August 4, 2014 "Giving the pregnant lady the blessing."

Suzi and I just got home today from Norway.  We had a wonderful time.  Here is Jon's latest email.  We didn't received an email three weeks ago because he was made a trainer and didn't have time that day.  Last week he only wrote a few sentences and said he didn't realize how hard it was being a trainer.  He seems to be settling in this week.

So this week was awesome!! I decided to work hard and just forget about myself! Training is actually fun now! I make it fun! haha I think that my companion is settling in and even though we are extremely different we are having such a great time together!!! We have worked so hard this week and we actually keep picking up investigators.  He hates tracting so I make deals with him saying if we tract I'll go buy you a kota and it works!  I am starting to realize I just need to talk to him be his friend and everything else will fall into place!
This week I was reading in preach my gospel and I realized while reading about prayer and how for the first 6 months of my mission I have been just going through the motions of prayer and not using it to its full potential.  This week I have decided to us it better and to actually realize that it is form of communication on high.  This week has just gone by so much smoother than I thought it would and it is all because of prayer I now for sure have a testimony of prayer!!

Also a cool experience that I keep forgetting to tell you is that time I gave that lady a blessing when she was pregnant when we were talking before and she said she didn't know if it was a boy or a girl.   So I made sure before that I shouldn't say boy or girl... However during the blessing the spirit directed otherwise.  I said that HE would grow up in the gospel and talked about HE.... Everytime I tried to say he or she it was as if my tongue was bound... It was a really cool experience.  It also turns out that she had a boy... haha yes it could have been a coincidence but I don't think so! 

LOVE>>>> Elder Olson  

​This is from Jon's mission president.

Jim and Suzi:

It’s another stunningly beautiful morning here in South Africa. I’m stuck in a traffic jam in Nelspruit, a town about 400K east of Johannesburg. So while I have a moment I wanted to write to tell that I just hung up the phone with Elder Olson where I was able to wish him happy birthday.  And I can report that he is thrilled to be celebrating his birthday in the mission field. We had a great chat and it was wonderful to hear his genuine enthusiasm for the work and his area. He said his only worry was that his mom would be sad today because it was his birthday and not with him. So I just wanted you to know that I was able to be a “proxy parent” and reaffirm your love for him as his mom and dad (which he knows), and let you know that he is truly very happy. He is just a great kid and I feel so blessed to have him here. I know it’s still sad to not be with him today, but hope you have a wonderful day knowing what great things he is doing here.

Michael A Dunn