Hello!
I'm trying to use Siri to write my
letter home today because I hate typing on this iPad. It's painfully slow
for me... Hopefully I get faster typing on this thing with practice. But
it's kind of weird talking my email to my family as I sit here in McDonalds. I'm
talking quietly so I don't create too big of a scene. We tried to go to
the church to do our email in the family history center like we normally do
(there are normal keyboards over there) but sadly Internet at the church was
down.
I was wondering…Could you send me an
Apple keyboard? I'm thinking I want a full-size one. I really don't know
though because I haven't had a chance to look at everything that Apple has to
offer. I don't really specialize in electronics as a missionary. But
the good news is that my mom knows Apple products really well! So, could
you help me out mom? I trust your judgment to make a wise decision for your
missionary son. Truthfully, I have been wondering about that ever since I
got the iPad on Thursday. My thought is that it will stay at home in the
apartment the majority of the time. The only time I would take it with me is
when I know I will need to be doing a lot of typing outside of the apartment on
my iPad...like today for instance or when I go to a meeting or something like
that.
Oh! Another helpful iPad
device....I'm assuming something like this exists.... Can you somehow send me
an external memory for an iPad mini? I'm thinking it would be nice to
begin typing my nightly journal entries once I have a keyboard that is actually
easy for me to use. Is there some type of iPad to USB adapter thing you
can send me? Or something similar?
By the way, I gave up on using Siri
forever ago. It doesn't understand me. So I'm on the touch screen again.
I feel like I'm texting...I wonder if it is having a harder time
understanding me though due to all the noise here in McDonalds.
I'm not sure how much I will actually
be able to share on here with the time I have left. (My companion is way
faster at typing on these devices and he is already waiting on me to go back to
the church for a zone activity). Oh! I just got a beautiful idea! I
will transfer my letter onto a note. Then when I get Internet again later
tonight or tomorrow I will copy and paste it to my email and send it off!
Woot woot! Ok...yep...off to the church I go.
We have had so many amazing
experiences and miracles happening these past few weeks that I really don't
even know where to begin! I could spend hours and hours talking about all
of it....but sadly that's not possible. So here goes my best shot at
catching you up on the happenings here in Boyle Heights.
As we headed into February, Elder
N and I made a companionship/area goal of 2 baptisms for this month.
This goal at that time looked way too easy to accomplish. One would
naturally think that if a goal appears too easy that you should raise the goal.
However, one principle I have learned on my mission (through both
personal experience and counsel from the mission president and his other
leaders) is that every goal, no matter how sure it seems, must have a backup
plan (and in our mission, every baptismal goal is advised to have two back up
plans). Earlier in my mission, I had the false idea that backup plans
were a manifestation of a lack of faith in my primary plans. As such, I
didn't put as much emphasis in my backup plans as I should have. Backups were just a motion I went through. I have realized that with better
planning (including my backup plans) The Lord sees better evidences of the
faith I have in completing the goals I make with Him (like baptismal goals).
And as He sees the evidences of faith, he can more fully pour out his
miracles of salvation.
As we moved into February, I began to
be very grateful for my recentish (it has been coming over the last 6 months)
understanding and personal conversion to the true principles of goal setting.
Through situations out of our control, our plan B quickly became plan A as our two most solid and promising investigators became not so promising.
Then, a bit later, I became even more grateful for my conversion to proper
goal setting when our original plan C investigators became our most promising
persons to enter the waters of baptism in the month of February.
The man I was telling you about two
weeks ago that I love to visit with was originally one of these persons. It
wasn't that we thought he wouldn't be baptized, it was simply that his current
poor health had historically been causing that his wife not permit him to leave
the house and come to church. In truth I think she was simply trying to halt
up her husbands progression in the gospel. As it turns out, she is a very less
active member who we didn't even have on our ward records. But she never
told us she was a member until it seemed to her like a way for her to tell us
she was "already saved" and as such didn't want us to bother
her/waste her time. Her husband's desires to get baptized were causing
her to feel the need to put certain things in her life back in order so that
she could support her husband like she knew she should. She just
naturally didn't want to make those changes and as a result tried to hide all
of this behind the health of her husband. But miracles began happening in
our lessons with her husband while she listened from the back room. Her
"uninterested" listenings from the back room eventually caused her to
soften her heart and begin supporting her husband more fully in his decision to
be baptized(including coming to church with him which is something she swore
she would never do when we first started visiting with her family).
And yes, he was baptized on Sunday!
He made his first covenant with Heavenly Father and now he and his wife
can begin preparing for the day when they become an eternal family through the
blessing of temple marriage in a year! Woot woot! It was so
awesome! Miracle baptism number 1 of 2 complete!
We had 2 possible people we are
currently working with who based solely off of requirements could have
fulfilled miracle baptism number 2 for the month. But in reality, only
one of these appeared to be a promising possibility. Each of them needed
to come to sacrament meeting these last two Sundays of the month in order to be
eligible for baptism. When none of them came to sacrament meeting I
remember sitting there thinking during the sacrament, "well Elder Ostler,
while it seems you won't be fulfilling the goal of two this month, at least you
can rest assured with the knowledge that you did everything in your power to complete
the goal."
But immediately after that thought
had entered my mind, I began to question it... Had I really done everything? Was it really over? Or was there still another miracle just around the corner.
Then there was of course this thought..."After all, sacrament
meeting isn't over until the closing prayer....maybe someone will walk in
late."
But it didn't come to pass as I
imagined it would.
As I sat in gospel principles class,
I was pondering on one last investigator (the ONLY other investigator to my
knowledge that could possibly be ready for baptism this month). We began
working with her at the beginning of my time here in Boyle Heights. She is the
wife of a member of the ward and is so so ready to be baptized but continues to
put if off. She realizes baptism is a commitment to God that she will
need to do someday. She simply doesn't feel a need to make that
commitment to God any time in the near future. To explain it shortly, it
seems she doesn't see a need to do that when she can just keep coming to church
whenever she feels like it and have us over to eat lunch and teach her during
the week. She had just barely turned down an invitation to be baptized on the
23rd of this month in our last visit. I knew was a long shot and would be
nothing short of a miracle for her to get baptized on that day after having
already turned down the invitation, but I believe in miracles. And this
belief in miracles kept me pondering.
As I pondered on how we could help
this investigator gain true desires to be baptized (even in this month) a
missionary from another ward that meets in the same building as us poked his
head in the door and motioned for me to join him in the hall.
As I joined him in the hall, he
pointed to a man he had standing there with him and asks me, "Elder
Ostler, do you know this guy? He lives in your area and says he has seen and
talked to missionaries before... He wants to be baptized."
In that moment, the thought entered
my head, "Well Elder Ostler, it seems you may have just met your baptism
for the 23rd!"
If I had more time I'd explain the
rest of the fun...but it will have to be postponed til next week. So
stay tuned....
The short version is that he is
currently preparing for the 23rd of this month.
I love my mission. I get to see
first hand that The Lord is a God of miracles.
Hasta luego!
Elder Ostler
