Hey there Family!
I forget if I said this last week or not, so I will say it this week....Happy Fathers Day to the best Dad in the world! Love you Dad! I had a couple spare moments after church yesterday in which I was actually able to do a language study (which is something I haven't really had the chance to do since coming to English work) and for my language study, I was working on your Father's Day letter! It's super close to being finished so hopefully it gets sent out here pretty soon....and by pretty soon I mean tomorrow or the next day assuming that I get another quick chance at a language study. But the good news is that it's close to being on its way.
How is everyone? How did Daniel do on his talk yesterday?!? I would have loved to have been there to hear his talk! I'm sure it was awesome! Tell me about it Daniel! What stories and scriptures did you share?
My talk yesterday was lots of fun. I had been asked by Bishop to prepare for about 20 minutes. There were some really good speakers yesterday and a special primary musical number as well in honor of Father's Day. When the pulpit was turned over to me, the hour was already up (which meant there were only 5 min left before things are normally wrapped up with the closing song). I had kinda seen this coming. So while I had been sitting on the stand, I was already figuring out what to share in order to not send sacrament meeting too far into overtime. I had narrowed everything down to one awesome Dad story (which i expected to take me about 5 minutes to share) and about 4-5 minutes of other comments related to the story. I was a little concerned that this meant I would be going about 5 min overtime, but figured I could justify it as long as I made my story fun enough. I bet Bishop felt a little bad about how short of time I ended up with considering how much I had been asked to prepare for because he leaned over to me as i was getting up to the pulpit and gave me permission to go 10 whole minutes overtime! I love our Bishop by the way. He is an awesome man! I appreciated the bishop's offer that I use so much extra time because it meant that my 5 min overtime wouldn't be a problem after all. So that was good. I got to take my 5 minutes overtime (I don't think I went any longer than that....I was watching the clock pretty closely) without any stress. Hmmmm....yea....I know you guys were interested in my talk and all, but I can't think of anything else that would be interesting to share. So I hope that covers it.
Well the work in the area is going great! We currently have 4 investigators who have baptismal dates. So that is pretty awesome. I LOVE the baptismal ordinance. It is absolutely amazing to me that such a simple ordinance has so much significance in both the immediate and eternal perspective.
Recently, for the last 5 or 6 months to be more accurate, I have been studying the simplicity of the Lord's Gospel. I don't know exactly how I got on this craze, but i look for the simple in EVERYTHING! I am amazed at how simply The Lord teaches His own doctrine. As I have conducted this study, I have been very impressed at the conversion power of the simple truths of the gospel. As I have learned and focused on the most simple of truths and strived to apply them in my own life, I have felt myself becoming more converted to the gospel. I have also been impressed at the conversion power that the simple truths of the gospel have in the lives of people I feel privileged to work with as a missionary. I couldn't even begin to explain even the smallest bit of how in awe I am at the fact that no matter who you are, or how much you know, the gospel in its most simple form is always the greatest conversion tool.
I think that sometimes (or maybe more often than not) we as members of the church, whether we be missionaries or not, complicate the gospel. But The Lord never wanted it to be complicated. He simply wanted us to keep His commandments. It is as simple as that.
It could just be because I have been focused on it so much for the past several months, but I think I have discovered an interesting constant pertaining to the simple principle of obedience: Any and all issues pertaining to ones personal conversion to the gospel, whether it be an increasing or declining conversion, can be traced back to their willingness to be obedient to the commandments of The Lord.
Hmmmmmm I'm not entirely sure why I mentioned any of that. Probably just because it has been on my mind so much....but hopefully it was interesting for at least one of you guys!
Well,
Love you all!
Hasta luego!
Elder Ostler
