Loved the email and the picture, thanks. O my gosh, Amanda is a Sister Missionary!!! I thought about that some this week. It is really cool. And Saydi off to byu hawaii. wow! What a time in the Ostler family! And school started, O the joy! I hope all you boys are doing good with your first week of school, and this is a great time to get back on your piano if you have been slacking!!!! Every day, all 4 of you, Harrison, Jefferson, Benson, and even you Wilson. Just do it. You'll be happy later. I promise.
Thanks for your short ps mom. It saved me. Please tell me everytime when your receive pictures I email or a memory card I send home. So thanks.
Doing family history work at the cemetery!! We were going to submit all those names to the temple. Gotta love that too!!!!! Some graves are just stacked on top of one another. Like the part! I did it especially for the trip to the cemetery. It's still parted!
Nope, no baptisms yet in hipolito irigoyen. Thats my ward. But we have so many good people. So many awesome investigators. And in 2 weeks I guess we will have a baptism that we will be in charge of, but its these awesome parents who come every week. They are solid, have a family etc, just not married because of the divorce thing. But the divorce is coming in this week, so we get to baptize them this month.
1 month. In some ways it really has been a forever transfer, still 1 more week, but in other ways it has gone fast.
So last week we didn´t get the asado and service was cancelled because of weather. But this Thursday we are taking another shot at the service project. And of course, we moved this week! It was alright, cleaning the old pench was . . wow. Lets just say we cleaned all the stuff that missionaries never clean, and it has been maybe 5/10 years since missionaries have been in that pench. Like we found a bullet under the fridge, and under the oven! O my, I cleaned that. The new pench is so nice!! We joke that we are on a reality tv show in new york and we are secretly being filmed. It is so . . . new! A little smaller, but no one cares. It is so so awesome. Yes it has improved all our moods. Basically, it is amazing!
It snowed on friday! It was absolutely so so cold and wet, and since some streets are dirt, there was mud everywhere. Shoes caked in mud, bottom of pants covered in mud, just a party! And that was the day I did my first splits with a native. It was good. He is an interesting person, and most people in this zone do not like him at all. So it was, well an experience. I took my dictionary and had a good ol time. I also had to save a lesson. It was about to crash, it was bad, he´s not the best teacher lets say.
I'm getting a native comp next week. I wrote the President in my weekly email to him and mentioned that and he said, I can arrange for a latin comp, if you think your ready. So that is exciting!
So, Saturday at about 6:30 we returned to the pench because my comp could barley stand up his stomach hurt so bad. He hopped in bed and I went out to our luxurious new deck and started writing in my journal. I was about to go in after I finished but I had a feeling I should get on my knees and pray. so I did. After a great prayer, I really prayed, I was about to get up and walk in but I felt a small nudging from the spirit to stay on my knees another 30 seconds. I did. INSTANTLY the spirit spoke to me through my own thoughts: ¨¨my mother loves me¨. It was so so sweet! The first thing the spirit wanted to tell me was that you love me mom. It was so awesome. I want you to know that I pray for you family, every one of you by name. I probably miss and don´t do it every day, but I do it. And often when I do it brings tears to my eyes.- I realize how Lucky and Blessed I am to be your big brother. And for you Amanda, your little brother. Thank you. I love Each of you.
I mailed a letter home today! and! there was a consejo with all the zone leaders and they brought back mail! I got 11 letters!! Wow, it was good to lay in bed for an hour and read all of them. I laughed so much reading Benson´s and Ben´s . Benson says that mom is definitely not the phone whisper. It was so funny. All of then were from you guys except Ben, but he´s practically one of you guys, and a person from byu and karrigan. I will probably get mail once a month.
O, we were in this lesson and getting to know a less active family and the son, 23, had a guitar, he was a singer and way good at the guitar. Apparently my comp plays too. They gave him the guitar for a bit. The best part was when he picked the opening riff to sweet child of mine! I went crazy inside! It was just so sweet to hear that. And sometimes when we are ordering ice cream or are shopping for food american songs come on the radio. I've heard Chicago, MJ Billy Jean, and the best one was I want to know what love is by REO: I think. Wow, if it's not REO I would be embarrassed.
So yeah, this week was mas o menos ok.
O one more thing. I can feel the spanish coming. I am getting better and I can feel it. My understanding is steadily climbing. I am understanding more and more. And my speaking ability is still just alright. I know I need to be more diligent with my language study.
O, I have discovered I am an amazing jump roper, the best in the zone. My record is 19 crosses backward. People were pretty impressed. And we have a futbol game this week wednesday night with the YM. I am so excited! People will be pretty impressed then to . . . not. After church this one priest who always makes fun of me had a soccer ball in the hall and he was just doing simple stuff. He was so good. Amazing. No white kid, except maybe Ben Ostler, could ever do what he was doing. So I'm excited for wednesday night.
I always during the day look at my watch and go back 4 hours and think what you are all doing. Please tell me when your time changes so I can go back 5 hours.
Really, I'm not homesick anymore. Yeah, I miss you and being home, but those thoughts do not overtake my mind at all times. so that is good. I'm over that obstacle!
We would totally be baptizing in this area if people would just come to church!!!!!!!! That is the thing people just won't do here, they read, start growing their testimonies, pray, but they just won't come to church. We had none there yesterday. Although 2 inactives came because of us.
A white trash move. we didn´t have boxes, but we had a bunch of plastic bags! We rode on the taxi fleet the 20 blocks to our new pench. It was fun fun fun. What a cool experience.
The 4 of us on a bus riding home. I love this picture.
Thank you for the prayers and fasting!
love Elder Ostler
ps. Amanda a sister missionary. WOW!
