Well it happened... On Saturday I got the call that I am going to be transferred from the Green Tree ward. After 13 total months of serving here I am going to be leaving for my last transfer. It is pretty crazy. It was pretty hard saying goodbye to the ward. I almost felt like I was leaving on my mission again. For my new area I am going to be serving in the Altoona ward. It is a pretty small town so that will be a pretty interesting change up from Pittsburgh. My new companion is going to be Elder Kap. I already know him super well so I am really excited to serve with him. Well I don't have much time today but thanks for all of the support. I am excited to serve wherever I am called! Have a great week.

Our investigator Marlon who is going to be baptized in a couple of weeks.

Bro. Olson and Julia

The Smith Family

Hey Everyone! His was an awesome week! Heavenly Father has been blessing us this week so much. We have been able to find many new investigators who are so amazing. We have been working with Rachel and Annie a lot this week. We have been doing service for them and after one of the days of service, we got a text from Annie asking if we could bring her a Book of Mormon! She is going through a lot and she wants to find something to help her. I know the Book of Mormon will be able to provide that peace she needs. Rachel took a picture of us and put on face book saying that she has adopted Elder Halsey and I as her two Mormon sons. She put a little bit about what we do and how grateful she was. She is awesome and has such a big heart. I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father! We have been so blessed in this area. He has put into our path so many people who are ready for the gospel! It is so amazing to see how aware of each of his children he is. I am so grateful for the Savior and for repentance. I love the peace that can come as we humble ourselves and allow the savior to heal us, all because of His choice to atone for us. Being a missionary is such an amazing experience to teach people of that. Have a great week everybody!

This was an awesome week! We had the opportunity to do service with a lady named Barb! She is the coolest lady and so prepared for the gospel. We saw her outside trying to mow her lawn with a weed wacker. We asked her if we could help and she was so appreciative. Her shoulder is really injured and she had a really hard time doing yard work. She had gotten a citation from the city saying she had until a certain day to clean up her yard. She said she had been praying for help and then we came and asked if we could help her. As we were helping her on Tuesday she really opened up to us. She told us of her family troubles and physical health challenges as well. It broke my heart to hear of all the trials she was going through. We felt the most important thing we could do was to listen. Afterwards we felt we needed to show her a video and she started crying. She turned to us and said, "how did you know to show me that?" She told us how grateful she was for us and that we were like her sons. She was just grateful for someone to listen to her. It is moments like that that really humble you. To see how hard people have it really makes you grateful all you have been given. We taught her the restoration the next day and she agreed with everything. She is excited to read the Book of Mormon! The work is going great here and I love this ward. Life is going great! Thank you for all of the support!

               

Hey Everyone! So this was a pretty crazy week with a pretty big change that took place in our mission. We got an email on Thursday from our mission president saying that the Lancaster and Harrisburg stakes, and all of the missionaries serving there, are now part of the Maryland, Baltimore mission!! So we lost about 50 missionaries and some of my closest friends I have made out here are now in a completely different mission. My last area, York, is now part of that mission as well. So that was pretty crazy. I didn't know things like that happened. But all of the missionaries who are a part of it are taking it really well.

We had some great things happen this week! I told you a little bit about Rachel in my last email, well this week she called us and invited us to have dinner with her family. When we first met her we got to know her really well and she asked what were some of the things that we missed the most, and I told her my Mom's home cooked meals. She said that really touched her heart and that she wanted to cook us a homemade meal. She is so awesome!! She told us how her greatest desire really is to be a good mom. I thought that was so cool especially in the world today where a lot of things seem to take a higher priority than motherhood. We got to talk to her and her family for awhile and we talked about all sorts of things. We talked about the spiritual experiences we have had on our missions and how the best part of our missions is how our relationship with Jesus Christ has grown so much! She said she really wants to come to church so hopefully her and her family will be there this week. We will be going back to see her this week as well.

The rest of the week was pretty typical! We were able to see a lot of people and found some new Investigators to teach as well. Every week at church I get asked multiple times when I am going to be moving into the ward! I think they are going to be giving me a calling soon haha. I am grateful I have gotten to serve in this area for 13 months! Have a great week everyone!

Elder May

Hey everyone! This was another awesome week! 

This was transfer week and I will be staying here another one with Elder Halsey. I think this might be my last transfer here now, but we will see. Maybe I will finish my whole mission here haha.

We met with Julia this week and she is doing great! She will be getting her Patriarchal blessing In July and will be going to the temple as well that same week. We went to her house and did some Family History work with her so she could have some names to take to the temple. She has been doing a lot of work so she will have a lot of names to take.

Everything is going great out here. We hope to work more with Rachel and her family this week. She wants to have us over for dinner and that is definitely okay with us! Thank you for all of the support!

Hey everyone! This has been a great week! We saw some great miracles happen! So about a month ago we were driving down the road and we saw a mom playing outside with her kids. Once we got down the street a ways, we got the feeling that we needed to go back and talk to her. So we did and she was awesome! Her name was Rachel. We got to know her really well and she said that she would call us to do so service! Well we hadn't heard anything from her in a really long time so we were going to go by and see her again. That day she actually called us!! She said that her neighbor needed some help and she remembered that we had offered to do some service. So we went over and met her neighbor and helped her clean all of the blinds in her house. To everyone who has never done that before it is pretty tough. Well after hours of intense physical exertion we finished. Rachel came over towards the end so she could talk with us. She is such an awesome lady! We sat and talked with her for an hour or so and she told us about the struggles of raising a family in the world and some of the personal things she was struggling with. We talked about the church and how God wants strong happy families, especially in the world today. She had some questions about church and at the end she said her and her family were going to come this week! It was awesome! When we were about to leave we asked if we could share a scripture with her and her neighbor. Well there were about three families all outside in the neighborhood and they came to listen. It was amazing to share a scripture about Christ with all of these families gathered around to hear. I have such a strong testimony of families. "God gave us families to help us become who he wants to be." I am grateful for my family and for this gospel that blesses families. The longer I have been out here the more I have come to realize how much God wants us to be happy. We are here to be happy and families help us accomplish that. Have a great week everyone!

Another week has flown by here in Pitt! There were some great highlights for the week! It started with our lesson with Marlon! He is progressing really well and is excited for baptism. We really wanted to focus on him fully understanding what the restoration is and why it is important to be baptized in this church. At the end of the lesson he said that he understood the priesthood is essential and that is why it is important to be baptized in this church! It was great to teach him simply and for him to understand and for things to connect in his mind. After we knelt down and said a prayer. He prayed sincerely to know if this church and if the Book of Mormon was the word of God. He said he already believed in his heart it was true, he just wanted to know. It was awesome. The adversary tried to disrupt the prayer by having someone pull up in front of his house blasting "Smooth criminal" by MJ, but Marlon persevered and said an awesome prayer.

Yesterday was awesome! Julia and her dad are continuing to come to church! Julia is doing awesome and has been working with members on going to the temple really soon. She will be heading out to Utah soon so going to the temple beforehand would be the perfect way to go. After church we were able to go on three team ups with RM's who are out here just for the summer doing door to door sales. It was so fun to be able to go with these guys who had been home from their missions for a year. They talked about how much they missed being a missionary and how they wanted to go out with us as often as they could. It was cool to see the change that had taken effect on these guys. It showed me how much my mission will continue to mean to me after I get home. I am grateful for every single day out here, and it sure does fly. I love the happiness and joy I feel out here. People wonder how it is possible when we are so secluded from worldly things. It's because you have the opportunity to think about others and care for them and there is a joy that accompanies that which you can't find anywhere else. Thank you for all of the support, have a good week!
Elder May