February 25, 2019 Here We Go Again
Sencillo:
Ahhh P-Days, the dessert of the mission. It's like running a marathon where every 7 miles someone shoves cake in your mouth. Here are some notes from my agenda:
On Monday I got a copy of True to the Faith. I love that book. I also borrowed "Our Search for Happiness" from Elder Hales. That's a good one too. It seemed a little strange at first, but then I realized it wasn't written for members of the church. Every P-Day I get to wash my clothes, and it's always exciting cause our washing machine does this cool thing where it jumps up and down and starts hopping around. I also learned that apparently, when some of my pants said "Dry-Clean Only", they weren't kidding. Whoda thought? After wrighting you all last week we went to pizzahut, and I was a little hungry, so I got myself a pizza and some breadsticks and a 2 liter bottle of juice. Wow was that fun, but ever since then, I've always been hungry. On Tuesday I woke up with a big headache, but headaches don't change our ability to walk, so we went to work, and that helped. At one person's house, they offered us water (we're really not supposed to drink unfiltered water, but it's hard when people offer us). Anywho, Elder Hales (otro gringo) and I took the pittcher of water, very enthusiastically pretended to pour water in the cup, and immediately drank all of the water that wasn't there and thanked them, because we were so thirsty. That was a fun one to act out. That night we got ice cream from a tienda. On Wednesday at lunch that day I finished super quick and fell asleep. I'm trying to not do that again. Later that night, someone showed me Spanish rap, and it made me appreciate English rap a lot more. We finished the day with a big ward part celebrating Dia de San Valentin. We stopped by a young family to invite them and walk them there, and the girl's 3 year-old daughter held my hand all the way there. I don't know why but that made everything happier. On Thursday I tried arroz con leche for the first time (hot rice with milk). That was pretty good, in the same way that carrots stirred into ice cream is good. On Friday while knocking doors, I had a crazy DeJa Vu of an experience I've never had. Later that day, my companion (from Peru) told one lady we were visiting that there aren't tortillas in Peru, and she asked him, very concerned, "How do you eat your food?". That night it rained for the first time - nothing crazy or heavy, but it was early and unexpected. That night when I got home I organized a binder for all the letters and things I've received in the mail out here in El Salvador, but that didn't take much time cause it turns out it's really easy to organize an empty binder ;). When we woke up on Saturday, it was still raining, but a little harder. I always love the sound of rain. That morning we went to go help someone paint their house, and later that night we went and sang happy birthday to a lady in the ward, then helped celebrate by buying her pupusas. That night I tried sleeping on the ground. The next morning I stopped trying to sleep on the ground. On Sunday morning we were walking to church and I asked my companion if we should stop by one kid's house to see if he's coming. He said I don't know, so we picked a spoon up off the ground and decided that if the spoon landed face up, we would go visit him, so we went and visited him after I set the spoon down. That afternoon I peeked a little into Elder Hale's book, "Our Heritage", and that's a good one too. We visited a family that day with a girl who's learning to play the violin, and they heard that I play, so I got to fiddle for them. They enjoyed that. I forgot to mention that almost everyone here uses Crocs. Haters can hate, but they know what style really is. That night we had Dinner at a member's house, and I got to keep their kid's occupied by not doing anything as they tried to beat me up. Gottta love kids. That day Elder Hales gave me a refrigerated off-brand Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Wow. That was an amazing five second. Just when I thought things couldn't get better, att dinner that night, we had beans and rice and something that looked like a bunch of baked vegetables, but they secretly only looked like vegetables, and they were all different types of meat. I cannot describe how exciting that discovery was.
Gracioso:
Just some short things. 1. Before I left for El Salvador, I always sang harmonies to the Hymns in church, to mix things up, and also to practice my sight reading. Out here, we sing a lot of hymns to the people we visit. I've tried singing harmony a couple times, and so has Elder Hales, but I guess that's not such a cool thing down here. Different variations of this has happened a couple times, but we were in the house of one family, and started by singing a hymn. On the second verse, I started to do a harmony, and they all stopped singing and just stared at me. Melody it is.
On Thursday at Lunch, Hermana Esperanza didn't bring ouut salad. She's a lady in the ward that we pay to make lunch every day. She always serves salad with the meal, which is basically big pieces of lettuce with sliced tomatoes and zuccini. I always like to eat mine before the rest of my meal, so I can enjoy the good stuff. This time, she waited until after I finished everything and asked, "Who wants salad?" I told her I had gotten full, but thanked her anyway, and the other 3 elders said they would like some salad. She walked into her kitchen and came out with 3 giant corn-on-the-cobs that looked very delicious and said, "Sorry, I'm out of Salad." Nice.
When we were contacting on Sunday, my companion asked one lady if she was pregnant, but I guess he didn't know you're only supposed to ask that question if you already know the answer.
Importante:
I had an very interesting and detailed dream before I woke up on Thursday morning. I was home. I was confused. I was early. There was a lot going on, but I remember I was happy to be home, but sad to leave mine. I remember thinking back to my contacting the day previous and seeing my hesitation, and the fear and inconfidence that preceeded almost every move. I was happy to be home, but I was sad that I hadn't grown up out of that yet. I also thought of the people who I had seen in the street and smiled at, but ultimately said nothing. I was happy to be home, but I was uneasy because I hadn't finished. For a reason unknown to me, my mission was over, but I wasn't. I can't really explain it clearly, but I guess I know my home will always be waiting, but right now I have a work to do, and I felt sad that I had gone home without helping the people here find theirs. They had this saying in the MTC that the MTC is to your mission what your mission is to your life. I guess I'm not done training, and I was relieved to wake up that day and return to work. All I know is every step that day had more purpose, and I hope not to lose it.
We found a lot of new people to teach this week, but the most positive people were in Pizza Hut on Monday and at the Torta Stand on Thursday. These were people who were ready, and waiting for something like this. You could see it in their eyes; they were hungry for this gospel, and we were there to give it to them. I think it's interesting. Yesterday, Elder Velasquez and I were knocking doors and contacting for 3 hours and found no one, but at the Torta Stand we found three. I don't know if it's always going to be like that, but I think it's important to always be ready, even when it's 5 minutes before you're about to go home to eat and rest. The couple at the Torta Stand was so awesome, and they are so excited to meet with us, and I can only imagine what how disappointed I might have been if I had only focused on my Torta.
I was thinking a lot about Joseph Smith, and the opposition he faced before he offered the prayer preceeding the first vision. He felt weakened, tongue-tied, and as if he was about to descend into a gulf of misery. That was what comforted me before my mission, when I had felt severe opposition. Joseph felt such great power against him because someone knew how important that moment was and they would do everything within their power to stop it. But Joseph also recounted that after he had continued, despite the instant misery of sorts, he felt such a great joy and peace in his heart, for he had persisted until there was no such power over him, but a power more glorious about him. This is the long awaited joy I needed to fight for in coming here, but it is here. I have to wonder, if Joseph had stopped praying, would he have felt comfort? Would he have finally felt at peace, because the adversary no longer had to try so hard? I've felt two types of comfort in my mission. Words won't do me justice but I'll try my best. I'll call them peace and relief. One of them comes from removing our burdens and the other from overcoming them. There's a great difference.
I heard this cool thing that the best way to start a good day is always the night before. That's been pretty cool to apply out here.
-Elder Olson
P.S. This whole letter I felt weird writing. Maybe I said to much. I don't know. I'll try talking less in the future. That's another thing I'm working on.
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