Hey everyone! I am writing to you all today from my new area in..... TUCSON! Yep, I'm still here. But I did get transferred to south Tucson. I'm now in the Saguaro branch with Elder Strong. P-days got switched to Tuesdays on transfer week, so now we get calls on Sunday nights, work Mondays, and get transferred on Tuesdays. These last few days have been pretty hectic to say the least. I'm looking forward to serving in this new area. It's supposed to be a relatively tough area to work in but it's filled with people who speak Spanish so I'm excited. That's one benefit to having stayed in Tucson my entire mission. Even though I'm not right on the border, there have still been a relatively good amount of Hispanics in all of my areas so far. I know some Spanish missionaries that have gotten stuck in English areas for nearly their whole missions.

Anyway, the Saguaro branch is fairly new and small. It was created right before I got to the mission field out of the Valencia branch and we average 60-70 people at church every week. That means there's a lot of good work ahead of me though! Elder Strong is from Taylorsville and has been out for three transfers. He seems pretty cool so far so we should do well. Supposedly, there is a family of four that's about ready to be baptized here pretty quick so that's exciting.

It was tough to say goodbye to everyone in the Sonora branch. I grew really close to a lot of the members and recent converts. I'll probably be seeing a lot of them again though because we're all still close. The missionary that's taking my place is named Elder Anderson and I've heard really good things about him.

Last Thursday we had the opportunity to go to the temple. It was an incredible experience! The Gila Valley Temple is really small but very beautiful. It was so awesome to take a little road trip over there and be with President and Sister Walker in the temple. We get to go every three months and I already can't wait to go again.

Well, I'll probably have more info about my new area/companion/people to teach to talk about next week. Have a great week!

Elder Olsen