First of all, I will attempt to answer your questions to the best of my ability.
The food: The food here at the MTC is pretty good. However, my relationship with the food is one of love and hate. It is all pretty decently yummy, however, there is just so much to choose from. And as we all know, I have a hard time making food decisions. So, the first few days, I simply ate all the food options! Sounds like a good idea right? If you don't know what you want, then try them all! Well, this was working out great until I realized that I wasn't getting hungry for the next meal. So, I decided to cut back to only one serving/meal per time I enter that cafeteria. And how did I choose which meal I want? Well, I just don't read the signs which say what I have to choose between. Instead, I pick a different line each day. So by the time I get to the front of the line, I'm usually pleasantly surprised. It's great. Oh, but ice cream is still my weakness. I have at least one ice cream for lunch and dinner. So maybe I could work on that, but in all honesty, I have no desire to work on that weakness.
My poundage: Seriously Nathan, that one cracked me up. That is definitly something I think about every day when I'm done eating and debating whether or not to go get another serving. But then I remind myself how its no fun to eat when I'm not even hungry. Plus, in the MTC I'm going to have to be way more diciplined to keep that poundage off. Our hour of exersize each day is nowhere near what I'm used to. And I'm never ready for it to be done. In fact, I always feel like I'm just getting started! The only day I have been tired after our exercise period was when I just had this major desire to run myself as hard as I could. So I went up to the track and ran. I loved it. Ten times around the track is a mile. So it is a pretty short track. most people don't run though and play basketball instead...which is what i usually do. Anyway, I made a goal to pass at least one person before I came to a turn. There are four turns. So every quarter of a tenth of a mile (you can do that math) I passed someone. It was a great work out. I had to sprint the majority of the time. I loved it cuz I felt dead tired at the end.
Spanish: Is coming slowly but surely. It's tough to not be able to communicate well, but I'm getting better each day. When I prepare my lesson for our investigators, I always hope that the questions he asks are ones I have prepared for on my script.
My District: The entire district is going to either Arcadia California, or Guatamalla. Elder M is going to Arcadia and Elder R is going to Guatamalla. The Guatamalla Elders leave for the Guatamalla MTC in two weeks. Then it will just be six of us in the District.
I'm sure there were more questions you asked, but that is all I can think of right now. I have ten minutes left so I will try to make the most of it.
Being a DL is tough. It is quite the uncomfortable position to be in knowing that I have to report to my branch presidency and zone leaders on a multi-weekly basis about our district. It is way easy when our district is being perfect, but recently that has not been the case. Every elder in my district wants to be here, they are all great missionaries, there are just tons of times where they get way too distracted. The past few days, it has been a huge struggle for our district to stay on task during study sessions when a teacher is not present. It usually turns into a big talk session. I love talking with the district. It is so fun getting to know each other. But when the majority of a 3 hour block of study gets wasted talking, that is a problem. I honestly don't think they realize how long they talk for, or how loud they get, but recently, my reminders to get back on task have been met with some opposition. We all know that we are supposed to be studying, but many members of the district feel it's more important to "get to know each other better" (which actually means talk about home, girls, sports, hot movie stars, ect.).
So it has been a hard last few days. In my meetings with the other district leaders in our zone and the branch president, it has been stressed that we are here to be missionaries. We get asked specifically how our focus is, and how our obedience is doing as a district. After one of our meetings, a member of the branch presidency asked me to stay afterwards to talk to him. We talked about the issues going on as far as disobedience within my district and our focus during study time. We spoke together for about 45 min. At the end of our conversation, I felt much more confident with how to move forward as a leader. It was comforting.
Well, time is up.
I will try to write via my hand in a bit.
Love you,
Elder Ostler
