My Time in Mongolia: Delicious Day has been Established

Dear Family and Friends,

I love celebrations! They are fun, it is good to get out, you get really great pictures, but there are also not very many people to meet. They are out having too much fun. Life. What can you do? I'll tell you what we did, you get out there, give everything that you have, then go home and try to call and meet with everyone that has ever been contacted by a missionary in our books, and then after all of that (without success), you say, "at least I am here" and be happy. That was the lesson that I learned over and over again. Everyday, we were burned, on Saturday, we were burned 6 times over, even our back-ups burned us; our emee who cannot even leave here house burned us. Thus is the life during a celebration week when you are white-washing.

To help explain, being 'burned' means that your appointment stands you up after confirming the appointment the night before (at 10 PM). Either that, or they cancel while you are in route. We had one wonderful Less Active sister that we were going to meet and after she gave a very excited confirmation, we were on our way to her house when she gives us a call (less than one hour before the meeting time) and let us know that she was suddenly in her summer home. We don't give up on them, though, because we are hoping to meet with her tonight instead.

So, we decided to establish Delicious Day and make a delicious dinner to celebrate that we are missionaries doing hard work. I don't know, maybe the Lord knew that we needed to eat dinner instead of just going to an appointment (Some times we get fed, some times we don't. Mongolia does not have a Dinner Schedule like at home). Oh man, my companion is a great cook, so Delicious Day actually is quite delicious. We tried making potato-huushuur for the first dinner that was established and then for Delicious Day (again) she made 'Bollwinkel Goop' (that tasted like mole) and I made flour tortillas. From scratch. By hand. It was amazing.

So moral of the week, keep your chin up. Life is not always going to work out the way that you planned, but that is not a reflection of who you are as a person or necessarily caused by what you are doing. Sometimes, the entire country will take a week-long celebration and make it impossible to meet with people. Don't worry, though, Sunday will always come.

Yesterday was probably one of the most amazing days of my mission because I realized that I am becoming the type of missionary that I have always wanted to be. We gave a 5 minute talk over the phone to the 'long distance' branch (it is a call-in Sacrament meeting for those living too isolated to go to a meeting) and I thought that it was hard, but doable. Then, while we were going to head over to our ward starting within an hour, we received a call from the bishopric asking us to give talks during Sacrament because the assigned speakers were not going to be there. So I fretted a bit while on the bus thinking of how my Mongolian is too crazy to give a talk, but my companion tried to talk me off the ledge. When we arrived, though, there was so much that we needed to do before that I didn't have time to worry about it until I was suddenly at the pulpit before the congregation. An amazing thing that happened was that all of my nervousness left as I opened my mouth to speak. At that moment, I knew that I became a better missionary. The talk that i gave was irrelevant, the words and language are simply a vessel, by standing at that pulpit I proved that I am becoming the missionary that will do whatever is asked of me, inside or outside of my comfort zone. I am becoming a true disciple of Christ.

I love being a missionary.

I love you with all of my heart,

Sister Olsen