Pizza, Sol, Progressão

-

 Monday, February 5, 2024; Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil:

Bom dia, boa tarde, boa noite a todos. Bem vindos a mais uma carta cheio com Sol, Milagres e muito mais. 

This week we had lots of awesome lessons. Only a few small complaints from my face as the sun shone and from my feet after walking for hours each day.

After my email last week, we ordered pizza to celebrate my 1 year on the mission. 

This coming week will be the start of Carnival which I guess is a big thing in Brazil. While I feel like my part of Manaus is secluded enough, it is true that anything similar to a holiday (even weekends!!) turns some streets into bars. 

Today we had a Zone p-day with around 20 missionaries in my Zone. The activities included a version of dodgeball, frisbee😍, and tereré. We ordered lunch. It had, very surprisingly: Rice, Beans, spaghetti, chicken, and a little salad. On ordering, one of the other Elders (Brazilian🤨) compared the chicken to Chik-Fil-A. It wasn't quite that good. But honestly was pretty similar.

The week was filled with lots of small miracles, many of which I may not have seen. We visited a lot of people, members attending church and others not, as well as lots of other people. When we got to church on Sunday there was an awesome turnout, including people who have not been going to church in years, and others. It was also Fast and Testimony meeting and was super uplifting to hear the testimonies of so many people. And we got a surprise visit during church from the APs🥸 [Assistants to the President of the Mission].

This week my companion shared some really helpful feedback with me about how I am as a missionary, about my Portuguese, and more. Some of it was a little hard to hear, but good feedback and critique can be extremely helpful. Progress with anything in life is important. Progress includes looking to the past, the present and the future. Here are 5 steps for progressing and planning progression:  

1 - Look to the past - How far I have come already? ✅
2 - Look at the present - How are we doing right now? What changes are needed? 📊
3 - Look to the future - Where do I want to go? What is my objective? 📈📅
4 - Look at my trajectory right now VS. Where I want to go. 📊
5 - Go and Do - Make the necessary changes. Try, and fail. But keep going. Do your best. 🌟

I know that progression is super important for me and for each one you! Not just important to us, but necessary. Our Heavenly Father created a plan for us. The first part of the plan happened before this life, even though we don't remember it. But the second part of that plan is happening now. It is the life of each one if us! To learn and grow and gain experience, among other things. 

A question for each one of us is this - in our 'test of life'-are we just learning enough to get a 'pass' or are we trying our best at a 100%.?

I challenge each of you not to do the bare minimum, but to really reach. Learn something new this week, something apart from your normal work or schooling. 

That's it for this week.  

Love all of y'all!

Elder David Olson
🌴MANAUS Brazil🌴

Pics- 
-1 ano na missão! Pizza :)
-View
-Lunch with a member family
-Family home evening with another member family
-P-day with my Zone

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rain, General Conference, voting

-
Image
 Monday, October 7, 2024; Floresta Ward, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil: This past week was pretty good! How was y'all's week? This week's weather was fun. It rained a few times, one of them being super-hard. The options were Rain, Sun and humidity, or clouds and smoke in the air. The rain was the best option.  One of the days that it rained we got soaked. So... I won't be using those shoes for a few days.  Sunday was like national Brazil voting day. So, we had a decent amount of rallies, car honking parades, and other campaigning happening this week. I guess someone thought that throwing small campaign cards on the ground will make people vote for their candidate... But it's required to vote here in Brazil. Even the Brazilian missionaries like my comp, Elder Santos, from other cities and states had to vote, though online. I'm still trying to figure out exactly who and what places were being voted on   but yeah. Definitely interesting to see the voting culture here....
Read more

Conference and a... Surprise!

-
Image
 Monday, April 8, 2024; Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil: Olá pessoal, tudo bem com vocês? Esta semana passada foi boa, com duas conferências, serviço, devotional e uma surpresa! Last Monday all the missionaries in Manaus had a devotional with the Manaus Temple President, President Milder. He gave a superb devotional on Jesus Christ and his Atonement for us.  Other things that happened: -We had Zone Conference this week -Tried sushi for maybe the first time... yeah, I'm not a fish guy -Did a service project for an awesome family -Some awesome sunsets this week -Lots of rain too -General Conference was interrupted by a car playing music super loud in the street As my comp and I were walking along, I subconsciously saw IT. Right after my companion pointed it out, and then my brain finally realized what it was, and I literally jumped away from it. An Iguana. This one living though. It was probably 5 feet long, with its tale being super long and skinny.  This past weekend was General...
Read more

Transfers, Faith and obedience

-
Image
 Monday, February 12, 2024; Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil: This week's letter will be short.  We had a ward barbecue-the food was awesome-and played games like Ping Pong and Uno. Because of the Lord's commandment, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don't drink coffee. But here in Brazil there is a drink kind of similar, but also different than coffee, called Cevada. The members here drink it. Personally, I don't like drinking hot drinks in a hot climate, but it's ok. But this week we were working with one of our friends on stopping his use of Coffee and took him some Cevada to try instead. One day this week we were walking near a store and saw an older woman who had a grocery cart full of heavy things. We helped her load them into her car, said goodbye and left. Then a few minutes later her car pulled up to us on the road and she asked if we wanted a ride. In the end she saved us around 30 minutes of walking and it was on her route. God works so m...
Read more