 |
|
Hola Familia!
Well I am pleased to announce that I am having a baby!!! Yep you heard it-- I am spoutin out a brand new baby tomorrow!! hahaha (this is missionary terms for training) I am super excited and just ready to get my hands on this new baby boy. haha Pretty exciting right! Cool thing is that Elder Berry my "father" dies on the same day that his grandson is born just like my grandfather died on the very same day I was born. Cool coincidence right. Hopefully I can live up to the legends. Mom if I had to say my favorite companion that would be hard because they are all my good friends and I love them all but I really really liked serving with Elder Berry the second time and I actually have enjoyed being here in Tampa with Jarquin than anyone else. We just are having good times and hes just got a good straight on head. But I am pretty pumped because that means I will probably be here 3 transfers with two of those being 100 percent positive. It’s the 12 week training program so that’s two I will have with him. Then-- the next is a week before Christmas so we think pres will let us stay another hopefully. We will see. Well your letters were awesome and I seriously loved them. Sorry but I don’t have much time today due to transfers and such so it must be short so I can get all the pictures and music and things! Sorry..
Things this week went awesome! We found a new family who was super cool and actually just straight up gave us all the info we need to contact them and come back and visit without even us asking. She said the blessing we left in their house touched her and helped her feel the spirit and that she had been going through some tough times but that she wanted what we had! How cool is that? eh? Then we got into another house this week and taught the plan of salvation to this woman and man who had just lost their father. pretty good lesson and it went great. They want us back soon too. Then we had a couple of people show up at church which was awesome but when we went to pick them up with the member some Jehovah Witness missionaries came over and started having a conversation with us. It actually went really well and I was just once again reminded of how important it is to share our message and to be out everyday because (they were actually very nice) these guys could get to them and corrupt them so to speak. I just feel even a bigger drive to go out and find and I wish our members were more like the Jehovah Witnesses members. They actually go out and do and sometimes I just don’t feel like we all do. So talk to everyone you can. Also we had to talk to a woman about chastity this week who wants to get baptized but she has a boyfriend of 16 years. Pretty fun topic and hopefully they can figure it out because he is constantly playing video games and barely breathes. haha so sticky situation. She wants to leave him but then it’s like we separate the family to baptize them? haha We’ll see what happens. Also we have not found that family but she tells us more specifically where they are each day. So hopefully soon. She actually predicted transfers and said Jarquin
LOVE, ELDER OLIVER
 |
|
Hola Mi Familia!
Once again I am super happy to hear from you all and to hear all is going swell. Your letters are consistently getting better and more entertaining! haha As for me I am super sweet and dandy. Couldn’t ask for anything more really. haha Maybe my family and that would be awesome but I was just talking to my "dad" here in the mission (ELDER BERRY) and he goes home this coming week. I almost wanted to cry realizing how fast time has gone and how it’s already time for him to go. I feel like he was just telling me how he had hit 9 months! Now he is on his way home completely changed having given his mission everything he could. What an example eh? I hope the same for myself. But it was a gentle reminder that time is going quick! I am on the downward slope and time is only picking up. It's like an epic race to see how much work I can get done and how many souls I can change and help all before it slips right out of my grip and there I will be walking off the plane and into my family again ready to start life and get moving. I feel a determination just burning inside! It’s like a craze and sometimes I think it is making me a little crazy. hahaha but its super funny because as I have been burning and even a little scared about all this time going and stuff I have received so many answers to prayers. It’s like Heavenly Father just keeps telling me it’s all good and to be patient and win the great reward for great shall be the reward. I love all the small things from your letters because you’ll never understand how strangely they answer questions and the desires of my heart. This is Gods work. I am in this and I feel more in it now than ever before. My heart is full of gratitude for the wonderful time and experiences I have already had but it also is dieing to have more and to keep going. I have never wanted so badly to stay out until late working, I have never felt so bad for being 5 min late to studies, I have never been so willing to give up my will and accept the Fathers, I have never been so patient, I have never been soo humbled as I have been, I have never had such a testimony. I feel it, I love it, I hope for it and I hope you all feel the same. I just can’t wait to get back to work and to share the gospel. It’s inspiring and has helped me see not only who I can become but also who everybody else can become. I feel love for those I don’t know, I feel sadness for they who are sad, I feel happy as others become happy, I feel despair for those who are left alone and through all these things I am finally starting to realize how my Heavenly Father feels for us. Given it is only an insignificant amount of what He feels but it is closely binding me to Him. I realize how much everything we do here in this life is so that we can understand just a little part of it all. We fast to make sacrifice like Jesus Christ did. We repent to understand the power of the atonement. We pray that we may always be led by Him to help us become who He would have us become. Something special that happened this week changed my whole perspective and inspired me on a whole new level. It came in the simplest way. A going away testimony by an elder named Elder Schwanevelt. He talked about how his mission had started and how he had been so afraid that his weaknesses would prevent him from being successful. His hands would shake uncontrollably when he was in front of other people or in the spot light so to speak. He showed us how badly they would shake for he was nervous even then to be up in front. But he went on to explain how his weaknesses, these small things that made him weak, became his greatest strength because every time he would get in front of someone and they would shake it would remind him of the Savior and how much He had suffered and that because this weakness always brought him back to Christ they had then become his greatest strength. Remember seems to be the word most repeated in the Book of Mormon. I too have weaknesses but my weaknesses will be my greatest strengths. The gospel is infinitely powerful. All who live it will come to know their Savior very personally and it will be a foundation that cannot fail. The best part of it all is that we are all called to share it. Open your mouth because we never know how much it will mean to that person. I love my mission and I hope you love yours.
Transfers are coming this weekend so I will keep you posted on my whereabouts and the going ons. I am super sad! This has been an awesome and inspiring transfer. I have learned so much and am so grateful to have spent it in the presence of such great and admirable elders. I have come to know a little more about myself and just how weak I really am as I have been around them. Strong and firm in the faith, desiring to live to the utmost high standard of obedience, driven to work and share, never justifying but rather enduring well. It has helped inspire me to change a couple things and to just think a little differently. What I want is slowly becoming what God wants and not what I want. It’s been a long process but I have loved every step of the way, especially the struggles. They are few and far between but when they come my go time mode kicks in and I just try to lose myself. It’s been very hard but I feel like I have been very blessed and so it hasn’t been too hard.
As for you guys I am super glad to hear that you guys are great. I love you guys and hope all keeps on going great. You are the greatest family a guy could ask for.
LOVE, ELDER OLIVER
