February 2, 2015

February 2, 2015

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

February 9, 2015

February 9, 2015

This week was awesome!  And crazy.  Remember how everybody dropped us last week?  Well, EVERYBODY dropped us this week.  We are no longer working with Caleb.  He sent us a text and told us he was switching wards because he doesn't feel like he is progressing.  He is still struggling with smoking and now he has been drinking as well.  We are happy for him because he doesn't speak French and he is twenty, so he should be in YSA.  But we miss him.  A lot!  It makes us sad.

Ana de Sousa, one of our recent converts/less actives is moving to Ottawa.  So we will miss her!

Jean Claude, a media referral, is too busy to see us.

But a couple of weeks ago we were in an apartment building of a member.  As we were going to leave, we felt like we should knock.  So we knocked a few doors and found a young man--we've been referring to him as FRIEND-- who had Mormon friends in Africa.  So this week we finally got a hold of him again-- turns out his name is Lamin-- and taught the restoration in the hallway of his apartment with him.  In the middle of our lesson one of our former investigators we are trying to teach again came down.  Things like this only happen to missionaries.  It is just the best!

Also, we found a beautiful family as we were getting into our car a couple of weeks ago.  We contacted the father, Patrick.  We have tried to have a lesson with him and Sister Carpenter finally got in with Sister Narraidoo last week while we were on exchanges.  So we have a new family!  Patrick and Esther have four and five year old boys. One of them is special needs.  I guess the lesson was really hard, but they were so into it.

Tuesday we had dinner and a lesson with Isabelle and the kids at Frere Allard's (Djim didn't show up again).  We talked about missionary work and asked Fanny why she was going on a mission.  Afterwards we watch the #becauseofhim video.  We talked about the blessings of the gospel and why that's important to share it with everyone and talked about who they can share it with.  As we were wrapping up, Isabelle piped in and talked about how grateful she was for the missionaries. She said how grateful she is for Sister Wright and I bringing this blessing to her and her family.  She started crying!  It was the sweetest thing in the world.  I love this family so much.  We found out that with all the paper work the earliest they can get married is the 13th of March.  I am so heartbroken.  We have transfers on the 4th of March. I will be sad to miss that if I get transferred but it's not about me!  I am just so happy for them and I just pray that the Spirit will continue to work with them and change their hearts so that they can go to the temple as a family one day. 

At the end we had to say goodbye to Fanny and Josiane Allard.  It was so hard!  I wish I could express how much this family means to me.  These girls were such bright rays of sunshine during the hardest times of my mission.  I am so beyond grateful for them and just so filled with love for them!  We cried so much!  We miss them so much.  But we are so excited for them.  They are in Utah this week with Sister Wright and Elder Smith and will go to the MTC on Wednesday.

Wednesday we went on exchanges with Dows Lake!  I was in Dows Lake with Sister Matos.  She is in the second transfer of her training. She is a fireball and such a good missionary! It was so fun riding on buses again and working with her.  While I was with her, we taught their investigator Michael with Caleb at the Rideau Centre, our huge mall here. Sister Carpenter and I are here doing emails right now and talked about how we feel like we are coming to the Capitol every time we are here!  So that was fun.  On the way out we ran into Elder Spencer (DL of Dows Lake..the YSA ward in Ottawa) all by himself!  Ha,ha.  It was so funny!  He had gotten split off from Elder Simoes (ZL) on the buses while on splits.  So we escorted him around the mall until we found Elder Simoes.  It was hilarious.

Thursday we went to Dows Lake's district meeting and gave a training on the vision to baptize.  It went well and definitely gave us more of a vision.  Why is baptism so important?  Not rhetorical, you should study it this week.  I am so grateful for the priesthood and the ordinances and the blessings they bring.  If you get a chance read Elder Anderson's Power in the Preisthood talk from 2013.

We had a lesson with Samuel and Blanche this week. They are the family from Benin that we found on Christmas Eve in Les Galeries De Hull.  They are doing awesome.  We watched the Restoration with them.  His brother Julius was there.  He loved it!  Sam always has friends and family from Montreal so we give lots of great referrals to the Montreal missionaries every time we have a lesson with them.  En tout cas, they understand the apostasy and the reason we are asking them to be rebaptized, and they are going to pray about it this week.  Samuel said the closing prayer which is always a little bit odd because he always sings and chants before he starts his prayer. We are not sure what to do about that and asked to know if our message was true.  We know they will receive an answer if they are sincere and put forth their efforts.  They still haven't come to church yet but we are so excited for them!  We are going to baptize a family!

Saturday, we had nothing to do.  So we went knocking looking for a friend of Frere Oula that we had knocked into months ago.  It was in small apartment building just down from our house.  We are pretty sure that Heavenly Father moved the building!  It is not there anymore.  But just to be sure, we went and knocked all the number two apartments on the street.  While doing so we found Luzna.  She is the cutest Haitian girl!  She said we could come back the next day.  So yesterday we went and saw her and her husband.  They are a young couple, both from Haiti.  Apparently she was the girl that we had helped with a table outside of her house during the fall.  Sister Carpenter and I were walking down the street on our way to catch a bus to church and I was talking to Caleb on the phone. Sister Carpenter stopped us and started to help them unload a table from their car.  After a minute, I set Caleb down on the sidewalk and helped out too.  She is so cute!  We started talking, and found out that she had a Mormon friend that gave her a Book of Mormon six years ago in Montreal.  She is so prepared!  We are so excited for them.  We are going back again next Sunday.

Today we went to Le Bal De Neige Winterlude in Ottawa!  They have the coolest ice sculptures. We went with our district.  Afterwards, we walked on the longest skating rink in the world and got beavertails.  So great!  

Love you all!  Have a great week.

Soeur Olsen

Catherine is alive and well!

February 26, 2015

Sorry the blog is not up to date.  Catherine is healthy, happy and working hard.  I will post the letters from February and try to post the letters weekly.  Thanks for your love and support of her!

Rosemary Olsen

Happy Thanksgiving!

October 13, 2014

Surprise!  Today is Thanksgiving in Canada.  We just found that out this weekend.  So unfortunately, we will not be able to get our winter clothes until next Monday.  But la famille Baker is having us over for Thanksgiving Dinner!  They are seriously the best.  We feel so loved by them.  It's just what we need!  Heavenly Father is so good to us two nineteen year-old Americans in little Gatineau.

Okay so this week was crazy again with the buses.  We are having a hard time figuring out how all this works.  But it is so good!  We are learning so many amazing missionary skills and we have so many more opportunities to connect with people and share the Gospel!  I love it so much.  It isn't coming all at once.  It is definitely going to take some more practice, but it's the coolest experience to meet a person, make a connection, and share a truth all between a few bus stops!  We have to be careful though, because otherwise we'll get kicked off the bus.  But it's so fun!

We had interviews with President this week!   We got super lost on the buses on the way there.  Interviews are in Ottawa, which is in Ontario, which is a completely different state from Quebec but it's like fifteen minutes away from where we live.  We had to get to Ontario and then buy new bus tickets there and anyways, we got really lost.  We also had a few incidents in between on the way.  By the time we finally got off our last bus we were way off the mark.  So we were marching through this wooded area fifteen minutes before my interview was supposed to start.  Miracle of the story, we somehow ended up on the road just around the corner from the chapel five minutes before my interview started.  I wish I could convey to you what a miracle it was!  We were so lost and so late and we were never going to get there.  Heavenly Father is so good to us!  He is working full time to make up for all my mistakes that I make throughout the day, but He loves us and blesses us anyway!

The interviews were awesome.  I love President and he still loves me. He just spent the whole interview complimenting me and uplifting me.  He's the best!  It sounds like the mission is down a car.  If they open up an area that needs a car more than us then it will go to that area but if not we'll get one.  But I have no idea when.  So we'll see!

I'm really learning the principle of line upon line, precept upon precept.  I know I gave my farewell talk about that and I thought that I learned that lesson last year.  But Heavenly Father is so much wiser than me and He loves me so much that He continues to give me opportunities to learn about it.

French is definitely an example of that!  It is definitely coming little by little, but that's okay!  It's so fun!  I love speaking it so much!  I learn new things every day and I am just having a blast with it.  The real problem for me is understanding people still.  Everyone has a different accent and they are all so darn thick!  I love the Quebecois and I can't wait for the day when I become one of them!  I think we are all going to have to move up here because I don't think I can ever go home!  Start learning your French but it's okay if not.  Everyone is bilingual that is from here.  There are a lot of Africans that don't speak English and some that don't even speak French but over half of the Quebecois we meet speak both.  I told you that the Quebecois are descendants of the Indians right?  I just think it's so cool that we are sharing the Book of Mormon with the Lamanites!  Fulfilling prophecies up here! We are so blessed.  I feel like the luckiest person in the world every morning to be a missionary here!  Even though it's hard and we are still very much figuring things out over here, I know how much Heavenly Father loves us and how much He loves these people!

Elder Ballard is coming  this Saturday!  Did I tell you that?  We are getting a new stake President in Ottawa so he is coming to call him.  He is holding a special meeting for our recent converts, less actives, and amis Saturday!  I can't wait.  Please, please, please pray that these people will have the desire to come!  This could shake the lives of these people if they come. I just know it!  We are doing everything we can to get people there.  I am so excited!  We are so blessed to have living prophets and apostles today.  It is usually the truth I share with the people I connect with on the bus.  What better news than Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have restored their Church and speak to us as their children today through their prophets and apostles?  I love it so much!

We have a new ami this week.  His name is Amid.  He is a former Muslim.  He is another person who believes that it doesn't matter how we worship, just that we do.  I can't wait to share with him all the blessings that come with joining himself to Heavenly Father and Christ's Church.  Of course they love us no matter what but because They love us so much, They have given us the way to receive the fullness of the blessings that They have for us!

Okay, I think that's all I have time for, I love you all so much!  Thanks so much for your love and prayers!  Have a wonderful week!  We'll try to start taking pictures again so I have something to send!

Love love love,

Soeur Olsen

Happy Conference!

October 6, 2014

Hi family!

My goodness, this computer does not work.  Thanks so much for all your emails though this week!  It was so good to hear from all of you!  I am glad you had such a wonderful conference weekend!  I got to watch conference at the Church- in English- hurray!  It was wonderful.  We had a couple of investigators come but most were no shows.  That’s okay because Elder Ballard is coming in two weeks to call our new stake president!  He is going to hold a fireside especially for missionaries and their amis!  Yaya!  We are going to be doing everything we can to get everyone their possible.  Please pray that we can have angels helping us to get these special people there!

So... car.  We don't have one.  We had to drop it off at the shop and leave it there.  Rough.  On the plus side, buses are amazing!  My goodness, I have no idea how to bus contact, so I am learning, yay!  It's really fun.  We get to talk to so many more people!  It is such a blessing!  We have had some really cool experiences all ready.  We have also gotten lost/stuck a few times.  But it's okay, it always works out.  We have seen so many miracles!  I don't know whether or not we will be getting our car back.  Hopefully we will find out this week.

Sister Carpenter is awesome!  She is so excited to get out and ready to work.  It has been a difficult adjustment from trainee to trainer and car to bus. Our area is so huge, that we are pretty cut off from a lot of people now.  It will take some time but Heavenly Father will help us learn how we can do His work most effectively and He'll help us get to where we need to be!

The French is soo much better!   Don't get me wrong, it is still very beginner.  I have found that Heavenly Father has really blessed us to be able to communicate with these people!  He is so good to us.  He loves us so much!

Have a good week family, I’ve got to go and try to buy some winter clothes now!  Thanks again for all your love and prayers!  Right back at ya!  Don't forget to watch those hastening of the work videos and apply the things you learned at conference!  We are so blessed to have the Gospel, don't forget it!

Love you so so so much

Soeur Catherine Olsen

September 22, 2014

September 22, 2014

Okay everybody! Sister Wright left this Wednesday and I got my greenie!  Her name is Sister Carpenter and she is SOO cute!  You'd just love her.  She is from Temekula, CA and she's a blonde!  She fits right in here in Gatineau because Elder Jenkins got another blonde too!  How fun.  Still a blonde Gatineau family.  She's Anglophone but it is really fun teaching her French!  (I just hope I am doing it right).  Since she's arrived I have really had to step it up and I have been really blessed.  The French hasn't been TOOO much of a problem yet.  We are really blessed to be serving in such a bilingual area.  I have really seen how much Heavenly Father is blessing me with the gift of tongues.  It's so amazing...and really fun even though it's hard.

So we made it to a new week!  We didn't die.  Yay!  It's hard because I'm in charge of planning how we use every minute of the Lord's time every day.  It's been really hard this week cause we have had lots of things fall through and lots of things we would like to do we are not able to because of klicks (the amount of miles we are allotted).  I'm just really, really trying to rely on the Lord and follow the Spirit because I don't really know what else we can do.  We don't have a lot of experience to go off of.  I know that Heavenly Father is really putting us through the refiner’s fire and preparing us for something greater.  I know that He loves me and my cute little greenie and He's going to be with us, helping us and guiding us, even if it's hard at first.

We have been trying to focus on the members.  We really want to get into their homes and get to know them and help strengthen them.  We also really need them to come teaching with us so keep praying for us and our ward so that we can have success in our area!  There are so many things to do and hardly any time to do it, or any klicks!  We are just taking it one day at a time, and little by little we are going to see the Lord work wonders in the area. I am sure of it.  I love you all so much!  Thanks for all of your prayers and support!  Have a wonderful week!

Yes it is starting to get cold!  I am thinking I have got to go find a heater blanket somewhere!  Sister Wright says that is something I am going to want to have.  Thanks so much for the package; the GPS and treats are a Heaven send!  I loved getting all of your letters Laura, they made my whole week.  Thanks so much!  I love you! Happy birthday next week cute girl!  Thanks also for grandpa's blessing, the missionary dolls and sunglasses!  I loved it all so much and really needed it.  Thanks for taking such good care of me through packages, letter, and prayers. I love you all so so much.  Tell grandma that I hope she gets feeling a little better!

Love love love with all my heart,

Soeur Catherine Olsen

Pictures:

This is Catherine's new companion :) 

Baptism of Denis and Ines Coulibaly 09/12/2014 Missionaries from Left to Right: Sister Craven, Sister Wright, Sister Olsen

September 15th, 2014

Denis and Ines got baptized on Friday!  They did it!  They just got confirmed yesterday.  Oh my goodness famille, it was so awesome.  It was the biggest baptism this ward has ever seen; there were 70 people there!  The Spirit was so strong.  The day of, Denis got stuck at work, left with him and his boss to finish everything.  He said there was no way that he was going to finish in time for the baptism, and he didn`t know what to do.  So he prayed and said Heavenly Father, if I am supposed to do this today, please help me be able to get to my baptism.  Right after, his boss came up and told him to go home.  Church is true everybody!  And now it`s got two new golden members.  My goodness.  I wish I had words to describe it.  I love them so much.  They are going to have such a huge impact.  Our ward needs them.  I am so blessed to be serving here in Gatineau!

Transfer calls.  I am training.  Also, the Elders in our ward that we serve with, Elder Norman (who came to Gatineau with Sister Wright- been here for a year) and Elder Jenkins (from my MTC district- came in with me).  Elder Norman is going to train in Montreal.  And Elder Jenkins is staying with me here in Gatineau, training as well.  I didn`t stop crying all night long.  We were sure that no matter what happened, Elder Norman would be staying, and I could stick with him.  The ward and all of our leaders are devastated.  I don`t know how we are going to do this.  Neither of us have any idea how to do this.  And after having the same two missionaries here for a year... it kind of feels like we are getting our feet pulled right out from under us.  This weekend has been so hard.  But I know that somehow everything is going to be okay.  I don`t know how, and we might be stumbling around for a while, but I know that Heavenly Father is going to be there for us.  I know that He is not going to leave us alone.  And it might just be me, my greenie, and Him against the world all the way out here in little Gatineau, but that`s a pretty powerful team.  I just know that as we work hard, be obedient, and rely on the Spirit, we are going to be okay.  He`s going to be with us, and we`re not going to fall.  Finding faith to overcome fears.  I`m still working on that.  But I know that the Lord blesses His missionaries to be more than we really are.  No matter where we are or who we are, our Heavenly Father knows us and we are never alone.  He will be there for me and for you at every step.  So let`s all have a little more faith!  We`re going to get there!

So this Wednesday our little Gatineau family will be heading to Montreal.  Sister Wright will be going home, and I`ll find out who my new greenie is!  (Hopefully she`ll be francophone) And then us four greenies we`ll hopefully find our way back to Gatineau and survive up there.  Pray that the GPS has arrived at the mission office by then.  And then I guess we`ll just take it one day at a time, because, what else can we do!

Hey famille, I have a challenge for you.  I want you to go to lds.org and check out the Hastening the Work website.  It`s the new way the Church has implemented to do missionary work, and it is beautiful!  And it just so happens that President`s stake is the model for it, so he`s all over it.  Watch it for family home evening!  Maybe you could watch one each Monday night for a couple of months.  It`s so inspired, and it`s the way that the Lord has decided that we will usher in His Second Coming.  Check it out.  Check out the member and missionary tab.  (I love that we are all under the same section, what does that tell you? ;);) )

We got President to Gatineau this Sunday!  It was awesome.  He was in the circle for Denis and Ines, and then he gave a talk and a fireside after church.  It was just what our members needed to hear.

  

Okay, that`s all I guess, I`m too exhausted to write anymore-- emailing home is hard stuff!  Hey also, I know this is really inconvenient, but I was wondering, would you mind printing out my weekly emails and putting them in a binder for me.  This are often more detailed than my journals, so I`d really love to have them after my mission.  Thanks so much for all your love and prayers and support.  I love ma famille so much!  Have a good week everyone!  Good luck with school and work, and don`t forget to have fun and pray for missionary opportunities!  And your little French missionary out here in Gatineau. I`m really going to need it.

Killed a spider with my bare shoe yesterday.  It`s starting to get cold.  I`ll send pictures of the baptism!  Love you! 

Love love love,

Soeur Catherine Olsen!