Sister Ashlee Olsen: Happy Birthday America!

Hello my wonderful family!

I hope you had a fantastic fourth of July! Mine was arguably the most boring day of my whole life. It's right up there with having to go to Dad's work everyday after working at the FedEx hub. We do a weekly planning session every week, usually on Thursday because it's typically the slowest day of the week. However, Missionary Leadership Council for the Sister Training Leaders and Zone Leaders was on Thursday this week. Then we had exchanges on Friday. So Saturday morning we had to do our weekly planning. Then we went out and worked for about 2 hours and then we had dinner. Then we had to go in at 6.

The IPads are not fun. They are not fun at all. We have to enter the entire area book into the IPad manually and it's taking forever!!! For those who do not know what an area book is, it is a giant binder that holds all of the information for a specific area. It is full of Investigator teaching records, former investigator teaching records, potential investigator forms, etc. etc. BUT once we get in all of the info its going to be the greatest tool ever!!!

FONTANA IS FULL OF PYROS. Oh man there were fireworks going off at 6:30 am!!! There were some going off the night before and...umm.... I may have gotten just a little bit scared because I may have possibly thought they were gun shots... But don't worry they were just fire works!

Sister Shin and I are having a great time in Fontana. This week was really really really slow. We only taught one lesson to an investigator. We taught 7 less active lessons so that wasn't too bad. At this point it is just straight up annoying that we have hardly anyone to teach. The struggle is real. Nevertheless! We press forward! It's kind of hard because our mornings are typically full of service at the library, meetings, and planning. We live a solid 20 minutes away from our area so we are in the car a lot. When we do go outside it's so stinkin' hot that no one else is outside.

So I have no idea how, but somehow I am still pretty happy. Sister Shin and I have a lot of great conversations and we just laugh together. The members of our ward are absolutely wonderful. I love them so much. I have worked really hard to serve them the past couple of months and I know that they love us and trust us. In gospel principles yesterday Brother Hatch was talking about prayer. He had us come up in front of the class, testified that we were in their ward for a reason and that we were representatives of Jesus Christ, and committed everyone right then and there to pray for their own missionary opportunities and to pray for Sister Shin and I by name.

Also yesterday, Sister Shin and I went to the Bishops office to witness Juan receive the Aaronic Priesthood. President Sears was there and he told us how much the ward loves us and appreciates everything we do. That made me tear up a bit. The ward really is trying to have missionary opportunities. Bless their hearts. Their friends are just taking a really long time to prepare.

Despite not having much work, we are still having really cool experiences. One of the Sear's friends, Gary, showed up to church yesterday. He is 30 and hasn't been since he was in Jr. High. He doesn't live in our ward, so we are passing him onto the Elders, but the Sears had us come over and teach him about the Restoration and prayer. He got on his knees and prayed out loud for the first time in his life. The Spirit was so strong! My heart was pounding! His face was just beaming and he was so happy!

That's why I'm here. I just want people to experience the joy that the gospel can bring into their lives. I seriously just see people on the street and picture them in white in the temple. Wow I am a weirdo..... I JUST WANT PEOPLE TO BE HAPPY WHY WON'T THEY ACCEPT HAPPINESS AND THE GOSPEL. It's so annoying!

There is one more experience that I feel like I should tell you. We don't tract as a mission. It's a no no. But there was this one house all last transfer that I felt like I should knock. The very last night of the transfer I finally did it. A man answered the door. He was very nice. He said a lot of his friends were mormon, but he wasn't interested. There is a family in our ward, the Wakumotos. Sister Wakumoto came up to me in church a couple weeks ago and was like you knocked on our best friends' door and they thought we sent you over there! I told her oh I had no idea! I just felt like they needed the missionaries. Then she got chills. Last week, she had us teach her daughter, Hayven, the missionary lessons before she got baptized. We taught her the lessons and we went to her baptism on Friday. I was on exchanges with Sister Rivera. After Hayven got baptized and we were all waiting for her to change, I felt like we should get up and teach everyone the Message of the Restoration. I was really nervous because Sister Rivera and I never taught together, but we did it anyway. When I got up and looked into the audience, the family whose door that I had knocked on was there! So I recited Joseph Smith's first vision and made eye contact with the man that answered the door the whole time and it was super intense. During the confirmation the mom was straight up crying. We went up and talked to them after. They are active Catholics so they aren't interested right now, but I know they felt the Spirit and something will come of it. Sister Rivera is a convert and she was Catholic before, so she was able to talk with them which was pretty cool. Then after the baptism, the street taco man came to the church parking lot and we all got incredibly delicious tacos! Everyone was a winner!

But really though that family will be baptized someday.

Well family. I sure love all of you. I got letters from the childrens this week and they all made me cry. You are all getting older and it's really weird. I miss you a lot, but I know this is where I am supposed to be right now. You are all so wonderful! Have fun in Utah and give little Sam and Gavin hugs from me:)

Love,

Ashlee