March
24, 2014
Hello family!
Wow! That sounds like the
Arizona trip was quite the adventure! Absolutely jammed packed with
surprises! Who would've thought that the adventure would have begun even
before getting to Arizona!?! Craziness!
From what I got in Mom’s letter, it
sounds like Nathan has quite the résumé of wilderness man survival skills!
But mom left me a lot of room for imagination. So I will need
Nathan and Dad to fill me in on the details that I'm hoping to hear about all
the way over here in California. When I read the part about Nathan using
a bow and string and stick, you got my mind racing! Immediately I was
thinking, "Wow! What type of animal did he kill and cook for Mom and Dad
to eat with his hecho por mano bow and arrow!?!" But then, a couple
lines later I realized the remarkable feat accomplished with the fancy tool
that Mom was describing to me had nothing to do with chasing down and shooting
animals on the run. The disappointment was so great that I actually
caught myself saying in my head, "Oh....it was just a fire
starter...." It was then that I realized, "Wait a second!
That isn't too shabby. What am I even saying? That is
awesome! That is WAY cooler than my Boy Scout fire starting skills with
my matches that I kept safe and sound in my dry pouch. I don't think I
have ever even seen anyone do that except on TV!"
Way to go Nathan! That is
AMAZING! Truly it is...the only reason I didn't get wowed right up front
was because Mom had led me to believe that you had a bow and arrow. But
who knows...maybe it’s my own fault for thinking that...in my defense though,
the words used in Mom's description were "...he pulled out his bow and a
stick..." And with the context of
that part of the letter being food, my imagination was left with no other
options. ;)
But anyways, while the bow and arrow
question was laid to rest, I still have LOTS of questions running around in my
mind. So help me out! Tell me everything! I want a long
report this next week on the last two months of your life Nathan. And
everything you don't put in the report/letter you better write down so that you
don't forget everything you are going to tell me when I get home. Deal?
Cool. Thanks Dude! I'm so excited to hear about it.
Now I have to talk about how inspired
the youngest member of the family is. Yep, that’s you Daniel! For
real. You saved me this week. You should probably just enter the
mission field right now. Maybe because you are so young they will accept
my special request that your first companion in the field be the one and only
Elder Ben Ostler (is there still just one of me running around out here? Or
with all the new missionaries do we have another one now? Hmmm I should
probably double check on that before I decide to use that line in a contact or
a lesson or a talk in church...maybe you can call church headquarters for me
and check on that...that would be helpful.) But anyways, just due to the
fact that I will hopefully be your first companion in the field means that they
will probably give me this assignment called trainer...but we will both know
that you are the one training me.
Allow me to explain. You asked
me an inspired question in your last letter... "Wow Ben! That sounds
like a lot of new investigators! That’s great! How many of them are
actually investigating the church?"
My initial reaction was, "Wow!
That’s pretty cute. My little brother is actually asking me a question
about my missionary work other than the food! Since he is interested, I
will have to tell him a little bit about how one goes about getting new
investigators in my next letter. Then, after I explain it to him I can
assure him that they do understand they are investigating.
But then as I pondered with a smile
on my face how much I enjoyed my little brother’s letter, a completely
different series of thoughts came to mind.... "Wait a minute here.
That is a really intelligent question. But where did that come
from? Did someone plant the idea in his mind that there are occasional confusions
regarding the people with whom we visit and whether or not they understand that
they are investigating the church? Or maybe he asked this question
without any idea of how intelligent it was?"
As I sat there contemplating these
things, I could see Dad sitting at the kitchen table reading one of my letters
aloud to Mom and Daniel after dinner. I could picture Dad pausing as he
read one of my recent letters where I shared our amazing finding miracles of
the week. In the pause, Dad glances up and directs the following
commentary to Mom with a smile of wisdom gained from happy and maybe even some
not so happy mission memories, "I wonder how many of Ben's investigators
actually know they are investigating the church?" Then I imagined
there was a short little laugh shared that only 2 RM's would ever fully
understand before moving on with the reading of the letter.
Now, whether this actually happened
or not, I have not a clue. But for me, it was a fun explanation as to
where Daniel's question that oozed wisdom beyond his years originated.
I then I did a mental check of all
our investigators we are working with. Do they really understand the
purpose of our visits? Do they truly understand they are investigating
the church? I was mostly happy with the results of this mental check up.
The majority of our investigators, whether they called it investigating
or called it by some other name, investigating is indeed what they were doing.
And for the minority of our investigators (the ones that I realized probably
didn't understand they were investigating the church) elder A and I began
making plans for how we would help these people understand that they are
investigating the church as well.
Oh yeah...before I forget....thanks
for the package. I, and the apartment (there are 4 of us), loved the
cookies! We are going to work on the candy bars and snack bars this week.
Thanks Mom!
Regresando a la historia, Later that afternoon I and Elder A were in a
visit with a man and his member friend. The man is very well studied in
the Bible. EVERYTHING he was saying fit perfectly into the lesson of the
Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which was the lesson that we were
directing and which prompted all of his invited and spot-on-comments. One
would think that everything was going perfectly! And it was...almost.
But something (maybe the fact that we felt the impression that he was
simply trying to one-up us with his Bible knowledge or maybe it was the fact
that he would rather frequently try to call us out on the things we shared
which weren't in complete agreement with his own beliefs by demanding that we
show him something from the Bible) didn't feel right. And to me, this was
confusing and even really sad...even more sad than it normally is in these
types of situations...because I could see and feel the potential that this man
has as a member of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ on the earth.
Elder A and I did our best to establish an environment in which the
spirit could somehow have an influence.
But this man continued to be
difficult. He proudly proclaimed that no religious teacher or minister
has ever been able to hang with him. He claims that the truths, which he
declares based off of his Bible knowledge always runs them off. He was
bragging about how he has always been good at showing them all the flaws in
their religion and that because these people didn't want to hear about all the
things they are doing wrong, that they never come back. I began to feel
somewhat frustrated and even began to imagine all the better things we could be
doing with our time rather than wasting it with someone who simply wants to
find fault and run us off.
It was at this moment that Daniel's
letter popped into my mind. "...That’s great! How many are
actually investigating the church?"
I was inspired for the rest of our
visit. With a great degree of difficulty I interrupted the man's
recitations of Bible scriptures and his other mingled knowledge.
"This has been a wonderful
visit. We truly thank you for your time. We have to get going
towards our next appointment, but before we go, I would just like to ask you
one last question. What do you understand to have been the purpose of
today's visit?"
His answer explained why he had been
treating us the way he was. In not as many words as he used, he was of
the belief that we were going to battle and debate in order to discover the
truths in the Bible that we need for salvation.
I had to interrupt him again so that
we didn't completely lose the focus of my question (he had already slipped back
into his previous attitude of establishing his bible knowledge over us).
As I did so, I was able to very plainly explain to him what our purpose
is in relation to his responsibility to investigate the church.
And then, because Daniel's letter was
drilled into the forefront of my mind, I laid it on very thick with a pep talk
about this man's wonderful opportunity to investigate the church. The
Lord, through the principles of prayer, scripture study (what he already knows
and even what he will learn as he continues to study), and church attendance,
will guide his investigation of the church in order that he know for himself
what we are teaching about the Lord’s restored church is true.
He explained to us that he had
stopped investigating and searching for that church of Christ because after
doing the investigating process I had just described to him, he came to the
knowledge it no longer exists.
Before he could get too much steam
going in his efforts to prove to us how sure he was that the church of Christ
doesn't exist on the earth anymore, I interrupted him again "I know you
have investigated other churches before. But you have never investigated
this church before. It's different than any other church you have ever
been to. It is literally the Lord's church." We promised him
that unlike the other churches he has investigated, his knowledge of truth that
he has gained from his scripture study would be in perfect accordance with the
doctrine taught in the church. We invited him to pray and ask the Lord to
guide his steps as he investigates for himself the church which we claim to be
the one and only church of Jesus Christ on the earth.
He bowed his head and said a silent
prayer. When he looked up, he had tears in his eyes. I believe he
was hoping we would leave without noticing because he was trying to send us off
with as few words as possible so we wouldn't notice the tremble in his voice.
But it was too late. We had already noticed. "Hermano,
some people say that tears are the evidences of God's presence. I know
that he only manifests himself when he wants us to know something. What
did God just tell you?"
He explained to us that he doesn't
know exactly how to describe it but he believes it is a sign from God that he
does need to investigate this church. He continued, "Who knows,
maybe it is God's church. What time do your worship services start? I'm
going to be there."
Well Daniel, I credit this amazing
experience to your letter. You are quite the guy. I'll probably see
you here in the mission field in a couple months. I was about to say that
I'll see you tomorrow, but then I remembered that the application process takes
a little while ;).
Well,
That's all I got time for! See
ya later!
Love you all so much!
Elder Ostler
P.S. Oh man, I just realized that
this email never left my iPad when I tried to send it on Monday. Whoops.
Sorry about that! I think it might have been because I had Wi-Fi
turned off on the iPad to save battery. I thought I had turned it back on
to send the email, but I guess I didn't. Sorry! Love you!
