Speaking of baptism, which is CENTRAL to my purpose as a missionary, Elder Hinojosa and I are baptizing this Saturday!!!! the 23rd. O yeah! A chico que tiene 13 años. He is so ready, he came to church Sunday! Which has been his downfall, sleeping in. He has slept in the last 4 Sundays before, but he came and we are baptising him. He has all the lessons, reads the Book of Mormon and then some. His mother would love to get baptized to, she believes, but her husband won't marry her. Bummer. They both came to the Avilias baptism though! But we don't have anybody for the 30th. There is a standard that a person must attend twice before they can get baptized and David was the only one at church, although this awesome lady was supposed to come but got sick. So we will see about the 30th, I know we can find someone, or actually God can give us someone.
So this lady, Belin was a miracle that God gave us. The first door we knocked that morning was hers, she was an alb. Quickly, her father was mormon, died, she has a book of mormon and went to church with him 15 years ago. She was scared of the pila, font. Now she's 30ish and her husband's in jail. She accepted the baptism commitment the first lesson! But she got sick so wasn't at church. It was a miracle. Elder Aidukaitis talked about that, about finding someone with a book of mormon already who has already attended church, and it happened to us the day after conference. I love what you said Mom, all we need to do is ASK!!! and God is so willing to GIVE!
Then the miracle I call Marta, yesterday we were sick of working in Warpus, the ghetto sketchy that smells bad, so we went knocking, which I hardly ever do, elsewhere on a street called Peru. After an hour of nothing, nothing, I started to get discouraged and President Hinckleys quote, there is a better way, came to mind. Tracting is good but there is a better way. Then it happened.
This man watering his plants with a bucket and water from the acecia greeted us, "Elders, I call you that because I am a member. . . would you like to talk with my mother?" Because yesterday was mothers day, they were visiting. They brought the couches and chairs outside, the mother and her brother were there and we were able to teach. The member son who recently was endowed, a convert, was able to help us. It was amazing! I was able to help teach. To sum up, she says "I want to quit smoking and I want to get baptized!!!!!!!!!! OOOO YEAH!! What a miracle. Her son helped so much. I talked about there is a way that you can become clean from all your sins and mistakes. You can stop smoking and be completely clean again. Would you like that? She said yes. Then after I explained baptism she basically committed herself to it! I'm excited for that. And as I told her the Joseph Smith Story, she listened so good. It really touched her. She is so ready!!! Horray for Marta!!
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| Making flowers to give to mothers on mothers day. We hand them out in alb and while were knocking doors. |
Also with Elder Aidukaitis we talked about the normas de excellencia that President Lindahl has set. He promised us that if we reach those goals, we will baptize every week. They are things like 4 lessons with meimbro, 10 news (we had 3 with member and 11 news this week) and there are like 10 of them, key indicators.
Nuestra meta baptismal para este translado es ocho! We are baptizing 8 people this transfer. We have 7 saturdays to do it. Speaking of transfers. . . they are today!!!!!! They have been cut a week short, something with the President's schedule. A 5 week transfer that ends today and the next transfer is a 7 weeker! O yeah. But today we were told that we will not get the phone call from the assistants until Wednesday for some reason. I am pretty sure I'm staying, I think Elder Hinojosa will too.
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| Making and eating tacos today, for our pday, in our chapel. |
Since Elder Gonzalez has showed up, my morning exercise routine has changed. He takes me running. At first I hated it, but now I love it. Finally, Saturday morning I set the pace. I beat him in the sprint to the finish at the end. And I realized that my haircut is ehhhh, it's definitely done by a peruvian with absolutely no experience. I love it though.
Happy mothers day, mother. The argentinos got to call home yesterday! I wish I could have been argentine just for yesterday.
I have weekly opportunities to talk to people in english. It is so cool! Mostly albs and we discover we both know english and we talk for awhile. I love it, it's not to hard to figure out how they can guess I know english. They love to talk with me in english... and saturday night as I opened my mouth with a family in the vea parking lot, the mother waved me off and told me to talk to her daughter. The family entered vea as the daughter stayed behind to hear what I had to say. And she was . . . dare I say it . . . . pretty. I was so nervous. I struggled through a little spanish and then she stopped me and said, "I speak english." Hallelujah!!! It was so sweet. I was still nervous. I felt like I was a 14 year old at EFY again, trying to talk to a girl. It was definitely cool.
Elder Hinojosa and I had the best talk this week, Friday. I had had some really crappy days earlier in the week. I don't know, we were about to leave for the afternoon when we just started talking, about me and my progress and I really don't know, can't communicate with you what it was like. We were going through his recuerdos from the mission. It just gave me a perspective on the mission. And I realized I HAVE SUCH A LONG WAY TO GO. And I am not talking about time. I have SO MUCH TO LEARN. So much to become. It was the best 45 minutes and it really helped me. Just put things in perspective. And I realized that he is a saint. He talked about how he enjoys every single day of his mission, he loves it. I want that. I want every day to be a dream.
I felt not a ton of improvement this week, but my frustration is getting better, or I mean, it's going down. But I know I improved. I learned some new words. One of them was berenjena. It means eggplant. I looked it up as we were walking home after a lunch appointment. The reason being is because I ate it. It was DISGUSTING. It had been canned in vinegar. Gross. Gross. The grossest thing I've eaten so far. And we were blessed with 3 lunch appointments this week, usually we score one, but we had three. And the 3rd was the best with the family avilia, our first meal with them. ASADO baby! So good. Basically you just eat meat until you can't eat anymore. And they also had something called morcilla. While I was eating it, I guessed it was blood sausage, but I wasn't sure. My suspicions were confirmed when I looked it up later. One of its meanings is blood pudding. How do you like that boys. I ate blood pudding. Yum, it wasn't too bad. Certainly not a peanutbutter cookie.
And I did get a glorified package at the conference along with 3ish letters. No dearelders have come with Amanda's most anticipated words yet! I am dying to read her emails! I did get a letter she wrote in the MTC though. My favorite part was, "you never told me how hard it was to have a companion, to be with the same person for 24 hours a day!" I definitely laughed.
No I did not get bed sheets. A priest, Leo, the bishops son, asked for a hockey jersey. So if you could send one. . . . he's pretty small. Jefferson's size would be perfect, Jefferson is definitely bigger than him though, maybe a touch smaller. He can't find any here and his sister in spain can't find one either. I told him I could hook him up. He doesn't care what team, just a hockey jersey. And he's paying. I'll probably make him pay 75-100 pesos. That's what he could get it for here. We'll see how nice it is. Thanks mom. And please send my agenda from the MTC I sent you. I really want it. Maybe glorify mail it, I so don't want it stolen. And I love the fastbreaks and thanks for the shower scrubber.
Obedience is so awesome. Because Elder Hinojosa and I was really good with obedience, the Lord blessed us with Belina and Marta and David. I know it. We woke up at 6:30 on the dime everyday this week and didn't miss. I love the blessings that come from a righteous life.
One day this week it RAINED! It was awesome, soaked from head to foot. Except for my feet, not a drop, (well actually they were completely soaked, but that is only because 10 feet from our pench I stepped in a 3 inch deep puddle I didn't see) but before that they were completely dry. So my shoes are actually waterproof.
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| The rain! It was so fun running home in the rain with Elder Hinojosa. |
And the leaders in the mission had a conference with Elder Aidukaitis Tuesday before the zone conference started. That put me with Elder Bradey again. It was way cool. We worked in sarmainto. . . my spanish is always better when I am with him. Probably because I'm on my toes because no matter what, I have to say something back. I got no one to bail me out. We talked to alot of people, Elder Bradey did good with his spanish. I wasn't scared before. Really, I knew that God would help us out - and He did. He always does.
This is Elder Ostler signing out. Have a great week!!! I love you. And dad, I loved your email, that story rocks. I strive for exact obedience. I loved yours too mom. I love you my parents.
