hiiiii

I have had so many great things happen to me in the last week, I just don't even know where to begin. Some of them were seeing Whit, Allison, Dani, Nat, and Landon at General Conference; and taking Grandma and Grandpa Hansen on a tour of Temple Square yesterday! It is has been such an amazing week for me. Let me just tell you a little bit about General Conference weekend. So President says that comparisons are not necessary unless we are comparing with ourselves but just to give you and idea...the last two conference there were about 700 referrals from members in just the two days of conference. This conference, as a mission, we recieved 2,715!!!!! It was SO AMAZING. Part of the results were that we have AMAZING members in our church that want their friends to have the same blessings, and the other part is definately the leadership in our mission. President and Sister Holmes were outside all day long and I think got more referrals that most of the companionships in the mission =) It was neat to see them contacting everyone and working so hard right beside us. On Sunday night we all met up in the Tabernacle and the APs announced our goals and what we actual acheived and we all shed a few tears because we really felt that Heavenly Father was helping us and supporting us all weekend. We did not have lunch or dinner either day and we were on the square from 7am-9pm but the sacrifice was well worth the blessings. One of my favorite experiences was before the Sunday afternoon session. Sister McKinlay and I were having a hard time and people were being really rude saying things like,"We know what you are going to ask us and our answer is no." or one guy said,"I feel bad for anyone who is subjected to this mission." haha subjected? harsh. But we just were feeling down so I said,"Sister McKinlay, something isn't working here. We need to go and pray for some help." So on our way to the south to pray we see a couple, about in their fifties, in jeans with cameras around their necks walking towards us. They definately stood out from the conference crowd as tourists. So we stopped them and ended up having a beautiful conversation where we taught them about how Christ's church is now restored along with the priesthood authority to act in his name.(we were standing by the statues of Joseph Smith recieving the Priesthood on conference weekend..perfect setting =). We explained how this weekend our prophets and apostles were speaking to us and also about how that same authority allows our families to be together forever, which is one of the amazing blessings of the temple. They said how they were so impressed with the people at temple square who had come to see conference and how nice and happy everyone was. I invited them to have missionaries come by and teach them more and they said YES! This experience was a good example for me of how Heavenly Father has us go through hard times to humble us, so we remember him, and then He is just waiting to bless us. Sunday night President said we were not allowed to workout Monday morning, have personal study, or companionship study. He let us sleep in until 9! haha And he bought the whole mission pizza for lunch! It was a great way to recooperate =) I think I say at least 3 times a day,"I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!" I hope you all are happy, safe, and know how much I love you!!!!

XOXOXOXOXO,

Sister M. Olsen