Week 63

Hi All!

Well another week has come and gone. A lot has happened! Like I mentioned we had zone conference this past week. Our musical number went great! There's a photo below of us.

I'm truly blessed to be serving under THE GREATEST Mission President, President Chambers. He is such an inspired man. He radiates the Spirit so strongly. He gave some really good training. In part of his training, he talked about David and Goliath. How David, an average boy, went to the brook and chose five smooth stones to take with him to fight Goliath. President Chambers has given us "five smooth stones" to help us as missionaries and individuals. These are the Utah Salt Lake City South Mission Core Beliefs.

1) I will learn, love live and teach the Doctrine of Christ. I am called to the work of harvest; bringing souls to Christ and to the blessings of the Atonement will be my passion

2) I will be a Preach My Gospel missionary and be exactly obedient to the Missionary Handbook

3) I will fear no man. As the Lord's Representative and in doing His work, I will boldly go forth and open my mouth to share the gospel with everyone

4) I will strive daily through scripture study, prayer and personal righteousness for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. I will courageously follow His direction

5) I will let the Sacrament change me each week as I use it to access the Atonement and to renew my covenants with the Lord.

I love all of these. This is who I am as a missionary, but also this is who I am trying to become personally. I read these every morning and reflect upon myself. Asking myself, how can I become a better disciple of the Savior? I know it's through my words and actions. I testify that as I live the Gospel of Jesus Christ I feel feelings of comfort, peace and happiness. I'm so happy to be on a mission. Yes, it's hard at times, people can be pretty mean, but I can't dwell on that, we're all brothers and sisters and we need to show increased love and kindness. Heavenly Father's plan is perfect and it's our job to be obedient to receive all the blessing He has in store for us.

In other news, we picked up two new investigators this past week. Also another young man we're teaching accepted to be baptized November 22nd! Our investigator from Holland will be baptized this coming weekend so we're looking forward to that. He's excited and ready. Stake conference is this coming weekend too and we'll hear from Elder Christoffel Golden of the seventy.

We're carving pumpkins today, so look out for more pictures next week. We stopped by a wonderful family that I knew in South Jordan and they donated ALL the pumpkins for the zone activity today.

Okay family, I love you lots!

Sister Olszowka

Musical Group

Every time this Elder sees me, he's says "ALOOOHA!!!" haha! This is Elder De Mata, I laugh at this picture every time. haha! He actually was sent home on medical release, this past week. he fell off his bike and now needs surgery, ouch!

Assistant to the President (AP) Elder Maestas, he asked to get a picture of us throwing up the shaka :)

Pretty roses

More Fall Colors

Pumpkin Patch

Week 62

Another week here in Sandy YSA!

Where does the week go?! I can hardly remember what happened...hmm..

I think I mentioned there are two sets of missionaries in the stake, a set of Elders and us. They're super funny and great missionaries to work with. There was a baptism on Saturday, and the Elders were teaching him. We attended to baptized and gave support. It was nice.

Zone Conference is coming up this week and I was asked to sing with two other Sisters and two Elders. I'm excited! :) I enjoy singing so I was honored that I was asked. I'm the only one singing alto and we're singing my favorite hymn. We also have two lessons set up this week with potential investigators so the Lord's work is moving forward.

We FINALLY figured out the logistics for the baptized coming up November 1st. We're teaching a GOLDEN investigator from Holland. He is SO AWESOME! He works for the Utah Jazz and he's ready to be baptized. His boss at work has been teaching and inviting him to church and activities for the last year.

We raked our first batch of leaves of the season. Haha! The leaves are changing and falling rapidly. Enjoy the photos below of the fall colors.

I looked at the calendar and I'll be home in 16 weeks. Crazy! The time is flying and I've learned and continue to learn so much. I'm so grateful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that by obeying Heavenly Father's commandments we are blessed. I'm so happy. I'm thankful for the Book of Mormon and love reading for it daily. If you haven't read it, read it!

Have a blessed week! I love you all!

Sister Olszowka

Week 61

Greetings from SANDY Young Single Adult Stake (YSA)!!!

Yes, transfers happened and I was transferred back to SANDY! Like any transfer, it's always a little bitter sweet to leave and move on, but I know I did my best and worked hard in South Jordan. I can definitely say with the Lord's help, I left the area better than it was before I got there. Sister Cook stayed in the area and I was a little worried about how she'd do, but I know she'll be okay. Our car that we used also was taken out of the area and another set of sisters use it in South Jordan.

My companion is Sister Aldridge from Missouri and she's been out 13 months. She came into the mission the transfer after me. She has worked in the area for 3 months so she is filling me in on things. Working with Sandy YSA is totally different than working in a homeward. We work with adults ages 18-30 yrs. and our area is pretty big, it's pretty much half of Sandy. There are two sets of missionaries in the YSA stake. Although we only cover five out of nine YSA wards, each ward is made up two family stakes. So with that said, I'm somewhat back in my first area! I past the streets I walked on for the first 6 months of my mission daily.

We work mostly off of referrals, so we're constantly asking people who they know who is a young single adult and would be interesting in hearing from the missionaries. Or there's a lot of activities that happen, such as Family Home Evening, institute class, ward prayer, volleyball, etc. that we invite people to. There's a lot of reactivation work too. Lots of young adults lose sight of the importance of the gospel. I can't tell you how many doors I've knocked on in just the last 5 days and the person we're looking for doesn't live there anymore or they say they're "too busy" to come to church.

Here's my gospel message of the week:

I love you all! Continue to pray unto the Lord for continuous guidance and strength

Sister Olszowka

Photos below:

 I love Melba! She's the sweet neighbor in South Jordan, we always did service for her.

 Cute harvest decorations

 Sunset in South Jordan

 Braden Dillon, little brother reports to the MTC this Wednesday! He's going to be an AWESOME missionary!

 Being funny!

Sister Aldridge and I

Week 60

Greetings!

What a busy week it has been!

We had a meeting with all of the Sisters in the mission on Wednesday; basically training and good words of wisdom from President and Sister Chambers. We met as a mission on Thursday to watch the documentary "Meet the Mormons." I highly encourage you to watch it, it was AWESOME! The film was produced by the church and captures six individuals who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) in all their reality and humanity. "These husbands and wives, fathers and mothers share their experiences as they try to balance faith and family with work, hobbies, and culture. The film shows that even though members of the Church are very diverse, they are all part of a big family striving for the same goals."(Ensign, October 2014)

Then to top it off, it was General Conference weekend! I love conference. It's so amazing to hear words and counsel from our prophet and leaders of the church. I didn't bring my notebook to share what I really enjoyed, but look out for next week for that post. Saturday morning some of the missionaries and I caught trax to downtown. It was fun to go as a group, especially with Sister Swain. We sat really close to the pulpit (see photo below). When conference was over and we were walking out I ran into people from Hau'ula, I saw Drake Auna and his wife! Crazy! We watched the Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning sessions with Sister Jensen, our landlady, and then Sunday afternoon we had lunch and watched conference with the Harris family. They have Hawai'i ties so it was lots of food of course!

As far as missionary work, we're always looking for people to teach and share the restored gospel. We spoke with a woman on the street last night, she's from Arizona and she invited us back so we'll see how that goes. Our other two investigators, both kids, will most likely be baptized in November so we continue to teach them weekly.

Transfers are this week. I love you all! Continue to do what is right and be obedient.

Love,
Sister Olszowka