Not Much Time....May 16th

So I don't have a ton of time, but I did want to send some pictures for you guys. I don't remember what all of them are but i will try to explain. One is a little boy named Bartolo, we taught his family, one is of me making tortillas, another is of the cow farm in our area, one is of the train that goes through the sector, and the baptism is of my favorite investigator yet. his name is Hernan and he is so cool. We married him and his wife so they could get baptized. but he is all around cool guy.

My new companion is alright. He does some things that I don't like, but he wants to work, and we work a lot. But one of the things i don't like that we are going to work on this week is working efficiently. But he just got promoted to senor companion so we need to work on things. all for today things are good, hope you like the fotos,

remember,

everybody loves a missionary,

elder olsen

April 25th

So hows it going?

Things are good here. No i haven´t received any mail yet. My companion said that we only get mail about once a month, and last week we had interviews with the president and he brought the mail and I didn't have anything. Let my explain why it takes so long. If you send it through the pouch, i don´t know what happens but it will get to the office some time. Same with direct. But if you send it to the address in California, it waits there until someone goes across the border to pick it up. Then it sits in the office with all the other mail. Then once a month the zone leaders go to the office for interviews, they bring the mail with them to their house. Then it sits there until we go to the zone leaders house. That's why it takes a while, but no I haven´t gotten anything through mail yet, but don´t worry about it.

This week has been a little crazy, its been holy week here. First of all none of the kids went to school last week and nobody goes this week either, because it's spring break. Then Friday was a little crazy. It was holy Friday. almost every body, except Mormons and Jehovah witnesses, go to church. So nobody is at their house, then everybody is celebrating the death of Jesus. We have a huge hill in our sector, oh yea tijuana is full of hills, it sucks. But then we saw people raising crosses up on the hill. by the time we got up there, nobody was there. We took pictures with the crosses.

Then we were going to another appointment, and a different church was doing something else. they had a car in the street with sad music playing, then the next thing we saw was a person dressed like Jesus, with 15 guards escorting him. Then about 250 regular people, some were dressed like olden times, following. Crazy. Then on Sunday a lot of people go to church not because of the resurrection just to sort of end holy week.

The language is the same old i feel, not progressing much but what ever. The window in our house, I don´t think will ever get replaced. We get about 600 pesos every 2 weeks, about 55 dollars. and with the bills, gas, water, lights, broken windows, we have to pay for it and sometime get reimbursed. That's why my first week here we didn´t have electricity. but its alright. my companion really is good, we have transfers in a 2 weeks and i think that he will be transfered to a zone leader some where.

all for today,

and remember,

everybody loves a missionary,

elder olsen

Pictures from April

So I decided that I would send a couple pictures, and don´t laugh at the comb-over. But, I don´t remember what they are and they won't let me see them- one is of a baptism, one of our broken window we have, another of the other baptism, pic of terrazas, and one of my companion in our street. We live in the riches part of our sector. any ways got to go.

Email from April 18th

howdy,

first thing first. i am in the city of Tijuana but Tijuana is bigger than the size of Utah county, so they have it divided up into colonials. And my colonials are san fransico, morita, terrazas, terrazas 2, lomas, and aguas caliente. So I am actually on the outskirts of tijuana which means that my sector is probably one of the poorest. But in other words i have a pretty big sector.

A couple of things that happened this week. we had the worst service project in my live, we cut grass with shovels for over two hours, which i got rewarded with a nice sunburn. Another thing, here in Tijuana there are so many Jehovah witnesses, it's crazy. But this week we have continually kept teaching and walking. Two of our investigators we are going to get them married this week so that they can be baptized. The thing about marriage here in Mexico is that it is a huge hassle, so most people don´t do it-civil marriage that is. Most have some crap marriage in a church which doesn't mean anything, but they do it to say that they are "married". We have one city in our mission that will marry anybody on the spot without papers. the only down side is that its about seven hours away. so that's one challenge that we have here in the mission is that people need to be legally married before baptism.

then the second this is the Jehovah witnesses. they spread lies and are all around trouble makers. Just yesterday one sat on the corner of our parking lot at the church and handed out fliers for their church-weird people.

Then the last thing is the poverty. we have one investigator , single mom with six kids under 10. She really has nothing and her kids have not been disciplined in their life. She used to be a crime leader, with kidnapping, and carjacking. then she stopped because she realized that those things were bad. So she got money from prostitution, which she did until we meet her. now she still breast feeds her 15 month old baby because she doesn't have food for her-really sad .

But that's a little bit of my week. things are good here. we are always tired but it good.
Fun fact about our church, it doesn't have benches. They have chairs with the possibility of folding them up, I thought it was weird to have that in the chapel.

Now some odds and ends,

fun facts about my companion, he played professional soccer before his mission. His girlfriend is at BYU right now, and he hopes to go there after his mission. but real salt lake(soccer team) plays the team he used to play for this week and next week. Then one last thing because I have gone over my time. There is a Johnson family in our stake that has moved into the stake in the past two years. anyways, their son, Elder Johnson, is my zone leader right now. and he goes home in a couple weeks, the first week in may. Anyways thought you might like to know that and I am over time. No I have not sent any letter out yet, and we only get mail here about once every three weeks or so, so i have not received anything either. But until next week,

and remember,

everybody loves a missionary,

Elder olsen