Hola. Hello, hello. YES Miss Amanda Panda got transferred!! That makes me so happy. The joy of a new comp is so so great. I love change in the mission. It should do her good. Thank you for forwarding her email out here to Rivadavia. It will be printed.
Yes, I got a lot of mail last week. I received the camera card. Thank You. So Much. The one I have is Full. I hope that makes you happy Mother. :)
Silvio Flores received the Sacerdocio this week. Yesterday after church Elder Arrua and I stood in the circle and as President Perez conferred the Priesthood of Aaron upon Silvio. His parents were there (BOTH!). It is great helping their family. We are teaching their other kids, 3 teenagers, Milagros, Estephania, y Italo.
Elder Arrua y su llamamiento inspirado. The call Elder Arrua received to come here was so inspired. On so many occasions I see him talk to people, share something in a lesson etc. and I KNOW it is inspired, him being here. I can’t express it very well. Elder Arrua is the Bomb. I love being with him. He always compliments me, always helps me, he´s a Gem. We love being together and already decided we are staying together next transfer too. He enjoys occasionally talking about his future esposa Hna Ostler, the one in Chicago. We get along so well, our comp studies are unbeatable. The thing is, he is selfless, he gives of himself. And he´s got some pretty funny quirks, we all do. A great servant of the Lord, Elder Arrua.
Holiness to the House of the Lord. I miss going to the temple! It has been too long. My appreciation for the Temple has grown. When I return, Cheeves (Elder Chaves) and I are going to own all of those temples in Utah. In this case the word own means to attend often. It will be espectacular.
Amanda learning Spanish. WOW, might I say. I still wish I could do divisions with her and this time maybe teach her a thing or 2 about the language. My language skills are alright. I remember after every day with Hinojosa, my head ached. Spanish . . . Spanish, . . . Castallano, head swirling. But with Arrua, its totally different. Very rarely do I get frustrated, and my head doesn't hurt. I’m learning good, but certainly need to put more effort into progressing and growing my language ability. Yeah Castallano.
Yesterday was a hard Sunday for me. A really good part was Celina came to church. Because the Temple doesn’t yet exist in Mendoza, the Church for me is a place to recharge my batteries and let others teach me! But yesterday, for testimony Sunday, uhhhh nope-. It was bad. Story after story after la la la la la. The spirit left after participar en la santa Cena. It was bad. And on top of that, only Celina came. We had So Many Good People committed! I don´t know what happened. For church, I played the Spirit of God to open the meeting. It is a decently technical song for an amateur like myself. It was sweet though! Elder Owens and I are in love with the little portable piano in the pench.
Saturday we were heading out to the calle prinicipal to finish opening the mouth before returning to the pench for the night. I had a thought to turn down a street, the opposite way we needed to go. I have leaned to never ignore one of the sursurros de el Espiritu Santo. So I followed it. Halfway down the street we found a man and a woman trying to hoist the carcass of an old gutted auto onto a cambion, bigger truck. It was what this guy does for work, get old cars and turn then in as scrap metal. We set our fundas on the sidewalk and hardly asked, just started lifting with them, ignoring their, ‘O no, you’ll get all dirty.‘ I didn´t think we’d really get really dirty. Well, I put my hands on the twisted metal. A second later I looked down at my right hand and thought dang, I should have look where I put my hand, because I grabbed a pretty twisted part and I got stuck by some metal. After the job, which did get us all dirty, we went to a members house and I cleaned up my hand. It was a sweet experience. I am glad I followed that small prompting of the spirit. The Lord knew 2 of his children on that street needed help, so he sent us. And Cool things like that happen every day.
I already told you a little about Jorge y Rita, the young couple I opened the mouth with and invited myself into their home. Well in that instance I was So following the spirit. They have tuned out to being Fantastic. We just need to marry them. With them, we have had some incredible lessons. They accepted the Law of Chastity and Tithing and have the first 3 lessons, Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and Baptism. It is great and I so hope to be able to baptize them at the end of this transfer. I don´t know what happened but they didn´t come to church.
The reactivation of the Family Marue is complete. They came to church again. We promised them that if they came to church, their week would be completely different. Well, Wednesday we passed by their house and WOW. What a change. Hna Maure was so happy. She had already finished reading an entire liahona
Roosters and chickens. We were in barrio imaculada conception. Yeah, I wonder where they got that name form. Anyway, we entered a house, went to the back and taught a lesson with a rooster and chickens running around and making some noise. The mother and friend were great, but the grandpa was NUTS! At one point he tossed his Book of Mormon in the dirt. He was so funny, didn´t believe in anything. It was a cool experience.
Dad, people are amazed you served in Japan. Do you remember lots of Japanese? Have you watched a movie or read anything in Japanese lately?
This one ALB we had, these guys were taking a break form work and smoking and drinking coke out of a 1L bottle. They offered it to us and we accepted. Never in my life in the states would I have shared a coke with 2 guys with cigarettes, they probably have never seen a toothbrush either. I love Argentina.
We always eat with Rosa and here family. Well this week, we made TACOS for them!!! I was head chef and they turned out so great. Her family had never eaten tacos before and we had to show them how and everything. It was so so so so so fantastic. We picked flowers walking to her house and put them in our shirt pockets. Elder Owens and I felt like we were going to prom.
This week we were able to travel to San Martin and Pintar and orfanato, orphanage. Cool. Elder Owens has an amazing voice and lights up the pench with it. I LOVE IT! Eating a lot of ice cream for breakfast is not good for you. I read Our Heritage this week. It was amazing and touched me. I was able to feel the amazingness of the pioneers, my ancestors who went before me, who made this restored Gospel possible. . . remarkable those stories. It amazed me. From that book I took strength, determination and faith.
Today has been really good. We woke and up and ROCKED personal study. I had the best personal study that I’ve had in a long time. Then we met other elders at the church and played basketball! It was great and I really did well. Ben Ostler, you would be proud. Now we are going with the famila Flores and they are taking us out to the Campo. El Mirador is where we are going.
Well, that's all for now folks. Stay Strong Boys!
Elder Ostler
Can´t believe Saydi got a car!
I love you all!
