God's greatest gifts: The Atonement and horchata froyo

Yes. I did break my non-sugar week on Tuesday. I saw Horchata frozen yogurt and I had to try it. But I decided that sugar is poison for your body. A few hours after in take I felt so tired that I couldn't function and then the next day I woke up with acne. So after a month of no sugar, I don't even want it anymore. It's not worth it!

This week I am super grateful for the Atonement. We had a pretty rough week at the beginning. We are trying to find people to teach. I know without a doubt in my mind that Heavenly Father will bless us because we are repenting and trying to be better and basically this area is full of prepared people, but he is definitely trying my patience.

We are still teaching our investigator. She is still scheduled to get baptized on May 14th.

We are also teaching a young couple. She went from not believing in God in February, to coming to church most Sundays now. She is progressing very, very slowly, but she is progressing. I like her too. Shes really cool. Prayers for them would be appreciated!

 Okay we went to ward council yesterday and wowie wow wow wow. It was seriously the greatest ward council I have ever attended! Our bishop is super and holy cow he means business! Our entire ward council just blew me away with everything they are doing for the people they are trying to help progress in the gospel! The man has us write all of our investigators names on the white board in his office and all the other families they are working with and he creates a plan of action for all of them during ward council. Right after we said the closing prayer, he jumped right up to the door to shake everyone's hand and said, "alright, we planned it now let's get to work and DO it!" So awesome. So, so awesome.

Most of our members are like that. They are all doing "missionary work". The next step that we are trying to help them with is just have to invite all of their people they are working with to church and to meet the missionaries. It is just a simple, yet life changing question. So that is what we are working on with our totally awesome ward mission leader. 

Fun fact: I don't know if you all remember this, but my ward mission leader in Banning was a Hurst. We found out we were related by a polygamist guy that settled in Colonial Dublan in Mexico in the 1800's. Brother Woodland is my ward mission leader now and he is related to me through the same guy! And there is a lady in our ward that grew up in Colonial Dublan that knows a bunch of Hursts! So weird.

One last story for you- Sister Osborne and I fasted yesterday that we would find prepared people to teach. Last night, a member texted us and told us she has a friend that wants to take the missionary lessons! How crazy is that! Next month we are doing a ward fast to find prepared people to be taught. I am so excited to see how this all works out!

Have a great week! I love you all!

 your missionary,

Sister Olsen

The horchata froyo

Just an average day in the Milcreek Ward! We get to see the temple all the time! :)

Awkward palm tree selfies

Check out where the elders get to live!

We ran into two of the Laurels I knew in the Yucaipa ward. They ran right up to me and gave me the biggest hug. It made me feel really good!!

Orangetopia

Hello from the promised land!

This week was great. As usual. I have a new found love for fresh oranges. A lot of members have orange groves here. They have millions of oranges so we pick them and give them to investigators. This one day we came home with a bunch of oranges. We walked into the apartment and the kitchen was literally full of oranges because our roommates had the same idea we did. It was probably the most glorious sight my eyes have ever seen. I will probably never be able to eat a normal orange again because Redlands oranges are literally life changing. Pictures to follow after this email.

Oh gosh. So much has happened this week I don't even know where to start! We did at least two temple tours everyday. We had interviews with president Van Cott. Our investigator is on date for baptism. We've met a TON of the member's non member friends. Gosh. It's a lot. 

Here are some highlights:

I love being near the temple so much. It has played such an important role in my conversion. Sister Osborne and I did several temple ground tours this week, three of which were with investigators. There were some that we planned that fell through, but every time we planned to be at the temple a non member was there that wanted a tour. So that was pretty amazing. Most of them were in Prospect Park (another Ward in our stake boundaries), so I'm sure those sisters have found some new investigators this week. This one woman wanted to see the chapel and the family history center as well. We took her in the chapel and I just felt like I should play her a hymn. I can only play about 3 or 4 hymns well so I was a little leary about the prompting, but I just played Sweet Hour of Prayer for her and the spirit was super strong and it brought her to tears. I LOVE walking around the temple with all of these nonmembers because we always feel the Spirit super strong. There is nothing that brings me more happiness than sharing my testimony with others. I can't even tell you how happy I am just because we have been talking with so many people and going out with members and strengthening our relationships with them. We just testify all the time! I feel so good!

We had a couple really cool experiences with member missionary work this week. First , we had dinner with a family in our ward and invited them to invite their neighbor to come to a Relief Society activity. We sat with her at the activity. Some talks were given about enjoying the season of your life that you are already in. She got a little emotional. We walked around the temple with her afterwards and bore testimony that also brought her to tears. It was a pretty powerful experience.

We also visited a returned missionary who was speaking in church this week. She told us about her neighbor and that she had been working with her before. We went and visited with the neighbor and took her some cookies a member gave to us for investigators. She was super sweet, but not interested in our message. But the sister that was speaking invited her to church and she totally came! It was awesome!

We are teaching a lot of people and have a lot of lessons scheduled for next week and I am super excited!

Sister Osborne is doing good on training. We are getting to know more people and we are super excited to be here. 

Well that's about it from me! Have a great week everyone! I sure love all of you with all of my heart!

Sister Ashlee Olsen

California Redlands Mission

Orange picking at Sister West's house! It's glorious. There are some pretty beautiful houses here. I went inside the trees to get the best oranges. My hair is so long that it kept getting stuck on the branches.

Here's some pictures of a all the sticks in my hair from the orange trees

I'm making really stupid faces because it was really sunny and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. But I'm pointing to the temple in the last couple photos.

There are beautiful homes here in Redlands!

This is when we came home and there were oranges all over the place. I don't know if you can tell but I was very excited. We had a juicing party in our orange Redlands shirts.

We have an investigator in Angles Oaks. We stopped on the way down the mountain and took some photos.

Post church lunch.

Service project with the young women. 

I drew a picture of all of us as fairy princesses. I am the orange fairy.

Another week in the Promised Land

Alright so Sister Osborne and I are basically best friends by this point. She is seriously such an awesome missionary. It doesn't even feel like I am her trainer. She is just awesome. So there's that. The other day though I told her that and she said that I was supposed to be her trainer and that she really needed me. That made me feel really good. It reminded me of how I feel about Sister Magleby.

My brain doesn't even feel like it's in my head right now. I forgot how difficult it is to not know an area and try to do missionary work. Everything that we do is about people. When you don't know the people, it makes it a little difficult. So we have just been meeting as many people as possible right now and trying to get to know them at lightning speed. So far so good. We sent out an email to the whole ward with our picture and some information about us. We also bore our testimonies on Sunday so the ward knows us. It's just a matter of time before we know the ward.

Can I just say how much I love the temple? It is seriously such a blessing to see it everyday. I love how the temple makes me feel. I think a lot of people see it, but I wish everyone would just take a minute out of their day to walk on the temple grounds. I know a lot more people would be interested in taking the missionary lessons and coming to church if they did that. Whenever I have doubts or questions or anything I just think about how I feel at the temple. I have never felt so at peace or at home. I know it is the house of the Lord and he wants all of us to be there. There is nothing more important to me then getting married in the temple and having my own family for time and all eternity.

I have to go. I spent too much time replying to emails so this will be short, but I will share one miracle moment of the week.

So this one time Sister Magleby prayerfully planned what time she was going to go to the gas station. She told Heavenly Father what pump she was going to be at and prayed that someone prepared would be there that would be baptized. She promised that she would talk to everyone she saw to find the prepared person. She did that, and 6 weeks later Carl was baptized.

Sooooo I totally copied her. After several very awkward encounters and rejections we met Terronae. She was wearing this super cute dress so we just started out with a compliment. Before we knew it, we were talking about the temple and she said her mom actually had a ton of questions about it and they both would want to walk around the temple grounds with us. Sooooooo that was really awesome.

There is something very powerful about making promises with Heavenly Father through prayer.  The only thing that stops Him from pouring out blessings to us is our own choices. As long as we are doing our best and doing what He would want us to do, He will bless us beyond all human comprehension. I know that's true.

I am so grateful that Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ so that we could have the priesthood and temples. I love all of you! Have a great week!

Your missionary,

 

Sister Olsen

It's fine. I just get to see the temple like 6 times a day. No big deal.

This is the building I am emailing from right now. Redlands is the coolest!

Half the members here own orange groves and give us millions of oranges. I have started making orange juice and it is the most delicious nectar the tongue has ever tasted. Literally all I do is squeeze the oranges and drain the pulp. I will never be able to eat normal oranges again.

This is Sister Fife (curly hair) and Sister Bates (red shirt). They are my totally awesome roommates that I love with all my heart! Sister Fife was trained my Sister Magleby too.

The pine cones in Forrest falls are bigger than my head!

These are so delicious and everyone needs to eat them.