The Best Christmas Present

With Kyle being on his mission, we were all looking forward to Christmas and the opportunity to talk to Kyle. About the middle of December he e-mailed us and mentioned that he would probably be able to Skype. We were thrilled, and I quickly downloaded Skype and tested it out with my brother-in-law. Kyle mentioned that he would be calling us around 9am, and then he would call his mom around 10am. So at 8:55 we had the computer up and ready and we were waiting by the phone. At 9:43 we still hadn't heard from him, but we knew he was at church and just needed a little time to get things going. At 9:45 we got a call and on the caller ID it read LDS Mission...YAY!! We were all so excited. When I answered the phone, he giggled (I'm serious, he was that excited to hear my voice). But he told me that he only had a few minutes to talk, but that he would be able to Skype with us at 1:00pm. So I talked to him for a few minutes and then we passed the phone to Kylee, Samantha, Mikayla, Sadie and finally Bret. About 15 minutes later he hung up. Sadie and Bret were crying and formed a little "crying club." They told me I couldn't join in their group hug, because I wasn't part of their club.

It was so good to hear Kyle's voice that we almost couldn't wait another 3 hours to Skype. The time seemed to move slowly, but finally at 1:08pm we got a call through Skype, and just a minute later we saw Kyle. I'm pretty sure everyone cheered, we are a house of girls, after all.

I know this is a terrible picture of Bret, but in my defense, when I took the picture, I was only looking at Kyle. I haven't seen him in 5 months! Plus he was doing bunny ears behind Bret, I had to post it, It's exactly like Kyle.

I can't even describe to you how wonderful it was to see him. He is doing so good, and working so hard. It truly was the best Christmas present.

Christmas Cookies

During Christmas break, we usually build an amazing snowman...but so far this year there's no snow. We always go sledding at this fantastic park in Sandy right by my Mom's house, but so far this year, there's no snow. So in an attempt to try to make it feel like Christmas, we decorated sugar cookies.

I have to tell you, I love decorating the first 5 cookies, they are perfect, they are unusually good for someone like me. However, after those 5 perfect cookies, I couldn't care less. My girls have gotten bored after about 10 cookies and they either fade out and stop decorating, or they become insane decorators, and you can't find the cookie they've just decorated because it is buried under 2 inches of frosting and sprinkles! So I usually admit defeat, and decorate half of the cookies with green frosting and red sprinkles and the other half with red frosting and green sprinkles. This year, about a dozen cookies ended up being put in a ziplock bag and placed nicely in the freezer. This bag will probably be found again in June with ice crystals (or "protective ice", depending on how you like to look at freezer burn).

Anyway, I've let out too many dark secrets. So just enjoy the pictures of my girls. They had fun decorating. Hopefully next Christmas we'll have some snow.

Olsen Christmas Party

Bret's Parents decided to spend this Christmas in Oak City. Since they knew it would be a long shot getting all of us to drive down for a few hours on Christmas Eve, we had our Christmas Eve Party the weekend of December 17th. It was a lot of fun.

The day started out like this...
Yep, after we had made it out of the city, and we were about 15 miles out of Oak City, Bret let Sadie drive. This was her first time behind the wheel. She was a little shaky, and besides one little pedal problem, she was flawless.

The pedal problem was probably more like pedal confusion. We were coming upon a curve in the road, so Bret told Sadie that she should slow down a little as she approaches the curve. She started to slow down and took the curve smoothly. But after the curve she kept slowing down. Bret told her that she could now apply the gas, to which she replied "I am pushing on the gas!" to which Bret replied "that is the Brake."

It gave us all a good laugh. Truthfully, I was glad she was confused with her foot on the brake, and not on the gas! I can't imagine how bad that could have been.

Every year at the Olsen Christmas Party, we have to show off our amazing skills. My Mother-in-Law requires talent! Every year we each silently complain to each other how much we hate doing talents, and then we make our kids show off so we don't have to. This year we were required to do a "family" talent. Ugh. My Sisters-in-Law, actually worked on something with their families, I'm assuming to make me look bad. So we had to come up with something on the spot. So we made our girls sing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" while Bret and I danced behind them. It was as ugly as you're imagining. I promise. This picture caught us at our least ugly...thankfully.

And then in an attempt to make us look better, Mikayla performed a solo. She is amazing, so thankfully my Mother-in-Law still loves us. Thanks for saving our family Mikayla :)

Christmas Programs

This year we were able to have 2 Christmas Choir performances. The first one was Mikayla's Concert Choir performance. I forgot my camera, so you get the picture I took with my phone...not bad, I have some cute girls. I enjoy choir performances, because they are short, and almost always all the kids stay on key, so it is painless for those of us listening.

Mikayla's Choir did a wonderful job. She loves choir, and she has an incredible voice. I hope she will continue singing.

Then we had Samanthas Christmas Choir Program. She had signed up this year to sing in the Christmas Choir, and she had practice every Wednesday after school for an hour! She loved every practice and I was proud of her for wanting to do something extra.

This time we got pictures, but not because I remembered my camera, it's because Grandma and Grandpa Olsen came and they always remember their camera. Grandpa got some great shots of Samantha.

She was actually singing in this picture, and she looks like an Angel. I wish she always acted like one ;).

The performances were short and painless, I was thrilled. It didn't hurt that we went out for ice cream after each performance either. :)

Surprise letter with Pictures!!

Surprise!

You probably didn't expect to get a letter from me this week did you? Well today is the first day that the library was open, so sorry for the delay. But anyway it was great talking to y'all on Christmas! I gotta say i understand why we don't talk more often though. I was sort of trunky for a couple hours. But i'm focused again and we are getting some great work done!

So our two new investigators who are on date are fantastic! The first one is Bell, we actually taught her and her friend Trina on friday. We put Bell on date for Jan. 21 and i thought it was kind of sketchy and would fall through. But we taught them, and Bells husband Bernard yesterday and it was one of the most spiritual of my mission. All we did was read 1 Nephi 1 with them and seriously explained every verse. We had already taught them the Restoration but i felt they needed a better understanding of the Book of Mormon. On friday we gave Bell a Book of Mormon. Well at that lesson we gave Bernard a copy with the testimony of Waverly Barnard in the front (I'll tell you that miracle story in a second) (Just so other people reading this will know, the Barnards live in our ward, and Waverly is one of their daughters). I told him that that was a very special copy because of that testimony and i would only give it to him if he actually read it. Well they both promised to read and were telling us that we were an inspiration to them and they were both crying when we were done because the spirit was so strong. Which made me tear up (Elder Brimhall didn't though, he's a marine). But i have a great feeling about those two.

Then we have an 18 year old kid named Daryl on date for Jan 21. We taught him on Friday as well and he asked us when we were done teaching, "Do you know how to get baptized, because my mom and grandpa have been baptized but i havent?" Well i was speechless and Elder Brimhall said, "We can definitely help you with that." Then he started asking us a ton of Plan of Salvation questions to which we told him we would teach him all of that at a later date. So we taught him on Saturday. This kid is solid and i am so excited that Elder Brimhall will see so much success at the beginning of his mission.

Speaking of which, I'm training! My family knows that but i guess other people read this as well, so this is for you. He landed in SC two mondays ago and i picked him up last wednsday. He is an awesome missionary and is completely fearless about teaching the gospel. For this 12 week program every week he gets more responsibilities in teaching. Such as week 1, he invites everyone to be baptized (not me). This week he takes the lead in teaching the Restoration. So that's what he does, sometimes we sit there in silence because he doesn't realize i'm waiting for him to invite people. But he figures it out pretty quick. On the other hand he is a fantastic cook! I spent a lot more than i usually do for groceries last monday. But it was totally worth it. Bacon and pancakes and grits and eggs for breakfast. And french dip subs and lasagna for lunch and dinner. This is going to be a good couple of transfers. Oh, and mom, don't worry he wasn't insulted. It was really funny. But his family was nice to me and asked me questions. I quickly excused myself because it was awkward to take his time away.

Thankfully i am not the district leader, Phew! I'm thankful that i can now just focus on training and missionary work.

As for my miracle from the Barnard family. We had a grand total of two copies of the Book of Mormon and we aren't going to get any more until Jan 5. Well obviously that's not acceptable and i was getting really concerned. Well, in walk the APs with a package for me on Saturday during our companion study. They stayed for a minute then left. Well when i opened my package i found five copies of the Book of Mormon with wonderful testimonies in them from the Barnard family. I started to cry because of how great of a miracle it was (Elder Brimhall didn't, he's a marine). So Barnard family, thank you thank you thank you so much! You saved our Christmas and made it possible so far to give someone the Book of Mormon who really needed it (Bernard).

I also got a package from the Eagle Mountain 1st Ward! And i will tell you whats in it when i get it on Jan 5 haha. But i just wanted to say a pre-thank you for whatever it is. I'm very grateful for everything that i get.

Well since i won't be able to on that day i want to wish everyone a happy new year! Our plans for that are... we have to be in the apartment by six o clock and are free to do whatever (as long as it's obedient of course).

But i love y'all! (Actually i do type y'all without meaning too, it's natural, yes!)

Elder K. Olsen

Elder Olsen and Elder Brimhall with the Bishop and his girls

Elder Olsen and Elder Brimhall

Elder Olsen holding a pet snake. Kyle hates snakes, so this is amazing. I guess you'll go to extreme measure as a missionary to help re-activate a family :)

Kyle's a Trainer :)

Hey! Sorry i'm late!

So obviously it's been an eventful Pday and we just have barely enough time to use the computer. But anyway those hours with the skype won't work for me because I have church from 10-11. So how about I call at 9 and then 10? I'm gonna get on the computer again on either Thursday or Friday so I'll be able to see if that work for y'all.

So I'm training! I got the call on Saturday and I'm so excited. Actually my entire district got affected by this one. They're taking both sisters out of tabor city and probably putting in elders. Then Elder Friel left, and we're losing one in Marion. So out of the 6 we're losing 4. That's pretty crazy. I'm not to sure if I'll be district leader. But either way is fine with me because I'm going to pick up my "son" on Wednesday. Which will mean that there will be 5 generations of trainers and trainees in the mission. That's right, my great grandpa is still alive here.

But the Christmas party was really fun. We dressed up like Roman soldiers and went around taxing people. There weren't a lot of investigators but if anything i had a lot of fun with the members and now I'm really close to them. It's gonna be really hard when i have to leave. But i don't have to worry about that for 3 months! Then we had a Christmas party in Marion. It was funny because Santa came and he had a very strong southern accent (i knew it!). But needless to say i have had a lot of junk food the past couple of days. And earlier that day there was a wedding in Marion that i was able to attend. It was a very quick wedding and the non-members out numbered the members (awesome!). Unfortunately the next day the newly weds were supposed to get baptized, but the brides grandpa died so they left to Augusta. Which is sad because elder Brown has been in Marion for 6 months and 0 baptisms, and he's leaving on Wednesday. But today was really fun because we got together as a district and celebrated elder browns birthday (yesterday) and sister graves (today). Again, way too much junk food.

Like i said before elder friel is gone which is really sad. I really liked that guy. He left me a whole bunch of ties which is fantastic, i don't have to wear the same tie twice a week now. Especially because i spilled red sparkling cider on the tie i am currently wearing (amazingly none got on my shirt). You can't see the cider on my tie, but it smells really good now.

So with all the presents that have been sent to me, I got the letter which told me to not open the presents until Christmas a couple days after i got them. So I've opened them all. Actually the one i got from the erdmann clan had the hair clippers in it, which i really need to use but cant cause they're in Conway so my trainee is gonna see me with long hair... not the best first impression but he'll get over it. and who knows with the other packages i may wait till Christmas to open them. doubtful. But thank you for everything! I use that blanket every night Sadie, it's super comfortable and i can almost fold it up right! The only problem is that this suit attracts every tiny piece of hair and lint in a five mile radius and that blanket REALLY likes my suit. Haha I'll be sending my memory card home on Monday so that y'all can see. I don't have any updates for investigators because I've been in the lovely town of Marion. I got to admit i miss Conway. and my queen size bed that my feet don't hang off of. I'm definitely excited to tell you about my trainee next Sunday and I'll talk to y'all soon!

Love y'all!

Elder K. Olsen

Hello again back!

So I'm a little confused that I moved to the top of President Johnson's "favorite people" list. I thought I was already there. ;)

But anyways good news! I'm going to make it to the party! I pulled a few strings to get there but that's because parties are great and I really really wanted to go. So now I'm going to drag "those other two missionaries" to the party with me. But yeah, departing missionaries for this transfer are leaving a few days before actual transfers because of Christmas and all that. So I'll be in a trio from that friday to next wednsday.

Currently our investigator quantity is lacking. We're having trouble with getting new investigators and then they don't want to hear the message anymore in the same week. But we have one great investigator at the moment. His name is Byron, we always have awesome discussions and last time we talked with him he said he was going to read the Book of Mormon to see if he needed to change churches. If there's anything to pray for right now it's him. Then there is a less active family that we are working with, they are the Baker family. Actually Bro. Baker bakes really good bread. I also finally got to eat some boiled peanuts thanks to them! You crack open the peanut which is all wet and it's really salty and sort of soggy. It sounds disgusting but I ate a bowl of them because they're awesome. Plus I had some chicken bog, it's got rice and chicken and other stuff. I'll send you the recipe, it's definitely southern though. But they have 3 daughters and 1 baby boy who actually couldn't walk when I first got here but he's running around now (I've been here a while). I'm really good friends with all their kids though and I'm going to get the kids all excited to go to church so that they tell their parents to go. Because the Bakers always say that they need to go, but they could use some annoying motivation.

I have a funny quote from one of the Bishops daughters who is 7. We were talking about what they want for Christmas and she said "yeah and if Santa doesn't bring it for me than I'll buy it myself." He has four daughters ages (12, 10, 7, 5) so when we have dinner over there it feels like home in a way. Because get this, (the oldest takes her schooling extremely seriously A's or nothing, sound familiar?) (the second likes to cook all the time and made us brownies, reminds me of someone) (then the youngest two are kinda crazy and they do everything together). So yeah it reminds me of home.

But tell me what time you want me to skype you next monday and coordinate with my Mom so that I can do both. Plus I can't do it before 10a.m. here. Talk to you soon!

Love ya!
Elder K. Olsen

It's Monday Again!

It's Monday again!

These weeks are going by way to quickly! Well it finally hit Elder Friel yesterday. We were at church and everyone just kept talking about how he was going home soon and how he only has one more Sunday left. I think it was just too much of a shock for him. Then we got a text today that he has to be a mission HQ on the 16 at 11:00am. Well the Christmas party is on the 16 and i was super excited for it and now i'm going to miss it. Plus I'll have to spend a few days in Marion with those two Elders (That made those Elders sound bad, but i love those guys they're awesome). But i guess technically Elder Friel is getting the worse part of the deal.

Well we have had a ton of dinner appointments this week. And actually the next two weeks are completely full. It's amazing how often we get fed here. But according to other missionaries this is the only area that's like that. Everyone else seems to be lucky to get two dinners a month. So yes i am extremely spoiled.

OH! I got an update on the calling home thing. It turns out I'm actually going to get 40 min. max. for each family. So 40 min for the Olsens, and 40 min for the Erdmanns. I thought you would all really enjoy that. So that is sometime on Christmas day. Now actually i am allowed to skype, but that would mean i would have to find someone who can use skype. So tell me which would be better for y'all, because i can most likely find a family with skype.
You're probably done with Christmas shopping but i have a couple ideas. I think i said this last Christmas, but a pocket watch would be really cool. Something to plug my Sd card into the computer so i can e-mail some pics, More razor blades for my razor. Maybe a cheap hair buzzing kit. A fluffy pillow. more ties would be nice. Another watch, i like watches. That's all i got.

It seems like it's just one of those mondays where i can't remember anything that happened. My mind is totally blank and I'm trying to write a longer letter but don't know what to write about.

Funny story though, yesterday after church we got invited over to eat with the ward missionaries. Well i had two giant plates of food and was pretty sure i was going to puke right after we left. Well we got home and i sat on the couch not believing i had actually eaten all that. I decided that i was just going to skip dinner. Well then Elder Friel (who is feeling the same way) answers the phone. Then he tells me that we just got invited to dinner by a family in an hour. I nearly started to cry. Because the mom of that family owns a restraunt and is an amazing cook, and if you don't eat a lot (she doesn't say anything but you know) she will get offended. I'm still not sure how i survived through all of that. But here I am!

Have i mentioned by the way that i love my hole-e watch? I'm telling you i can't go anywhere without people asking me about it. It's like i have celebrity on my wrist. For instance we went to this mental hospital where people go into rehab. Well when you go in you have to take off all of your metal and stuff. So we went in gave the guy a blessing and when we came out there were four employees gathered around my watch. They told me how awesome it was and all i could say was "thanks." I really need to come up with some good responses about my watch. So if you have any ideas let me know.

But yeah that's my life, lovin every minute of it!

I love y'all!

Elder K. Olsen