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

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