Older and ....wiser?

Another incredible week from this frozen missionary!!!

 

Honestly most weeks I don't even know where to start these emails....There is always so much to say! Well I'm 21 now!! Weird....definitely don't feel that old. Didn't I just enter young womens or start driving or something. So wonderful to look back and see all of the different changes and experiences in my life that have led me to where I am right now. I honestly never thought that I would be serving a mission on my 21st birthday, but here I am! And there is no place that I would rather be!! My birthday was so great though! Thank you to everyone for all of the birthday cards, emails, and packages! I have some AMAZING friends and family!! I feel so loved! It is wonderful to have such incredible support. It really does help so much. We had district meeting, interviews with President Vellinga, and coordination meeting all on my birthday this week, so a lot of my day was spent at the church building. But it was still awesome! It was such an awesome birthday gift to get to meet with President ON my birthday!! He is such an incredible man! We all look up to him and love him so much. Sister Stringham took me to Menchie's (Yogurtland of Ohio) and made me a super delicious dinner!! She is so good to me :) Then after coordination meeting Sister Beaudoin and Sister Perrenoud had brought my favorite cookies as a treat for everyone! Such an awesome surprise! And then Elder Hicken, Elder Curtis, Elder Riffenburg, and Elder Francis gave me a present as well! They bought me a calendar of a whole bunch of different animals. haha I think they get a kick out of my animal obsession. They were so excited to give it to me. My district is so great!! They are all so sweet to make my birthday special for me. :)

 

We were going to go to lunch at Costco on my birthday, but sadly it didn't work out with our schedule, so we postponed that until the weekend. (Keepin up the Olds' tradition of going to Costco all over the country!) Ohhhh delicious and cheap Costco food. Love it. Thankfully SIster Stringham loves Costco just as much as I do. We got dinner there and a few minutes later a family came down and sat near us and they were speaking Russian!!! I got so excited!!! Of course I only understood like 3 words that they said, but I still loved it. It made me miss Ukraine even more!! If that was even possible....

 

So sometimes none of our stop by's are home or none of them want to talk to us. So we have to go with our back up plan of tracting. And then Ohio thinks it is funny to start snowing like crazy!! I have seriously never seen snowflakes that big!! And it picked up in a matter of 10 minutes! It was ridiculous!! The pictures really don't even do it justice. It got 100x worse about 5 minutes after we took the pictures. Sister Stringham and I made the best of it though and just kept singing, "We're traaaaaacting in the snow. Just traaaaacting in the snow!!" haha I love her so much.

 

Oh we got to go into Cleveland this week for my Cystic Fibrosis appointment! It was so fun to take a little "vacation" and see Cleveland! The hospital was ridiculously huge and nice and thankfully we got there 45 minutes early because we got sent on a crazy goose chase to find the right clinic. We were there pretty much all day. It turned into a 5 hour appointment! I felt bad for Sister Stringham, but she is such a champ and actually enjoyed it. Of course we didn't want to waste any of the Lord's time though. We talked with 6 different people about the church and gave out Mormon.org cards! It was so great!! Our district leader thought our text was hilarious to him that day: "Doin missionary work at the hospital!"

 

2 weeks ago one of our investigators tried to drop us. Try being the key word. He was at church yesterday though!! And he seemed to have a really awesome experience! We are both so excited about him!!! Keep him in your prayers! He knows the church is true, but is too afraid to tell his Mom that he is going to church with the Mormons and not to Catholic Mass. Oh did I mention that he is in fact 60 years old....? Yeah. He makes us incredible food though!! He is an amazing chef! We told him to open his own restaurant.

 

Random story of the week: Sister Buchanan has a freaky finger just like me!!!! We were both so excited when we found this out!! Haha I have never met anyone else who has a freaky finger too! See Steph! I'm not the only one.

 

I love this amazing work so much. I love this gospel so much. I love you all so much!!

 

Lots of love from Ohio,

Sister Olds the II

I write way too many letters on Preparation Day....This was last week. 14 letters!

Cleveland!! We had so much fun going in to Cleveland for a day. Having CF definitely has it's perks sometimes! haha

Sister Stringham bought  me Menchie's for my birthday!!!! So delicious.

This doesn't do it justice at all. It got so much worse!!! But it was fun :)

My wonderful birthday present!! It is SO MUCH nicer than my old one!!! I love it!! And Sister Stringham thinks it is hilarious. SHe has already tried it haha.

THIS is what it's all about!

Guess what happened this week......BAPTISM NUMBER ONE!!!!! It was so amazing!!!! Brother Landrigan has been dating a member in the ward and has been coming to church for 4 months now. We seriously only taught him because he had to be taught by us before he could get baptized. Teaching him was so easy! He practically already knew everything that we were teaching him and when we went over all the commandments he was already living all of them. How awesome is he?? SO golden! The spirit at his baptism was absolutely incredible!!! I feel so privileged to have gotten to be a part of it and to helped one of God's children come closer to Him and take the first steps in returning to his presence.

 

Well that was seriously the highlight of my week (of course). Mondayand Tuesday we had to stay indoors all day because it was too cold to go out. That is definitely no fun for a missionary. We made the best of it though. We met with one of our less active members a few times this week and oh boy, it is always a good time over there. Let's just say she is the absolute epitome of a crazy cat lady. (So of course you see why I love her so much) She always has such....wise words of wisdom for us. This week it was "A change of the name, but not of the letter, is a change for the worse, not the better." Meaning that if we married someone that had the same first letter of our last name, then one of our children would commit suicide. I don't know where she gets these things from. But sorry to all Olsens, Orrs, and all other O last names, we won't be getting married apparently.

 

I love and miss you all so much!!!!! You are all in my prayers and I think of you often.

 

Love,

Sister Olds II

Wonderful Sister Looney....the name is fitting...

We tracted the coolest street ever this week. 

FIRST BAPTISM!!!!

Our ward mission leader, Brother De Leon, had us all over for dinner this week! He is so great!

Guess who is rubbing off on Sister Stringham!

A week of firsts for this AZ girl

I had my first snow day this past week!!! I know that sounds exciting....but really it's not. Especially as a missionary. Thursday was snowing way too hard and way too much and so we couldn't get our car out. We prayed about if it would be safe for us to go out or not and we both felt wrong about it. So we were stuck indoors all day. Oh man. Lots of personal study, companion study, making calls, changing appointments, and trying to figure out what to do. By the end of the day we had definitely gone a wee bit crazy from being shut up inside all day. So we wrote a song!!! Haha Brother Buchanan (who we live with) was playing a song he wrote for us on his guitar, and for some reason that got us in the mood to write a song as well. However we quickly realized that we are no song writers, so we just changed the lyrics to a song already written:

 

I'll Make a Mormon Out of You
By Sister Olds & Sister Stringham

(Rewritten lyrics to "I'll  Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan)

 

Let's get down to business to find the one

He has sent us sisters to preach of His Son

We're the youngest bunch he's ever sent,

but you can bet before we're through

Someday we'll make a Mormon out of you!

 

We'll teach about the prophets and the truth they've brought

Once you feel the spirit you'll know it in your heart

You may think that this is difficult, like you'll never get a clue

But somehow you will find this is true.

 

[Next part is supposed to be the investigators speaking]

I'll never get through this book

Does the Lord really know me?

Boy was I a fool for letting these girls in

These girls got me scared to death

Hope they don't give up on me

Now I really wish that I knew how to read

 

Be a Mormon!

You must build Faith in the Lord our Savior (Be a Mormon!)

Repent of all your sins and be clean (Be a Mormon!)

Be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost

Continue to endure unto the end

 

Time is racing towards us til He comes again

If you heed His teachings, you won't fear the end

You'll have more joy than you've ever known

Don't give up you're almost home

Now you know for yourself what is true

 

Be a Mormon!

You must build Faith in the Lord our Savior (Be a Mormon!)

Repent of all your sins and be clean (Be a Mormon!)

Be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost

Continue to endure unto the end

 

 

We are so proud of our ridiculous song. We even sang it for Brother Buchanan afterwards. It made him laugh. I think he thinks that we are kind of ridiculous [which we are]. Oh yeah! This past week during personal study we hear him yell up the stairs at us "Sisters! Come to the door!" And we both thought that we were in trouble for something. We open the door and he is at the bottom of the stairs wearing this loooooong black wig that is all poofed up in the back and he goes, "You vwant to go to ze woods?!" We both just died laughing!!!!! He cracks us up!! He is too funny. Last night we went downstairs to make some food and he comes out and starts making us popcorn and giving us cans of pop to drink. We asked him about this question we had during companion study that day and he pulls out this Doctrine and Covenants Commentary book and totally clears it up for us! He is so wonderful and he KNOWS his scriptures. Then we sat there for about 45 minutes just listening to all of his amazing stories he has about his life and his family. I loved it so much!! It made me miss sitting around with our family and all exchanging crazy stories. I think sitting around in Bunkerville with all of the family that weekend of Gran's funeral listening to crazy stories about Roger and our family will always be one of my favorite Bunker memories. I have the greatest family ever! I love living with the Buchanans so much. We feel like they are our grandparents. They're so wonderful.

 

Another first this week: shoveling snow!!!! The day after our snow day we went and did some service tracting and shoveled peoples driveways for them!! I actually really liked! A little sore the next day, but well worth it. People were so confused why we were shoveling their walk, yet didn't want any money. It was pretty funny. They were all so appreciative though and were so happy for the help. God definitely sent us to the right street that day.

 

Friday night we went to go visit a less active (only because of her health) and we just sat there knitting with her and visiting for a while, then shared a message with her before we left. It was so cute!! I feel like a precious little old lady. She is so wonderful and I just love her to pieces! (Oh yeah...Sister Stringham is teaching me to knit! I can't remember if I already told you guys that or not. I'm not too good at it yet though...)

 

So one day this week I definitely did not get enough sleep the night before and, as Mom would say, I got pretty punchy. I was just busting up at everything!!! Sister Stringham was like, "Who are you Sister Olds?!?!" haha We had a good time laughing together though. I honestly can't even remember what we were laughing at, but we were both really slap happy and thought we were so hilarious. I'm happy to know that even though I am a missionary, I am still the same old goofy Amber.

 

I finished the Book of Mormon today!! Reading the scriptures on my mission has been SO DIFFERENT than before. I get so much more out of it and am understanding way more than I did before. We are so blessed to have The Book of Mormon in our lives. I think we often take it for granted because we have always had it and don't realize how blessed we are to be so fortunate to be able to read it every day. Brother  Buchanan showed us this movie called "How Rare a Possession" about the importance of the Book of Mormon. Watch it for Family Home Evening tonight!! It is an incredible story!! I am so grateful that I was born into a family that lived the gospel and loved it. This gospel is the most important thing in our lives and is why  we are all here!

 

I love and miss you all so much! (Especially while singing songs about family in Primary yesterday) It is so weird that I have already been out a month. It feels like I just got here and also that I have always been here. Mission time is super weird.

 

Love,

Sister Olds the II

Sister Stringham with the Buchanan's dog LuLu. She LOVES attention.

My first snow day!!

I was a little too excited to shovel snow...

"I thought you were my angel."

Have I ever mentioned how much I love being a missionary? No? Well I absolutely LOVE IT!!!

 

There is so much that happened this week! Hiding Sister Looney's lighters so she won't smoke, Christmas, being hit on, abundance of blessings from the Lord. Where do I start??

 

Well on Christmas Eve we went to the Tonkinson's house for dinner. They had a bunch of people over from the ward and had lots of different soups and breads. It was delicious!! And Sister Perrenoud and Sister Beaudoin got to come as well so that was super fun!! Afterwards our whole district went caroling in Lorain. It was so great! Everyone was so grateful to have us come. Some people tried to pay us,  but we just let them keep that and gave them a pass along card :) One house was my absolute favorite though. We rang the doorbell and started to sing, and then they opened the door and there was a huge family there and  they all invited us in and sang with us. They all had out their iPad's and iPhone's and were video taping us as well. We sang a few songs with them and then gave them our card and told them who we were. Then they gave their church card to us! haha they were Pastor's at the nearby church and invited us to sing at their service! We invited them to church with us Sunday, but sadly none of them came. They all gave us huge hugs as we left though. They were all so great!!

 

Then for Christmas we went to the Teaman's house for breakfast/lunch. (We also woke up to a dead battery in our car and sweet Brother Buchanan jumped our car for us) They had all the missionaries over!! They were so hospitable to all of us!! Our ward here is seriously SO GREAT!! We had a huge breakfast with them, then some of the missionaries called home, and then we all played games for a while. Afterwards Sister Stringham and I went to the Taylor's to skype home!! Honestly it wasn't too hard since I feel like I just saw you all yesterday, but it was so much fun to talk to you!!!

 

So we had been having a lot of farming days, without seeing any success. Almost all of our stop by's were never home, appointments kept canceling, and one of our investigators dropped us. Needless to say it started out as a pretty rough week. But we didn't get discouraged and kept working hard! And we saw the blessings pour in because of it!! We were able to meet with a less active family and commited them to reading the Book of Mormon for the next 30 days together! Then we had a wonderful lesson with our investigator that has a baptismal date in January and he told us that he is already living all of the commandments! Then we were able to set up 3 more appointments that day for next week! We were so so so stoked! We went tracting later that day and met a lady who had just found out a few hours previously that someone very close to her had just passed away. She was so upset and kept thanking us profusely for stopping by at that time and gave us lots of hugs. We gave her a Proclomation to the Family and are meeting with her again this week. We love knowing that God trusts us to send us to certain people to be answers to their prayers.

 

The New Year is coming up!! What are all of your guys' new year's resolutions?

 

The number one thing I miss most being out here, is being able to go to the temple!! There is no greater place on Earth than the House of the Lord. As one of your new year's resolutions you should make it a goal to go to the temple as much as you can. At least once a month. I know that your life will be so blessed by serving in the temple and attending it regularly. At least go for me since I can't!

 

So on my first day tracting we met a man whose life would be SO BLESSED by the gospel. We taught him a short lesson and left a Book of Mormon with him. We went back to see him this week and were able to teach him again shortly on his front lawn, but he had said that he hadn't read any since we first met. He seemed interested in what we were teaching him and we made a return appointment and gave him our number. The next day he texted us and we were so excited!! We could tell that he was so ready for the gospel and knew it would make such a huge change in his life. As he was texting us, we quickly came to realize that it wasn't the gospel he was interested in... He didn't quite understand that missionaries do not date at all while on a mission. We were so bummed. Hopefully there will be Elders in this area soon that can teach him.

 

Thank you so so so much to everyone that has sent me letters this past week! You are all so wonderful! I feel so blessed to have so much love and support from such amazing friends and family. I love you all!!

 

Love,

Sister Olds the II

Sister Missionaries at Christmas

MATCHING SHIRTS!!! 

Found these goodies in the left over box from old sisters. Of course we had to take pictures in them.

OOHHHHIIIIIOOOOO

First of all, I miss the MTC!!! The last few days were so wonderful there!! It was so hard to say goodbye to my amazing district and wonderful zone. We grew so close!! As well as our incredible teachers. We learned so much from them!! They were all so great.Sunday all of the Elders in our district gave us sisters a blessing before we parted ways. There were 4 elders and 4 sisters so it worked out perfectly that they could each give one. The spirit was so strong and they were all such beautiful blessings. We all grew to love each other so much and were like our own little family. They are all going to be such amazing missionaries.

 

Getting to Ohio was pretty crazy. We left the MTC at 3am. Flew to Minneapolis. (On that flight the lady that was sitting next to me was TERRIFIED of flying and would cling to me and hold my hand during take off, landing, and any turbulance. I got woken up to her clawing at me numerous times. It was pretty funny....and painful.) Then we all had to book it to our gate because our layover was only 40 minutes and that airport was HUGE!! We were running through the airport and thankfully made it in time for our flight. President and Sister Vellinga met us at the airport and we were all so excited to meet them!!! We had lunch at the mission office, iinterviews, and a meeting. When we first got there, a senior sister missionary walked up to me, Sister Olsen, and just asks, "Are you Rosalie Bunker's granddaughter?" WHAT THE?!?!?!?!?!?! I got SO excited of course!!! Turns out she is from Mesquite. NV and so she knew her!!!! It made me so happy to know that someone here knows my sweet Gran. Sadly I had to break the news to her that she passed away a little bit ago. But she agreed she is much happier with Kent now.

That night we had dinner at the mission home and then went to bed early (thankfully. We were all so exhausted!!)

 

The next day was Kirtland!! Oh my goodness. Everyone needs to add that to their Bucket List. We went through the Kirtland temple and the spirit there is absolutely indescribable. It was so amazing to stand in the same room where both Heavenly Father and Christ have stood. We sat in Joseph Smith's office and read out of Doctrine and Covenants the revelations that he received in that very room. Honestly words could never do it justice to describe that experience. It was absolutely amazing. Afterwards we went to the N.K. Whitney store and the School of the Prophets. Heavenly Father and Christ also appeared there as well. I wish you had  all been there with me to feel the strength of the spirit there and feel it for yourself.

 

Afterwards we met our companions!!!! No doubt in my mind that Heavenly Father knows exactly who we need to be companions with. Sister Stringham is PERFECT!!! In the first 3 minutes we found out that we have a mutual friend!! She found out I was from Gilbert, Arizona and she goes, "Oh! I have some friends that moved there. Do you know Jaden and Jenae Feddock?" ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! Jenae is one of my best friends!!! hahaha so of course we hit it off great right from the start. We were so stoked!!!! So Sister Laura Stringham is from Calgary, Alberta and we are seriously like the same person almost. We have all the same interests and get along so well already!! She is such a wonderful trainer!! I am learning so much!! I am so so so grateful that I got her as my trainer! I love her so much!!

 

This past week has definitely been the most exhausting week of my life!! I have never been so tired before. Sister Stringham says that it is just my body adjusting and that eventually I will get used to it and not be so tired all the time. Thank goodness. My eyelids have never felt so heavy. But she is putting me right to work and I am loving it!! We are in the Lorain East area and so we cover Avon, Avon Lake, and Sheffield. I am seriously in the CUTEST area in the world! The best way to describe it is pretty much Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls. Every house we pass I just go, " Oh that's so cute!! That one's even cuter! Oh look at that house!! It's so cute!!" haha And Sister Stringham gets a kick out of me getting excited over every single squirrell I see. I'm a desert girl! We're used to scorpions, not adorable little squirrells everywhere!

 

The ward here is AMAZING!!  My first Sunday here they gave all of the missionaries inthe ward this HUGE Christmas present!!! I'll send a picture. It is ridiculous!! It had everything in there!! Shampoo, soap, lotion, candy, food, nerf guns, toothpaste, etc. It was so sweet!!! We were so spoiled!! Also we live with a couple from the ward! The Buchanons. They are so great!!!! Their house is nice and it always smells like Christmas :) They have two dogs named LuLu and Max. They are so cute!! It makes me miss my Sophie girl so much!

 

I feel like there is so much more to say, but I have no idea what!! My mind is still so flustered!! But I am transitioning smoothly. Oh I have a new address!! This one will send straight to me instead of through the mission office first.

 

3106 Jaycox Rd.

Avon, Ohio 44011

 

But the other address will still work. They will forward my mail to me. Well I have a ton of pictures to send this week too!! I love and miss you all so much!!! Have a most wonderful Christmas!!!

 Oh my lanta. These Elders are going to do great things in Las Vegas. Love 'em to bits.

The most amazing zone the MTC has ever seen!!!

Oh I love these humans so much :)

The Sister O's with their desk buddies!!

Leaving the MTC :( Poor Sister Mummert was stuck there a little longer.

We got SO spoiled by the ward.

My adorable companion Sister Stringham!!!!

Our little Christmas tree and our presents!!

"I do NOT have a crush on Leonardo Davinci!!" -Elder Crabb

Oh me oh my. What a week. We'll start where I left off though.

So last Sunday Sister Tuioti and I got called to be Sister Training Leaders! We were so stoked!! And then that Sunday was literally the busiest day of our life. We were running from building to building trying to make it to all of our meetings and such on time. It was pretty chaotic, but I am so happy for this opportunity to be able to serve the sisters in my district.

In Sacrament Meeting on Sunday Brother Hall ( a member of our branch presidency ) gave the most amazing talk on faith in Christ. He said, "If you have not read Jesus the Christ, then you do not know Christ." Then he shared his experience with reading it on his mission and it was so powerful!!!! Then as our closing song we sang God Be With You Til We Meet Again. That song has never hit me so hard. I remember just sitting in the back of the room, king around at all of these amazing people I have grown to know and love and realizing that I would have to say goodbye to more than half of them in just one week. I just started bawling. Our zone is seriously like a little family here. I am convinced that we have the greatest zone in the MTC, and that I have the BEST district ever. I love them so much. Our Elders are all like big, protective older brothers to us sisters. They always take our trays for us in the cafeteria, open doors for us, and get super protective when they see any other elder talking to us. It cracks us up, but they are so precious.  We always kneel in prayer together and have started a new tradition called "compliment circle" where we just go around in a circle taking turns giving each other sincere compliments. We decided that we are going to continue the tradition throughout our missions through our letters. I am going to be so sad to have to say goodbye to them in 3 days.. :( (So one night as we were kneeling down to say our closing prayer before we went back to the residences, I almost continued our family tradition after our nightly prayers and tackled Sister Tuioti to the ground. Thankfully I remembered that I was in fact in the MTC and not in my living room before the prayer was over. I told them about it after we said amen, and now they never let me live it down. "Oh Sister Olds, this isn't really family prayer! Don't go tackeling Elder Adamson or anything." haha)

Sad sad sad news. The Provo temple has been closed the whole time we have been here, so we wont get the chance to go at all while we are here :( We were all so upset!! I miss the temple so much!!! Go as much as you can for me!! Never taking the opportunity to go to the temple for granted. However, Sunday afternoon we did get to all walk to the temple!! When we got over there we song the Efy  medley as a zone and it was so great!!! That song is so amazing, especially when you are missionaries. 

So I had my first break down this week. That was no fun. I was just feeling overwhelmed because I felt like I didn't have the spirit with me when I was teaching and wasn't receiving revelation on what I should be teaching. I felt like all the other missionaries in the room had no problem with this and so I felt like something was wrong with me. I don't know. So I broke down in class and started tearing up and so Sister Tuioti and I went out into the hallway to talk. She is so wonderful!! She is the most loving and caring person I have ever met. She totally comforted me and just let me cry on her shoulder for a little bit. We cleaned myself up and then went back into class. Our teacher Brother Heath walked up to us and started explaining what we were doing, and then all of a sudden I just burst into tears again! Right in the middle of class. I was so embarrassed. So he was just like, "Sister Olds, come with me." He took me out in the hall and I just spilled everything that I was feeling and what was going on. He said EXACTLY what I  needed to hear. Our teachers care SO MUCH about us and love us so much. I am so grateful to have such amazing teachers. Then later Sister Lyon was talking to Sister Tuioti and I about how our lesson went with Kristine that morning (Kristine is one of our investigators, who is actually Sister Lyon) and she said how the spirit was so strong and how we taught amazingly and how we had answered Kristine's prayer from the night before. Then I started crying again!! Who am I?!?! I don't cry!! So then she just gave me a big hug and we talked for a little bit as well. Our teachers are seriously some of the most amazing people I've ever met. 

Elder Quentin L. Cook was the speaker at Tuesday Devotional this week!! It was so awesome and such a wonderful surprise! Also our whole zone joined the choir which made it even better. It was an amazing arrangement of The First Noel that was absolutely beautiful!!

Thank  you so so so so much to those that have sent me letters!! I got 7 in one day and felt so loved!!! And special thanks to Toree Day for sending me a letter on the exact day I needed it. I love you all so much!!

Well 4 more days and I will be in Cleveland!!! I am so excited!! We had In-Field Training ALL DAY yesterday and it just got me so stoked to get out there and start using all these things that I have been learning. Oh also Elder Christensen from the District was in this little play they did for us yesterday. Only missionaries will understand that, but he is pretty much a huge celebrity around here haha.

With lots of Love,

        Sister Olds the II

P.S. Regarding the subject line....We were giving Elder Crabb a hard time about having man crushes on celebrities and all of a sudden he goes, "I do NOT have a crush on Leonardo Davinci!!" And I just go, "....The painter?!" hahaha we all busted up laughing. He meant Leonardo Dicaprio. Then to make it even better, we were talking about how Michelangelo's paintings and Elder Adamson goes, "And he painted that with ONE EAR!!" "Nope....that was Van Gogh buddy...but you were so close." hahaha. I love them all so much.

Our whole zone!! (minus a few)

Of course we had to do the cliche MTC picture! All my cleveland sisters!!!

Awkward family photo!

Our district goals.

All the Elders in our Zone 

and all the Sisters in our Zone!!

We have a very wide range of heights in our district... (Elder Watters is 6'10"!! So Erin you can stop complaining about your height) 

I LOVE MY COMPANION!!

Studyin in class (Elder Crabb, Elder Adamson, Sister Tuioti, Sister Jackson, Sister Urso, Elder Makaiwi, and Elder Thieme)

Dearingist Darlingist Mommsy and Popsicle

Oh man..where do I even start???

I LOVE THE MTC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is seriously so wonderful here!! When I first got here my host sister that brought me in was from Italy and is going to France on her mission. So she is learning English while she is here and also French...made me so happy that I am speaking English on my mission!! From the first seconds here it has been go, go, go!!! But I love it. My first five minutes of being here an Elder from India thought it would be funny to mess with the new kid haha. He went on and on about how they gave him his name tag with no engraving on it and kept asking me where he needed to go. I don't know!! I just got here! But then he flipped it around to the engraved side. haha I felt like an idiot. 

My companion is so sweet!! Sister Tuioti (two-ee-oh-tee) I love her so much!! We get along so well. Then the other two sisters in my room are so great too!! Sister Jackson and Sister Urso. Sister Urso is just the cutest little thing you've ever seen!! I loooooove my district!! We were all instant best friends right off the bat!! Unfortunately the elders in my district aren't headed to my mission. They are going to the Las Vegas West mission (Elder Bruce's mission!!!) Which means that Bunkerville is in their mission!! Haha when we figured that out I FREAKED OUT and was going on and on about how great Bunkerville was and how wonderful all the people are there!! I might have oversold it a tad....haha All of my teachers have been so amazing so far! We are learning tons here!! We get super tired each day, but it is totally worth it. 

So last night our whole zone (also awesome) got to meet our branch presidency and they separated the elders and the sisters at the end. The branch presidency's wives met with us sisters about some of the rules and guidelines. They were going over makeup and were encouraging us to wear lip gloss especially. Of course all I could think of was "MORE lip gloss and MORE glitter!" hahaha I was dying laughing. The sisters in my room got a kick out of that too. 

I seriously love being here. I haven't been sad, nervous, homesick, or frustrated at all! (But I'm sure those feelings will come eventually. At least that's what everyone keeps telling me...) One of my favorite things about being here, is thinking of all of the people that I know that have walked these same halls as me. My parents, my sister, tons of my friends. It is so great!! And so inspiring. 

My companion and I were walking through the cafeteria yesterday and I overhear an elder that was walking past us say that he was going to the Hungary Budapest mission and I just stop him and go, "I am SO JEALOUS!! You are going to love it there so much!! I was there this summer and I absolutely loved it! It is so amazing!! I had a friend serve there that loved it so much!! Sorry...I totally just eavesdropped on you...but I thought you should know." haha I could tell he was pretty caught off guard.

Side note: They told us that we shouldn't say "guys" when we are talking to people here. We have to say Elders and Sister. I never realized how much I said guys before now! We will get into class and I will just go "Oh hey gu....Elders.." haha So that is definitely taking some getting used to. 

I love running into people I know!!! I have seen Elder Justin Lilly like 3 times already! The first time I saw him I walked past him and then was like, "Wait....Elder Lilly?!" I had no idea he was here!! I can't even remember the last time I saw him!! He turned around and was like "Whoa!! Hey!!" And then went in to give me a hug and I just stuck my hand out and he just goes, "Oh..er...uh...right." haha kind of awkard/ hilarious. Then I also saw a sister that was in  my public speaking class last winter semester!! 

Well I am so grateful that the Lord has lead me to making the decision to serve a mission. I have not had one single regret since being here!! I know that this is where I am supposed to be right now. The work is progressing!! It is such an amazing and exciting time to be a missionary!!! 

I love you all!!!! 

Love,

    Sister Olds the II

 Me and my companion Sister Tuioti!!! Clearly we were meant to be companions....WE MATCH!!

 The wonderful sisters in my district. Sister Urso, Sister Jackson, Sister Tuioti and me.

How cute are they?!?! I love them so much!!! We are all so happy here!