This week. Haha! I love being a missionary. It`s crazy getting to email time and realizing all the things that happened this last week. We had lots of big ups and downs this week!
Monday: Lesson with Jocelyne. We talked about repentance and having a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Sister Carp shared this beautiful concept of broken things. How we are all a little bit broken. But how broken things lead to beauty. Broken clouds brings sunlight, broken soil brings flowers. Broken bread brings healing. I love my companion. She is so inspired and Christ-like. It was so beautiful and Jocelyne was so touched!
Tuesday-Thursday: Fanny Allard came on a mini mission with us! Do you remember when she did that towards the beginning of my mission with Sister Wright? Yeah. Well she and her sister, Josiane, leave this week. I am so sad! I practically burst into tears on Sunday when they came to say goodbye to us. (I guess I turned my emotions back on!) It was so hard. So instead they invited us over for dinner on Tuesday and we will go say goodbye to them then. It`s going to be so hard. I wish I could express how much these two girls and this family mean to me. The Allards do so much for us. They have been answers to so many of my prayers. The girls particularly have always been there to love me and lift me up in some of the hardest times of my mission. This is the most Christ-like family you will ever meet. Sister Carp and I always joke about how Frere Allard is going to have the biggest mansion in heaven. They are such humble, faithful examples of serving as the Savior would serve and loving as He loves.
So while Fanny was here we saw Ivilise. I hope I told you about her. Anyway, she is so prepared. We had planned to teach more about the Restoration/the Book of Mormon but neither of us could really figure out what to do. When we got there she started talking about how her mom was in the hospital and how hard things were right now. So we started teaching the plan of salvation, the purpose of this life and Heavenly Father and the Savior`s love for us. It was so beautiful. We fixed a baptismal date for March 20th! Yay! Please pray for her. Her boyfriend doesn`t want to have anything to do with God and he threw out the last Book of Mormon we gave her. So she will have to either marry him, or leave him before she gets baptized. She needs this. Things are so hard for her. The whole lesson she talked about how she felt something was missing in her life. I asked if this is what she felt was missing and she said yes. The Spirit was so strong and I just love her so much. I just hope that she`ll have the strength she needs to overcome the opposition that is going to come.
Friday: We went to Montreal for a mission leadership council. We woke up at 4:30 am! Hurray! Haha, I love how tired I am as a missionary. It lets me know I am working hard. So we took the bus down with the zone leaders. The council was great. President is so inspired. I just love President and Sister Patrick. We talked about ministering and President gave this great training on the angel that ministered to Christ in the garden. He talked about what we would have done for Christ if we had been that angel and then talked about how we should take all those things and minister to others. ``Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me." It was so good.
The bus ride home was awesome too! Our AP Elder Andersen is our new zone leader. We love working with him. He is such an incredible, powerful, and humble missionary. (Remember that you tube video about the Elder that got his call to serve in Antarctica speaking emperor penguin? Yeah that`s him! Look up the video.) He is such a scholar in the Gospel and on the way home he just poured out information on us. Ha,ha but honestly, it was the coolest thing ever. Sister Carp and I felt like we were listening to an apostle. We love and respect our mission leaders so much and we want to be just like them! We still feel so young and new and like we have no idea what we are doing. He talked about the power of godliness and how we can call down the power of godliness through faith. I have been thinking a lot about that this week and studying that a lot. I read a talk from a general conference called "Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?" and spent a long time this week pondering if I have enough faith to be healed and to be made whole. Another thing he said that struck me was that Christ said I am meek and lowly in heart. We discussed what that meant. I was so struck by the profoundness of Christ`s humility and charity towards the Father and His unconditional love for us. This week and I am really striving to become more like Christ by developing this submissiveness to my Father. I know I can`t do this work on my own. I am just a teenage, American girl who doesn`t speak the language but I know that I have a Savior that loves me. He also loves everyone around me. I want to serve Him and tell them of His love. I know that if I am humble and obedient, and really putting all my faith in Him, I know I can have the Spirit with me to help these people understand and have a change of heart. I feel so blessed to have the Gospel in my life. I love sharing it. I just want to do a good job! But I know that Heavenly Father will consecrate my efforts as I repent and turn towards Him with full purpose of heart.
I love you all so so much! Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Soeur Olsen
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