I was in the play this week.....

- April 11, 2023

Tuesday, April 11, 2023; Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil:

Oi all!

This past week has been pretty good.

For Preparation Day last Monday, April 3, all the missionaries in Manaus joined together and went to a museum of the Amazon. Basically, a large chunk of nature that had a few exhibits. We walked on trails through the forest for a little while until we reach a tall tower. We climbed the tower until we were above the tree line. The trees were around the height of normal trees in North Carolina. There was an awesome view and reminded me of being in NC hiking the Appalachian Mountains :) As we continued walking, we went through a few buildings with animals in them. I did not get pictures of these animals because the lighting was bad, and it would have been hard to see. One building had a dozen different snakes, including a big cage for a Boa Constrictor! My first ever seen. It was smaller than I expected. Then another building had spiders and scorpions. Some of the spiders were literally the size of my hand! There was a building with types of fungus. A mini aquarium with some large fish. A green covered pond with an alligator or something similar. We were there for a few hours and then got lunch.

Besides that, I haven't seen any animals that were too crazy, lots of dogs and cats, lots of ants, other small insects, a cool grasshopper, some normal enough birds, and a few large sewer rats.

This week I was able to listen to some of the General Conference talks in English and they are awesome. I even shed a tear or two during one of the talks (yes mom I can cry :).

One of the days I was looking around in my chapel in Brazil and found a few Liahona church magazines in English. I have no clue why they were there (especially because there were in English), however I decided to use them some during personal study time. One of them, the 2013 April General Conference edition, had some special things including the announcement of the Rio de Janeiro temple and record of the Brazil Manaus temple dedication!

The theatre: This week we had a ward activity about family history. To start it off, my companion Elder Paiva organized a brief theatre sketch with spirits in heaven and then people on earth. My companion played a spirit. My role was however not so very different for me. I was...... a missionary :)

Then while having lunch with a member this week, they talked with me a little about food. For example, my companion and the members find it weird to just drink milk straight. Also the idea of things like beans, eaten from a can is weird. On the other hand, the milk I drank was in a shelf stable state, as opposed to needing to be kept cold like most milk in the US. Very weird for me.

We taught a few good lessons but are struggling a little to find interested people. But that is the way with missionary work. We invite others. If they want to come to Christ, they can choose to.

My Portuguese is coming along. Still very difficult at times, but in some settings, I can understand a lot or almost all of what is said. That is mostly in lessons my companion has taught say, 5 times with me, and for which we have studied. But still... progress is progress.

My companion did make me a cool drawing this week.

Foods: Most food here is rice, spaghetti, beans, and some kind of meat-beef, chicken, fish etc. There are a lot of fruit and juice too. But honestly most of the food is the staple-rice beans spaghetti. We did get to try banana chips this week, just fried banana slices that were good. They have hotdogs here, but I guess Brazilians eat hotdogs sliced up instead of whole. At least usually.

This Sunday was Easter so, Happy Easter!! It was interesting because we had a lesson with someone Sunday night. As we walked to their house, we passed several churches with tons of people. They had music playing super loud, one of them had a movie playing. That lesson, and for other lessons, my companion and I sometimes sing a Hymn for the people we are teaching. It isn't the most common for missionaries to do so, but as we both love music and can harmonize, I find it super fun. And I know that uplifting music can easily bring the Spirit into our lessons and lives.

I would encourage each of you to do two things. First is to use uplifting music. Let it uplift you and those in your family and life. And second, remember the reason for this time of year, for Easter. Remember Christ. Not just His life and death for us. But that HE LIVES!

I love you all! Eu Amo Vocês!

Elder Olson

Brazil Manaus

Olson.david@missionary.org

Pics of the Manaus Missionaries at MUSA, the Amazon museum:

-Us behind a pond that had a crocodile or similar.

-My companion, Elder Paiva, and another missionary who my brother Steve met in São Paulo, Elder Da Cruz. We were on top of the tall tower with an awesome view.