Monday, February 21, 2011

HHHHOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAA

Hola Family Ostler.  Como andan?  Todo Bein?  The magic of Monday is about to begin.  I love reading so much what you write.  And now I get to try to tell you how the week was and how I’m doing.  And ya ya, you get to see a couple pictures.

Basketball last pday
And Mom, sorry about the memory card.  It’s right on top of my escritorio, just waiting for you.  Necescito mandarla ahora. I have just been kinda flojo with sending it to y’all.  Sorry, disculpame.  Really, I need to copy it onto a cd or something for safety and then send if off, prolly next week.  No, surely next week.
Like Amanda, I too am working on coming out of my shell.  Being myself and not being scared to goof around and have fun with the people.  It’s mostly the language that I hinder myself with, not getting out of my box and really connecting with the people. Me entendes?¿
IPOD - O MY WOW as Amanda would say.  DANG.  I can´t believe you.  But we love it.  Yes, everything came.  You are a sly one Mom and helpers.  Elder Owens LOVES the JONNY VANCE Proclamation To The World.  Wow, that is constantly going in the pench.  Thank you.  I LOVE YOU FAMILY.

Skipping rocks at Carrizal.  The best pday ever with family Flores y Silvio
So, it's family dinner, Monday night or fhe, whatever.  Fhe doesn't exist as a missionary.  Pretty much every day is fhe actually because we sing every day, pray a lot, share a ton of spiritual thoughts and teach a lot of lessons and also do a lot of games and such.  My favorite game is called push Elder Arrua in the acequia.  I love winning that game.

By this point, I have accidentally stepped on the cord to my macina and it has turned off twice now.  Gotta love Argentine cybers.
So it’s fhe and Mom is reading this out loud.  Now boys, think on the last 7 days.  And  .  .  .  .  .  .  suspense . . . raise your hand if you have practiced the piano for the set amount of time, 5 times.  Ah a a a a a GOOD!!  Felicitaciones!!  Now for those of you who do not have your hands raised, maybe none of you,  get your butt in gear and prepare to serve your heavenly king.  If I was there I would tackle you and tickle you so hard right now.
Now keep you hand up if you hit 6 days.  NICE JOB.  Do i hear 7??  Please practice your piano.  Please please practicar tu piano.  It is so important.  I will never get over my regret from not giving it all I had and practicing.  DO IT!
I rocked piano this week, but had to throw it together Sunday morning before church, because we hardly had siestas in the pench this week.  Tuesday we went to Junin and were planning to eat at a members house, but we ended up receiving the food in tupers and, since we didn´t want to pay and go back to Rivadavia because we planned to stay in Junin till the tarde, we went to a tranquilo plaza and ate it sitting on a park bench.  It was pretty fun eating it with our hands.  Then another lunch was just crazy with the family Perretti.  He is a chef and old and crazy and can’t hear.  We have so much fun with him.  He fed us some green peppers stuffed with goodness. Yeah, if the boys would have been there, they wouldn't have touched it.  I liked it though.  In Junin, we had an amazing lesson. I was guided by the spirit to this man and was able to get in his house, after an initial NO.  WOW.  The spirit worked through us and touched his heart.  He was a member inactivo.  Dang, it was up there among the best lessons ever.  Each week the number of ‘best lessons ever’ grows and grows.  We probably had 3 this week.
We helped the other Elders this week as they barley baptized again.  Lets just say it started 2 hours late.  It was a practice of patience yet again for Elder Arrua and I.  I love Elder Arrua.  Dad, we have informed the president, but I don´t know.  I want want want to stay, but he is in the perfect position to train.  One year in the missino, 6 weeks in the area, a good solid elder.  Hasn’t trained yet.  And there’s 17 latins on their way.  uhhhhh  noooooo
And then one siesta we had a cita and decided to work through the siesta, but uhhh, at one point there was no one.
No one.
No one.
So we miraculously found a ice cream dealio open and took a seat, talked some spanish, and ate some helado.
We had 2 amazing lessons with Celina this week.  Uhh, make that number of lessons that made their way into ‘the best lesson ever’ like 6 actually.  She is so ready, truly a hungry seeker of the truth.  I agree with Braden.  One of the best parts of wearing the black name tag is having your investigaros tell you that recibio su respuesta.  Wow.  The spirit, it is so so strong.  Celina will be baptized this Saturday.
Jorge y Rita.  Wow!  They do everything us and the Spirit commits them to do.  This week they went and sacared a turno at the marriage place, and while they don´t have a fecha for getting married yet, it will be sometime at the end of March.
Yeah, on that March thing I never think about my birthday, but just send some cliff bars and m and ms and I will be SET.  Thanks for all the love from home.  The other missiononerds are amazed.
We did some great service for Jorge and Rita this week and Saturday night they invited us over to eat pizza.  It was fantastic.  It’s hard to be home on time when you show up at 9 to eat and they haven’t even bought the food yet!  That’s just the culture here.  But, even though their family came to visit that night, Saturday, and they didn’t get to sleep till 5, they still came to church!!  Wow, it was great, holding Angel on my lap durning princiopios del evangelio.  It was such a pay day seeing them in church.
An even bigger pay day came last night.  An AMAZING lesson with Rosa we had.  There were angels there.  I love the spirit so much.  It makes me feel so so so good.
We worked another villa this week.  Costa Canal.  It was man, just a different experience.  You can´t imagine.  Remember that house in Mexico that we entered and walked around a bit and they had nothing?  That’s what this is like.  But every house. I love teaching them and looking into their eyes.

. . . . . . Well, I love you guys.  Thanks for the support and prayers.  
Elder Ostler
God be with you til we meet again.