Regarding your questions. The broadcast doesn't exactly change the way we are supposed to do missionary work. Our missionary work here is already supposed to be modeled almost spot on accurate to what the broadcast taught last night. Why is that? Because we have an inspired mission president. He is just amazing. He has been preaching everything that we learned last night since I first got here. Do we as missionaries follow this counsel perfectly? Definitely not. (at the least I haven't followed perfectly) So this is where the change from the broadcast came in for me. It gave me a bigger picture focus to all the "why" questions I have had to the way we are coached/trained (whatever you wanna call it) to do missionary work. It just made everything so much clearer to me on why we do certain missionary tasks. I feel like it will help me enter every situation with the bigger picture in mind. I look forward to hastening the work with this new knowledge. It's exciting.
One thing that will definitely change is the way I try to utilize service opportunities as a finding tool. Usually we try to do that on our own (just us missionaries offering to do service)....and truthfully it rarely works out. I think I have only had 3 people who we aren't already teaching ever accept any form of help from us missionaries in my entire mission (and we offer daily). So the percentages haven't been very good (at least it hasn't been for me) in acquiring my own service finding opportunities. But yesterday, there was a section of broadcast that taught me that this can be more successfully done through the members. A member can speak with a neighbor and offer to help. The neighbor will be much more willing to accept help from a friend than from a stranger (the missionaries). And the member can then bring the missionaries to help! Flawless. Try it out for me and tell me how it works.
Regarding my toe. It's fine. Don't worry. In fact, it's fixing itself as I type...it's a miracle in process. It's been a miracle in process since my days in Arroyo. I got my toe absolutely crushed in a basketball game one Pday. About two weeks later my toenail was black. Then I just played the waiting game for about 3 months. It was fun. When it finally fell off, the toenail underneath didn't look nearly as nice as my black toenail looked. So for that reason I went to the doctor to have it checked. He wasn't concerned. He just told me to keep clipping it a special way to help it fix itself and then sent me on my way. So that is the story. No worries.
Anyways, we had a pretty awesome week. I think there might have been one week in my mission that has been busier. It rocked.
I think the greatest story of the week was a lesson that we got stuck in for 2 hours. It was with a new investigator and we had the ward mission leader with us. The first hour and a half turned into a confession of all the horrible sins this woman has committed. It was ridiculous. She kept telling us that she knows it's wrong but that she is struggling to stop because the thrill of her sins make her feel like she is living back in her 20s again. We learned too much about her colorful life. But I couldn't get her to let us teach the lesson and show her how the gospel will help her overcome her sinful life. I wasn't getting a ton of help from either the ward mission leader or my companion. I'm pretty sure they were just too weirded out by the whole situation. It might have been more awkward for me if I hadn't been so entirely focused on our missionary purpose. But the entire time, I was working out the plan for how we were going to apply the lesson of the Restoration to this woman's needs in a way that she would understand and have the desires to change.
I tried several times to do it in a way that would allow for all three of us to teach the lesson. But each time failed miserably. So there came a moment where I said in my mind something along the lines of, "Alrighty Elder Ostler. Take over. It's go time."
And without being terribly un-humble, that is exactly what I did. It was quite the experience. Let me just say the gospel is perfect. The story of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is also perfect. It's flawless. Just like the gospel. And every aspect of our lives, no matter how off course we may be can be applied to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I began with God is our Loving Heavenly Father and then began to remind her that because God loves us, he sent us here to the Earth to be members of a Family (A family being a father and a mother who are married). I reminded her that this plan to come to a family has been established since the beginning (Adam and Eve). And then to seal the deal I pointed out, "And God puts so much emphasis into the family that he makes it impossible to even enter this world without a Father and a Mother. They are necessary components in the plan." I moved on with the lesson explaining that because God doesn't want us to screw his plan up, he has sent us prophets. Prophets do, always have, and always will, teach us to live God's plan. They teach us to live the commandments (including the law of chastity). But then I pointed out that sometimes, we as people choose to disobey the plan. Even though we know the plan through his prophets and scriptures, we reject it. We do what feels good because it's fun and even exciting/thrilling. We sin. I explained that this too has happened since the beginning of time (people rejecting God's plan). Then I explained how God is not pleased when we disobey his plan. I explained how the thrill/happiness doesn't last. God won't allow it to last. We will pay for our transgressions. And then I began to expound on the atonement.
It was at some point in here, when I was teaching the purpose of Jesus Christ, that she said something like, "So the theme of today's lesson is the importance of Marriage?"
I paused, and said, "Actually, the theme of today is that God's plan, which was rejected due to sin, has once again been restored. We can once again repent and return to the plan. Marriage is only a part of that plan. Allow me to explain what I mean by that."
We then continued with the Apostasy after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the story of the Restoration through Joseph Smith.
The lesson ended very well. She committed to pray, read the book of Mormon, and come to church this Sunday to learn if what we had taught was truly the way that she must follow. She accepted an invitation to be baptized when she knows it's true and even gave an amazing prayer at the end. It was all in Spanish. It was definitely the most interesting Restoration message I have ever given.
She didn't come to church on Sunday. But we learned that the reason she didn't make it is because she was packing all her things so she can move to live with her Husband on the east Coast. (Her husband lost his job here and went before the rest of the family to start working over there in preparation to receive the rest of the family). It was in this time of separation that this woman had begun her sinful ways. She was even considering divorcing him and never fulfilling the plan of reuniting with him on the East Coast. So sad.
The Gospel is bringing this family back together. The gospel blesses families. I was ok with not having her in Church on Sunday knowing that she is taking action now to begin fixing everything she has done wrong.
Well,
Out of time,
Love you all!
Your Son and Brother,
Elder Ostler
