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.