Time is hauling

July 16th email.
Wow, it honestly feels like yesterday I was sitting here writing you guys an email.  Time is hauling.  I am excited out of my mind to get to Argentina!  Sister Crawford sent me a great dear elder yesterday which basically said I know you're excited for Argentina but don't wish yourself gone too early, enjoy your last few weeks in the MTC because it is one of the most holyest places on earth.  And it really is.

Ok, now some items of housekeeping:
These emails that I write home, don't send them to me please.  Please send me a small 3 hole punch.  An Elder broke my single hole punch and it was no good anyway.  A 3 hole puncher will be much better, thanks.

Yes, I did get your long letter Mom, and I have not received the box you mentioned in your email.  I'm excited though.  Yesterday I got your letter Dad and the story from you all.  Thanks, they were great, but Dad your letter was way awesome and probably just a bit better and more fulfilling than the story.

I will be mailing home one of my suits and maybe some other things and I have it all figured out.  No worries.  It would be totally ok if you sent a small video with the camera card too.  Yes, I received the jeans.  I haven't thought to try them on yet, that might be a good idea.  I just thought of that.

Alright, some happenings of this week (might I just first say that it is really weird to think that a handful of people read this besides you guys.  I'm not saying that is bad, but certainly strange because I have 30 minutes to compose a letter which hopefully accurately conveys my feelings and demonstrates the happenings of the week.  It's just weird that other people read this.  Ok, I'm not communicating this thought very well.  It's not like I don't like these going on a blog deal . . . oh, never mind.

On Sunday we were treated to a fireside, like usual, but this one was a bit different.  Jenny Oaks Baker came and played music for us!!  Wow, she is so good.  We never get things like that here, and it was such a treat.  Also, Elder Oaks, her dad, came to listen.  Pretty sweet.

Sometimes my mind drifts to memories and things of that nature and one day I started thinking of that one afternoon when Harrison, Jefferson and I played soccer in the yard all afternoon.  We set up some goals and tried to score on one another all afternoon.  That was so fun.  Sometimes I also think of the vacations we went on and of just all of the fun and fulfilling times we have had together.

I found Kenny Millard!  I didn't have my camera with me, but he did so we got a picture on his camera.

This morning my district had a great opportunity to clean the temple!  We showed up at 8 am and it was just us and 1 other district.  Only 15 Elders.  It was cool.  We cleaned for 3.5 hours!  It was just great to mix things up a bit.  For the first 2 hours we washed these big windows.  We were on the 2nd floor and everything was ripped up.  It looked like a war zone, hmmmm, well I've never actually seen a war zone besides Saydi's room, but I imagine that the temple looked slightly like a war zone.  We washed windows and had to scrub a bunch of dirt and glue stuff off of them.  While we were doing it, we had a great view of Provo and it was really cool.  Then for the last hour we went into the chapel and scrubbed the surfaces and cleaned the cracks with toothpicks and qtips.  Again, it was real sweet.

You will be ecstatic to know that Elder Huntington, Elder Allen and I were called into the travel office this week and we signed our Permisa's.  That's the big step.  I tried to ask the man in the travel office for details and what exactly we were signing (because it was just these 2 pages with spanish all over them, so we had no idea what we signed, really, I might have just signed up to be in the army or something), but he didn't give me much.  He just said, 'You're on your way.  This is good step."  So that is really exciting.

We have 2 Elders in our zone who are working on their 12th week.  They are still waiting to sign there permisas.  The new district is sweet.  I hardly know any of them, and because no one left this week, our hall is loaded!  So many Elders everywhere.  And I haven't seen Jeffrey yet.  I want to see him so so so bad!

It is awesome being one of the old districts here.  I love telling people I'm in my 7th week.  I am doing so good.  I am trying to be diligent with my time.  Spanish is coming and I learn more and more every day.

Dang, you are fishing right now.  That is so sweet.  O, what I would give for a bite of that king salmon right now.  As far as food goes, lets just say I'm excited to get out of here and to Argentina!

Adios,
Love Elder Ostler