February 18, 2019 The Fastest Year of My Life
First
note: Sometime in the near future, if not already, my email address will be
changed from john.olson@myldsmail.net to john.olson@missionary.com
Sencillo:
Wow, this last year in El Salvador went by so fast. Here are some
notes I took in my agenda:
On Tuesday we got to explore a new area with the other Elders. I
was super tired because that morning was leg day, but by now I've learned that
in El Salvador, every day is leg day. On Wednesday I left the house with a goal
to finally not painfully stub my left toe on a rock, but it only took my about
3 minutes of walking to fail at that, about 4 times. I was also feeling like I
didn't know the lessons very well,, but Elder Perez told me that the night
before I started teaching the First Vision to an investigator in my sleep, so
it's good to know I'm getting extra practice in. At dinner that night I
realized that here in El Salvador, if you eat something enough, you learn to
really like it. With that in mind, I've learned to further enjoy vegetables,
their tortillas, orchata, and Pepto-Bismol. Later that night I started to miss
a lot of things randomly, like certain people, driving, and swing dancing. That
was hard. On Thursday for lunch we each got to eat a whole fish. I guess they
just slap it on a grill and then you do all the picking apart and cleaning
right before it gets to your mouth. When we were walking to our first
appointment, we saw a car that had driven straight into a house (but
everything, including the house, was fixed the next day (everyone can do
everything around here)). Later, on the bus, we saw a blind guy who boarded,
waited a couple stops, then got off (everyone can do everything around here).
Later that night a drunk guy tried to mouth feed me chilis while talking to me
in what he thought was English, but we ended up setting up an appointment to
visit his friend, so that was cool, and I finished off the day by finally
unpacking my suitcase! (Not entirely true, but I'm at least 75% of the way
there). On Friday I got to ride hanging out of the side of the bus, but then my
companion told me to stop cause there were plenty of open seats. I went to
immigration that day to get my visa, which means I'm officially legal, and
later that day we had a baptism for a girl named Stacey. You'll probably hear
more about her later. That night, at a pupuseria one of the guys in our ward
(YM President) saw us and started talking to us. He asked how much time I had
in El Salvador, and when I said 4 weeks, he laughed and said something like
"Yeah right, how long have you been here," and started trying to
guess how long I had REALLY been here, something like a year or a year and a
half, so that was cool. On Saturday morning I started getting more organized,
and started keeping a record of all the names of places in my area, Mora (Mora
is part of my zone, called Molino), all the bus routes, and all the people
we're teaching. It's not perfect or even close to complete, but I started, and
that's the hardest part. That afternoon we got to meet one lady as we walked by
her house. After getting to know her better, we asked if we could just say a
prayer with her, for her. She let us in, I got to pray for her, according to
the needs she brought up in conversation. When we finished, she wiped tears
from her eyes, and said she felt something really special, and strength above
all. She was really sweet, and we're going to visit her again this week. That
night, I started thinking of all you can eat pancakes at Denny's. That was
really hard to get over. Okay I jotted down a lot for Sunday. Here goes. I
super drained the entire day, physically, mentally, and spiritually, but
it was a good day. We got to go visit people with one of the members in the
ward. I determined that here in El Salvador, I sweat momre by existing than I
did in Wrestling (where people actually try). Cows kind of just walk around
wherever they want. I also trained myself to not care or move when flies land on
me, and boy, was that a tough one. After church, this one kid, named Yoalmo,
was playing with my pen, then he started drawing all over my nice pants. He's
16. We had to members who hadn't come to church for years come with us for the
first time, so that was awesome. I also learned that the mosquitos here are
super racist. and finally, Sunday was the first day of my time in El Salvador
that I didn't even stub any of my toes once. That was a big win for me. And
today, we had a big cleaning party for the whole house. We really needed that,
especially since our district leader accidentally broke our bathroom sink into
a bunch of pieces, but it's no big deal. We just don't have a sink. And I
forgot to add, on Sunday morning we lost our electricity and water, but luckily
we found it that night.
Divertido:
When we went to immigration with all the new missionaries, we
stopped to get lunch afterward at Subway. There is one hermana from the states
in our group, and she's super positive and not afraid to talk to anyone, but
she also sounds like such an American. It's awesome. One, because it doesn't
really matter when she's got a positive attitude, and two, because when she
started ordering, everyone in the restaurant stopped and just stared, a little
entertained. (This isn't anything bad or unnormal, we've only been here 4
weeks) But another thing is in El Salvador they have 15 cm sandwiches, not 6
inches. They lady asked here if she wanted a 15 cm sandwich, and she, not
really understanding, said "Yep! 6." Then shhe turned around and said
she didn't really know what she said, but it didn't matter as long as she got
food. But it turns out that she accidentally asked for 6 15 cm sandwiches. That
was pretty entertaining to watch.
When we walk in to people's houses for dinner, a lot of the people
pull the same joke, where they say, "Gringos only. No Chapins" and
they let me in and make my companion wait about 10 seconds. I had heard the
joke a ton of times, so when we went to the other missionaries' house, Elder Perez
did the same, "Only Gringos" thing, so I walked in, patted him on the
back and said, "Gringos only" and left him on the porch, while Elder
Hales and I had a 10 second gringo party. Elder Perez got a pretty good kick
out of that. I'm still surprised that that's a popular joke around here.
Importante:
I've learned a lot this week, but a lot of it's more personal, so
I'll share some things that have been on my mind.
We went to go visit Winston one day, but he was out of town
visiting his dad. We decided to start contacting around there, and came to one
street that was a dead end. There wasn't anyone walking around, and there was
nothing but jungle at the end of this dead end street. We decided to contact
all the way until the end, even though there were bigger neighborhoods around
there, and we didn't find anyone, until we got to the last house before there
was nothing. There we found Katherine, who was baptized 4 years ago, but had
lost the drive to keep coming. She lives with her two younger sisters who were
really happy to listen to us. The Mom was there too, but she told us she really
didn't want anything from us, mostly cause she didn't want to change anything
in her life. Seemed like a dead end, but after 3 lessons, she's the most positive
of them all, because she's really letting what we have touch her heart. She
went from saying she wouldn't do anything, to accepting an invitation to pray,
to commit to coming to church, to begin preparing for baptism. This isn't a
super dramatic or ground-breaking story, but I learned that this place was much
more than just a dead-end street. If we knock 100 doors to find one person, it
would be worth it. If we walked 3 miles just to comfort someone in need, it
would be worth it. If I served my whole mission, and despite diligent work,
could bring no more than one soul unto God, how great shall be my joy. Because
no streets a dead-end street when there's at least one person with an open
heart to be eternally healed.
I remember a story of a woman who attempted to swim from one
island to the mainland, to set some sort of record. She had many many miles to
swim. Due to her exhaustion and a great fog that had rolled in, she eventually
faltered, and had to be picked up, because in her mind, she never could have
made it. Maybe she didn't even know what she was making it to. I don't know,
but I do know that the fog had kept her from seeing that she was less than a
mile from the shore. I don't remember the exact details, but I remember that
she had relatively only a sliver of her journey left, and she had no
idea.
When King Nahab found he had leprosy, he eventually sought the
help of the prophet Elijah. Elijah sent his servant out to the King to tell him
to bathe 7 times in the River Jordan, which was basically a river of mud at the
time. The King left in anger, probably because the prophet had taken a major
stab at his pride. As he was leaving, the King's servant said something along
the lines of, "If the prophet had asked you to do some great, mighty, even
difficult work, you would have gladly done it, but then why can't you do
something small, maybe a little humbling, but simple when he asks it of
you?" I haven't read the passage in a long while, but I imagine it went
something like that, and that the King had a change of heart, to fulfill the
small thing that was asked of him, and he was cured. I know we often have the
faith and maybe even pride to do any great big thing that is inquired of us.
But do we have the faith to perform the small, maybe humbling, tasks that are
asked of us? Sure, some things might seem a little below us, "The son of
man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?" Your
callings, your service, your growth, your mission are not part of a big resume
you're creating. I don't understand why any mission should be less than the
other. The gospel is needed everywhere. I know when I was set apart as a
missionary, I was specifically set apart as a missionary, not to speak Spanish,
not to serve in El Salvador, but that's what I was called to do, so I'll do it.
I know too many people who have been discouraged by their mission call, their
ward calling, or their responsibilities in life, not being exciting or trying
enough. Almost everything can be trying if you try hard enough. Maybe I'm
wrong, but I feel like if we feel we have the strength to go do something great
and awesome, we should definitely have the strength to "do small things in
a great way." When we sing, "I'll go where you want me to go, dear
Lord, over mountain or plain or sea..." are we prepared to go Everywhere?
Even the little places? "Nazareth was a little place, and so was
Galilee". I don't know what I'm trying to say. This has been on my mind a
lot. I know wherever we are, we have the power to do good. We're not building
resumes, and sometimes we might need to reach a little below ourselves to lift
others up.
Love you
all,
Elder
Olson
And that's my mission president and his wife.
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