I have applied to serve a mission for my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, also sometimes referred to as Mormons) for a length of 2 years. On this mission I will be spending my time mainly serving others by preaching the gospel of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and also providing many kinds of service, including manual labor and teaching english classes. I sent an application to the church, and was assigned to serve in PARAGUAY!
Among other things, I will not be able to call people, text, or (someone is gasping reading this) use social media for 2 years, but I can write letters and email. As a result, I will be emailing my family and they will post my emails to this blog so all of y'all can stay in the loop. I will have access to email once a week, so feel free to send emails and I will do my best to respond. The email I will be using for the length of my mission is matthew.olson@myldsmail.net
I will be leaving Raleigh to begin my mission on October 4th, 2016, which is 47 days from now. I am super excited!!!
For those unfamiliar with missions, here are a couple terms I'll probably use a lot:
companion- missionaries go in pairs, and I will have a companion with me 24/7. We will work, eat, serve, teach, and do everything together. Every once in a while, I will switch companions.
mtc/ccm- this is a place kind of like a school where I will begin my mission for 6 weeks learning a LOT of spanish and also how to teach
p-day- short for preparation day, a p-day is a day each week set aside to do tasks like laundry, emailing, shopping etc
Thank you for your support and everything you do!
