder Cortez, and my old comp Elder Cotton).

I don't have much of a spiritual thought today but I just hope we continue to
remember the true reason for this season and how it should represent life. Not only that we celebrate the birth of our Savior but His life and ministry..And the life that it brings to us along with the blessings that He brings as well. Let the lights of this holiday season remind us of Him who is the source of all light.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AGAIN! I hope you have an amazing Christmas and its
full of rejoicing, love, and family! I love and miss you all!

-Elder A. Olson 

Beach P-Day!!

It's Beach Time!!

Where did this week go?! Man.. It actually went by super fast!! Nothing too crazy really went down here and it was a pretty normal week. We had our Zone Training Meeting, so that was pretty good. Later in the week, we also went on another exchange with the Zone Leaders. I stayed in Melbourne with Elder Peay again.  We had a super solid day and we met with a lot of less active members, along with some of our investigators! Also we had a less active who hasn't been in years come to church on Sunday! I was asked to give a talk on "Christ the Savior" so he wanted to come check that out. But yeah, the talk went really well. I was asked to be the first adult speaker after the youth speaker, but apparently some miscommunication happened because they announced me as the concluding speaker! I was actually pretty happy about because I had a awesome talk that could occupy a good 30 minutes or so. But in the words of one of our members, being the concluding speaker is either "feast or famine".  Unfortunately, I was only left with about 7 minutes....so basically my talk ended up a testimony. I just wrapped everything up that was mentioned previously and tied it all into how the Atonement of Jesus Christ cannot become a commonplace in our teaching, in our conversation or in our hearts. Speaking in Sacrament meeting truly made me love this ward even more, cause although my time was VERY limited, they all came up and thanked me after, and said they were impressed that I got a solid point across in such a short time.  
 
We did have our district P-day today! Beach P-day all the way and it was such a blast! I mean..other than waking up at 5 in the morning to get there in time it was awesome. We drove all the way to Cocoa Beach, and partied there. We saw the awesome sunrise, played some ultimate frisbee, and chilled. Then we went to Ron Jon's Surf Shop, which is seriously like one of the biggest surfing shops out there!! So we got us some new awesome P-day wear, and also got some Christmas shopping done!!! It has been pretty much a jam packed day already! I got a bunch of pictures I'll be sending out showing all our beach adventures. It's still super strange to be at the beach, on the 14th of December, and it being like 80 degrees outside! Merry Christmas from the beach! If only I brought a Santa hat or something. 

My thought for this week comes from a talk given in conference by Elder Holland and speaks of the Savior.
 
"It was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind--us, all of us--would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone, and because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so."
 
1 Peter 3
"For Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
he might bring us to God"

Through the Atonement of Christ, we can now progress, and ultimately return to live with God! And without the Savior placed into Gods plan, we wouldn't have that blessing!! It's truly come to my realization that our lives have so much more meaning now that we have a Savior in our lives. That through Jesus Christ's ministry, Atonement, and death our lives are blessed immensely. That through Him, we are able to do so much that wouldn't be possible IF a Savior wasn't placed into God's plan/our lives. It's truly humbling to know that we wouldn't be where we stand now if it wasn't for this single but significant birth, life, and death! What a plight our life would be without a Savior.

Thanks for everything! I love and miss you all and I hope you have an amazing week ahead of you! Talk to you next week right before Christmas!

-Elder A. Olson 

I SAW SANTA!!

 

We got to sit on Santa's lap!!

Happy December everyone!!!

Well...hmm.. What can I say about this week? I mean, all my days and weeks have started to just blend together. It's just one continuous day with small naps at night in between hahaha! But we did have a pretty good week. It started off with another exchange. I stayed in Melbourne with our District Leader's Trainee named Elder Taylor. Overall, it was a pretty decent day despite all our planned visits bailing on us. Instead so we went visiting lots and lots of less actives! So that portion of it was a success, but other than that, it was a pretty awkward exchange. Thankfully we kept pretty busy with our schedule so the awkwardness was at a minimum!  Me and my companion basically spent an entire day knocking this week too! Phew...it was a rough one, however, we did meet some new people, and pick up another new investigator.

Umm...what else?... We had some pretty sweet dinners with the ward members. Seriously though, this ward is AMAZING!! I have loved everywhere I have served thus far, but this ward is pretty chill. There are a lot of younger members that I can connect with pretty easily so that helps!  We also had our Ward Christmas Party this week so that was pretty rad! We had a lot of non-members come to that as well, so we will be doing some stop-by's with them to see how interested they are, and hopefully pick them up as new gators as well! The Young Women were in charge of the Christmas Party this year and did a great job! But the craziest part of it all was that the Y.W. Pres. invited her parents so he could play the role of Santa. Well.... It was a couple that was in the Sumterville Branch!  So I got to see them again!  haha! We had a blast though, lots of food, fun, family, and we even got to sit on Santa's Lap!

We also had our investigator Darryl come to church yesterday, he loved it, and really connected with a lot of the ward members. He is still looking forward to December 26th for his baptism. We will see how that turns out!
Also, by next week I should have some LEGIT pictures of the beach! Next
Monday is our "beach p-day" so basically we get to spend like 2 hours there. We get to watch the sunrise, play volleyball, etc. so that is going to be stinkin' awesome! So definitely pictures to come!!!

But that was basically the week this week! As the church released a new video on Christmas.mormon.org we have been going around sharing that this week, it's called "A Savior Is Born" so go check it out. It's truly come to my realization that our lives have so much more meaning now that we have a Savior in our lives. That through Jesus Christs' ministry, Atonement, and death, our lives are blessed immensely. That through Him we are able to do so much that wouldn't be possible IF a Savior wasn't born. It's truly humbling to know that we wouldn't be where we stand now if it wasn't for this single but significant birth, life, and death! What a plight our life would be without a Savior.

Thanks for all you do, and during this season especially I hope you feel of my love for you all, but more importantly, the Saviors unending, matchless love for you as well! I love and miss you guys! Have a great week!

-Elder A. Olson


  P.S. the weather is in the low 60's currently! YAY! Kinda Christmassy!?!

Wanna-be Surfers!

 

Yes, Jesus is Coming!!