WELCOME TO....GOIÂNIA!!! I was transferred!!! From Universitário to Goiânia! (if you want to look it up on Google maps, the truth is that Bairro Universitário and Setor Oeste are pretty much neighbors haha.) This was the week of transfers, and the week of moving to a new house, with new house mates, a new calling (SFLD), and a new ward. A lot of change this week. I will miss our old ward and everything, but also I'm excited to be going somewhere new.

My new companion is Elder Sales. Actually, he already was my companion but he had gone to Itumbiara in the place of Elder Silva, and now he came back. So it'l be normal. Unfortunately, Elder Brooks was called as AP so he went away, but the new guy Elder Badu seems like a good guy too.

So basically, we worked really hard with nature against us this week, haha yes the dry season ended. It's all funky because the dry season was supposed to end in like December but it's still going on, but on Saturday (our first full day of work) it rained SO MUCH!!! We just got soaked the whole day, haha! I think we taught like 2 lessons, I kind of had hoped that some people would just open the doors out of pity, but it didn't pan out the way it happened in my head.

Rain

                         

I'm not gonna lie..................I was pretty dang trunky this week. My friends (and former zone leaders) Elder Lee and Elder Creer went home, and it was the first time I actually went to the airport. Idk what it was, just the fact of being there and having prepared my bags for the move and everything, I felt like I would get in too! haha but the more I have been working this weekend, the more it passes.

Also lol, dad said in Portuguese "I have done enough in 'academia'" which I think was meant to say academia, like English, but academia in Portuguese is gym! haha so you have done enough in the gym..?

THANK YOU MOM!! I knew you would like Bishnu, I was the only person here when we watched Meet the Mormons, but Idk. I think it was the fact that he had made such a huge change in his life, but he was so willing and strong in the gospel. I think I got the multi cultural thing from you, mom.

This week I was thinking about the gospel as our anchor. Elder Creer said he had realized something in his mission. The reason (or one of them) that we cant watch tv, or listen to music, or talk to our families, or go out with girls, or anything else that we did beforehand, is to make us rely on the Lord. If we had them, we would run to them to help us relax. But here we are forced to create a relationship with the Lord. And that is the ONLY thing that is constant! No matter what the situation, place, difficulty, what we have done, who we are with, what we are doing, we will always have the ability to go to our Father in Heaven and draw from the relationship that we have from Him. That is my revelation this week. That is MY anchor.

BUT I love y'all, I'm thankful and pray for you always, have a good week!

Elder Nick Olsen

Baptism last week

Acai in the bowl (amazing!)

Dear family,

I always spend a long time trying to figure out a witty way to open up my weekly email. ..and it never works out well. So this week I gave up!

WOW what a blessing that transfer week is over! I get super stressed out on transfer day, because whatever tiny little thing that goes wrong could end up becoming a big problem. And whatever goes wrong is my fault. But nobody got lost, and everyone made it to the transfer meeting, so it is all good! Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to Elder Paez, one of my leaders. He taught me a lot about the scriptures, and about humility. He got up every day at 5:30 just to start reading the scriptures! Anyway, I will miss him a lot. That's the worst part of working in the office - sending people home when they finish

Our investigator Jonas is progressing really rapidly. He called us this week on Tuesday and said "So when can I be baptized?" Haha we were so excited! He will be baptized on Sunday by his friend Arthur, who is a counselor in our bishopric. He bore his testimony to us yesterday that he has been feeling much stronger spiritually since we have been teaching him, helping him pray more, and since we left him with the Book of Mormon. He knows it's true - he knows because he is living the gospel, and seeing the difference that it makes in his life! 

It started raining here, after months without. They were about to start rationing water, too. It is cool to see how many people  give thanks to God for things like rain - just about everyone recognizes that God has command over the elements, and so everyone is saying that He answered our prayers! If only the people would turn to Him with their whole lives, instead of just asking for rain...  

But unfortunately it has been a pretty slow week. But my love and prayers go out to you all!

Elder E Olsen

At the airport