El Rey de San Ramón y Encontrar Azumiatla

We received the following email on October 14.

Que tal muchachos,

This week was a little rated R in some ways so for the first time ever imma filter my email a little bit and not tell you half the stuff that happened.

On the cool stuff that happened we found this really cool part of our area called Azumiatla that I´m pretty sure has never been visited by missionaries ever. So they´ve also never seen white people before. People come up to me and ask a ton of questions and think it´s super cool that my skin is a different color haha. It´s this cool pueblote on the other side of the hills in our area and it´s a super pretty area. It´s really hilly and covered in houses and tiendas and donkeys and horses and people that speak Mayan. So yeah it was pretty much like finding a jungle temple in Minecraft but in real life. Like we knew some people lived over there but dang there´s a ton of people over there. They´re super nice too. Elder Hawkins and Elder Moyano found a family of 18 that wants to listen to us and Cifuentes and I found a ton of little families that are super nice. I also met someone that has lived in Brooklyn, New York so that was kinda cool. I talked to her about New York and her family for like an hour and it was super fun. So yeah I think the people drought is over and now hopefully we can have some more success.

Also cambios came and I´m the only one staying in San Ramón so now I´m the king of the area. Kinda sad that everyone had to go. Elder Hawkins went back home because he finished his mission, Elder Moyano went to Washington D.C. because he got his visa, and Elder Cifuentes got transferred to Atlixco. My new companion´s name is Elder DeMaso and he´s from Sacramento, California and he seems pretty cool. I haven´t met the other two people in my apartment but I probably will pretty soon.

That was pretty much everything not rated R that happened. If anyone wants to know the crazy stuff that happened feel free to ask and I´ll consider telling you haha.

I love you guys!
Elder Olivier

Fotos:
1. Equipo de San Ramón
2. Me in front of a cool chicken in Azumiatla
3. Azumiatla
4. A video of me trying a cricket in Azumiatla (they´re actually not that bad when you get used to them but the video was my first time trying haha)

President Nelson really just announced the second coming

We received the following email on October 7.

For those of you who are also members of the church and watched conference, you've probably heard all the chismes going around about how President Nelson just announced the second coming. I don't really wanna pick a side or anything but President Oaks also said not to read between the lines which a lot of you guys are doing haha. So if Jesus doesn't come in 6 months y'all just overreacted. Sorry in advance to those of you buying property in Missouri. But who knows, maybe that is what he was talking about.

Conference was awesome though and for those of you who didn't watch it you definitely should. If you look up October LDS General Conference 2019 on youtube you should be able to find it. Some of it might not all be online quite yet though, but hopefully soon if not. I really liked Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk a lot.

This is the last week of the transfer(transfers last every six weeks in the mission) and it's pretty much certain that all 3 other missionaries besides me will get transferred to a different area or go home on Monday. I'm kinda sad about that cause they're all pretty cool but I'm happy that I'm probably gonna stay in San Ramón. The people here are super cool. It's been getting increasingly hard to find people to teach but we're still trying.

We went to this place called Africam Safari today which is this huge African Safari that some millionare built a while back so that was pretty cool. We have some pictures but not all of them so maybe I'll send some more next week.

Anyways I hope you all are doing great!

Elder Olivier

Fotos:
1. Me holding a bird that I captured and don't still have
2. The whole zone at the africam safari
3. Me with an Emu
4. Me and Cifuentes on the rock where they filmed The Lion King (animated and live-action)
5. Elder Cifuentes upset because all the Kangaroos we're sleeping and it wasn't their p-day

Tú eres guapísimo

We received the following email on September 30.

I had my first dream in spanish a few days ago which was pretty cool. It was kind of a weird dream about how my roommate killed someone and got sent home por asesino and I woke up super confused but then realized that it was in spanish and was pretty stoked. I've heard that means I'm fluent or something but there's still a lot I don't know so I don't know how good of a measurement that really is.

Also for those of you that read Elder Sterner's emails you probably know that if you're a white person living in Mexico you get a lot of people tell you that you're really good looking all the time, which boosts my self esteem maybe a little too much. But yeah so we have this 40 year old neighbor that is really in love with Elder Hawkins and I and talks to us a bunch about it. A few days ago she told us un buen de vainas like "Tú eres guapísimo", "A mi me gusta los americanos", y "Ustedes son tentaciones." So yeah we've been running into her way more often now and now we're scared.

Also I've been getting a few emails from people about how they bible bashed with someone so I guess that's the cool thing to do so here's a story:

There's this guy we met on the street like a month ago and he asked us a few questions about our church and asked to meet with us so that was cool. But then we found his name in our teaching records from the last missionaries in the area and they were like "avoid this guy he's crazy and just wants to fight us." So we confirmed the appointment. Probably not the right choice but it happens. But then the guy kept pushing off the appointment and we kinda gave up on him until we ran into him on the streets two weeks ago. We met with him that night and it was pretty insane. He just started attacking us with a ton of questions trying to prove to us that our church was wrong, and the guy came prepared with verses from the Book of Mormon and stories from church history. So we think this guy was preparing to fight us for that whole month, and we didn't prepare at all. I also probably shouldn't be proud of this, but we completely destroyed him haha. It honestly would've gone on for a lot longer but we cut it short and told him that there were people that actually wanna hear our message and that he was wasting our time.

We've been teaching people too but it's been a little slower later which is sad. Maybe we're paying for our sins when we wasted our time with that guy haha. But hopefully it'll pick up again soon.

Love you guys and hope youre all doing great!
Elder Olivier

Fotos
1. Zone conference with some ties we all handmade (not as good as Laura's though)
2. Most of our district in the ferris wheel in Puebla.
3. The Elders in our district in front of the ferris wheel.

Photos

We received these photos via WhatsApp on September 23.

Thanks for the Ties Laura

We received the following email on September 16.

Elder Wilson your girlfriend is amazing she actually sent us ties haha. Also for anyone who would also like some ties handmade by Laura follow @lauradanielsdesigns on Instagram. Also don't worry Elder Sterner I'll get you your tie once I find out how to get it out to the wilderness of Ignacio Majia.

A lot happened this week but it was a little harder to find and teach people cause of Mexican Independence Day and everyone going out of town or absolutely insane. But we went to a lot of ward parties so that was fun.

President Alcala took everyone who got 5 or more baptisms in one month out to eat at some super fancy Brazilian restaurant and to el Centro again. That was actually a super cool experience cause almost all of the missionaries that went to that had been to one before in their mission multiple times. So it was cool to try and figure out how I can be more like them and be more successful.

Eduardo, one of our recent investigators, got the priesthood yesterday. That was pretty cool.

Today for p-Day we went to some park and did a ton of fun stuff and I got super sun burned for the 99th time. Now the kids are gonna ask me por que estoy rojo again.

Someone asked me why I decided to serve a mission yesterday and that was actually one of the first time someone's asked me that. I told her that I know this church is true and that this gospel has completely changed my life. Sometimes we have challenges in our lives that seem pretty impossible to overcome, and I've had a few of those in my life. The crazy thing is that there really is nothing that you can't overcome through Jesus Christ. You can suffer absolutely everything there is to suffer in life but Christ's atonement is always bigger. Christ has already suffered every single pain, sickness, infirmity, and temptation that we can and ever will suffer. If we let him into our lives we can overcome our challenges, and we can overcome them so much that we can turn our weaknesses into strengths and have joy. That's why I served a mission. Because there are people out there that have those weaknesses that can only overcome them through Christ.

So yeah I hope you all are doing great with everything!
Elder Olivier

Fotos
1. Us riding some bikes for p-Day
2. All the elders of San Ramón in some boats for p-Day
3. Elder Cifuentes and I with some other missionaries en el centro
4. El centro
5. A kinda blurry picture of me eating some cool Brazilian meat
6. The 4 elders of San Ramón after Eduardo got the priesthood

Also I forgot to mention that me and Elder Cifuentes are wearing the ties from Laura in the last picture.

 

 

Cinco Bautismos y Misioneros Nuevos

We received the following email on September 9:

Hola amigos,

I had a really crazy discovery this week. In Spanish there are some people that are named Maria Juana, which I thought was a super funny and kinda unfortunate name. But the translation of that name to English is Mary Jane, so now that slang makes sense to me. You´re welcome for anyone who didn´t know that and for those of you who did know that, yeah I´m kinda slow sometimes.

This week was pretty awesome. We baptized a family of 4 and another 9 year old and it was super cool. The family is great. We found them the first week I got here cause someone invited the entire family to church after Eduardo went to FSY, a church camp that they have here. They had a few challenges and some of them were really hard. They took notes during all of our lessons and every sunday in church. And they read the scriptures and studied them. That´s how they overcame their problems. A week before the baptism, the mom told us that she didn´t care about their problems and they were´t gonna stop her. She wanted to be baptized with her kids. Now they´re some of the strongest members in our ward.

Planning baptisms is kinda stressful though. Especially when the important paperwork is in a different language and everyone has 99 names and there´s 5 people. If you notice in the picture I forgot my white tie but its all good. But yeah it was super cool and a super spiritual experience. The gospel really can completely change your life.

Also we got two new elders in our apartment and in our area this week. So now we have 4 elders in our apartment. That can be fun sometimes but also a little distracting too which makes things a little harder. Elder Hawkins is from Utah and will finish his mission in 5 weeks. Elder Moyano is from Brazil, Ecuador, Western Africa, Mexico City, and Arizona, and is trilingual in spanish, portuguese, and english. He just got here in the mission and came from Arizona. He´s actually waiting on his visa to go to the Washington D.C. North mission, which is confusing but also pretty cool. Apparently that mission includes a lot of Maryland now as well as Virginia so some of you guys might be able to meet him.

I hope you all are doing great!
Elder Olivier

Photos: One of all the baptisms this week, one of the family we baptized, and one of some of the missionaries eating tacos.

Baptism!

We received the following email on September 2.

So first off, if you haven´t read the Book of Mormon, read it. If you´ve read it, read it again. If you´ve read it a million times and marked every verse, written in every margin, and cross-referenced every reference to Christ to every other evidence of him on the planet, read it again. Read it starting with the title page, introduction, and witnesses and ending with the last page of Moroni. If you don't have a copy, email me and I'll get one to you. I've only been out in the field for about a month, but I've already seen so many people completely change their lives just from reading the Book of Mormon. It's also the only real way to know whether or not this church is true. And it is true. I bear witness of that. It will drastically improve your life.

Also the members of our ward continue to be amazing and help us find people and teach people and be literally best friends with our investigators. Sometimes I wonder why we even need to be here cause the members already do so much on their own. They're actually some of the nicest, most loving people I've ever met. I realized that it's probably because the church here combines two of the most loving cultures on the planet. So yeah it's pretty cool.

Also we're going to have 5 baptisms on Saturday! We're actually baptizing a family and they're super awesome and have a ton of faith. They come to church with notebooks and scripture marking tools and take a ton of notes. They're super cool too and some of our best friends. They also take notes during our lessons which is super awesome and kinda scary.

A few days ago we found out that we're getting two more elders in our apartment and area which is super cool cause we have a ton of work here and now they can help us with it. They're actually coming in about 10 minutes so I can let you know how it goes next week haha. Also today someone at the mall asked me if I was interested in taking English classes and she was super embarassed when I told her I already know English. Not sure why she asked the only white blonde kid in Mexico, but I'll take it as a compliment I guess haha.

Anyways we don't have a ton of time so I hope you're all doing great!
Elder Olivier

Fotos:
1. El bautismo de Jesus
2. Eating some super good street tacos and cemitas
3. A cemita, basically a taco but with a hamburger bun instead of a tortilla, native to Puebla and super rico
4. Some fruta de nepal, cactus fruit