Elder Draper Ollis: His Greatest Mission Yet: Our Champ Investigator, Chema, is Getting Baptized This Saturday!

04/06/2015

Well, once again seven days have passed by, and it was a really good seven days for the fact that we had conference. It was really good. But I’ll start off with how the week began.

On Tuesday we had an appointment with our investigator Bertha. She has gone to church three times at least, and has told us that she has felt a peace when she reads the Book of Mormon, and basically she knows this is all true. The only issue is that she’s not married. Her “spouse” is an alcoholic and he kinda just moved in after being separated from her for a while. He got so drunk that he almost died and she’s taking care of him. However, he doesn’t want to get married anytime soon. So she basically told us she has reached her decision and she is going to kick him out of the house. I’m pretty stoked she’s decided that, and I hope she can have the faith to do it!

Our champ investigator, Chema, is doing great. He went to conference on Saturday and he got there early. The guy that had the keys came typically late like a Hondureño, and Chema left with a member to the stake center to watch it before we had even got there to meet him. So he saw all of Saturday’s sessions. Then he came Sunday in the morning. He said he didn’t come Sunday afternoon because his butt hurt from the hard benches. He’s 85, and so I’ll give him a break! But we planned it all out and he should be getting baptized this Saturday! I’m pretty stoked for him. He loved the conference.

04/05/2015 - Conference with the Bishop's Son

Anyways, I learned quite a few things from conference. And I’m going to have to study them more because I feel like sometimes I didn’t listen very good. One of the things that hit me is that they talked a lot about marriage and families. Guess I’ll have to work hard on that as soon as I get home.... just kidding, not really. But I really did like Elder Packer’s talk. There was a quote I really liked from him.... but I forgot my notes. Whoops. But more than anything, I got the idea that I need to change a few things. I need to minister to the people more. I was thinking that in the past few months and weeks, I’ve been more focused on working hard to get better "stats" and passing time by... so I need to change that and focus on ministering more to the people and developing the love of Christ towards them. So that’s my goal. I feel like that’s something I lack still, is the love for the people. So I’m going to try and work on that. Anyways, not much time and a really lame letter I know, but it is what it is.

Elder Ollis

[In a letter to his dad: “It makes me feel so sad that the people live in such fear around here. They even have to walk their kids to seminary in the morning. It's just unreal how sick people get here in Honduras. The news of the day was about some jealous husband who cut off his wife’s feet. It’s just so sad to hear the things that go on here. I feel so strongly that I need to do more ministering to the people and quit worrying about what I’ll do after the mission and just help them all I can while I am still here.”]