South boy through and through

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 Monday, November 6, 2023; Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil:

Wow! This week had a few very interesting things happen for me...

The first is that our Mission President announced a special zoom call for all of the Mission on Wednesday. It seemed very important. When talking to other missionaries, we came up with two possibilities for what it would be. The first and less likely was that for our upcoming Mission Tour [where the Mission President and other leaders tour the Mission], there would be one of the 12 Apostles. We had been told in the past that it would be a member of the Quorum of the Seventy coming. That would be cool, but the second, more supported idea was that maybe the mission would be split up, making two separate missions. Which would be even bigger!

In the end though....

The announcement was that the church will be splitting the Brazil Manaus Mission into two missions: Brazil Manaus North Mission and Brazil Manaus South. It will happen next July, so it honestly does not really change anything right now.

Currently the church has over 72,000 full-time missionaries in 414 missions around the world. They decided to split some of them and create 36 new missions, including splitting my mission. I was surprised to find out my mission was the only mission in Brazil to be split. It does make sense to me however, as the current Brazil Manaus Mission covers 4 Brazilian states [including Amazonas, which is huge]. The change will allow for more growth and let the Mission Presidents work more with specific missionaries and areas. 

There is the question of which Mission I want to be in. The split will actually divide the city of Manaus. The South Mission will take two of the smaller states, as well as most of the state of the Amazon, including small places in the middle of nowhere. One of those places doesn't actually have a chapel, so when they need to baptize someone or use an official building, they actually go into another Mission, in another country (i.e. Columbia). The North Mission has more of Manaus, along with the other 4th state. I personally hope I go to the South Mission, but wherever I'm called, I will go.

I don't yet however know how they will divide the missionaries. That will happen closer to the division.

Besides that, here's a few other things that happened:

-Drank real pineapple juice for the first time
-Recorded my companion and I singing A Child's Prayer in Portuguese 
-2024 church youth theme song got released recently.
-We lost water for a day
-I ate black beans with sugar mixed in, from a Venezuelan
-Started working on learning Spanish a tad bit
-Ate some soft-serve ice cream. Really good!
-I had a division with my trio and another dupla. Elder Gualip switched with another Amercian (USA) for the day. It was fun walking around with two other Americans because EVERYONE looks at you. More so even than just two Americans. 

One of my favorite scriptures is in Proverbs 3:5:
•Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding•

In the scriptures there are tons of miracles. Moses divided a sea. Noah built a boat. People saw angels. Healings, water to wine miracles.

I feel like we think of those miracles as super cool. What if we saw them? What if we could have them in our lives? 

🌟But we do! 🌟

Imagine in the times of Jesus, if they had modern day hospitals? Modern day vaccines, modern day treatment? We have so many blessings, and so many miracles constantly affecting our lives. In an emergency, all it takes is 10 seconds to call the other side of the world. 

And God made all it for us. We have everything because of Him. He made miracles happen in the past, and He does so today. 

All of us need to be more grateful. Confide in God, and He will help us. He will do all that is good for us, as we follow him. 🤜Start today! Follow him! And give more thanks. 🤛

That's it for this week. I hope y'all have awesome weeks!

Elder David Olson
🌴M🌴A🌴N🌴A🌴U🌴S🌴

My Companion and I sang the children's hymn, one of my favorites-A Child's Prayer (Oração de Um Criança)- accompanied by Elder Nielson. You all may not understand the words (or may?) But I hope you all enjoy :) 
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PICS-
-Lunch with a member family 
-My two companions and I, and a random river
-The three of us with a Brazilian flag :)
-Brazilian flag and the Amazonas flag

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