Elder Olson Update

November 2011

Drew is doing well in Lowell, MA. He loves it there. He has transfers this coming week and he really hopes to stay there in Lowell. He is District Leader there and is doing really well. He is having the opportunity to speak two languages. He says, “We will be having the Baptism of Katherine Cano (Spanish) on the 30th of Oct. or in other words, this coming Sunday if everything works out according to plan. Other than that, most of our work is slowly turning to Spanish. Brazilians are not progressing, so that is frustrating. I guess we will need to find new fresh blood. Over all, things are going well. I am loving Lowell and I'm not ready to leave.”

Drew has the opportunity to translate at church on Sundays. We had to chuckle a bit when he shared his love for relief society. He shared, “We teach the Portuguese class on Sundays and that usually goes really well. Then we do our normal translation in relief society and I don't understand how women enjoy such off topic stories during the lesson. Oh well, it was good.”

I think he is being well fed. He shared his dinner itinerary with us for one evening, “Then we had dinner with the Webster's (English). They are way cool and he is into BYU football, so he quickly gave me the low down on the game. Then we had 2nd dinner with Romilda (Brazilian). That was a lot of fun and we ended the night with getting another dinner from Analor Pachar (Brazilian) and teaching there.”

He shared a great experience a couple of weeks ago about finding a young boy when tracking. He said, “Then we also found Bun (English/Cambodian). He's 15 and he said that 2 minutes before we knocked on his door, he was on the internet searching about Satan and God, wondering if they really existed. (Keep in mind that most Cambodians are Buddhist) He said that he wasn't getting anywhere from being online, so he just looked up and asked if there was even a God….. Then the knock on the door was there. We taught him a first lesson, gave him a Book of Mormon, and he wants to read the whole book. Bun like us, believe that was a sign from God that he exists and that he loves Bun enough to answer his prayers. That was a really cool experience for us. I can't say that has happened all that often.”

He updated us on Bun this past week in his email, “E. Winegar and I had enough time to teach Bun (Eng/Camb) and he enjoyed the 3rd lesson. We extended a baptismal date for the 13th of November of which was accepted.”

“This week has been busy for me as well. We have had a few frustrating things happen in our work, but tudo bem! Satan is working harder than ever to destroy us. But the Lord is with us and his work will move on. Satan has millions of his followers or spirits here on earth surrounding us every day, tempting and trying us; trying to get us to break us from getting back to our father in heaven. They are around investigators, non-members, members, and those great leaders we have. They are working harder than we are as missionaries and members of the church, because Satan won’t leave us or them alone. He won’t stop. We can't stop doing the things that strengthen us. Let’s try a little harder to continue to read our scriptures and work on the attributes of Jesus Christ.”

t.”