Zone Preparation-Day, The Spirit

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 Monday, March 18, 2024; Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil:

This week was pretty good, I said most of the exciting stuff last week on the late p-day. 

But this week we resolved some bank problems, taught some good lessons, met a bunch of people. We met this super awesome family of Venezuelans. We are also getting ready for the baptism of a boy named Gustavo.

Today we had a Zone p-day. We have one of two institute [church education] buildings near us, so we were able to hang out there. The institute building has a kitchen as well as Pool, Foosball, ping-pong, and air-hockey tables. A court for sports and more. Also, we ate hotdogs for lunch.

This week I thought a lot about the Holy Spirit. When we visited the [Manaus] temple and afterwards, I was thinking about the Spirit I always feel there, the peace and happiness. And I remembered another friend I have serving a mission in another part of Brazil. In one of his letters, he mentioned how I could have the same Spirit and same feelings of being inside the temple, during my morning studies here on the mission. And so I was thinking about how some places are really good to feel the Spirit, but how it's the same Spirit, and so in any situation, we can choose and seek to have the Spirit with us. While going to holy places with holy people is awesome, the Spirit is always around, and we can and should always seek it.

Wanna be happier? Seek the Spirit. Wanna improve at something? Seek the Spirit. Have a difficult decision? Seek the Spirit. Feeling undervalued or misunderstood? Seek the Spirit. What in our lives can't be helped by the Spirit of God? 

So that's my invitation to all of you. Seek the Spirit at all times and in all places.

Love all of y'all!

Elder David Olson
🌴MANAUS🌴

Pics-
-O Templo
-The missionaries in the city of Manaus. [Elder Olson is on the back row at the left of the big doors behind them.]
-Pouring rain
-I will get on the American missionary trends here in Brazil. Normal classic chocolates flavored fruit? Carmel KitKats, etc.? Really curious to see if they have that in the USA a lot more...?
-A plane, my current area is near the airport. Around once a day a plane goes overhead. Though you can't see it, the plane was super low to the ground.

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