Week 35

Hi Family and Friends!

Remember a few months ago I mentioned we were teaching a woman in Sandy and her name was Nola? Well she got baptized yesterday! She decided she was ready and willing to follow our Savior Jesus Christ. I was able to go back to Sandy for her baptism. See photo below. Boone her step-dad pictured at the end has been coming back to church after being away for 40 years! I'm so happy for them both. It was truly a miracle!

We also went on exchanges with two sets of Sisters this past week. Sister Riggs shown below is finishing up her mission at the end of this transfer (April 23). She's from Alaska and served in the area I'm currently in.

I helped Sister Jensen finished another puzzle. hehe. I actually enjoy doing puzzle. After a long day and evening planning, I come home and help her with a few pictures.

Miracles are happening left and right. Small miracles, but regardless they are truly miracles! We are working hard and have faith. Everything will happen in the Lord's will and timing. We need to be patience. Sister Swain and I are teaching a new investigator, Anthony. Keep him in your prayers.

In closing, with Easter Sunday approaching I invite you to watch this video.

http://easter.mormon.org/

#BecauseofHim

Love you all!

Sister Olszowka

Week 34

Man! What a BUSY week!

We had lots of meetings this past week, especially now that I'm a part of the Mission Leadership Council. We had interviews with President Chambers as well and he's such a great leader. I definitely appreciate him and his wife so much!

General Conference was this past weekend. We were able to take our investigator Mitch to the Saturday morning session. We took TRAX to and from downtown. Good thing we took our jackets, because it was sunny in South Jordan but when we got downtown it was somewhat cloudy, windy and overcast.

It was really awesome being in the conference center and seeing the Prophet and Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All the talks were really great. I really enjoyed Elder Hales talk about obedience. We need to be careful who we follow. Are we following the Savior? or are we following Satan? Think about it. The Savior said, "follow thou me." 2 Nephi 31:10. We read in John 14:15 "if ye love me, keep my commandments." By being obedient is the way I express my love for my Savior. We need to do what is right and let the consequence follow. We cannot pick and choose the commandments  that we will obey and disobey. Obedience brings blessings. I invite all of you to reflect upon your life and make changes to follow the example of our Savior.

Also as we were leaving the Conference Center, I ran into a old friend from Olympia, Melissa. She recently moved to Utah and is a teacher too.

Hmm. what else? Lately, after nightly planning, I've helped Sister Jensen with her puzzle. I usually don't have the patience for these kind of things, but I actually somewhat enjoy puzzles. Mom, I know you LOVE puzzles! The final product is shown below. Cute yeah?

Have a great week!

Love,
Sister Olszowka

Week 33

"Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions."
How true is this quote? :)

In a talk entitled Desire by Elder Dallin H. Oaks talks about "to achieve our eternal destiny, we will desire and work for the qualities required to become an eternal being."  It was really eye opening. I encourage you all to read it.  (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/desire?lang=eng)

This week went by really fast! We Went on exchanges with Sister Meyers and Moberg. I went to West Jordan with Sister Meyers, she's from Oregon and has been out 2 months. We worked really hard that day and had 8 lessons with less active members. We walked and it had been raining so I had some pretty bad blisters by the time I got back to South Jordan.

We had a mission conference with all 256 missionaries. It was really awesome! I saw some of the missionaries from my MTC district which I haven't seen at all since coming out to the field. Then of course I saw Sister Monarrez and Sister Paredes who were previous companions. Anyways, this one man came and talked about how he climbed Mt. Everest! What I took away from the conference was to set goals and achieve them.

Other than that, Sister Swain and I are doing good. A little bit of a set back with our investigators, but we continue to pray for them. We're still hoping to go to General Conference this week with our investigator Mitch and his girlfriend.

Funny story. Last week on our P-day, is was super sunny but still somewhat windy. But Sister Swain and I wanted to lay out in the sunshine. So we were laying in the backyard and Sister Jensen, our elderly Landlady's cat, Raja came and joined us. I feel bad for him, he's super old and doesn't get much attention. poor guy. So I let him chill with us, even though I don't like cats much.

I'd just like to close with another excerpt from Elder Oaks talk..." I hope each of us will search our hearts to determine what we really desire and how we rank our most important desires."

Love you!
Sister Olszowka

P.S. The picture of me holding my hands in an 8, sister swain is holding 10 and the last Elder is holding 11, we're all from Kamehameha. Holding our graduating years...here's a better photos of us...me , Sister Swain and Elder Clark (his mission is pau in April)

Week 32

Greetings!

It's been a great week! We did some service for our landlady, Sister Jensen, she's 83. She has 1/2 an acre in the backyard with some fruit bearing trees. Someone came to prune them, but I guess the service didn't include branch removal! We had fun helping her. She was also in the hospital this past week so we held down the fort at home.

We also did some service for the Young Women's in the 3rd ward. They're having their New Beginnings this week and the theme is "The adventure awaits" so Sister Swain and I painted the little playhouse, pictured below. Isn't it cute?! I think so :)

The Lord has blessed us with two new investigators. They are pretty great people and are searching for the truth. We have appointments set up with them this week to teach them more. I know that when we are diligent and have faith, the Lord will provide miracles. We'll continue to make more contacts this week.

We also went on exchanges on Friday. I went to West Jordan and was companions with Sister Lopez. She's from Texas and is a great missionary, see photo below. We got to ride bikes! I have a bike, but haven't used it much during proselyting. But Sister Lopez and her companion bike in their area, it's pretty flat. So I got to use Sister McLean's bike and we definitely got to places a lot faster than walking. However, I didn't dress warm enough so I was pretty cold when the evening rolled around.
Hmm what else? We taught the 8th Relief Society lesson. It was based on Elder Hales' conference talk. He spoke about how we should take what we hear, learn and feel from General Conference and apply it into our lives.

That's it for now. Love you lots!

Sister Olszowka

Week 31

AHHH!!!

I was transferred!! Totally unexpected, but guess who's my companion?! It's SISTER SWAIN!!! :) :) The two Hawaiian sistahs are together and in action! I'm still in South Jordan but now in the Country Crossing Stake. We cover 11 wards and 1 branch. There are A LOT of apartments. We're trying to build our teaching pool so we're knocking on doors and looking into former investigators. We picked up a new investigator this week; her name is Dakota and is from a part member family. We're hoping to teach another new investigator, her name is Robyn and is from Montana. We also hold leadership positions in the mission now. We're the Sister Training Leaders. We cover 5 other companionships and basically we encourage, support and help the Sisters. We have 24 hour exchanges with them. We swap companions for 24hrs and help them find and teach.

We went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple today as well. It was awesome. I've been to all three temples in the valley now.

The picture below is of my former landlords, Brother and Sister Jolley. She's from South Africa. I'll definitely miss them.

Alrighty, that's all the time I have today, until next week. Love you lots!

Sister Olszowka

Week 30

We had TWO miracles happen this week!!!

We've been trying to contact this one house. We've met the woman twice, we gave her a Book of Mormon and said we'd come back to follow up on her reading. Well the third time we stopped by her son said she wasn't home so come back on Monday. Well after dinner, I had a strong feeling from the Spirit to go that house NOW! So we did and when we got there her other son was walking out the door, he said his mom wasn't mom but we started to talk to him. His name is Angel, he's 20 and he said he had lots of Member friends and after teaching some restored truths on his doorstep we invited him to be baptized and he said yeah! Talk about a miracle. We set up an appointment for tonight and invited him to church on Saturday and said he'd come but he didn't. Small set back but we continue to work with him and potentially his whole family.

Wednesday we went to a social at the church building and one Sister approached us and said her son just turned 9 and he was planning to be baptized at the end of the month. However if you're older than 8 you need to be taught by the missionaries. So we had a lesson this past week and he will be baptized on March 29th. He's such an awesome kid. He's the grandson of one of the Bishop's in the area.

Miracles left and right I tell you. I'm so thankful to be a part of this great work. Heavenly Father will bless us for our diligent in bringing others unto Christ.

We had exchanges as well this week, and guess who came to my area?! SISTER SWAIN! Man, we had a lot of fun together. I hope we're companions at some point in the mission. We worked hard that day and night but it was soooo nice to be with another local girl!

There's a care facility in our area and apparently an elderly gentleman who has Alzheimer’s went missing on Saturday. Yes, they called and visited every home in the neighborhood and asked people to check their sheds and places where he could have gone to find shelter. They were still looking for him Sunday morning. Thankfully he was found in Sandy. They don't know if he walked or what but thank goodness he's alive.

Alright family, I love you lots!!! Until next week.

Sister Olszowka

Week 29

HAPPY MARCH!

Can you believe it already? There's only 10 months left in the year!

Well my 24th birthday came and went and it was pretty low key. We knocked on doors most of the day, no one was home. Our dinner appointment bought a cake and sang Happy Birthday. The District Leader, Elder Carlyle and Elder Denny called and sang Happy Birthday which was funny! President and Sister Chambers texted me that morning as well with a birthday text.  Mom and dad, I got the goody box will all my favorite snacks. Thanks for the beautiful earrings! I love them! Sister Dean baked the strawberry cake and put real strawberries on it. I can't believe I'm 24! Where have the years gone?! I thank my Heavenly Father for another year of life, the journey continues to get better and better. :)

The work has been slow, but continues to move forward. We had two lessons with investigators this week. Dani who's from a part member family and then one with Patrick. They both committed to baptismal dates in April. They didn't make it to church, but we'll be stopping by this week for another lesson.

Yesterday, I bore my testimony about missionary work and I mentioned Brother Birch's (88 year old who was baptized in November) in my testimony about how that was a miracle and it's never to late to follow our Savior's example and be baptized. Well a woman got up after me and bore her testimony and said that Brother Birch was her uncle! and that she didn't know he was baptized! She's been praying for him and she was so happy to hear the news.

I also met distance relatives in church as well! I've met so many people with connects to Hawai'i, La'ie, and family. These elderly people are related to the Day's...I met David's cousins. I think. I can't remember now. Dad I met someone who's brother did scouts with you back in the day in Oakland. haha.

Funny story. Well doing so service, we were picking up trash along the road, we found a phone number. Sister Dean insisted that we text the number, it was a Washington number, so we did. Said we found this number on the side of the road and asked if they wanted to meet with LDS missionaries. Well the person texted back and wrote "stop." I think they thought we were an automated service. haha! It was worth a shot right?! LOL!

Lastly, we met one of the former General Relief Society President, Sister Barbara Winder. Her husband was the first Temple President in Nauvoo Temple. Super nice people! They live in our neighborhood. Their daughter wrote "Daughters in My Kingdom" book too!

Take it easy and continue to do what is right. Love you all!

Sister Olszowka