Happy Birthday Nathan! Love you lots! I hope you have an amazing birthday! Holy snaps dude! You are getting old. You will be able to go to the next youth dance! You excited? You should be! And you are going to be a teacher too! WOW!
Haha oh boy... Dad had to spend some time translating the letter? I hope that doesn't mean that the ways in which I formed my sentences were so unique that he was forced to do some guess work in the "translation" ;) But, on the bright side, if that was the case, at least you got to spend some more time enjoying your birthday letter ;) Love ya Dad!
Also, regarding the companionship, things have gotten a lot better. Why? Because I have found a great deal of peace in trying to act more like the Savior in all I do. So I guess the bettering of the companionship could be more accurately described as things have been better for me on a personal level. And on a slightly different yet similar note, there is truly a great amount of value to the sayings that Mom and Dad always say which teach something to the effect of "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me" I'm so exhausted though. I have gone to bed early (over half an hour early) twice this week because of how absolutely worn out I have been at the end of the day.
We had a pretty cool experience this week. We picked up a new investigator at church yesterday! That was a fun surprise and a huge blessing. We have a member who was supposed to pick up a different one of his friends (one of our investigators) and bring him to church yesterday. But that friend wasn't able to make it. So, while our member was on his way to church, he saw another of his friends walking along the side of the road. And it just so happened that this friend was somebody that our member wanted to introduce the missionaries to sometime in the future. I would assume that our member had something go through his head along the lines of, "Why not today?" because he pulled his car over and asked his friend if he would like to come to church with him. The friend accepted! And he even stayed for all three hours of church!
Something else amazing has happened this week. And I believe it is due to my improving attitude/outlook on how I must improve myself personally. For a few weeks, I had been struggling to even do the simplest of life's tasks, not to even mention missionary tasks. Honestly, my ability to be missionary or even a normal functioning person was failing on me. I would have times where I couldn't even introduce myself without sounding like an idiot. It was awful. But those moments are over. I am now once again functioning at an acceptable level...and I'd like to think that I have even improved slightly. I was able to speak and teach in lessons using analogies I had never before used or even thought about using before in lessons. And the best part was they were understood!
Well my wonderful family,
I'll talk with you soon!
Sunday....8pm to be exact....my time.... oh wait... we are on the same time zone! ;)
Love you all!
Elder Ostler
