Valentine's Transfer

This week we have transfers and so we won't have a regular Pday. We woke up this morning and got ready, studied, and then came to email our families. After lunch, we went and knocked doors. It was really awesome knocking today. We found a new investigator and taught a lesson, kind of the street contact, named Carlos. He is a really nice guy. He said to us "I know you guys don't know a lot of Spanish but I will work with you and talk slowly." We were like "No, sabemos bastante español." We let him know that he could just talk to us. Hermana Pearson wasn't happy about that, but it was pretty funny. We have another lesson with him on Saturday. We had dinner with a cute family – the Pedersen's. They have such cute, crazy kids. They are just so cute and squishy! We had a lesson with them with the Hershey’s kisses that Nana sent. Shout out to Nana and her kisses! We wanted to eat them all but we are trying to get “swole”!

We were driving around in Cole Valley which is just a little random town and we found a zoo! It is called the Nairobi Zoo! Here we are in this teeny, tiny town and it’s crazy. What the junk? There is a zoo in the middle of nowhere! I saw an alligator exhibit and I tried to drive by really slowly. There was a gate that entered into the zoo and when I turned in, the gate started to close. We hurried and left because I was super stressed that they were recording us and we were going to get busted. But it's all good. By the way, I started to drive! Hermana Pearson hasn't been feeling very well, and she doesn't love to drive, anyways, and honestly, I am just a better driver! Just kidding. It has been super fun!

Happy Valentine's Day! Today was pretty rough; I am not going to lie! We worked out this morning and it was super hard. My legs have been like jelly all day – it is kind of embarrassing and how out of shape I have become! I hobbled around all day because all we did was knock doors. I was trying to climb up the stairs and it was just so, so embarrassing. We taught a cute lady today from the Philippines named Leah. We taught her about the restoration and she seemed pretty interested but she was really the only one that let us into her house. We had dinner with the Bringas’s tonight. We had tostadas and I ate way too many! They were really good. We are on exchanges with the STL's tonight and so me and Sister Kimber tried to meet a couple of people. No one was home so me and Hermana Pearson came home to study Spanish. Sister Kimber and Sister Sarvela just kind of stayed and hung out with us. They are so cute! About 9:00 tonight we just hung out and sang songs together. It was so stress relieving and really wonderful! It was a really great day!

Wednesday was our last payday before transfers and it was fun! We cleaned our house and washed our clothes, and then went grocery shopping. I desperately need shoes and so we tried to go shopping for clothes. I really want to find some new boots to go tracting in. All I have are my heavy winter boots, flats, or the nice boots that Nana gave me that are way too hard to walk in for tracting. I had a hard time finding anything – the struggle is real. We went to Bettendorf and helped the Sisters pack because they are closing that area and they are leaving our zone. We will take over a lot of the people over there. So that is cool. We went to Pday in Davenport and we made planners for everyone and said goodbye to everyone that is going to be leaving. That was fun and very sad too. We had dinner with the Aucklands, who are this really cute and cool young couple. Then we helped the sisters move some more because they were freaking out about moving all of their stuff. My comp hit 9 months in the mission also! See her "baby belly"?!

 Elder Olsen, Elder Seljaas, Hermana Pearson

We made this cute door thing so that we can have self confidence! We write nice things about ourselves and each other on sticky notes and put them on our door. I know, we are the cutest people ever!

Thursday my companion wasn't feeling very well. She slept in a little while I did studies, then we went to Cole Valley and went to the library and did Mormon.org time. We tried to meet a media referral, but they were not home. So, we came back home and ate lunch. Later, we went to visit people and try to knock some doors. We met a couple of guys in their car that were super hammered. One of them was like "I know all about y'all Mormons. I know all about Brigham Young and Brigham Young University. I don't really want to talk about religion right now because I am pretty intoxicated." So we gave them a card and tried not to laugh too hard. We continued to knock and then they pulled around the corner in their car. I was super bummed because they were clearly drunk and they were driving. So we went up to them and said "hey, were you just driving?" He said "yeah, I just didn't want to go to the bathroom in public so we just went around the corner." I was like "don't you know it's not ok to drink and drive?! You have to promise me that you will never drink and drive again!" He looked at me and kind of brushed his chin. I said "C'mon, you have to promise me!" So he stuck out his pinky and we pinky promised that he wouldn't do it again. He said "Ok, I promise I won't do it again." Then his friend started telling us about Mormons and the pioneers, and how he knows everything about the pioneers. Then he said, "and you all don't celebrate Christmas either" and we said "oh no, we celebrate Christmas!" Then he asked who it is that doesn't celebrate Christmas. Hermana Pearson said it's the Jehovah's Witnesses and he was like "oh yeah, I know all about the Jehovah's Witnesses." He was so drunk and it was just so funny! Other than that, we just knocked a lot of doors today and it was awesome!

Friday we had a get to know you for zone meeting. We have a new zone leader and two new people in our area. Elder Blouse's new companion is Elder O’Bray – he's really cool and tall and stuff. Elder Fackrell’s new companion is Elder Jenkins. He is our new district leader. He is really nice. Elder Higley is our new zone leader. He is from a town on the border of Nevada and Utah. He is really into hunting and stuff. We went to lunch at a random Chinese place that was pretty good. That was pretty much the whole day- so yeah!

Saturday – Today was like 75° today! Outside we went tracting for most of the day. We made up a story the whole day about our district and stuff. It was super fun! We had dinner with the Coleman/Adams sisters. They are a mom/daughter duo who are converts to the church. We taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was super spiritual. Then we came home and cleaned our house. We clean our house every Saturday so that it will be nice for Sunday and so that we can keep the Sabbath day holy. We do have a brand-new investigator named Minelva! She is super! We knocked on her door a few weeks ago and she said she was sick. Then we knocked again a couple of weeks ago. We taught her about the plan of salvation and sang I am a child of God in Spanish. The spirit was really strong. She was really nice to us the whole time and invited us back. We had invited her to be baptized and she said yes if she decided these things were true. Of course she's going to know these things are true! We had invited her to church at that time and she couldn't come. This last time we finished teaching her about the plan of salvation and invited her to church. She promised she would be at church tomorrow! I am so excited… She will be the very first investigator that I have coming to church! She is about 50–54 and super shy. She is pretty hard to read. She has definitely been an answer to prayers! Super exciting!

Sunday – So last night at about 8:30 pm we were driving home, I was driving and we were traveling down the road going about 50 mph and it was all dark and stuff. Then, OUT OF NO WHERE, a deer jumped right in front of our car, a big buck (probably like a 5x5)!  I slammed on the breaks as hard as I could and swerved out of the way. The deer ran away and I seriously don't know how we didn't hit it. We seriously missed it by like half an inch I swear. It was super scary and so I got out of the car to see if maybe we did hit it – there wasn't a scratch to be seen. It was seriously a miracle ha ha but ya that's all :)  I wanted you to freak out because it’s not like ANYTHING CRAZIER THAN THAT IS GONNA HAPPEN IN IOWA except maybe like if we have an investigator that wants to listen to us! Ha ha!