Monday, December 20, 2010

December 20, 2010 letter

well hello family!! first things first, i got another package but i have no idea who its from so if its from some relative of mine, thank you very much!! another crazy week in bolivia, my trainor got transferred and i stayed here in riberalta! pretty crazy my new comp is another chilean but is not the best! i´m basically the senior companion and had to take charge of everything! i don´t know spanish that well and i´m not familiar with the area that well and he doesnt know the area at all and doesnt want to work that hard! so i just jumped in to gear and took the iniciative and work work work because its so stressfull but when were at an investigators house, i feel so much better because of the love i have grown for them! its pretty stressfull, not gonna lie! but its coming along! i miss snow so much!!!! but also something important!!! this tuesday or wednesday i am going to call you in the morning sometime only for 5 minutes to give you my number so you guys can call me this thursday i believe it is! so be home tomorrow or wednesday in the mornings so you can recieve my phone call! well not much happaned this week because of transfers but i´ll be talking to you anyways soon!!!!! love you all
love elder olsen

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

December 13th letter

well hola familia!!!!
sounds like everything is going pretty good!! what a shame to hear the snow melted that makes me sad!!!! but if there is one thing i want, its pictures of everyone and utah and the temple and just home!!! i didn´t realize how amazing logan was until i got to bolivia!!! but about the people, their just poor and lazy and dont want to brush thier teeth! but the mission actually tells us not to have our family send charity stuff to the people so sorry mother, but thats sure nice of you!!! so we had another baptism saturday, a 17 year old girl named Glesia Yuamona Antelo, it was amazing!!! its still super duper poor here, nothings changed yet! my spanish is coming along alright and i´m learning alot! i´m sick of rice i eat it everysingle day! so its good to hear that your keeping in touch with michelle and her family! she always tells me that she talked to you and she says your so nice and cool and she wants to hang with you!! what a mother i have!!! so all the kids sound like they are doing good!! congrats to ty with swimming and jake with band and alec for being so bored!! if you think your bored, come to bolivia, then you´ll really be bored, there is absolutely nothing to do in this town that i am in! just do whatever you think is fun and have fun doing it!!!! i want some pictures so bad!!! but hey i got your package! just to let you know the packages are guaranteed to get here and it takes roughly a month! it comes straight through the pouch and to the zone leaders house then i go pick it up!! its guaranteed to get here so dont worry! and thanks for the candy and letters and gifts! loved them! so ya jake has been out over a year, his year mark was december 2 and austins year mark was november 18 pretty crazy!!!!! well bolivia is going good and were teaching lesson after lesson after lesson!! we have transfers on tuesday so we´ll see if i´m staying or going!!! thanks for everything mother. i love you muchisimo gracia por cada cosa que haces! es bueno que te mejores y esporo que tengas mas fuerza para que puedas hacer cosas que necesitas! te amo madre mucho y gracias por su amor! ojalá que mis hermanos sean ejemplos a los demas!!! estoy animado y les extraño muchisimo! pero mi tiempo vendrá! les amo
love elder olsen

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Letter written home by Brady on November 22-sent from Bolivia, received 12/6/10

November 22, 2010

Hello mother and family. How are you all doing? Let me know when you get this letter so I can know how long it took to send to the USA. OK? Sweet! So I'm here in Bolivia and yes it's super crazy poor! I'm here in Riberalta, which is ghetto poor, about 2 hour from Santa Cruz by plane. I'm in the jungle literally it's the Amazon here. Like monkey's, tigers, gorillas. All sorts of crazy animals. And right in front of the jungle is the Beni River. It's pretty huge. It flows from Peru and Brazil. There are crocodiles and pirannas in there too. Pretty gnarley! Well, I had my first baptism 2 days ago it was amazing. I baptized two little brothers named ENRIQUE LIMPIAS MUELLER and DANIEL LIMPIAS MUELLER ages 8 & 9 and my comp Elder Navarro baptized a 14-year-old girl names THEODORA MACHICADO CALLE. They all went really well! Bolivia is pretty crazy and it’s super hard to adjust to this culture/lifestyle because of me coming from such a rich country which has everything, literally everything you need. Trust me, we Americans are extremely blessed and lucky, people here are so, so poor. Some children don’t even have clothes and all the teenagers are either pregnant or have a baby and it’s crazy. They all breast feed no matter where their at. If their child is hungry they whip it out. Like in the middle of a bank or a big group of people, and even in church it’s definitely a lot different than the states. Nobody has teeth or if they do they’re all chipped and rotted. They don’t shower, they only wear sandals and their feet look like dead road kill and bugs crawl up and down them so yes it’s definitely not Utah! But I’m adjusting. The people are extremely humble and everyone loves talking about God. We teach so many lessons a day! Basically everyone we talk to lets us in! The juice here is so dang good. It’s all freshly squeezed and wow it’s good. As well as the ice cream. There’s no freezers so they make it all fresh. Mmmm mmm good. Every single lunch starts out with a bowl of soup. Then rice and some sort of meat. It’s usually pretty good. The milk comes in bags. It’s perfectly fine to sit out until you put it in the fridge. The language is slowly coming. It’s really hard and the first week or two I was struggling really bad!!! But it’s moving along pretty good. I’m finally getting more comfortable with the mission and it’s getting better and better each day. My comp helps me out so much. He’s a great trainer and keeps me motivated. So I wont lie, the mission is super, super, hard! But the blessings and watching the Lord change people’s lives is definitely worth it! I know it’s just cause I’m still new and it was a bit overwhelming at first but now it’s getting so much better, I’m getting a lot better and can finally speak some Spanish and teach! The Lord really has helped me a lot! Now the days just fly! Well how are all you doing? I’ve been praying for you all! How was the surgery mom? Well, I love you all and miss you all a lot!
Love,
Elder Olsen

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

November 29th letter

well hello mother and fam!!!
i have much more time this week and the internet is functioning for me!!!! sounds awesome that you guys have snow, boy do i miss the poop out of snow!!!! its like a hundred degrees here everyday! i miss my snowboard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so the package is perfect, you send it to the address that says something like c/saavedra, empresarial, something with those words, but we changed the building to piso 7 instead of piso 9, its the same building just different floors so its ok if you still send to piso 9, i´ll still get it! but you can still write me through dear elders if you want, it will just take a little bit longer to get here! well bolivia is crazy!!!! someone has already tried to rob me! a crazy drunk man came up to me and said Dame cinco pesos which means give me 5 pesos and i said no, no tengo dinero para usted which means no i dont have money for you, and my comp and i just ran off! pretty dope sauce!!! so ya its super duper hotttttt here and its rainy season so like everyday it rains and it rains alot!!!! we teach alot of people and contact alot of people!! its super hard but its coming along pretty well, the spanish is coming along alright! send me some pictures if you can, just through internet, i wanna see how everyone is doing, and send me some pics of the snow!!!! i miss it!!! well not too much has happened this week other that teaching alot, we had our first baptisms last week i think i already told you about! they went great!!!!! my comp is chilean, elder navarro is his name, he is pretty sweet and super good at teaching! well we have transfers this next week and i am pretty sure i´m getting transferred to a different area, so wel´ll see! i love you all sooooooooo much and miss the crap out of you!!!! thanks for the letters and love
love you
love elder olsen

Monday, November 22, 2010

November 22 letter

hello Family!!
how are you doing?? i have like no time at all because the computer
is so super slow and i cant send anything so next week i am going to
write you guys, just letting you know whats up, bolivia is great, we
had our first baptisms last saturday and they went great, i will tell
you all about it next week!
love you all very much
love elder olsen

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

November 16 letter

well hello mother!
i´m glad the surgery went well and everything is going good, bolivia
is crazy hott and humid and when it rains, it rains alot! my apartment
is actually nice compared to what people here live in, but its not
nice at all compared to the u.s. i do have a bed and a tile floor, the
bathroom is sketchy tho, i´ll get pics and try to send them next week,
the computers are so dang slow and take up alot of our time! sressfull
it is!! but spanish is slowely coming, its super stressfull as well,
my companion is elder navarro from chile and he is very helpfull and
teaches amazing! but ya, i got super sick last week and had to stay in
the apartment all day it was crazy, i am pretty sure i had food
poisoning, whatever you do dont eat food off the streets in bolivia!
but its all good now, my first baptism will be this saturday super
dope! hopefully it goes well! well tell everyone hello and i´ll try to
write them when i have time! glad the surgery went well, keep praying,
love you very very much
love elder olsen

Monday, November 8, 2010

Brady is in Bolivia!!

well mother and family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am finally here and it is so
crazy!!!!! we first arrived in santa cruz and its pretty crazy there,
everyone is santa cruz drives cars or busses and there are no traffic
lights or signs so everyone just flies through the streets hoping that
the next intersection there isn´t a car! but we met the mission
president and his wife and ate there and got to know the mission and
things like that, slept in a hotel and then the next day they assigned
us to our areas, my area is riberalta and it is about three hours away
from the city of santa cruz, we flew on this tiny plaine here and it
is soooooo sooooo poor here, its so crazy, nobody has a car, its all
moto´s its so crazy and there is no road, its all red dirt!!! the
houses are shacks and if they are lucky, they have a roof, the floor
is dirt and its just packed with poverty!!!!! the spanish is so hard,
everyone here speaks so fast and i can barely understand them, but
know i´m getting a little more familiar with this place, its like over
a hundred degrees everysingle day and our showers are cold, our
apartment is pretty ghetto but it is actually nice for riberalta! so
we got here safe and sound luckily, the plaine ride was super
sketchy!! i wont tell you about that, actually i will cause it was
CRAZY, so were in miami airport just chillin, waiting for our plaine,
its finally here and were all loaded up ready to go, they back us up
out of the terminal ok and the entire plaine just shuts off, like
electricity and all ok so thats sketchy, problem number one, they tell
us theyre going to pull up and check it out, after a little bit they
finally get it back on, and so were hauling down the runway super
duper fast, we are taking flight and were about a minute or so into
our climax, like over the entire ocean and bay of miami, like the
ocean with sharks and big fish and stuff that bite hard, and were
about half a mile or so into the air, and i am sitting on the right
window seat just behind the wing, ok and the engine on the right wing
goes BANG BANG BOOM BOOM and backfires like crazy, like it spit out 20
foot flames, like alot of fire! and i´m right behind it and i totally
just pooped my pants because i was so scared, it was so sketchy!!!!!!
but luckily the pilot got us back to the ground safely and we switched
plaines and got here safely, but hey dont worry about that, we were
safe we had a plaine full of 21 missionaries and i know the lord was
with us on that one! plus supposidly you can still fly with one
enging, but its better with both!! anyways, thats my story for the
week, dont worry about me, i´m doing good!!! its super duper hard and
stressful because the spanish here is so fast!!!! but its slowely
coming along! well i love you all so much and take care!!
love elder olsen

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

October 26th letter from Brady

HOLA!
como estan familia! how are you all doing? the mtc is greeaat and i leave in one week!! gnarly!! well we just got posted that they will find out on friday if they have our visas and if they do we leave monday if not they put our name in for re-assignment but either way i will be leaving next week!! i'm super duper excited to get out there in the field, yes a little scared but i know that with patience and faith the lord will give me words to say because i'm am an instrument in his hands and he can make me do what ever he wants me to do!!! so yes i am excited! how are all of you doing? whats new??? mother, i am praying for you and your surgery to go well!!! as well as gramma woolleys! so get this!!!.......elder Russell M Neilson came to the mtc for a devotional!! we have devotionals every tuesday night and sometimes we get lucky and have an apostle! and yes we sure did! it was gnarley and he talked about missions and how important they are! spanish is coming pretty good and teaching is coming pretty good as well! me and elder sainsbury are getting better and better with the help of the lord of coarse but we are getting excited! our teachers are amazing and super dope sauce and i read the scriptures so much its crazy!!! everysingle line is underlined just about, i just started reading the book of mormon over again and i didn't realize how sweet second nephi is!!! go read second nefi two throu four! they are the best!

so how was star valley??? how is the extended family doing? all the aunts and uncles and cuz's?? how are the kids doing in school and what not?? get them to read the book of mormon because that is the most important book there is and make sure they understand whats going on!! start from the beginning and read a chapter or two everynight and explain who is talking and what he is saying!!! i promise you will grow a greater love for it and your life will be blessed tremendously!! durring our MDT (missionary directed time) we usually have around three to four hours and durring personal study i just read and read and i usually read up to twenty chapters!!! i started in the middle of last week and i am already in the middle of 2nd nephi!!! is so amazing and the passages in there are so simple and spiritual!!! i dont know how you could not misunderstand the importance of this book!!! well i love you all very very much and i am so grateful for all you do!!!
love you
love elder olsen

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

New letter from Brady!

hello mother and family!!!!!!!!!!!
how is it going? the mtc is great awesom fantastic and whatever other word there is in the english dictionary that describes FUN but really, the language is going great and the studying is going amazing, i finally just started to tell myself how i should probably get familiar with the scriptures better so durring our MDT (missionary directed time) which is about two to four hours, and i just read about twenty chapters from the book of morman and it was great, it was the beginning chapters in third nephi which are the best ones in the book because thats when christ comes to the americas and teaches the exact same thing he did in the bible!!!!!!!! i love studying and learning about the gospel because its so amazing the promises is makes to us, we can have eternal life and live with god if we do one simple thing he wants us to do which he says is...."if ye love me, keep my commandments" thats it!!!!! well in three weeks i will be out in the field, its crazy how the time just flies, i cant believe i have already been out for almost two months, and just yesterday seemed like my first day! i love the work and i am so grateful for the oppurtunity to serve the lord, for everything that he has done for me, in return i'm showing my love for him be preaching his gospel and saving peoples salvation!!!!! this is the best thing we can do, i feel so mature and ready to serve, i dont even worry or care about the outside world, i just wanna preach!!!!!!!!!
well i love you all and now i'm going to go write some letters after i finish up my laundry:)
love elder olsen

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

October 5th letter

Hello jello Family!
the mtc is going great and we learn alot really fast!! my spanish is coming along great however i still need to improve quite a bit but i know that if i put faith in the lord i too can experience the gift of tongues!! the food here is ok they just feed our mouthes like crazy and you can eat as much as you want!! but we have gym everyday and i'll start out with soccer every day then i'll run for the last 15 minutes or so just so i dont get a huge belly if you know what i mean! i love learning as well as teaching!! its amazing the feeling you can get as a missionary, after teaching someone, you feel like your on top of a mountain! its amazing! i only have three more weeks left or four i'm not really sure the time is flying by its so crazy! i cant believe that i'm already over a month out, it seems like last week i was getting dropped off here!! remember that mom?? so how is the family doing!!!??? how is all the aunts and uncles? let them know i am thinking of them and praying for them! whats new back at home? anything? so i'm almost positive that i might be getting reassigned because the visas have not shown up yet! but were being optimistic and praying for them but its all in the lords hands! i'm not too worried if i get reassigned because i just want to get out and start preaching the gospel no matter where its at, although i would love to be in bolivia!! so whats the latest news on bolivia mom, i know they just got done with elections and they are having alot of political unrest, but check up on it and let me know whats going on down there!! well i am going to go write you guys a letter now so you'll be getting that soon... love you all and thanks for all you do!!!
love elder olsen

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

hey guys whats up!!! i am officially one third done with the mtc its crazy i cant believe how much time actually does fly. i just wanna get out in the field so bad tho!! how is everything going back at home?? whats new?? spanish is coming along ok!! we learn so much and i get so excited to serve the lord, and i know that the lord knows each and everyone of us personally and how we work and function because my companion and i have a hard time concentrating and focusing for long periods of time like for our own study time we get to go wherever and study for like four hours!! we have to break it up in groups because we cant sit for that long, any ways one study day we were just having a hard time focusing and so we got up to walk around and 2 old latina peruvian lady's walked out of this building and so i said, hola como esta?? and just started to say hi and they talked back in spanish of coarse so we continued to talk back and they didn't speak any english and we straight up had a full out conversation with them in spanish for like ten minutes it was awesome!!!!! talking to real latinos is the best thing in the world because it made me feel so good and excited to just get out to bolivia!!! but anyways i love you guys
love elder olsen

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Temple day today!

Today Brady is going to the Logan temple for his own endowment. We are all very proud and excited for him. He is way excited too!