Week 65

Hello!

Well this was a pretty tough week. I got sick. Yes, I know, I never get sick, but I got a small cold and thankful I kicked it before it got too bad. Thank goodness for a wonderful sister that brought over 2 cartons of orange juice and airborne. I down that stuff like no tomorrow, my throat was sore and I was losing my voice, but I'm feeling much better now.

We had exchanges with Sister Willam and Sister Mobley this past week as well. I went to Sister Willam's area. I was the Sister Training Leader of these sisters before and they're hard workers. We mostly tracted with not much success, but we did receive a referral for the YSA Elders. They're in a walking area so my feet were really sore at the end of the day.

In order news, we transitioned our investigator whose baptism is schedule for November 22nd to the Central missionaries. He lives out of the mission boundaries so we needed transition him to the Elders in his area. I was pretty sad, but this young man is great! He's converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and is ready to be baptized. We'll hopefully receive permission to go to the other mission for his baptism.

Lots of change is happening in the YSA stake. Like I mentioned last week, there's a new Stake Presidency, a ward was dissolved and two wards were combined. We attended the ward that was recently combined and they announced the ward has a new name, previously known as Sandy Heights ward is now the High Point ward. We're hoping to start teaching a new investigator; she's feeding us dinner tonight. She's really nice and all of her extended family are members. She's from Montana.

My gospel nugget of the week is about obedience. Heavenly Father has given us commandments for our benefit. We show our love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as we obey. Like the scriptures says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." John 14:15. I invite you to read this article, Faith Obedience. May we all strive to be more obedient. I know that as we are, we will be blessed.

Love you all!

Sister Olszowka

P.S. The landlady made Sister Willam and I virgin Pina Coladas for breakfast haha!

Week 64

Happy November!

Can you believe it?! It's November! The leaves are falling and the mountains got their first snow this past weekend. Yikes! It's getting way too cold for my liking. I sleep with 3 blankets, warm socks, a cozy jacket and a blanket over my head! Haha! I don't like being cold.

This week went by pretty fast. Halloween evening we had a zone meeting. All the missionaries were off the streets. We split off into Districts and my current district is pretty great! Sister Aldridge and I are the only Sisters in our district, but we have the Assistants to the President and the Zone Leaders in our district. They're pretty fun and funny to be around. We talked about our investigators and how we can help them progress toward baptism.

We did carve pumpkins last Monday and I carved Hello Kitty, it came out okay. We had a lot of fun! For some reason my camera deleted the other pictures I had of the zone.

This was also stake conference this weekend. Elder Golden and Elder Bourne came. It was a really awesome meeting. Elder Golden spoke about the receiving of the gift of the Holy Ghost. How we need the Holy Ghost and how it sanctifies us. We need to be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost in order to enter into the Kingdom of God. John 3:5 says: "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man beborn of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." The Holy Ghost, teaches us, comforts us, testifies of truth to us.

Our investigator, Jonathan was baptized and confirmed on Saturday. The Spirit was so strong and he was so excited and ready. We received permission to Skype his family in Holland to watch the service. Jonathan is going to do great things in the church. Sister Swain was also able to come to the service as well, and no we didn't coordinate our outfits. Haha!

That's all the time I have for today, but I love you all!

Mom, just a 101 more days! :)

Love,

Sister Olszowka

*Note From Poster: Unfortunately some of the pictures are blurry, time for a new Camera! 

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

Week 59

Thank goodness for rainboots! :)

Yes sirree, it's rained all day Saturday. It wasn't the most effective proselyting day, but we followed up with lots people so we stayed dried .See photo below of me holding a worm.

Remember the miracle I shared last week? Well we had our lesson with this family and it went well! We have a return appointment and will continue to teach her. We hope she can be baptized in early November. We have a few referrals that we're planning to contact this week and hope we can start teaching them as well.

We had two meetings this past week at the mission office. I saw Sister Swain, she's doing well! I miss her plenty kine.

Oh! last p-day, we went to the local mall in Sandy and I ran into a college friend! See photo below. She said, "hey Jade!" and I looked around and I was shocked! It was crazy to see someone I knew! We had a nice little visit in the middle of Macy's. haha!

General Conference is this weekend! woot woot! I look forward to the words and counsel from the Prophet and leaders of the church. I have a ticket for the Saturday morning session. I'm going with 20 other missionaries from the mission.

My time is short today, here's my gospel message for this week:

Love you all!

Sister Olszowka