The reason I'm emailing today instead of Monday is because our Pday got changed. We went to the temple this morning. Half of the Mission got to go Monday and the other half of the mission got Pday changed so they could go today, Tuesday. Obviously, my half of the mission was the Tuesday crowd. So here I am. Emailing Tuesday instead of Monday. Love you Mom!
Regarding the temple, we get to go twice a year in our mission. It was wonderful to get to go to the temple. I'm just super super exhausted and tired right now. We left the house this morning at 4:30. We just got back to the house about an hour ago. And now here we are emailing. And we still have a bunch of stuff to do with the short rest of Pday we have left. So, I'm gonna give you the best I can with the time I have.
Ugh.... I'm super disappointed. There was just a glitch (It might have been a user glitch because of my rapid typing) and an entire 3 paragraphs of my letter were lost. :( I think what happened was my thumb might have touched the mouse pad and highlighted those paragraphs as I tried to backspace to fix a spelling error....whoops The "undo" feature did me no good. Bummer.
Anyway, some exciting news is that our ward, which has "only" had four missionaries in it for a good while now (I think about a year) is receiving two sister missionaries today. I know, its weird to even imagine having more than one set of missionaries in a ward. But over here, 6 missionaries per ward is the norm (or at least in Spanish work it is)! The new sisters will be what are called roamers. Roamers means that their area is the entire ward boundaries rather than just a portion of the ward boundaries. When we were informed this morning about the incoming sisters, we were asked to prayerfully consider whom of our investigators should be given to the sisters. So tonight, the other Elders and us will be going through our area books and begin creating an area book for the sisters. This will be super important and nice for the sisters because it will help them avoid having to start from scratch. So I'm happy to do it. Although, I wonder if part of the reason I'm happy to do this for the sisters is because I haven't been here for long enough yet to become terribly attached to our investigators. Yes, it's sad to me that we won't be going by to see them anymore, but like I mentioned before, sister missionaries know what they are doing. They are the best. So really, all we are doing, is giving our investigators an upgrade! So that is my attitude on it. I hope that this attitude will be contagious (at least a little bit) because giving away some of our investigators to the incoming sisters is not exactly the happiest idea for my companion. But I completely understand. He has been here for quite a while.
If we were informed correctly, I actually know one of the sisters coming into the ward. She came into the mission field with me. If I remember correctly, she is from the Dominican Republic. She actually was serving in a different district within my last zone. She is legit. As a 3rd Transfer trainer, she was training two sisters.
I'm still struggling to get to know the area. But I'm getting it figured out bit by bit. I'm learning to pay more attention to street signs while we drive and I write a lot more things down now because my companion doesn't like to answer things more than once.
The investigators we have here are awesome! We don't have many (something we are trying to change) but the ones we have are great! They ask a lot of questions! And it's awesome! We just need to get better at directing the answers to their questions towards the doctrine of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.
There are tons of times where I get totally lost Spanish-wise in lessons or conversations. I have realized that having a native companion means that the people don't speak as slowly or simply. So my brain is working really hard on getting accustomed to higher level and higher rates of Spanish. It gives me a headache sometimes too. But I know that this will pay off. So I just keep trying my best in every situation to understand everything I possibly can. And I keep praying that I will one day soon have the gift of tongues. I get tastes of the gift of tongues every once in a while. So that is awesome!
Well, I love you All so much my wonderful Family!
Till next week!
Elder Ostler
