First Week in El Campo!

Zach arrived in the mission field! We received this brief email on July 22. We found the photos on the mission group homepage.

Hola everyone!

So I barely have any time to email but I thought I´d send a quick group one. My first area is a part of puebla that I don´t know how to pronounce so I´m not even gonna try to spell it but it´s in the city in a part called Arboleda or something like that. Also my first companion is from Guatemala and only speaks spanish so I´m probably not gonna speak any English for at least the next 6 weeks but hopefully that means I just won´t speak it at all anymore for the next two years haha. I hope everything´s going well with you guys!

Sorry no pictures but I´ll send some next week for sure!
Elder Olivier

La Ultima Semana del CCM

We received this email from Elder Olivier on July 17:

¡Hola Everyone!

So this our last week in el Centro de Capacitación de Misionero de México! On Monday we take a bus down to Puebla at 4 am and then we´ll probably never be able to speak English again so that's pretty cool. Not a ton of super exciting stuff happened this week but it also seemed to go by pretty quick.

As far as the language is going I think we´ve pretty much reached maximum language capabilities that you can reach in the CCM. We´ve learned all the tenses and everything so we pretty much just need to practice speaking with the Latinos more.

Speaking of the Latinos, I think it must be some cultural thing in Mexico to not care about any racial slurs at all because as we´re learning we´re realizing that there´s a lot of things they just say pretty casually that would probably make the average american´s ears bleed lol. We keep trying to tell them that those things aren´t ok to say, but as Elder Sterner says, we probably don't have the pass to tell them that they don´t have the pass. They also take pretty much everything casually even if it´s normally something really sensitive and serious, which is kind of weird when we´re teaching lessons to people and trying to be super sensitive about certain topics. Turns out most of them really don´t care at all and they just kinda tell you everything casually. If you they have a problem with you they just kinda tell you that too haha. Maybe that's why I got sent here because I do tend to put my foot in my mouth quite a bit haha. Down here everyone kinda does that but it never makes anyone uncomfortable at all. But yeah that might take a while to get used to, they're just really straightforward and open people, but also very hard workers. I think I´ll definitely grow to love it though.

I also started picked up the piano again this week which was fun because I didn't really play at all while I was at BYU last year. It was pretty fun because I made an arrangement of an arrangement I knew of I Believe in Christ, but mixed it with I Need Thee Every Hour. That was a cool experience for me because playing that arrangement has always been one of my favorite ways to bear my testimony of our Savior, but it was cool to add to it as well. The lyrics of the last lines of I Need Thee Every Hour are "I need thee, oh I need thee. Every hour I need thee. Oh bless me now my Savior, I come to thee." I really like I Believe in Christ because it's a strong testimony of the Savior and really who he is and what he did for us. The lines in I Need Thee Every Hour add more of an action to the lyrics, and then the song finishes again with the last lyrics of the first song, "With him I'll stand in that great day When on this earth he comes again To rule among the sons of men." I don't know how much sense that made but yeah I might send a recording to you guys cause I really like how it turned out.

Elder Wilson also shared some thoughts with us from 2 Nephi 4. That's a really cool chapter in the Book of Mormon and you all should read it. In the chapter, Nephi is talking about how he is trying to overcome his weakness through Christ. I especially like verses 17-31. Verse 31, probably my favorite says, "Oh Lord, wild thou redeem my soul? Wilt thou deliver me out of the hands of mine enemies? Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin?"

Hope you guys are doing great and everything!
Also hope no one got offended by the cultural thing but that´s really just how it be down here.

Love you all!
Elder Olivier

READER DISCRETION ADVISED - semana 4

We received the following email from Elder Olivier on July 10:

Hello,

I highly recommend that all women, children, or anyone with a weak stomach not read the following paragraph. It is even written in white so that you have to highlight it if you want to read it at all. That being said, for those that will read it, ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seat belts.

There are several places throughout the human body in which it is unnatural for water to exit. In most cases, the body is great at adaptation and can respond to its needs and environment. These adaptations fail, however, when the water that is leaving the body isn’t actually water, but literal gasoline. In addition, the gasoline is being expelled at high speeds and frequencies that even tens of thousands of years of human evolution could never prepare for, while being accompanied by sand, salsa, and possibly blood. After a full day of this one can experience painful chafing, stomach aches, and straight up hellfire and brimstone lined along the entire large intestine and completely surrounding it’s exit. A second day can lead the victim to question what it was ever like to have a normal bowel movement. Trips to the bathroom can become as repetitive as every 20 minutes for what can seem like an eternity. The victim at this point is likely begging for a headache because it might at least numb the pain. Any attempts at the usage of over the counter medication will fail. (They were all tested in a moderately controlled environment) If what I’ve just described matches something you’ve experienced, see a doctor immediately, you have a parasite. If you didn’t come to that conclusion on your own, maybe see a second doctor as well.

So yeah that was pretty rough. For those of you that didn’t read that, I found out that my sickness last from week was actually a parasite. I kinda told everyone I was better and everything so no that one (that’s you mom) would think I’m dying. But the good news is that one; I found a new source of renewable but definitely not clean source of energy, and two; the parasite is now dead because I went to the doctor and he fed me some killer juice.

Elder Olivier: 1 - Parasite: 0

Anyways, that story was mostly to be funny so hopefully you took it that way and if not I did warn you so that’s kinda your fault. But my week has actually been super great and the bad stuff made for a fantastic story and now it’s super funny.

We went to the temple today! It´s actually 45 minutes away from the CCM so we only get to go once while we´re here but it was super cool. It was the first time I´ve gone through in a different language so that was cool. They gave all the people translators but I tried to mostly listen to it in Spanish. The Mexico City Temple is actually super cool because it´s made to look like the ancient Mayan temples in Mexico so it actually looks a lot like those Book of Mormon paintings with Christ visiting the Nephites on the Mayan temples. We also got these cool sock ties.

We had a ton of spiritual experiences this week and I´m not sure if I´ll be able to get them all down so I´ll try to summarize. We had a cool experience where we talked to a member of the local ward and she told us her conversion story which was really cool. It kinda boosted my confidence with my Spanish because I didn´t understand everything she said but I got all the main points from her story and it was super cool. When we shared our experiences and why we believe in Christ and everything she didn´t look at me like I was really dumb so that´s a big step.

We also had a ton of people talking about how the mission, and life in general, isn´t really about us. It´s about the people we serve. In everything the Savior did he never once looked inward, only outward, even when it seemed impossible. After he was suffering for the sins and weaknesses of the world in Gethsemane he was immediately arrested and taken to the cross. It would´ve been easy to complain and look inward and focus on all of his issues, but the Savior didn´t even get close to doing that. When Peter tried to protect him and attacked the guard that was trying to arrest him, Christ immediately healed the guard. That´s only one example, and there´s a ton more. But I bear witness to everyone that when we turn outward and serve the people around us like Christ did, our weaknesses and trials become much smaller and we become much happier. I can especially testify to that after this week. I know Christ lives and through him all of our weaknesses can be made strong.

I hope you all are doing great with everything you´re doing! Also I´d love to hear updates from everyone on their lives! I promise I read them all but sometimes I don´t always have enough time to respond to everyone individually because we have a limited time every week.

I love you all!

Elder Olivier

 Mexico City Temple!

Visas, Branch Council, and the Plague - Week 3

We received the following email from Elder Olivier on July 3:

Hey everyone!

So this week was super eventful so this might be a lot. On Friday we went to immigration to get our visas done so now we´re legal Mexican citizens for the next two years. That was super fun cause we got to see a lot more of Mexico City. The CCM is super nice and all, maybe one of the nicest MTC´s in the world, but I kinda wish we could go outside more. The city is super cool. It kinda reminds me of a bunch of different American cities all rolled into one depending on what part you´re in. Except everything is in Spanish. I almost bought some tacos from a taco stand but the CCM worker that was with us told us not to because we´re gringos and he thought our stomachs couldn´t handle it. I kinda regret that decision now, it probably would´ve been worth it haha.

Later on Friday we had our second lesson teaching President Olsen and it went a lot better this time. Pretty much the main thing we need to work on is the language but that just comes with time. Also we realized that we say um way too much when we´re speaking in spanish because it requires a lot more brain power. President seemed to think that wasn´t gonna change anytime soon so he told us that we should try to just change our "um´s" to "este´s." That´s actually a really hard thing to do though because if you think about using the "este" instead then you forget what you were trying to say in Spanish and then you end up saying um anyways. It´s also kinda funny because we´re becoming pretty good friends with the President and a lot of people are pretty intimidated by him so sometimes we´ll pass him and say hi to him and stuff and everyone is really shocked by how well we know him haha. We also just found out he´s a convert so that´s cool.

On Saturday we found out that both of our teachers, Hermano Mun and Hermana Cardinez used to be in a relationship and now they got paired together to teach our district so that´s pretty funny. We´ve been trying to figure out more details about that but I´m pretty sure the only way they communicate is through their shared Google Doc about us haha. But whatever they´re doing seems to be working because we´re one of the fastest progressing districts in the CCM. On Sunday we had branch council with all the other district leaders and when we reported our numbers we were leading our branch by far. We´re even ahead of the 5th weekers. We felt kinda bad though because the 5th weekers were really proud of how much progress they made but then we went right after them and told them that we had finished everything for the whole 6 weeks and now we´re just trying to do a bunch of English fasts and memorizing extra scriptures and stuff haha. We did a 4 day english fast on the weekend but that got a little interrupted by immigration and branch council. We´ll probably try to do that again soon.

We had the chance to give Hermano Mun a blessing on Monday. That was a super spiritual experience. We had just finished teaching him a lesson and then we walked back in to get feedback, but instead of giving us feedback, he asked us if we were all worthy of our priesthood. We all said yes and then he asked if we could give him a blessing. It was super unexpected because he was smiling and everything the whole time but it was really cool that we had that opporunity. I guess sometimes you never really know what people are struggling with.

Yesterday was Hermano Mun´s birthday so we got him a cool wood cutout from the tienda and had everyone sign it and put their favorite scriptures on it. Then we all wrote him a card too.

Also yesterday morning half of our casa woke up throwing up because apparently there was some meat in the comedor that wasn´t cooked all the way. I was kinda making fun of them at first cause they all had weak american stomachs, but then I started getting a stomach ache later that day. I didn´t throw up because of my incredible willpower, but there were still some pretty bad side affects haha. We went to the enfermeria and the doctor only spoke spanish and asked me if I was scared of shots. I said no but in the back of my mind was wondering if he was actually gonna give me a shot for something that minor haha. I think he was just kinda messing with me though because he just gave me some pills and told me to go rest. I got to sleep for 5 hours so that was a nice break from everything. My companions appreciated it too cause they got a break too. It also prevented me from way overeating at the comedor again that day so getting sick might be a good strat. I think the chefs feel kinda bad though cause they took out like a quarter of the missionaries at the CCM. And then at the devotional last night Sister Olsen talked about these two sisters in in the holocaust that had to fight to have a good attitude, even while in concentration camps. I´m pretty sure all the new missionaries that came in last night are terrified now haha. Eating the food was totally worth it though. It was good.

But yeah I´m doing mostly great and Spanish has it´s ups and downs but right now we´re mostly just trying to get used to all the different tenses and using them in the correct times. On Saturday I was a little discouraged with my spanish but there were a few mini miracles that helped with that. I seem to understand Spanish the best when there´s something that God really wants me to hear. El don de lenguas I guess haha. But yeah on Saturday Hermano Mun was bearing his testimony to us in Spanish and I understood almost all of it. He was talking about how he had a lot of confidence in us, but in the end that didn´t matter. What really mattered was that God trusted us and that´s why we´re here. It´s kind of like when he was talking to Moses and Moses was afraid of speaking to the people. It was God who made our mouths, not man. If God has confidence in us then that´s all that really matters. And he does have confidence in all of us and he´s always watching over us because he loves us. I know that to be true.

I miss you all and hope you´re all doing great!
Elder Olivier

also sorry for the lack of pictures this week it was raining during the time we could take pictures. but we might be able to go to the temple next week if it opens in time so maybe pictures then!

We received this picture from a package delivery service though:

So we´re basically fluent now

We received this email from Elder Olivier on June 26:

Hey everyone!!

So week two went by super fast and I honestly have no idea what happened this week and what happened last week or the week before cause it´s all kinda just been blurred into one big event. I guess since we´re so busy all the time there´s not really any good way to tell the difference between the days cause a lot of them are similar but also pretty different. It´s been fun though and we´ve been learning a ton. But yeah I might repeat some of the stuff I said last week so if I do that then you´re just gonna have to read it twice cause I only have a limited time every Wednesday haha. Lo siento. 

So Elder Wilson, Elder Sterner, and I are in a trio now and the only Elders in our district. We also got asked to teach the first lesson in Spanish to the President of the CCM, President Olsen, on video every friday. After we teach it he plays back to video to us so we can see everything we did wrong. Not gonna lie it was pretty intimidating at first cause President Olsen is this old white guy that speaks fluent Spanish and kinda looks he´s always thinking about everything you´re doing wrong. But he´s actually just a really nice guy that wears high waters, so not actually that intimidating. It´s gonna be a really cool experience cause he definitely has a lot to teach us and it´s probably the quickest way we´ve learned so far. Hopefully we do better this Friday cause last Friday was interesting haha. Also if we end up in some missionary training video I apologize cause we kinda winged the first lesson and we don´t really know Spanish that well haha. Except for Elder Wilson. Somehow he was just born fluent. El don de lenguas I guess. 

So yeah that was fun and all but then on Saturday (I think) we started really getting into Spanish grammar. Spanish grammar has always been pretty difficult for me to understand cause it might be the one thing in Spanish that´s way harder than English. But I had a breakthrough and realized that the perfect and progressive tenses don´t actually exist. It´s just the word Haber and Estar with a ando/endo/iendo or ado/ido at the end of the verb. So yeah we´re basically fluent now. Not actually but the tenses are a lot easier to differentiate now. It definitely helps to be speaking it all the time too. It´s also fun to find funny words to practice my grammar with. Like I told Hermano Mun yesterday that Elder Wilson estaba coqueteando con las hermanas ayer en el comedor and that I´m gonna tell President Olsen next friday if he doesn´t repent. Hermano Mun is pretty funny and likes to play along with it haha. 

We´ve had a ton of cool spiritual experiences too. Jeffrey R. Holland spoke at the devotional on sunday but it was only a broadcast cause he was in the Provo MTC. America gets all the cool stuff I guess. They had the entire 12 presiding there too so that was pretty cool. But it´s ok I´m not bitter Mexico City is better in every way. But yeah Jeffrey R. Holland talked about how Christ is at the center of everything we do and how our lives will be much better when we remember that. When we focus on Christ and his atonement everything will be better. He talked about 2 Nephi 31 if anyone wants to read that. But also chapters 31 to the end are actually all super cool though so that´s cool too. I really like Nephi´s last words at the end of 2 Nephi cause they´re super powerful. But yeah basically everything here is super spiritual. 

I love you all!!

Elder Olivier

"I want to punch you in the faaaceeeee"

We received this email from Elder Olivier on June 19:

Hey everyone!

This week has been pretty great and I think I´m probably gonna have a lot to say so I apologize in advance if this is really long haha. Mexico City is seriously the most beautiful city ever. Waking up to the super colorful houses all over the mountains is one of my favorite things. I don´t know why they don´t color houses like that in America cause it looks really cool. Apparently Mexico City is one of the biggest cities in the world. I´m not sure how I didn´t know that before coming here haha. The Missionary Training Center has been super fun so far. They really throw you into the deep end with the language but we´ve been trying to make it as fun as possible. It´s pretty cool cause everyone in our district is super motivated to learn everything cause we´re actually gonna be using the language soon. They also put me and my companions in the intermediate class so we´re a step ahead of a lot of the other people here which is a slight confidence booster. (Thanks Señor) It´s still a little hard to talk to the natives though cause they talk really fast and have an accent, but we´re learning really fast. The gift of tongues is definitely real. Both of our teachers also don't know much English so that can be really helpful, kinda difficult in some ways, but also really really entertaining and funny. Hermano Mun is one of our teachers and sometimes he randomly says these English phrases that he learned from his American companions on his mission. One time he asked us why we say "What´s up" and "How´s it going?" but why we never say "What´s poppin´player?" So yeah that was super funny and I really wanna know who taught him that. I also accidentally said something offensive to him in Spanish yesterday and he told me that he "wants to punch me in my faceeee." And then he was like "You wanna throw hands?" and "I´ll mop the floor with you." That was really funny cause he said all those in a really thick accent. Also his favorite English word is "frick" and he says it a lot haha. So I´ve decided when I get a native spanish speaker as a companion we´re gonna teach each other a ton of funny phrases like that. 

The food here is pretty good but all the native Mexicans say it´s not the most amazing Mexican food but not bad either. I think it´s super good but I guess I´m easily impressed. Hopefully that means I'll love the food in the field. The people here are super nice and it´s really cool to get to know all of the natives. My companions and I were talking to one yesterday for a long time and it´s cool to see all the differences and similarities between life here and in the states. We have to ask them to repeat stuff and slow down a lot though haha, but we´re getting better fast. My companions are super cool and really easy to get along with. (We´re in a trio) Elder Sterner is from Manti, Utah and going to Puebla South with me. Elder Wilson is from Cincinnati, Ohio and going to Mérida. All of the natives have a really hard time pronouncing Elder Sterner´s name, like a lot harder than mine, which is really funny. They say it like esterner but have a really hard time pronouncing the r´s. Elder Wilson actually lived in the same building as me at BYU but just two floors above me. He was also in the same major as me too so I´m not sure how I didn´t know him. BYU is pretty huge I guess haha. It's cool though cause we have a few mutual friends. 

This week has been super spiritually uplifting. El don de lenguas, first of all, is real. I guess I haven´t gotten to the field yet but whenever I talk to natives I feel like I´m definitely improving. It´s also super cool to see everyone else´s motivation to be here. Everyone in our district seems to have super strong testimonies so that´s super cool. It´s cool to hear their favorite scriptures and their takes on them and everything. There´s a ton of stuff and it might be a lot if I told you everything spiritual that happened this week so I´ll try to pick some of the best. 

I read in Ether 12 in the Book of Mormon this week cause one of my favorite verses is in there. I´ve always really loved verses 27 and 28 because it talks about how if we come unto Christ with our weaknesses, he can make our weakness strong through his atonement. Christ always knows exactly how we feel in every situation because he´s actually suffered exactly what we have suffered. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and if we lean on him, he can make us much better than what we could make ourselves on our own. This time I studied the rest of the chapter as well, which was really cool cause I´ve never studied that as much. Moroni is speaking in this chapter, recounting all of the miracles that happened in the Book of Mormon because people had faith. At the end Moroni is praying to God, asking him how people are going to understand his writing because he´s really bad at it. He´s afraid that the people are going to make fun of his and his people´s writing because of how poorly written it is. That´s when God steps in and tells him that he can make his writing strong. 

That was a huge testimony builder for me because it´s pretty easy to feel like Moroni right now. But I know that if God can help Moroni and the other writers in the Book of Mormon write a book as amazing as that, then God can definitely help me learn a language. 

We also had a really good devotional last night about true repentance and conversion in Alma 36 where Alma talks to his son Helaman about his conversion story, but I´m realizing my email´s getting pretty long and I'm not sure if any of you will read this far so I´ll spare you haha. 

I miss you all and thanks for all the love and support!

Elder Olivier

June 11 incoming missionaries to the CCM. 

Elder Olivier is 3rd from the left in the 2nd to back row.

Elder Olivier Arrived Safely to the Mexico MTC (CCM)!

Elder Olivier had his missionary farewell and open house on June 9, then was set apart as a missionary in our home by President Clark Maxwell, 1st Counselor in the Valley Forge Pennsylvania Stake. He was originally booked on a flight from Philadelphia to Mexico City via Dallas Fort Worth on the early morning of June 11, 2019, but shortly after he was set apart, we found out his flight from Philadelphia to Dallas was cancelled. A phone call to Salt Lake missionary travel emergency line and he was booked on an even earlier 5 am flight. As a result, mom and Elder Olivier did not get any sleep the night before as we had to leave for the airport at 2:30 am. We got to the airport so early the check in lines weren't even open. Needless to say, we loved being there for Zach to wish him well on his mission and were happy when we received this simple email from him later that afternoon.

The following message was received on June 11:

Hey mom!

I just made it to the MTC and I´m getting all settled in. The flight went really smoothly and I found some other missionaries.

Love,

Zach

Family photo following farewell Sacrament Meeting

Open House

  Zach and cousin Tyler

Zach and school friends

 Airport farewell waiting for baggage check to open

At the airport before saying goodbye