12/19/2018 - Merry Christmas!

Well hello everyone,

We had a crazy week. Can't even begin to tell you what we were able to do. But it was a great week. Transfer calls came out last night. And transfers are tomorrow. I kinda figured but I am staying and finishing my last transfer here in Lethbridge. Which I am excited for. I really love this area and we have some amazing people here. Much to our surprise however, my companion is staying. So we are going to do 3 transfers together. So that is pretty surprising. But that's how it goes. 

But on to the week. We had an exchange with our district leader out in Taber. Finally, we had a crazy transfer with that area, had one new companion, then the one that had been there got a concussion and got emergency transferred to calgary because of it and now there are two basically brand new missionaries there. They are doing awesome. Taber was a cool place, a little town with lots of members and it is also known for it's corn. It has some pretty good corn that is grown in Taber. So that  was great. Then we were a blur of things that we have been doing. Not really sure what but we were super busy rushing around, talking to as many people as we can and meeting with members. It has been awesome. 

We also taught Blake sunday night. It was amazing. We told him to pray if baptism was right last week and he did. So at our lesson we followed up and he said at church he had this feeling that it was right. It was awesome. So we put him on date for December 30th! Then monday night we had another lesson with him and we had to bump his date back because of the holidays to January 12th. But he is still getting ready for baptism and we have a solid ward that supports him. He went to mutual last night and we popped in to see if he and another person we are teaching made it and he was loving it! But yeah. That is the cool highlights of the week. I will keep it short since I will get to talk to you all tuesday! Merry Christmas!

12/12/2018 - The Lord Works in Miraculous Ways

Well hello everyone,

So this last week was a good one. We have been working harder and harder. And we saw some cool miracles. First we have seen countless miracles since our stake conference from what we were able to do. It is such a cool experience we were able to be a part of and I would like to share a few. 

First off, our end total of names referred was 110! 110 people that were inspired names to be contacted. It was super cool. But one thing we noticed was people are not afraid to refer someone. Most lessons we go to know we get a name to try after. Which is so cool! So don't be afraid to send a name to the missionaries. Also this one is super cool. Our missionaries and us worked hard all week and organized the names into wards and reported them in ward council so the ward council can make specific direct assignments on how to contact. It was quite the coordination between us and our missionaries, and us and President Stewart. 

Well one name we brought was Mike. Right when I said the name I could see that the bishopric recognized the name and they were interested ( it was clear that they had tried but seemed to be at a dead end) Well, my next comment was that we have had contact with him. President Keung and Sister Keung went and visited him this last week. Apparently Pres Keung had served his mission with Mike's father and his father (from australia) told President Keung to go visit him. Well when I said this everyone was blown away. After Ward council our ward secretary asked us when the Keungs contacted him, so we found out and he told us Mike had text him the next day. Which is a miracle because they hadn't contacted him in a LONG time. It was such a cool miracle! Let's just say there are no coincidences, first that President Keung came all the way from new Zealand to see Mike, second that someone felt impressed to refer him and third that we were able to connect the dots with someone else that talked to him. The Lord works in miraculous ways. We are working on developing this story further but we will let you know how it goes. 

But another miracle this week we were able to begin teaching 4 new people. One already dropped us but we were able to teach Blake finally. His parents are members but are going through some tough times and he isn't baptized. We had a lesson at a member's house and he came and we talked about baptism with Blake ( he comes to church every week). Well we are teaching him now and we are going to hopefully put him on date for the end of December. So pray for us. I am going to cut this short now since we just got a call to go help someone change a flat tire but I love you all. I know this gospel is true and the Lord is at the works. He can help

Elder Ollis

12/4/2018 - I Love Being Exhausted for the Lord. It is Worth It!

Hey everyone.

Well sorry to surprise you on a tuesday, but P-day was moved for this week only. But to recap our week. WE DID SO MUCH! and to give you a taste I am just going to give you a run down of the week. I usually don't do this but here it goes. Thursday we had Zone conference. We were visited by Elder Anderson of the seventy and he was great. What an inspired man. He shared about our desire, he said that if our desires are aligned with the Lord we can achieve what he wants for us. It was awesome because our mission is doing so much right now to get 42 baptisms this month. Which we have never done. We are all working to get a "white Christmas". There is so much energy and excitement. Pres Keung even sent an email to all the stake presidents in the mission to ask them to add one or 2 baptisms this month. It has been awesome!! 

11/29/2018 - Elder Ollis with Brother Heninger,
a missionary who served with his dad

Later that night we visited with the Heningers, a member family in our ward. It was cool as we were talking Brother Heninger mentioned something about his mission. I asked where he served and he said SACRAMENTO! I got excited and said my dad served there and Brother Heninger asked when he served there. Well I couldn't remember the years but I said it was right in that spot where a year and a half was standard. He says that's when he served too! It was super cool because after I asked if he remembered and Elder Ollis and he did! Haha it was super cool. He said he remembered my dad was a heck of a missionary! So that was super cool. Also we got a picture after and when I stood up Brother Heninger said I was a lot taller than my Dad! Haha I laughed at that one. But that was such a cool experience. 

Friday we did some service in the morning and then worked with our High Councilor over missionary work in our YSA ward by visiting some people, and then we drove up to Calgary for an MLC with Elder Anderson. It was awesome. Got to hear from him twice and it was great! Then we spent the night in Calgary and drove down in the morning. We worked all day and then attended a Stake Leadership meeting that our Stake Pres invited us to, and then we went to the adult session. It was awesome we met another Seventy! Elder Sexton of the Seventy was there for the meeting. He was awesome and had some amazing stories about missionary work. He was so awesome to listen to and I know he loved us! 

Anyway, there was a lot of build up for Sunday! We had been coordinating with our Stake President, President Stewart, to have President Keung ask the stake members during stake conference who they wish was with them at the conference and text the name to our number. It was legendary! Our phone blew up and we have had to work the past few days to get all them organized so missionaries can contact them and organize them to wards so the ward leaders can contact them. It was A LOT of work and the total was 100 referrals!!!!!!!!!!! It was crazy! After the meeting we had the coolest experience, we were talking to p\Pres Keung about a few things and President Stewart and Elder Sexton approached us. Well Elder Sexton said he felt so good about the missionaries in our stake and loved what we have been doing! He was so giddy! We were the first people he talked to after the meeting! He then goes on to say we are going to quadruple our baptisms this month! IT WAS SO COOL! Anyway we have been tirelessly working none stop and it has been insane. But that was the week, full of miracles and blessings and the work is rolling forward. I love this gospel and I love being exhausted for the Lord. It is worth it!

Love, Elder Ollis

12/4/2018 - Photo from Sister Keung's Facebook
Spending P-day with a few missionaries, including Elder Ollis
and his companion Elder Sessions

11/28/2018 - I Know This Work is True

Crazy week. To be honest once again I don't know where the time went. Time is truly flying. Well not much  to report, or really I can't remember. Last wednesday we picked up a new person to teach which was awesome. But yeah. We just put in work this week. We met with a lot of less actives and are trying to get them back to church. It was super fun. We also did a lot of door knocking. President wants each of the missionaries to street contact or tract for an hour daily! I am pumped because I think a lot of our missionaries need that! It puts hair on your chest for sure! Haha I am super excited for it. 

We also had a leadership meeting which was super awesome! Such inspiration from President Keung to help with our mission. We as a mission have been working on a thing called 1+1 which is a new way to work with ward council. It was cool because  the changes in elders quorum and relief society and ward council reflect it perfectly. So it was great! We have seen lots of success with it. But that is all we got. Things are going good. We had interviews with President and it was great to see him, I am so grateful to have a mission President like him. I know this work is true and I love being a part of it. Hope you all have a great week!

11/21/2018 - The Lord Really Does Bless Us for Our Diligence

Well, what a wild, wild week we had. Boy it was a long week but now we are here. SO MUCH happened this week it was crazy. So this week I am incredibly grateful for the Lord. He really does bless us when we do what he wants us to do. We have been working so hard as missionaries and the Lord really does bless us for our diligence. Just like when we do what He has asked us to do everyday. I am so grateful for my Savior I can't really explain how much I am. But I must go on to explain why

So it began last Friday when we were going to visit some YSA people in Lethbridge (our ward boundaries cover some other small towns) And every friday we go out with Bro Patterson. He is the high councilman over missionary work and a baller! I love the guy. He is from Cardston and I served in his home ward there, so we know a lot of the same people. Anyway our lesson cancelled so we were stopping by some less-active girls because we had him with us and it is really hard to get in any other time. So we decided to try someone neither me or my companion had met before but brother Patterson had. Anyway that individual left, but we found a girl from Kenya, a member who had been going to a different ward. So we visit with her, and her roommates come home a little later. Both of them are non-members and we invited them to church. They wanted to come and so we are going back this friday to teach them. 

Also Thursday we had to go take a missionary to the bus.  He went up to calgary because of a concussion and we waited for another missionary to come back out. It was awesome to pick him up and he is excited to work. We are hyped! We also began teaching another couple. We taught them about the book of mormon and read 3 Nephi 11 with them and went back yesterday to teach more. They are Catholic but have some good intent. It may take some time but they will get there. On Sunday night we also tried a guy named Jordan we tract into. He said come back monday so we went back and taught the plan of salvation. He also had some solid questions and asked what he would need to do if he were to join. So we had him read the baptismal interview questions and he said he agreed with it all except joseph smith. (he thought we worshipped him haha) So we went back again tuesday and taught the restoration and cleared up his concern about joseph smith. Anyway we are going back again tomorrow, and plan to put him on date to be baptized!!!! All in one week! It was a cool miracle. 

Anyway, there were lots and lots and lots of other miracles but I just couldn't explain them all to you! But this week was great. It goes to show this scripture is true. The Lord says in D&C 124:55 "... that you may prove yourselves unto me that ye are faithful in all things whatsoever I command you, that I may bless you, and crown you with honor, immortality, and eternal life." The principle is the Lord gives us commandments for our benefit and so we can show we want his blessings. And WHAT A BLESSING!

Brothers and Sisters I love this Gospel, it is true. But I want to invite all of you to ponder those things, the blessings we can receive when we act in faith to God's commandments (that is the most simple faith, a belief that is strong enough to test what the Lord has asked) And I would like to invite you to focus on one, a simple one. Prayer. This week pray daily and more fervently, whether it be more gratitude or telling Heavenly Father exactly how we are at this point. Whatever you feel you need, do it. I can promise you, He will listen and He will answer your prays. And as we obey we will feel happier. Love you all and hope you have a great week. You know we will #keeppounding.

Love, Elder Ollis

11/14/2018 - Quick Report

Hello!

Last week I didn’t send much of an email because we were able to go to the temple! I love the temple! The Sunday before we had a regional broadcast and Elder Holland spoke from Salt Lake. It was awesome and a very powerful talk!

So Quick report for this week. We got hammered with snow twice last week. It was wonderful. Now it is windy and Chinooking so everything is melting. It’s a wonderful time of year and I love it! Also now that Remembrance Day is over (it's a holiday to remember the veterans, everyone wears a poppy on their shirt for weeks) it's all about Christmas. So everyone is putting up trees and now it's snowing again (even though it already snowed in September).

Transfers were last week and we stayed, so I will probably do one more with Elder Sessions and then he goes and I finish up. Weird. But things are going well here.  Cool miracle, we taught a kid named Hans this week. And he came to church in our YSA ward. It was super awesome, only sad thing is he is going to the Philippines for 6 weeks. So see him next transfer. We are going to try and use our technology to the best of its ability and teach him over skype or face book messenger but we will see how that goes. Things are going, we are working hard but that's about all I got. We are always trying to find new people to teach.

Elder Ollis

10/30/2018 - The Lord Really Does Bless Us

Well I will keep it short but hello everyone!

This week was good. We saw some great miracles!! It was also hard because that is how life is. You have to taste the bitter so you can know the sweet. But we worked hard this week. Sunday we held a district fast to find more people to teach. It has definitely been the focus of our work lately. And the blessings came yesterday. We were trying a few new things and we received a text from a less active lady in our ward saying she wants to start coming back to church and asked us for a book of mormon. So we immediately went to drop it off at her work. It was a cool miracle but didn’t stop there. Anyway while we were in the parking lot a guy yells at us from his truck asking for a book of mormon too! He was a Hutterite man and we were able to give him a book of mormon! (Hutterites are a religious group that are in southern alberta, they immigrated from germany to canada and live on colonies and basically live the law of consecration. They are deeply religious and very closed to other religions, but very friendly people and have ridiculously good food. Their chickens and eggs are HUGE) So that was a huge miracle also! And again last night, we got a text from a member in our YSA ward saying that he was bringing 3 non-members to our FHE. We weren't planning on going to it this week so we set up splits and I went to our other appointments. It was a super amazing night. The Lord really does bless us, I have a testimony that fasting really works! 

That’s all I’ve got! Elder Ollis

10/23/2018 - My Simple Invitation is to do Likewise

Merry Christmas everyone!! 

Nah I am just kidding you. Just thought it would be a different way to start the weekly email. And to my wonderful fans at home. I sure do love and appreciate you. But things are going good up here in the great white north. This week the temperature was amazing. It was a nice 18 degrees (64.5 farenheit) most of the week it was awesome. Last week we were able to go on exchanges with our district leader in Coaldale. It was a lot of fun, I stayed in Lethbridge and brought Elder Schmidt here. It was a great exchange and we put in some good work. We were able to talk to lots of people this week and we are going to see some miracles soon. I know it. Not much else to report. The man we are teaching named phil has been gone quite a bit and seems to dodge us lately so we will probably stop teaching him. So we are back at it to find more people to teach. We have great spirits and we love this work, I know my Savior will bless us. 

I have really come to love the book of Mormon. It is such a wonderful gift we have been given. President Nelson came and visited us back in june and invited everyone to read it daily. I took that to heart and don't ever miss a day without reading a little from the book of Mormon. I really know the book of Mormon has answers. Countless times I have had yearnings of the heart for answers to questions and the book of Mormon always seems to answer them. My simple invitation is to do likewise. Read and ponder the book of Mormon. Study it out in your mind. Read parts and pieces based on what is on your mind and draw out what you want from it. I know and can testify the book of Mormon can help. It is true and I love it. 

But that's all I got, Crazy though I hit my 21-month mark this week. Love you all!

Elder Ollis

10/16/2018 - We Have Had a Solid Week

HEY EVERYONE!

Well not going to lie this week flew by. that keeps happening. But the news of the week, Cannibus is legal in Canada tomorrow. So that should be interesting. But other than that we have had a solid week. We have been putting in work. We had a zone conference last week in Medicine hat, I have never been there so it was cool to visit. It is a 2 hour drive strait east of lethbridge through farms. So I have some great photos this week!!!!! I love farms!!!

But yeah things are going good, we are working to find people to teach right now. We weren't able to meet our person we are teaching this week, he works a night shift so it's tricky but we will keep working hard to find more. Good news was we were able to get a new WML in our ysa ward and he is ready to get things moving. Which will be a huge help and we already have a great ward so we are excited for the chance we will have to work with him. Also he said if there is anything we want to do on our pday he is down to take us. So that got me excited because there is a small town a little outside of lethbridge that apparently has Sturgeon, like those big huge fish. So definitely want to go see some wild sturgeon. But things are going good. We were able to pick up a few people we are hoping to teach this week through talking on the streets and tracting so we hope it will work out! But thats about all I got for ya this week!

Elder Ollis

10/13/2018 - Elder O and Elder S having dinner with the Nickel family

Sturgeon Farm Sign

10/09/2018 - Moral of the Story is You Never Know What Will Happen

What a great week we had up in the great white north. We woke up today with an inch or two of snow and you know I am excited! I also bought a new coat last week, didn't need one, but it was an unbelievable sale and I couldn't pass it up. So I am double prepared for winter (you can't have too many coats).

But we had a solid week of meetings it seemed like. We had MLC, which was great. Then we went on an exchange with the Assistants. So those are always super fun. And then General conference. It was awesome! I loved pretty much every talk. So wonderful we were able to hear from a prophet of God. I don't have too much to say about it, other than I got a lot of answers to questions that I needed and felt completely nourished by the word of God! And 12 new temples! Holy Cow, we are going to hit 200 by next year!!! That is amazing. We also had a cool experience. There is a couple we have been trying to teach for a little while. They are from mexico and super busy, but we introduced them to some members in our ward that live near them, that are also from mexico. It was a super cool connection! And the members brought the wife to general conference sunday! It was a great miracle! Pray that we can teach them! We hope to have a (baptism) white Christmas!

Also another cool thing I wanted to share because it blew me away. We had dinner saturday with a YSA kid who actually served in this mission. Like he served here maybe 5 or 6 months ago. Anyway he is going to school here and wanted to take us to dinner. So we were talking and come to find out he transferred into Lethbridge the transfer I left, about a year ago. It was cool because he told me about a man they taught that I found while in Lethbridge and he is now active again! I totally had forgotten about that guy but it was a great miracle just finding him. A year ago Elder Woltron and I felt we should go tract what we thought was the North part of our area and ran into a less active member who said we could come back. We found out after that wasn't our area, so we went back with the missionaries that covered there and passed him off to be taught. Anyway, I left about a week after this happened, and the former missionary we had dinner with came into that other area we accidentally tract in. Anyway the guy has been coming to church ever since I met him. What a cool miracle! Anyway, moral of the story is you never know what will happen. I love this gospel and I know the Lord blesses us for what we do. I know as we diligently seek to follow the spirit He will guide us through life.

Much love, Elder Ollis

10/02/2018 - Sad to Say Goodbye to Calgary, But On to a New One

Well everyone this week was crazy.

So I did get transferred. Sad to say goodbye to calgary but on to a new one. Back to Lethbridge. so I am down here with Elder Sessions, which is cool. I served around him in Calgary, and Lethbridge a year ago so about 9 months in all, and now we are companions. It's sweet. He is a ginger from Logan Utah. So the area I am in has 3 wards. We cover a YSA ward that covers towns 3 minutes away, and 2 family wards, the Fairmont ward and Six Mile wards. It is a lot of fun. So it isn't the same area I was in last time. I was in Lethbridge but it is about as close as you can get. There  is a road that goes north to south in Lethbridge and splits the town. A year ago I was on the south west side, now I am in the south east. Literally across the street. Haha it is so fun and I love it down here. Weird that this will likely be my last area. 

Anyway, not to much to report, still trying to figure things out down here. We have awesome wards that help out a lot. And YSA is really different. Super weird since I am the same age as a lot of the ward and it's just more fun. Plus now we won't have to pass off all our investigators to YSA because we are the YSA!!!!  But loving life right now working hard and loving the Lord!! 

Sorry no photos but love you all!

09/25/2018 - I Love the Book of Mormon and the Peace I Find In It

Hey everyone. Well we had a good week here. 

We worked hard this week. Saw some cool stuff happen. We got a referral Saturday and tried it that afternoon and again that evening. We were able to get in and teach the Restoration to a lady. It was super cool, she had some awesome questions and had seemed really prepared but she wasn't interested in learning more. So we left her with a book of mormon and hope and pray she reads. But we keep our hopes up to find more people to teach. 

Not much more to update you about, we have been going and loving this work. This week are transfers, I have no Idea what is going to happen. Currently there has been a mistake maybe from the mission office emailing everyone their areas? But we have been told those could be wrong. I have no Idea what is going on. I could be going back to lethbridge but that might not be right. 

As for that I just wanted to share a little testimony of the Book of Mormon. I love Nephi as he shares his testimony of the words that are written. He says " And now, my beloved brethren, and also jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men they should do good." (2 Nephi 33:10)  I know all we need to do is read the book and we really can find out that they are the words of Christ. I love the Book of Mormon and the peace I find in it. I encourage you to continue to read, and come closer to Christ. But most importantly share that with others. I love this gospel and love coming closer to him. 

Elder Ollis

9/18/2018 - I Want it For Our Members!

Hey everyone. Hope you are having a great week. 

First things first. Well if BYU is beating top 10 teams maybe I won't make the start at QB. But I guess we will keep training and practicing and hope for the best. Ha ha

But we had a good week. We were out and about and all over the city this week. We met a lot of members and did missionary work like missionaries do. (sorry guys I am slowly getting less creative on telling you on what we did). We still struggle to find investigators. I don’t know why. We are very diligent and are always working. Our investigator Adeniyi, who I have mentioned before, has been in London and is now going to BC. So we don’t see him much. We were on exchanges yesterday and Elder Johnson found a new investigator. Our Mandarin missionaries found her and we got the return appointment so I have not met her yet. I really want to get people to church. I want it for our members because I know they would do awesome if we could get someone there!  But we keep exercising faith and we will find!

We had a leadership meeting last wednesday that was really good and I learned a lot that will help me. We were able to help out saturday with the Calgary food bank food drive. It's a big deal and the church does it every year. We collected food across the whole city for the food bank. The estimated cost of food collected was over $800,000 of food. It was super cold but a lot of fun. Yeah, it even snowed this week and the temp has been down to 0 Celsius almost the whole week. We are expecting it will stay that way for another week. We are working hard and the Lord will bless us. But that is about all I got for this week. Sure hope you have a good one.

09/11/2018 - Elder Ollis and Elder Johnson cooking dogs at the 4th Ward Corn Bust

09/15/2018 - Collecting food for the Calgary Food Bank

9/11/2018 - Visiting Authorities...Definitely the Highlight of the Week!

Hey everyone. Well had a good week this week. To update on what happened. 

Saturday we met as a whole mission in Calgary to meet Elder Gong!!! It was super cool to have the whole mission in one building. We had a great meeting. We met Elder Evanson (70 over this region of the world. He's from Lethbridge), Elder Clayton, (president of the seventy), Gifford Nielson (of the 70, played QB at BYU, replaced by steve young) and Elder Gong. It was amazing. We got to shake all their hands and found out Elder Gong's wife is from Taylorsville. Elder Vea and I were hyped, gotta represent the Hood! Anyway it was a fantastic meeting. Elder Nielson's talk was awesome, he started off by telling us that by shaking hands he could tell who was in and who wasn't in. He said most of us were in. Then proceeded to tell us that we needed to be all in. It was such a good talk. Also that guy is HUGE! Gosh I swear he was like 7 feet tall. Then Elder Clayton shared some wonderful insights to help us in our missionary efforts and Elder Gong finished with a wonderful talk about the Doctrine of Christ and using the spirit in our efforts. He stressed being yourself and allowing your experiences and personalities to connect with those we meet. It was great. Then later that night we heard from them again with a special meeting for all investigators, LA and recent converts. It was a great day. That was definitely the highlight of the week! 

Then on sunday we found out there is a new family in the ward, and the husband plays for the Calgary Flames!!!!! Let's go. We are stoked and hope to go visit them SOON!  Just wanted to share a last thought of the week. Sometimes we are silly and frustrated with ourselves. I know all of us have those moments. But we also have those moments where we feel the spirit. We can't deny them. As we reflect on them it helps us to see how the spirit works and how we can gain that peace and happiness we need. I encourage you to reflect on those moments and try to replicate them.

Elder Ollis

09/08/2018 - All 184 Calgary Missionaries together to hear from Elder Gong!

09/11/2018 - Lambo of the Week

09/11/2018 - Love this painting by our Ward Mission Leader

9/4/2018 - I Still Love This Work So Much!

Hello everyone. 

Well we had a good week. Kinda sad week but that happens to the best of us. We had one last week where people are gone on vacation, school starts and things are finally settling down for the year. So not too much to report, but it will be a fantastic week coming up. Our investigators were all busy this week so we will see when we can meet them next. One of them was in London on business.  Our “golden boy” from last week dropped us and said he wasn’t interested anymore. But we are keeping our heads up and getting to work like always. If you remember the baptism we had for Josh (see 6/19 post), well his step dad isn’t a member yet and he is finally not working all the time so next week we are hoping to go back and teach him.  They are awesome and he was at church Sunday.  So that is our positive moment of the week! Elder Johnson and I are working hard, it is enjoyable, and I still love this work so much! 

We have a great week planned. Excited for Saturday! I forgot to tell you but Elder Gong is visiting our mission on Saturday! So we will see and hear from him.  The Book of Mormon musical is coming to town in a couple of weeks. We aren’t allowed to go near the play, but we are encouraged to just be out and have Books of Mormon visible. And that will raise questions from people and allow us to teach about what the Book of Mormon really is.  So we might go downtown to blitz with the book of Mormon!  So that is all we got this week. Love you all! 

08/24/2018 - I Know the Lord Lives and He Knows What We Need

Well hello everyone,

We had another week here, a whole seven days. Let me tell you what happened. Well what happened was we did lots of missionary work! All day, everyday. Then yesterday we had a zone conference. It was super cool, we talked about a lot of amazing stuff. Once again, it was good.

But we had a cool miracle last night that I want to share some of the details. We had some appointments that fell through and because of zone conference and interviews we didn't have time to plan much. So we said a prayer, planned it out, and went out working. We were going to our last home to visit and so we prayed mightily and asked to be guided to those who need our heavenly father. So we were knocking doors around and no one was answering but on one of the last doors this guy answers. He was on the phone and I shared about having hope in life and eternal families and he hangs up the phone and says " I don't know a lot about Christ but I want to know more." Needless to say I talked about the book of mormon and he said again, "Well are you going to give me one? Sell me one? I want to read it." We ended up going in and teaching half the first lesson, and all I can say is there are no coincidences in this world. That man was so prepared I have NEVER experienced something like that ever. He asked if he could come to church and we are going to meet him again Friday. And one of the best parts, as we were leaving he says, "hey do you guys golf?" I about hugged the man, and he said we should golf some time. There is a lot more to the story, such as how he expressed some concerns about things that we had talked about that very day at zone conference. It was a miracle! That is all I can say. I know the Lord lives and He knows what we need. And I know dilligence and obedience pay off. Even when we don't seem to be getting anywhere, there is no need for us to be less dilligent or less obedient. It only weakens us and dulls our spirit. I love this Gospel!!

Elder Ollis

08/24/2018 - Just getting in touch with my future career!

08/21/2018 - Things Are Starting to Move Again

8/13/2018 - President Keung, Elder Johnson and Elder Ollis
getting things settled for new missionaries

Hey everyone. Not too much to report this week. We had transfers, I am staying which is a huge surprise. Elder Johnson and I are going to do another one together here in Richmond and 4th wards! Anyway, transfers were crazy, first one with President Keung. It was crazy hectic, we had 3 new sets of missionaries opening up areas in our zone. And only one car between them. So we were told we needed to move a bunch of stuff and help them into their new areas. So we literally drove from 10 to 7:30. It was wild. I was super done with downtown traffic. Holy cow I could never live in a big city. 

8/13/2018- Working hard

But the rest of the week was good. We were out side a lot. It was super smokey because of wild fires but we didn't mind and we talked to as many people as we could. Sunday was a ray of golden light. There were some more members that were at church! The summer is coming to a close and people are expected to be back from their vacations. And things are starting to move again. It's what this area needs right now.  One of the members in our ward brought a non member sunday. It was sweet. The member is our bishop's son and we have been working to prepare him for his mission. He is going to Hawaii, what a sacrifice right?, Anyway it was super cool and we hope to begin teaching soon. 

We were also blessed to find 3 new investigators this week! We knocked on a ladies door and she said she would be interested and we gave her a book of mormon. She was like 17 so we decided to try again, even though those usually turn out that the parents don't want us to come over and the daughter isn't that interested. But anyway, we went by and talked to the father and taught him the restoration and we are going by again this week to teach more! that was cool! Then the best one, we found another sunday night. We had tracted into this guy named Adeniyi. He is a cool guy, from Ghana and he is quite traveled. He first came in contact with the church by attending church in the Netherlands. When we knocked on his door he said we could come by again. We did a few weeks ago and were able to teach him and his son the Restoration. But we weren't able to get a return appointment with him. So we tried again sunday, it was amazing, he opened the door and said "brothers come in." And we taught him and his son the plan of salvation. Cool guy and we are going back this week before he goes to london. That's about all. We keep working hard and the Lord blesses us!!  Love, Elder Ollis

ALMOST FORGOT
Lambo of the week

08/16/2018 - Lambo of the week

08/14/2018 - Time is Flying Too Quickly!

08/07/2018 - The Chateau Hotel at Banff

Well hello everyone! What a crazy week we had, sorry about not sending an email last week, we went to Banff, which was really cool!  We moved around a lot while we were there so we saw a lot of it. We hiked around Lake Louise area, then to a waterfall and hiked there.  We did some shopping for just a short time right in Banff, so we didn’t get to see the cool hotel or really much of the town, but I preferred the mountains anyway.  It was a lot like the Tetons, really.  I kept feeling like I was there again.  But it is a very beautiful place.  So many foreigners. It was a lot of fun!

08/07/2018 - Elder Ollis at Lake Louise in Banff

So first update, Friday was crazy hot. We hit an all time record for Calgary, it's hottest day on record. It hit 36.5 (97.7 Farenheit) which was wild. And then by sunday it was 12 (53.5 Farenheit). So from really hot to thinking about a sweater. That is how it goes up here in Canada. Also it has been really smokey too! There are a lot of wild fires and the smoke keeps pouring into the city.

Last week we were able to find a couple of investigators but we already dropped them pretty much. Really flaky and not wanting to meet with us as much as it first seemed. But still working to improve the work here. Things are moving forward. We have been out and about all week, talking to as many people as possible. Our ward is hitting all time low numbers, we had probably less than 50 again this week and at one of the wards a missionary was speaking after his return, so he had tons of family there. So not a lot of people around anymore. But we are working hard none the less. Yesterday we were able to go get a new apartment all figured out. They are splitting one of the areas in our zone and we needed to drop off a bunch of furniture for the missionaries coming up this week. We also have been handling a bunch of logistics for this transfer this week as a lot of our zone is changing and we are going to have to drive people all over the city to figure out rides and move more beds from one place to another. So it should be a fun week. It is nice though, I never mentioned this before but we drive a Chevy Colorado, it is a cool little truck and makes it really nice to move things around.

But not much to update you on. We are working hard. We have seen some cool things happen, every once in a while we will get in to teach someone but they don't seem to want to learn anymore. It's really hard but we will keep plugging along to make things happen. Transfer calls go out tonight, we already know a lot of the changes that are going to happen. There is a high probability that I will get transferred, which I will be sad for. I really love this area, it has had some hard things but there are lots of good people and I sure like serving with Elder Johnson. But we will see. I don't know for sure, just an educated guess.

That's all I got, sorry it isn't too specific on things that happened but that is how missionary life goes. Time is flying too quickly!  Love, Elder Ollis

08/01/2018 - Visit to the Calgary Tower 

07/31/2018 - The Lord is Helping Us In Each Step of Our Work

Hey everyone. 

Not much to say this week. It was a good week and we had some good things happen. It was rainy all week and blazing hot. No in between. Yesterday it was 32 (89.6 Fahrenheit), then 30 minutes later it was pooring rain and 19 (66.2 Fahrenheit), and 30 more minutes it was 32. So fun week! the weather has been super unpredictable but that is how Calgary is! For all we know it could snow tomorrow!

 But we had a good week,we worked hard. We have been really focusing on contacting our less actives in the wards and getting in to teach. We have had little success in getting in touch but we finally had a miracle saturday. After a long day of grinding, the Lord blessed us with a man who loves missionaries and had a lot of questions he didn't understand. It was cool, he shared with us why he doesn't come to church and made it easy. We are going to go back and  answer some of his questions and hopefully help him come Closer to Christ. 

We also had an awesome lesson with our new investigator. We went over to catch him sunday night and he was there but he had just flown home from San Francisco and got in that day so he said to come over monday. We did and had a great lesson. He had read the book of mormon on the plane and had lots of great questions about our beliefs. One being the Trinity, so we answered the best we could and then we shared Joseph Smith's first vision with him. It was cool, as I finished up teaching him about the experience I asked him how he felt and if that helped and he said, " wow, that answers a lot of my questions. There is a lot stacking up against the trinity huh" It was a super good lesson. We are excited to teach him some more but we also are going to have to pass him off to the YSA missionaries. 

I was pretty happy however, Iately I have been focusing on improving my ability to use the scriptures in teaching. I know the scriptures, I just struggle to find what I need when I need it, particularly in the Bible. I had been working hard to be in them a lot, and any moment we teach by opening them. So it finally paid off, the spirit helped me know what I needed to share and after long hours of working to be better at it I felt I was able to get what I needed from the scirptures in our lesson. It was super cool and I know the spirit helped. But I got a long way to where I want to be with it, so I will keep working hard. But that is all, I know the Lord is helping us in each step of our work, and regardless of what happens, I know he is helping us along the way. Love you all!

07/31/2018 - Some dope house we knocked

07/31/2018 - Lambo of the Week

07/24/2018 - We Have to Trust in Christ to Truly Have Our "Seas Calmed"

HEY everyone! 

Well a good week this week! It was also a blur so let me try and recount the blessings we had!  We started the week on another Exchange. It was super different. I was with Elder Raun, he is from Taiwan. It was awesome, he is still learning the language so it was a little tough for him, but we did some awesome work and we saw a cool miracle. We were looking for a former investigator and we knocked into a guy named Paul, he let us in and we were able to teach almost all of the restoration, and invited him to church. But he didn't come and we haven't seen him again. But we will work to catch him this week! We could find a new investigator! I know we will. 

Then we worked pretty regular all week, seeking to find more people to teach, we were in members homes, out on the streets and all over to find more people to bring closer to Christ. We saw another miracle. We had a day where we were just struggling to get some appointments, well the Lord needed us to do something else. So we did what we always do and got to work contacting and trying to talk to as many people as possible. We  were looking for another former investigator and knocked the door and a man came out and started talking to us. It was such a funny experience, he had LDS friends when he was in high school and even came to church. We were able to answer tons of his questions and started teaching the restoration. Anyway, we got side tracked by a question about adam and eve and before we know it we were being taught about how he is Vegan and we should be vegan too. It was a new one for me, haven't ever had that on the mission before. The whole time I was thinking " he is talking to the wrong guys, I am going to go home and be a farmer and Elder Johnson pretty much doesn't like anything except meat." Haha it was super fun, it made sense and the guy was super genuine about it so we listened and left him with a book of mormon. He was excited to read it. We even shared with him D&C 89 and he loved it! haha it was a fun experience, he wants to know more and said we should meet up again and go to a vegan resturant. It was great and I know the Lord needed us to find him! Unfortunately he is a YSA but thats ok! (also he drove a hybrid). He was a baller and we are excited to teach again. 

Anyway that is what the week was like. We were also able to take a lot of the young men out with us, which is always super fun, preparing them for missions. One of the Young men got his call to Hawaii and is hyped to come out with us. He was even made a ward missionary and was at our coordination with our ward mission leader this week. So we are getting him ready! 

Lastly I guess this week was a spiritual pump up for me. This area has had ups and downs, seems like almost weekly, but missions are hard. Anyway I was reading about Jesus calming the tempest, and it resonated with me. We have to trust in Christ to truly have our "seas calmed". So I made the extra effort to make this happen. It started with prayer, praying more fervently, remembering him throughout the day and praying so that I can be a tool in his hands to find the prepared. It was a much needed spiritual boost. Sometimes in the mission you think you got it, and you just lean on your experience, but as I focused more on Him I really felt the spirit extra strong. I know the Lord is there for each of us.

Also tomorrow I hit my 18 months!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Love, Elder Ollis

7/24/2018 - Some of my favorite members gave us a 5 gallon bucket of ice cream
(don't worry there was only like a gallon left, we didn't eat all of it) 

07/24/2018 - Lambo of the week

07/24/2018 - Not a lambo but still a dope car.
And you all should email me your vote, red or blue, Byu or Utah? Which looks the best?
(you all know I think the blue)

07/17/2018 - We Are Striving to be the Best Finders This Mission Has Seen

Well hello everyone.

This week was crazy. Seems like last Pday was a month ago. But we did a lot of stuff this week. Last tuesday we went on exchanges. So I got to be in Wildwood area again, which covers downtown calgary. Super cool. We got to go past the stampede grounds and holy cow that is a huge event! There are so many people there it was crazy. But the stampede is officially over now. Then we just worked hard all week. 

Saturday we had our stampede breakfast, so we got to cook pancakes and sausage for a ton of people, that was fun. Our new investigator came, she seemed to enjoy it. Then Sunday night we did a special BYD with all the youth in both our wards. We did a face to face thing with them and brought President Keung and SIster Keung and helped answer questions the youth had about missions, missionary work and just about everything in between. It was a great way to introduce our new mission President to the ward and encourage those there to share the gospel! Also as a result our bishop invited us to do a 5th sunday lesson about social media missionary work. So things are going good! It was a lot of fun. 

Then we had Zone Conference Yesterday. It was great to get some good training. We are really striving as a mission to find more people to teach. The reason is, our mission is really good about getting those we teach baptized. We have a higher percentage than most missions of people being taught actually getting baptized, but we aren't finding as many. So we are striving to be the best finders this mission has seen. So it's exciting! But that is about all I got.We are working hard and doing lots of good. I love this gospel! 

Oh and to update on our investigator, we were able teach her and give her a book of mormon, but we are going to pass her off to the Mandrin speaking missionaries because we think she will progress better with them.

Elder Ollis

07/17/2018 - A guy in our ward is a fishing guide.  He gets to fly fish 6 days a week!

07/17/2018 - Lambo of the Week