It’s Merry Christmas week!
I bet you are all enjoying your time
off of school and all that fun stuff. I think about you guys when I see a
group of kids playing ball out in the yard with their brothers. Every
once in a while I even see a sister playing with her brothers! And that
really brings back the memories. I miss all our back yard football and
soccer games.
Thanks for the information on the
College applications. That’s exactly what I needed to know. I hope
I can snag a bit of time to write up my essays today. I have been having
a really hard time getting everything done on Pdays in time to get a good look
at those essays. I have an idea of what to write, but I just haven't had
the time.
I LOVE the ward I am assigned
to. The ward leadership here is on top of things. In ward counsel
yesterday I was asked about the couple that was planning on getting married
this coming weekend. I had to explain that I hadn't met them yet and that
based off of the only communication I have had with them (a phone call) that
they wanted to wait till the new year to start preparing for marriage
again. The bishop shook his head and said, "Wow, something must have
happened to cause them to suddenly stop coming to church and to lose interest
like this. Have you just been trying to call them? Or are you also
stopping by the house?" After giving him a better idea of all the things
we have tried doing to catch them at home (caroling, dropping treats by,
talking with the neighbors), another member of ward counsel piped up and said,
"Bishop, the Elder has also asked me and my husband to go by. We are
going by tonight. And if we don't catch them at home tonight, we are
going by tomorrow morning. We had a few visits with them and the Elders
in our house. So they know us pretty well. We are going to see if
we can help them get excited again like they used to be for getting married on
the 29th."
Honestly when I heard this hermana tell
Bishop that, I almost teared up. I was so impressed by her faithful
dedication to go above and beyond the call of duty. I had indeed asked
her to go by and see if she could get in contact with them (thinking that this
might get better results) but I hadn't even thought to encourage her to help
them still meet their 28th marriage goal and 29th baptismal goal. My
thought was that we were going to get them rolling again towards those goals in
the new year like they had told me on the phone. So I'm not sure if we
are going to see a miracle with them for the 28th and 29th yet. But it
was so cool and comforting to see how willing to help out the ward is
here. I'm excited to hear from them tonight when they tell us how things
went today. I have known ever since I first met the ward leaders here
that this is by far the strongest ward I have served in, but after seeing that
happen, I realized even more how blessed the missionaries are here in this
ward. It is amazing!
After the hermana finished explaining
to Bishop what she was going to do, Bishop then said, "Well, get it
figured out fast. Because we need to know if we still need to plan the
wedding or not for the 28th. We can still do it. We just need to
know soon." Then the real surprise came, the ward activity leader
then piped up, "Yea, call me by Tuesday night. We already have
everything ready to go. I have the whole thing organized. All the
hermanas in the ward have volunteered to help out. They already have
their assignments and everything. So I will need to call them and tell
them not to carry on with the plans if it isn't going to happen."
And then she looked at me with a smile and says, "But don't call me on
Tuesday night to cancel it. Call me to confirm it. If you have to
cancel it, don't worry, it's ok...we can do that. But what we really want
is for you to confirm it."
WOW! Not even the Bishop knew
that everything was already set and ready for the wedding. I was even
more impressed because the only time we had EVER mentioned anything to the ward
leadership about this wedding was my first day here in the area when Elder
N called the Relief Society President to inform her that we probably would
be having a wedding on the 28th. When things weren't going well, we held
back on continuing with the wedding planning. Elder N had understood
that we would need to confirm that it was actually going to happen before she
did anything to begin planning for it (she didn't want to waste time planning a
wedding that might not happen) but apparently she had been only giving Elder
N a hard time because she went right on ahead with the planning even
without ever hearing another word from us. (phone conversations are tough when
you are learning a language so I'm assuming some sort of miscommunication
happened there)
Anyway, to put things simply, we have
AMAZING ward leadership here. I am so impressed.
Remember that other guy? The
super prepared golden investigator guy? We are still going to work with
him if he decides to continue, but he isn't quite so golden. We had a few
visits with him last week and everything was looking good for his baptismal
date on the 29th until we had a curve-ball thrown our way. Elder N and I went in with the plan to teach the Word of Wisdom. It was going to
be his way to put to the test that the church truly is led and directed by
Prophets of the Lord. He has been looking for a way to know that this is
really what God wants him to do. So this was going to be his way to
know. But everything changed when he showed us on his phone a picture he
had just been tagged in on Facebook. In the split second that I saw the
picture (It was a picture not even worth the split second that it received),
things about this man that haven't ever really added up suddenly made sense to
me. I know that the spirit is what helped me come to these
realizations. And with those realizations, I was able to have a short
conversation with him in which I asked him certain questions that confirmed
what the spirit had already told me. This was necessary because I know
that he would have kept these things hidden had we carried on with our normal
lesson plan.
Only after he had personally
confirmed what the spirit had already made known to me did I continue with,
"You know that this isn't good in God's eyes right?" And then I
got to see some of his true colors. He began trying to manipulate the
situation. And he was good at it. But I know the Lord helped me
make the necessary realizations to teach the message that he would teach if he
were there. The promise in Doctrine and Covenants, which says that we shall not
be confounded before men would be a good example of what I experienced.
I am interested to see if he truly
chooses to continue getting closer to God after having learned that he can't be
a member of God's church and an active participator in some of the World's most
sinful ways at the same time.
On another note, we have some other
new FAMILIES that we are teaching that I will have to tell you about when I
have more time next week.
Well,
Love you!
Talk to you on Christmas!
Yours Truly,
Elder Ostler
