Thanks for writing, one of the best parts of the week is reading your emails. Feel free to write as much as you want, but I know you won't because you want me to write, so here I go!
First, Elder Hinojosa! How fantastic he is! I love him. He makes me smile, every hour of every day. He sings everywhere we go. Not 5 minutes passes walking down the sidewalk without him singing. Half in english and half in spanish. He knows a little english, just from what he has learned on the mission. I am going to teach him more. But yeah, he doesn´t know to much. He loves music though. EFY, he knows it all. He knows bakstreet boys ect. Last night we sang unwritten, the couple lines we could remember. He knows wake me up before you go go. It's so fun! And then we are just walking and he says, Elder Ostler. What? Then he sings every little thing you do is magic. So funny! That's the only words he knows, so for a couple minutes we sang that and changed the lyrics ect. When I told him I went to BYU, a little while later he says and then he tells me that before the mission he went to PPPU. What's that I ask. Oh, it´s Parly P. Pratt University. Oh, I laugh!
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| Elder Hinojosa and me |
2 days ago we were walking though this huge empty lot. Huge. Dirt sticks and rocks, right next to a freeway thing. And we see this huge bone! It was massive, like 4 or 5 feet long. And so Elder Hinojosa squats down, grabs a stick, and in spanish he pretends like he is being filmed for national geographic. Poking the bone, describing the dinosaur it came from, it was beautiful. So funny! Then I will ask him how to say something, or clarification on something and he will look at me and in spanish say, I only know how to say that in Russian. Then he will just start making up Russian and fake like he knows the language. The first time I believed him about knowing another language. But since, I have learned. He has told me that he can only say that certain word in Portuguese, French, Italian ect. The point is he is super funny.
He is an angel too. Sunday when I got out of the shower and was about to put on my shoes, I look at them and something was different, something changed. Something changed. Get it. And then I discovered that they were freshly shined! That´s the kind of comp he is. Awesome!
Godoy Cruz is so different than ghetto mercedes. It´s pretty here. Hardly any garbage. It´s more city. We do have one mildly dangerous area, with dirt streets, but other than that a way nice area. And there are aceikias everywhere. That's at least phonetically how you say it. We have to jump over them constantly. Like a canal that runs on either side of most streets. And sometimes they smell so bad! Especially in warpus, the sketchy barrio or neighborhood.
We have a good ward, just us 2 missionarys in it, unlike how there were us four in the last one. The bishop is alright. This Sunday we were supposed to have 2 confirmations, kind of a big deal, and the bishop forgot! So we have to wait til next week, when we will have 8!!! I will get to that . . . . then last night, we didn´t even have planned to visit one of the ladys that was supposed to get confirmed, Carmen, she is amazing, reads and marks her scriptures often and devours principios del evnagelio. But my comp said, I need to use her bano, let's stop by. When she opened the door she had a cigarette in her hand! No!! So we used the bano and then ohh just asked how she was, the cigarette topic came up, she threw it out in the street and we talked to her for a minute. We are having an asado with her Tuesday, we are buying the meat, so we will talk with her more then about it. But she certainly feels bad and knows it is wrong. So yeah, the bishop forgot!
There are some awesome ym in the ward! Like Miguel. So incredible! And the ward is a little bigger. However, elders quorum is just us, an awesome rm teacher and president of the quorum, and 2, 30ish guys, one really funny, and then 4 prospective elders, maybe they are already ordained I don't know. But they are the sweet ones I mentioned earlier.
familia avilia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3 weeks ago elder hinojosa opened the mouth with a man and got an address. They had a lesson and found out that the whole family is good. There are 8. And now they all, minus the 2 under 8, have a fecha for the 25th. 5days! We are going to baptize a family! Every missionaries dream! Mom and Dad, the dad is way awesome, the mom just barley started really feeling it, 3 boys, franco18, leo16, jonny14. Then nikol 8 then 2 younger ones. They are amazing, especially the 3 boys I love them so much. They are so ready, so golden. We have had contact with them every day since I've been here. The first lesson was good. They just have this spirit about them. So I walked in the house, hadn't been in Godoy Cruz but 5 hours. I shake all their hands. Then they all sit down at their dinner table all 8. The dad grabs the 6 book of mormons they have, passes them out, and it is just so perfect! I can´t even describe it. I've never seen anything like it. They all listen and are engaged. Then Friday's lesson was the best lesson of my mission, and elder hinojosa said the same, just incredible, you'll hear all about it later. The gift of tongues was upon me for that hour. I was talking so good. Oh it was so so so so awesome. We just walked out of the house and gave each other a big hug.
Then saturday we had a futbol game scheduled, but no one showed up. After 20 minutes of waiting in the chapel and playing the piano, elder hinojosa started dusting, then one of our investigators showed up, maybe 1:40ish, gorge. Yes! Then the 3 avilas showed up with a friend. and futbol was played! Those kids are amazing! I got it handed to me. My first real game with latins! It was just so so sweet!
Then that night we had a plan to take suits and slacks over to their house, because they don´t have any. elder hinojosa had some he was going to give them. Me to. And pench had some to give as well. So we left them. By this time some 4-ym had shown up and we said we would be back. Long story short, we are hurrying and take the stuff over to the house, no one is home. We wait. Then we situate the clothing inside the fence where it can't be seen and the dogs can´t get it. Then we hurry back and after an hour figure that everyone would have left the church. But no. And we were worried because the church was unlocked. But no, they were still there. And they had all gone into the custodial closet, got out mops and rags and had commenced cleaning the church!!! It was an amazing sight to walk into church saturday night, and see our investigators mopping the floor and dusting the church and setting up chairs with hymnbooks on them. They are amazing I'm telling you! And then yesterday the entire family came to church! I could go on forever about this.
The pench is sweet. There are 2 other latins. Elder Ramierez and Carrosa. Elder Carrosa speaks english. But mostly everything is spanish. Everything. At the end of the day my mind is shot. Yes, I am improving, but o it is hard. The language barrier with my comp isn't too bad, but it is still so so hard. Sometimes, like everyday, I feel so stupid because I can´t understand. Especially the members. I hate eating with members and not understanding them. Especially when they ask me a direct question. It kills me. I feel so helpless. Oh.
But I'm hanging in there. I'm doing alright. It´s good here. It will get better.
The feeling in the pench is amazing. Everyone wakes up at 6:30 and does exercises, or attempts to. Then when the other companionship leaves the pench, they pray, everytime. Just a different feeling from my last pench. I like it alot. And the pench has a log cabin feel. It´s clean too! And this morning we played rock paper scissors to see who has to wash the shower curtain, I lost. So I'll be doing that in a couple hours.
At our lunch appointment on sunday the family was playing the primary songs cd. The I am a child of God song started. Then when the descant part started, I couldn't help but think of miss saydi.
how are you doing Amanda, my missionera!
Please send a fitted sheet in my package. Whoever said only flat sheets was smoking something. I'm going to try to go to another cyber to send a picture or 2. This one doesn't like my memory card. Can you check if you can access mormon.org in spanish and tell me next week. Thanks.
This week I ate beets. I'm not sure if that's noteworthy or not.
Dad you asked some stuff. The bus ride early Wednesday was good. hmmmm if I said I had a lesson with elder hinojosa on Tuesday, obviously that is incorrect. Anyway, I went with elder lucas and canasa, my old zls. Elder Lucas is actually the new zl over Godoy Cruz, he is comps with his byu roommate! Crazy. We took the royal sweet for 115 pesos. The seat transforms into a complete bed. Flat. It was amazing. And they gave me juice and an alfajor. Then when we got off the bus Elder Reynolds was there, with all his ap wisdom. It was nice to see him.
O and there is an elder in godoy Cruz being trained and he is from Kennewick!! I talked to him on the phone after elder hinojosa verified with his comp. Elder Brady I think? That's the Kennewick elder.
Oh yeah, we taught a breastfeeding mother and a drunk guy this week. Crazy country!
Well, have a good week. Send my love to Amanda. I'm going to try to write some good letters today. I'll write you one mom. Maybe not 10 pages.
I love you and am hanging in there
Elder Ostler
And like Chris Christiansen said, truly, I am living the dream. That is so true. Feel free also to send me news about my buddies on their missions.
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| Me with the peanut butter I bought before leaving Villa Mercedes. It is made in Cordoba and only sold in San Luis, from the info that I could gather. So 104 pesos of peanut butter later . . . . . oh yeah! |
