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