August 11th, 2014

August 11, 2014

Ha, ha I just love my family! Your pictures are SO cute! Haha and we have a hamster now!  I love it!

I am so surprised to hear about all the people that have come home!  How fun!  Rachel Davis got her mission call to Washington, D.C. this last week. If you see her, give her a big hug for me!

Such a good week up here in my little Gatineau!  Our Ward Mission leader up here is Frere Allard.  He is the best. He literally does EVERYTHING for us and he has the cutest daughters that are sending their mission papers in in September:  Fanny (21) and Josianne (19). They are just like us, Liz!  They are my friends in the ward...if missionaries are allowed to have friends.  I think we are.  They are so cute to me!  This week Josianne came did a mini mission with us!  She was with us all Thursday, Friday and Saturday and slept over Thursday and Friday night.  It was so much fun and so helpful to have a francophone on hand for all of our French questions.  Fanny is coming on one with us this week!  They are the most amazing girls.  They been through so much, but they have such strong testimonies and they are just the best to teach with!  It sounds like we might be having a mini mission with them every weekend between the two of them.

This is such the miracle area.  We have 14 amis right now.  So since we have so many, and we had Josianne with us, we went on a member split Thursday night.  Sr. Wright and Josianne went together and drove off and left me to lead out three lessons with the Christensons- the Senior couple serving in our ward.  Elder Christenson speaks about as much French as I do... so not a lot.  Sister Christenson doesn`t really speak French at all.  My goodness.  It was the scariest thing I have ever done.  I felt like I was totally on my own!  Ha, ha it was rough, but actually really fun!  Everybody was really understanding with my French.  It really helped me to realize that Heavenly Father won`t ever leave me alone.  He gives me everything I need in order to do this work.  For the lesson with Mary and Theodore that night, He gave me wonderful Plan of Salvation pamphlets that I could use as a tool to help them understand.  For the lesson with Serge (a recent convert) He gave me the BOM that we could read from.  For the lesson with Jim and Isabelle, He gave me Frere Allard! (That one was especially helpful.)  It might seem kind of silly but it was a huge blessing.  I had everything I needed to help me teach and testify of the doctrine in those lessons.  It made me realize that I will really be okay when Sr. Wright leaves at the end of this transfer.

That lesson learned came at the perfect time.  The Sister Training Leaders called this morning, and they want to do double splits with me in my area this transfer because they think I will be assigned a new greenie to train as soon as Sr. Wright goes home in 5 weeks.  If that doesn`t just shake everybody awake I don`t know what would.  It just makes me shake even thinking about it.  But even though that scares me to death, I am really learning that God takes care of His missionaries.  And even though it`s hard, and it feels impossible, He is going to give me everything I need.  If I have learned anything out here, it is how much the Lord loves His children in Gatineau.  This is such a special mission.  Did you know that Quebec was included in the Toronto mission when President Monson was presiding over it?  All of the general authorities always tell us how the Lord is sending His best missionaries here, how special and important President Patrick is, and how this mission is one of the biggest melting pots.  Heavenly Father is taking His most elect children out of the countries where we cannot go yet as missionaries, and He is bringing them here to Quebec.  These people are so special to our Heavenly Father.  And Satan definitely knows how important they are too; he works really hard on them.  I feel so honored to be able to be planting in this section of the vineyard in this 11th hour.  It is such a miracle. 

Thanks so much for everything family!  I am so grateful for your wonderful examples to me!  Thanks so much from your prayers. I can really feel them and they honestly make all the difference in the world.  Please keep praying with me, because I am really going to need it now more than ever!  You guys are best!  I think about you and pray for you all the time!

Lots of love,

Soeur Olsen

P.S.: Congrats on the new place Benjamin and Kirstie!  I want pictures!