December 17, 2012

Buenas Familia!!

WOW This has just been one roller coaster of a week!! Much to tell you all I have. To start--Thank you guys so much for the wonderful letters!! They were beautiful. Now  the transfers did come and I am moving to ................. TAMPA hahaha really I am moving but one area over to be a zone leader with one of my best friends here in the mission Elder Vasher!! We have full car and a lot more responsibility. haha   We are pretty excited because we started our missions together and we never really thought we would be able to serve together but apparently the Lord saw fit to put me with him and now we are supa pumped!! However the address-- it appears that they don't know their own address and I can’t get it to you any other way than email and today is our only day to email so the office is going to be the only way to get them here. Yea bummer right?? haha We actually live within walking distance of the office so it should be fine. Like we pass by a lot so I won’t have to wait or anything.  I love you and just appreciate everything you do for me!! haha Also yes both packages got here and I am doing them 1 at a time!! I already gave away all the CTR rings to some kids and now the bands are next. They were so excited and loved them!! I seriously appreciate it!! As for our mission conference it went awesome! I love seeing all the other elders and I got many a picture! Plus it was the first and probably only time I got to see my MTC  comp that had to go home and then came back out--Elder Evans. He was so happy and just doing great. I love the atonement and how it can change us and make us so much happier people. We also got to hear many people sing and show us their talents as they put on a program about Christ which was awesome. Oh yea I thought I escaped singing at the program so instead I just got asked to sing a solo for the ward next Sunday by a  Hermana and she asked me yesterday!! haha Good thing I have so many showers to practice. And yes I do practice in the shower still. hhaahahahahahahahaha My comps all know it and some have taken to doing it also. I love my mission!! As for all them other things they are going well and I will tell you about them momentarily. As for you guys I am SO glad to hear that the tradition of the annual Disney land trip has not stopped nor will it by the sound of it. I am glad to hear that mom did not die probably driving like a chicken with her head cut off and that Chelsey probably did drive like a chicken with her head cut off as she stressed for the plane. Like mother like daughter eh??? hahahahahahaa I just couldn't help but make the correlation.

Well I love you guys and wish the most very merry Christmas and hope you got my package that I sent you. and that you do not open it until Christmas!!! See how it feels???? muahahahahaahahaha  I made a serious choice that I would be obedient to your wish mom even though I knew you wouldn't know to not open all 12 gifts the first day. It has been quite the process but I look forward to it every day and have loved each one so far! I love you guys!!

This week went by like lightning!! The good thing about these transfers though is that I am staying really close to my beautiful greenie. I really couldn't have asked for any better of a call. But some cool things this week happened that I really want to share with you guys. This week we have had the car and it has been awesome!! However Tuesday we had a bunch of things set and absolutely everything fell through! Like even our most positive people who always take us in didn’t have time, We knocked for like 3 hours and got nothing, we went to members who weren’t home, we called everyone!! It was awful and I truly felt like good ol Alma and Amulek. Then as the day was coming to a close we were in the car and we had been praying all day to know what the Lord would have us do that we might see success and of course nothing..... So I am there with Elder Russell just trying to think of what to do and as nothing comes to my head I let out a "what would you have us do Lord?" I kid you not I had not even made the last d sound before we got a text with a referral for a man named JESUS. Ironic eh?? Well we had no more time that night but the next night we go over to his house and he welcomes us and ends up sharing about his strong desire to have a great family and to quit smoking and drinking and how he wants to know about God because in Cuba they don't really have choice in religion. It was a beautiful experience that once again reminded me that it is after all we can do that we see the hand of the Lord. Not only that but we were able to go to an activity call NOCHE DE BELEN or night in Bethlehem. It was beautiful and the spirit was super strong and I had the opportunity of giving away a couple cards and a Book of Mormon all in under an hour!! That was while I participated in the show and all the side activities there were. I just kinda finally feel like it’s coming to me and I am starting to see how missionary work can be done in every moment and situation. We just have to offer and open our mouths and the Lord has never failed to fill it. I just know He is there and that He loves us for trying. I love wearing my clothes and name tag because people know who and what I am. I have never felt so much joy in being a saint in the true church. I love sharing my testimony and I love to love. It has actually been hard just to move one area over because I will not be able to see these people as much and it just makes you want to cry. We were with our over the top positive investigator Jacqueline who has already done 3-- 24 hour fasts so that her husband’s heart would be softened (we had her do the first and then a couple weeks later she ends up telling us she had already done two more) She gave up coffee since the first night we told her and she reads every night. Yet in her greatest hour she is also passing through some of the hardest experiences I have ever seen a woman pass through. It was pretty rough having to tell her I would no longer be coming over all the time! She almost gave me a besito!! haha (Latina cheek kiss) And she told me I was to come back and see here as much as possible. Good thing is that as ZL I have to do splits with the dl and Elder Russell's new companion is a DL. SO I will probably be visiting quite often!! Anyways. I love this area and I love my mission and I love you guys and I hope you all have a great Christmas!! I will probably get to call you to set up Skype and stuff but try to remember all the passwords and all that whodaladdy.

LOVE,  ELDER OLIVER

December 10, 2012

BUENAS FAMILIA!!

Yes indeed it was a marvelous week! We had a lot of cool things and we got a lot of crazy news! I am happy to finally write and tell you all about it. But first business... I will be here at least all this week because transfer calls are on Saturday and I won’t leave if I do leave until Tuesday. My guess is that I am out of here. I really would love to stay because our area is about to start hoppin with baptisms. We just got a ton of things set up and now they are beginning to roll so I could really just finish my mission here if the lord saw fit. However I have now been here 3 transfers and President over a conference call told us that there were going to be a lot of changes due to the number of missionaries that are coming out soon. So he has to set up people to train and open a lot of new areas. It’s actually so bad that I am losing a week of my mission because they are sending everyone home now a week early!! Happy to see you guys sooner but I was actually kinda thinking of extending my mission for an extra month. What think ye?? Anyways so yea there is a lot going on!!! As for Christmas I haven’t really been able to think of anything else I would need or want so yea Wal-Mart gift cards or stuff alike.. Sorry I just don’t have many needs out here!! hahaha As for being moved so close to Christmas I am excited because I think it’s about making Christmas special for someone else rather than having ourselves a special Christmas. SO I think wherever I go it will be great and of course wherever you go people love and support missionaries so I am sure we will have an awesome one too! Now as to answer the other questions. Our Baptism of Sergio Bolanos went awesome yesterday!! It was at 9 in the morning and it was with another family of 4 that the other elders were able to baptize. It made for an awesome experience. I will send the pics asap! We actually found 8 solid new investigators!! It was super cool because we went to do a visit with an investigator late at night like 8, and he didn’t answer and all of a sudden I get a little "hey you should go knock" feeling. Well usually we try to avoid 8 at night knocking but I told my comp and he being awesome said alright. we walk to the first group of doors and I chose a very specific door that usually we knock last (there are always four doors to a group two up top and two on bottom) Well a woman opens up the door and lets us in. She has one son and her husband who she invites in to listen. We end up teaching most of the first lesson some of the third and many of the commandments including chastity and the word of wisdom!! These people just asked and asked so many questions!! It was like they were spiritually feasting upon everything we had to say!! We gave them a book of Mormon and they opened it right away and started asking us about the pictures inside and telling us how grateful they were to have it! We left almost laughing because I felt so much love and peace in my heart! They were great and want us back for this Saturday because the dad works two jobs and is never home and the mom watches disabled children. It was awesome that we had happened to knock into them at the one time they are home during the week. I love this work!! Then we also gave a woman a blessing that has been sick for a very long time because some members decided to invite us over to her house. She already knows a lot about the church and she said she would come if her health would permit. Her condition is terrible but she is a beautiful classy Puerto Rican from New York who just loved us!! She calls us her angelitos because she could feel the priesthood power as we pronounced the blessing upon her. I fell in love with her and I really saw her for what she someday will be!! We also were able to help a woman who knows nothing about God or religion get started reading the Book of Mormon! She was so nice and she was just so focused on what we had to say. We have just been doing awesome!! As for the cold there is not much of it here this year. Like it has been pretty warm, and we finally got the car back so we will have it for a couple weeks!! Clothes I am good, food is very present (we just got 7 gallons of milk to split between 6 missionaries this week at church not to mention bread and meats and cheese and all sorts of good stuff. Dinner appointments are here and there. If I wanted to I could get us a lot more but I prefer to be working! hahahaha there is the whole mission conference this week so it should be good!! As for you guys, Wow i never realized just how crazy your lives are. Roller coasters and performances and finals and Disney land trips and two weeks to Christmas and mad teachers at practice 16 girl parties James bond and ward bishopric changes oh my! Hahaha I love to hear that and I really hope you all enjoy this Christmas time. I know I will too!! As for the rest of everything we are awesome and time is going by way too quickly. We got to see a wedding and we are working with this awesome family named the llanos family who are Dominicans who love us and feed us every time we go over. We almost set another baptismal date with 2 more people but if not this week sometime soon. I love you!
LOVE, ELDER OLIVER

December 3, 2012

I know I am way behind on Chantz's letters so I am just going to do all of December's and then I will be caught up--Hopefully I will be better in the New Year!!

Querido Familia Mia!!

Might I endeavor to say to that you guys sound busy!! wow like really really busy hahaha. I am happy to hear it but I hope you are enjoying it all! hahaha Those letters were awesome and I feel very very filled in on the whole going ons of the Oliver household. Thanks so much for taking time to write and for making them great. I love you guys! As for me here things are also going great. We are having a lot of fun and like always we are a work work workin. Transfers are in two weeks so I have no idea where I will be and I don’t really know what to tell you because I could definitely be transferred having been here 4 and a half months with only 6 remaining but I could also stay here. I really don’t have a preference but I love this area!! and we might actually get to use the car soon! Hallelujah. Also I don’t know if you all saw it but man that was an awesome devotional last night!! I felt so inspired by it and I am ready to make this Christmas awesome!!  Mom--Holy camole you sound like a flurry of random rather bothersome task killer. I am impressed and starting to realize just how much you always do for us. I must applaud you because it takes enough from us to just bake a cake for an investigator and actually get it to him. hahahaha I love you and also cant wait to talk to you guys on skype. Dad, Think how easy it was to get those people baptized and then next time remember how important the work is and then teach it to everyone in a way that all members become a missionary and then miracles will always happen. The work is hastening and we can either support or not support it. I know you are doing great as a leader for the ward and I hope you feel the burden lift every time you see a tender mercy. I know you are a pro at that and I can’t wait to talk to you for hours on end about the gospel. It has now become a favorite past time of mine. I was thinking the other day if I would be really weird when I got home and I kept thinking "nah I won’t be that different." Well we were riding in the car with an investigator who was taking us to his house for a lesson and usually we use this time to try and befriend them and really listen to their other interest when I realized that within the first five minutes of talking with him the whole conversation had switched to the gospel and then the whole car of about 5 people joined in and then I realized yep I am definitely a little different because all I know is missionary work and that’s all we talk about all day. I just hope to come home not saying "look at all them ninos!" hahaha
Well this week went great and we are having a baptism this week on Sunday. Super pumper are we and things are just getting better. We found a new guy this week who asked me to come over 60 more times before my mission ends because we make him feel good. He is a drinker and a smoker but he has desires to stop and he is also not married but he really is worried about his girlfriend because she was suppose to have lived only one more year due to some cancer she has. But she has passed that time and is just continuing forward not knowing when it could just completely take her. I imagine the fear she feels and the way we must make her feel as we share the gospel with her. Also her boyfriend asks us to pray for her and was actually the one that introduced us to her. I love teaching people and giving them hope when they have none. It is probably the most gratifying type of experience a guy can experience out here. For that reason I love being a missionary. Other than that we had a lot of things fall through but we found a couple more people and hope to start them on the path. Really not much more than that happened this week but the work continues on and we are desirous to get everyone we can. I hope you guys have a great week and that you are able to make someones Christmas in even the smallest way.

LOVE ELDER OLIVER

October 22, 2012

Well Buenas!!

I am super happy to be writing you guys this week! It has been awesome and your letters have shown me that yours was too!! I loved all of them and yes I still miss you all dearly and think about you often and I have really been studying pictures because they help remind me of why I am here and why I do this. I am finding families like ours that will someday have what we have. I love it and I am living it! I hope you also start living it. Invite everyone to everything. Trust me ward activities are not meant to entertain us rather to give us a missionary opportunity. Remember that. That is actually something I have been learning out here is that all these things that I learn are actually not just for me but rather help me to become something specific so I can help someone else do the same. We are all very special specific tools in the hands of our master and this work is perfect and flawless. It will be a perfect product. Anyways--to lightning round. Wow I am super happy for Wes. How wonderful that he found the one he loves and that they are able to start the eternities together.   Yes Tampa is cooling off. Almost to the point of being a little chilly as we cruise on our bikes late at night because now all we have is bike due to the other Elder breaking his wrist. So two months and no car for us hahahaha. I am gonna get thin.... Things in Tampa are great and just getting better and better. I just feel everything I do coming together and starting to work. Dad yes I do feel like I am where I thought I would be but actually I am already a little farther. I never thought I could become what I have become and I am super excited to have so much more time to just learn and grow that much more. There are things that I just had to realize that have really just helped everything in my life improve. There is still a ton to work on but I am where I wanted to be and now going further. I have come to accept that this life is not about becoming perfect but rather learning to become perfect. The people of Enoch were not a perfect people they were perfect repenters. I feel like I have come to know the power of the atonement in ways that I did not even begin to think of before. I realize that we are meant to become much greater than we ever thought we could be and I am learning how to progress daily. It means everything to me and because it means everything to me so does the Book of Mormon and the doctrines and obedience and repentance and my thoughts words deeds and everything else that makes up who I am. Tomassa and Enrique have decided to get married but there is a little bit of a hold up. Luckily we got a member who is awesome to come over and she has just taken charge!! Like we don’t really even have to worry anymore because she is on top of it. There has been many a blessing thrown my way.  As for school when I get back-- I am really kinda just trying to stay focused on the mish SO we will discuss it a little later. BYU is out for right now. My comp is from Olympia Washington. I have not eaten anything weird lately but I have decided that Columbian food is probably the best out there. You guys have got to try it. I am definitely turning Hispanic because now I love hot sauce and things are not sufficient if there is no kick and a pound of grease in everything hahaha. Oh this weekend is la noche de hispanidad which is a HUGE activity in the which everyone represents their country and brings food and does dances and such. We are reppin the USA and we have quite the dance to show!!! Can’t wait to get it on film and show you.

Dad I loved your letter also and I am soo happy that work is killing you. hahaha better killing than barely surviving right? It’s kinda that way out here right now. We keep getting so many people that it’s hard to keep up with all of them. 4 referrals this week! One of them already had a baptismal date!!! not to mention we knocked into a bunch of really cool new families and last night I made like 40 something phone calls and got some appointments out of them of people who were pretty interested. one of them even said she had been waiting till she was eighteen to be baptized and that she will be in February so that’s another baptism coming up. Well I love you guys and I hope everything is just going great.  Not much time-- but this week was up and up and up. We found 4 new inv we had 4 people at church we had quite a few member presents we got 4 referrals and we have 1 date set with about 4 to 5 more to be set soon! We are so excited and things are great. However at the same time we got dumped a little bit and had fun doing it. Lizzardo the miracle lesson guy told us he would not be interested in learning anymore. So we asked why and he didn’t know what to say so it went from I am not interested to Ok I promise I will call you guys when I have off work somehow.. hahaha anyways though I have to go so I hope you all know I love you and I miss you and that I cant wait to hear from you again next week!

Love,  ELDER OLIVER

October 8, 2012



Well Well Well... Hola Mi familia hermosa!!
I am filled to the brim with such happiness after reading all of your letters, being fed by the apostles and the prophet, and after such an awesome week! I sometimes just sit on my little couch and just think about how happy I am and how much love I have for you and for everyone else. haha it is sometimes overwhelming--in a beautiful way. I just love you guys and am soo excited to have a whole lifetime with you all, not to mention the infinities. How great and beautiful was Conference? I feel like they had peered into my soul and taken bits and pieces and used them to form their talks. It is just awesome how the Lord works.

Well things here are going really well. Baby boy Russell is handsome and strappling, a man of valor and sound understanding. I love him and we are just enjoying every minute, even though a ton of what we have been doing lately is tracting--day in and day out. I have finally come to the point where I LOVE tracting. Its like "oh who’s behind the next door?" and I always feel like Alma and Amulek when the doors slam so it’s quite invigorating. I also have really come to enjoy loving people at rapid rates. hahaha So yes we have been tracting a ton, but that’s what is suppose to be done. However we also have a good mixture of less actives and member lessons which are already showing signs of help for us. I can’t believe how straightforward the very apostles and prophet were with being missionaries. I hope you guys make every effort to start being a referral giving family. It’s the only way the work will get done. Every one of us needs to add our 1/12th of the teaspoon to that pound of honey! haha great example eh? Also we have tons of people to work with. The Lord keeps putting people in every place and we are just seeing so much success. Like I have never been so successful with knocking doors. but well come back to this.
Well this week we found 3 new people. 1 was a lady named Nancy who called us up and asked us to come over out of nowhere!! We set a baptismal date the first lesson, then 2 was the father of a lady we had taught who have two kids. His lesson was awesome and he actually prayed for like 7 min straight! 3 was another miracle! Last night after conf we got bailed on by a lot of people like plans and backups alike so I decided to go start doing some follow ups. We saw people but they only wanted to set up for other times during the week. Awesome right? This means I get to listen to the Spirit. So at about 8 at night I am looking through my list and I get this feeling about this guy we knocked into. Soo I put in like 2nd place behind someone who ends up setting another return time. So again this name comes to me and I decide to just go check on him. He had been fixing a toilet when we knocked his door so not much of a good relationship or nothing but we go anyways. Well we knock the door I wrote down and this pretty buff ripped guy opens the door. I ask him if Esterno is there and he kinda laughs and says no wrong number kinda jokingly. I even went so far as to ask him if they had recently had their toilet fixed! hahahahaha I was kinda like scramblin to find this guy. But the guy says no and kinda starts to close the door when all of a sudden Elder beautiful Russell pops the intro in Spanish which is still pretty hard for him. I of course come back and we start. We end up asking him if he knows anything about the Mormons. He said I know you don’t drink coffee. Perfect I think!! Now I got him!! hahaha I ask do you know why we don’t drink coffee? To which he replies no. I then testify that there is a prophet on the earth today who receives revelation for us and what he has said is that our bodies are temples and we should not partake of such things. He then goes "do you want to come in?" so at 8:10 at night we find this man who actually has been perfectly prepared. He was asking so many questions and told us how he had been searching all over in Cuba praying to find the true church. He led himself through the first lesson and asked so many questions about the atonement which he didn’t know about. He kept asking about forgiveness and saying God will always forgive us to the which we showed him a scripture in second Nephi that says the atonement is infinite and eternal. He just got soo excited and told us to come back whenever and as much as we could. He finished with a fervent and specific prayer asking if the Book of Mormon was true. How cool is that?? The Lord is powerful and strategic. I love to be a small part of this wonderful work. Not only that we set 2 other baptismal dates this week with a couple who are not yet married. Tomassa and Enrique. Both are just super positive and were asking us to tell them what not to do so they could do better or get closer to God. However we had run out of time so that lesson is tonight and I am super excited to talk about chastity! hahahahahaha This is my comps second time in 2 weeks. Well of course we also talked with a boy who doesn’t believe in God but rather an African deity and its saints. It’s a weird and kinda scary religion and when we talked about God I think he really liked it. Martel is his name. Also we ate at a Columbian restaurant that an investigator owns that was soooo stinkin good! Oh my dear I have to take you guys out when we come back! Let me tell ya! Well I do have to go so I love you and I hope you know how happy and great I am doing. I hope you all are just dieing to build a close relationship with a father who loves you and knows you better than anyone else.
LOVE ELDER OLIVER

(ps please excuse my excess in exclamatory punctuation, I am trying to become a more exciting texter and now 1 excalmation point just doesn’t feel sufficient. hahaha)

September 24, 2012



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

September 17, 2012



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