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

Week 2-April 11th

Howdy,

So things are going here in Mexico. real spanish where we are talking with investigators, or my companion is so hard. It's different then anywhere else i have been taught spanish. One because now i have more than one thing-talking. Normally it's two people talking at the same time, sometimes at me. Or the cars outside, sometimes crying baby, last week a vomiting baby. But, its hard to focus on what they are trying to say.

Now that you know how the spanish is coming along the past week. so at the beginning of the week we had 9 people that were going to get baptized this past week. We continued to teach them and visit them. Then come Friday night, the night of their interview for baptism, they all passed but one. Then three others decided that they didn´t want to be baptized either. So when Saturday came around we went to go pick up three and they weren´t there. So we ended up only having two boys ages 10 and 8. It was my first time in the font. It was really cool, one reason is because i didn´t mess up on the prayer. (It's a little bit harder to remember in spanish).

But all is well. our church is one of the newest in the state. its only a year old and really nice. I don´t need money for a bike because for two reasons: one because it would probably get stolen, and two becuase there are so many hills that we would end up pushing them up the hill. but i have a pretty big sector and almost everybody in the mission walks except a couple sectors.

until next time,

and remember,

everybody loves a missionary,

Elder olsen

Monday April 4th-First email from Mexico

So i am sorry that i didn´t have time to check my email before i left the mtc. and if my typing is different it is because the keyboards are different.

Leaving the mtc was weird. me and my companion were the last ones to leave in our district so it was a little weird but leaving was weird the night before was hard because it started to set in that i am leaving. but the flight was ok it was pretty rough that they didn´t let us out of our seats only unless you couln´t hold it any longer. then we landed and before we meet the mission president there was the leaving missionaries in the terminal. so we talked to them for a little bit but then headed down and meet our mission president. He didn´t say much at first but that was ok. then we instantly drove across the border and worked out another visa thing. i think the visa i have now is only good for a couple of weeks, and the one that i will get should be about a year long.

We then made our way through traffic to the mission office. got sat down by the APs and told more rules. then walked up to the mission home for lunch. there are two rules that i think will have a hard time with and they are no COKE. and it is everywhere. and the second is every missionary needs a comb-over. well everyone needs a part in their hair.

I came here with two other missionary and all three of us got native companions. oh yea today is my p day for now on. so my companion is from Monteray Mexico and doesn´t speak English. and the first thing that he said to me is that i am huge. but he is pretty cool guy.

Tijuana is so big. we drove for about twenty mins to our area. we have terrazas here in Tijuana. and our zone is the most successful in the whole mission. my first day here after i unpacked some of my stuff, because our apartment just barley got the electricity(lights) turned back on yesterday, then went and talked to some investigators.

There are six adults living in one house with four kids. but anyways they committed to be baptized. My first baptism was yesterday, a girl named Ruth and she is fourteen. But i am running out of time i only have half an hour to type. but know that i am fine, little frustrated with the language and other things but i am alright.

until next time,

and remember,

everybody loves a missionary,

Elder olsen

Last Day at the MTC

With one of his teachers HNO Harris

Yes, I am leaving now and I thought that I would send one last letter out before I venture off into Mexico. And that's my problem, I don't have much to say. Out of 10 we started with in our district, 3 are left. One leaves tomorrow at 4am, and me and Elder Erekson leave at 8am-we will be the last ones to leave.

I am very excited, and very nervous. And since I am nervous there is no need for Grandma, mom, or Brittany to be nervous. Because we are nervous for different things. I am not nervous for my safety.

I think that is everything. Hopefully you know my new mail address because I don't know it.

But, until next time
remember Everybody loves a missionary,
ELDER OLSEN