October 29, 2012
My Dearest most wonderful family!
My first Pday in the field! By now I'm sure you have gotten my email. I got ripped off printing those emails
out at the library. So in the
future it would probably just be best to send it snail mail, or Dear Elder my
letters to my mission office and have them forward it to me in my
apartment. (But I don't even know
if Dear Elder is an option for our mission.
Anyway, I want to tell you a little more about my very first
full day in the field. My most exciting
visit of the day was our very last one.
(I already told you about my favorite one.) We went to this super super sketchy looking apartment
complex. Elder Ingram was teaching
a woman who lived here with his trainer, but then one day, she just stopped
taking lessons and started ignoring the missionaries. This was really hard for my companion because she had been
progressing really well in the gospel.
Sadly, we didn't find her at home.
But before we left the apartment complex, my companion felt impressed to
go talk to a different lady who also lived in the complex. The missionaries had met her a week or
so earlier and she had expressed some interest in learning more.
We found her at home!
And she invited us in. I
wasn't able to understand much of the conversation (fluent speakers are much
more difficult to understand than my MTC teachers). But the facts I was able to understand were basically
this: 1-She had received many
lessons from the missionaries in the past. 2-She had a Book of Mormon, which she has read from time to
time. 3-She was very familiar with
the Restoration of the Gospel in our day through a prophet named Joseph
Smith. 4-She realized that baptism
is important, she wants to be baptized, but first, she wants to be sure
that the Gospel is true.
She was very focused on this idea of needing to be
absolutely sure. She wanted
a sure knowledge before she would be willing to commit even to come to church.
At this point, I still hadn't said a single word. But I felt impressed that I needed to
share two verses from Alma Chapter 32 with her, verses 21 and 27. The two verses are about faith being a
desire or hope and how that desire/hope turns into a more sure knowledge as we
act upon our hope or desire that the Lord's Church is true.
So, I opened my mouth, "Yo tengo una scriptura sobre su
deseo a conocer que la Iglesia es verdad." Then I handed her my scriptures and said, "Leera Por
favor?"
She read it and then I bore my testimony in the principle of
acting upon our faith in order to receive a more sure knowledge. Then, in very broken Spanish, I invited
her to read the Book of Mormon every day (an action), attend church with us on
Sunday (also an action), and to commit to be baptized as she gains the more
sure knowledge that is talked about in the scriptures. She committed to everything except
coming to church with us on Sunday.
But she said she might come next week with us.
After all of this, my companion told her that it was my
first day in California and that I'm learning Spanish. When she heard this she exclaimed,
"Que bonita! Que
bonita!" and then she continued to complement me on my Spanish and told me
that I was very smart. Then she
promised me that here in California I would have lots of opportunities to
practice my Spanish and that I would be perfecto before too long.
As she was excitedly telling me all of this, some of her
extended family came over to visit.
So she then very excitedly started telling them all about me and
how I'm a beautiful hombre de Dios who is here in California speaking Spanish
and teaching about Jesus Christ and a book called the Book of Mormon. Now her family was excited to meet the
two greegoe missionaries too! It
was pretty fun. We picked up five
new possible investigators that night.
And to think, my lack of Spanish excellence was a contributing factor to
that. The Lord must have known
what he was doing when he sent me to Arcadia, California and asked me to learn
Spanish.
Well, I want to tell more, but I have no more time and I
want to get this sent. Please know
I love you all and I'm loving this experience. I'm only finished with my first week but one week is plenty
of time for me to know that my mission is exactly what I need to be doing with
these two years of my life.
Your Son/Brother/Missionary,
Elder Ostler
So I ended up getting a little more time before throwing
this in the envelope and I want to tell you something about how awesome my
trainer is. From day one in the
mission, when we went to mutual on Tuesday night (the only thing we did Tuesday
night), I noticed that the missionaries have too good of a relationship with
the young women in the ward. The
YW love to flirt with the missionaries. And while the missionaries don't do anything to
initiate it, they definitely don't make any efforts to discourage it. This didn't sit right with me at all.
So after I had observed a second interaction between missionaries
and YW in the ward and realized that what I had observed on my first night
wasn't an isolated incident, I decided to talk to my companion about my opinion
that the missionaries have way to close of a relationship with the YW. I was very concerned that being a brand
new missionary with only three days of experience in the field, that I would be
told something about how I was wrong and how we need to focus on bonding with
the members.
But to my surprise, Elder Ingram said, "Elder Ostler,
I'm glad you are my companion.
You've got it figured out.
You are right that is a problem...and we are gonna change that."
Wow! Talk about
being humble. I love Elder
Ingram. This guy is a total
stud. What type of missionary
(trainer) is willing to take correction from his companion (trainee). I hope and pray to be just as humble as
Elder Ingram is.
Elder Ingram then explained to me how grateful he is that I
told him this. He told me that he
felt the same way when he first got to the field. But because every other missionary was seeming to be just
fine with it, the flirty stuff, he decided that it must just be the way we are supposed
to bond with the members of the ward.
So, over time he became accustomed to it.
He once again thanked me for helping him realize that we can
do better and will do better.
What more can I say?
My companion is just the best.
I can't say enough about his humility. What a guy.
What type of missionary is willing to take correction from a mere
greenie with only three days in the field? The answer to that question is: Only the Best!
Our Zone Leaders showed up to church on Sunday and told us
that they had been receiving many complaints from members about the Elders
flirting with the YW. Pretty much
they told us that they better not get any more complaints about that. I'm glad Elder Ingram and I had already
talked about this.
This just reminded me that I must trust my ability to judge
situations and determine if what is happening is either right or wrong. And then, I must use that gift the Lord
has given me to discern the right choice, and then stick with it in both word
and action.
And once again, I am so grateful to have such a truly humble
and supporting trainer. If or when
I am ever training, I hope to emulate his example of humility, love, and
support.
Love you my Family,
Adios for real this time.
