Wait on the Lord

Dear Family and Friends,

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

"Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord."

--Psalm 27:1, 14

This wonderful pair of scriptures has been on my mind this week.  I have been feeling absolutely wonderful in my new area with my new companion!  Elder Oliver is the best, and we get along super easily.  We are working with all our might together in unity, and we are helping each other improve.  He is super tranquilo like me, and we just work well together.  We know we are imperfect, and we are able to set that aside to focus on the Lord and His strength, and then we can focus on tackling our weaknesses together.

this week the focus of the zone was great street contacts and placing baptismal dates in the first contact.  We achieved our goal of 14 dates placed this week, and we were able to improve our contacting skills together quite a bit!  It´s hard to come up with the portion of doctrine that shall be meted out unto every man in a heartbeat when contacting some rushed person in the street, but we´re getting better at being quick, urgent, and following the spirit.  

Yikes, se me fue mi tiempo . . . . my time has left me.  Already???  Um . . . today I had to go to Montevideo to sign a visa paper -- I got to see all my CCM friends, even those in the other mission!  how fun!  

We had a miraculous contact on Saturday -- he called us over, gave us soda, and told us he wanted to be baptized!  Luis is wonderful.  He has been in jail many times and has a sad life, but we are going to start teaching him.  He came to half of church yesterday, but had to leave before sacrament meeting sadly.  Pray for him!

I am super happy!  I hope to work even harder this week and learn even more!  I am feeling comfortable but not content!  I will give everything to the Lord.

Love you all so much!!!

Elder Max Olivier

Esteeeee .... cómo es?‏

Hello everyone! ... from MINAS!!!

I have just arrived (since Friday) in Minas!  It's a beautiful city known for its "mountains" or hills.  I love it already.\\

You'll never believe who my companion is . . . Elder Oliver!!!  Hilarious, no?  He is the district leader here.  We live in a house of 4 elders, but right now 2 others are also living with us -- Elder Contreras (who was my zone leader when I first arrived) and his new missionary Elder Johnson (from Orem!).

Yikes, as usual my time escapes me, but there's so much to tell you all!

Despite the uncertainty, my last days in Florida were wonderful -- my time spent with the zone leaders there was some of the best days of my mission, because we were able to exercise faith and work hard despite not knowing what was going to happen with my companion situation.  Elder Rivera is physically completely better now and is back in Peru now. 

I witnessed so many beautiful little miracles just before leaving Florida.  We were able to find some very promising new people to teach who accepted baptismal dates!  I wish I could be around to teach them, but I know that they will progress and change and grow. 

Ugh, there's no time left to tell you just what those wonderful experiences were.  Know that I have built my faith greatly in the power of my calling, and in the ability of the Atonement to overcome all my faults and flaws and weaknesses.  I know that I have been called by God's prophet to do His work, and I am so excited and happy about that!!!!

Church in Minas was mas o menos . . . the branch needs a lot of help here, and needs new members, too.  I am eager to work more!  I still need to get to know the streets -- I'm so lost right now!  But I am excited!

Chau!\\\\\

Love you all so much!!!

Working hard and feeling the Spirit and feeling the heat!

Dear friends and family,

I have had some wonderful experiences this week, and some hard ones too.

You would not believe how HOT and HUMID it has been lately!  Wooooo!  It can be difficult at times, but I actually kinda enjoy it.  I feel like an official missionary sweating buckets and walking in the street for 6 hours. :)

My companion got very sick and had to go to the hospital on Thursday night . . . now he is recovering in a hospital in Montevideo.  I have heard that he is getting lots better, but I don`t know if or when he will return to Florida.  I am supposed to find out tonight.

On Tuesday, I had a wonderful intercambio with Elder Vazquez in my area -- I love that man!  We had a great day working to find new investigators, and we gave everything and worked really hard.  We were able to achieve our goal of the intercambio -- 3 baptismal dates placed!  I learned to improve my contacting skills and to not stress about being imperfect (heavens, how many times do I have to learn that before I will feel it deep inside?).  Hey, that`s my goal for this week!!!  I will do everything I can to feel that deep inside -- that I don`t have to be perfect, nor can I be, and that I am fine the way I am as long as I am facing the right direction and progressing.  Which I am.  Yay!

Anyways.  Wednesday night was amazing -- we encountered a wonderful miracle!  I saw a woman sitting in front of her house out of the corner of my eye, and saluted her and walked over to talk.  She immediately invited us to sit down and have a drink, and is an inactive member.  She later said that she was wondering whether to call us over from the street, and then I saluted her.  I am so glad I was able to hear the Spirit`s still small voice in that moment.  We challenged her to pray, and with her read an extract from 2 Nephi 4, and she accepted and wants to come back to church.  Then we talked with her husband (not married, not LDS), and he accepted the challenge to be baptized if he feels a response from God.  We had one other charla with them this week.  They are awesome!  They are Yenny and Martin.  She started praying again and feels a lot better, and they committed to pray as a couple and read the Book of Mormon together.

Marisol is doing well!  She really wants to be baptized, but is struggling to stop smoking.  We had an amazing lesson with her and Pte. y Hna. Martinez of our branch, and also a lesson with Hno. Oyarzabal.  She couldn`t come to church because of her job, but should be able to come next week.  The goal for her baptism is the 24th!!!  Pray for her -- she needs lots of help. :)

Well, I don`t have too much time left -- I have been loving working with my zone leader Elder Macavilca.  I have worked a bit in his area and mostly in my area.  I have been living in the zone leaders` house since my companion got sick.  He is such a Christlike missionary and I am learning tons from his very good example.  We found a couple new promising investigators yesterday, but I still have hardly anyone to teach.  I humbly ask for your prayers that I might be able to find people to teach who can progress towards baptism.  I just LOVE seeing progress in people so much!!!  I know that change is possible through the Savior!

Love you all so much!  Trust in the Lord with all your hearts -- that`s my goal for this week too, so let`s do it together!

--Elder Max Olivier

Las primeras 12 semanas ... otra vez :)

Dear family and friends,

Thank you for praying and fasting for me.  It means a lot to me!  I love you all so much.

This week was a challenge for me and my companion.  However, I am super excited to be working with Elder Rivera.  He`s a truly great guy!  I love him lots already.  I feel bad for him, though, because at times I don`t really know what to say when it`s just the two of us alone.  I want to socialize more, but it`s harder for me in Spanish, and y'all know how hard small talk is for me as it is.  But I feel like we`re getting along really well and able to share our thoughts and feelings sincerely with each other.  We will learn a lot together!

We have been working super hard since he arrived, talking to everyone and trying to find people to teach.  There`s an exciting new initiative in the Sudamerica Sur area of the church to focus entirely on the progress of people.  Now we only account for 4 key indicators: total attendance at church, baptisms & confirmations, investigators with baptismal dates, and progressing investigators.  We also choose, working with the branch president and leaders, five less-active members to work with for the month in our area.  We need to have discussions with them and with members, and we need to help them progress and come back to church.  If they don`t progress in the month, we choose new people for the next month.  We also need to talk to everyone, members and nonmembers, about the gathering of Israel and the hastening of the work.  I will need to study the gathering of Israel a bit more, but I think that`s very interesting and exciting!

Despite our grand efforts, we haven`t really found anybody new to teach.  There`s a few potentials though, so that`s good.  But our hard work paid off -- Marisol came to church!!!!!!!  She came from La Cruz with the family of Hna. Cabrera and Alejandro.  She liked it, too!  We had an amazing, brief lesson with her on Saturday about the Sabbath day, and Hna. Cabrera gave an amazing, sincere, gritty, simple, honest testimony of how coming back to church has helped her and her family.  Marisol then decided firmly to stand up against her boss and go to church despite her difficult work schedule.  So awesome!  She needs your prayers so she can continue to progress.  The next step is a baptismal date and she needs to stop smoking.

Well, yeah!  My time left, yet again!  (ps, Dad, I realized that it really is Spanish syntax!)  Love you all so much!

--Elder Max Olivier