Well hey there!
All righty, so Daniel had some questions for me about his talk. But it almost seemed like you were asking more about my talk and hoping I would share my ideas with you? I hope I understood correctly what you were hoping for. Hmmm ok. My talk is probably different from yours, but hopefully telling you what I'm planning on doing will help get the brain juices flowing. I was asked to speak on how the men in my life helped me prepare to be a missionary. So in my talk I'm probably going to be focused on a few stories/experiences that stand out to me about how dad has trained me to be a missionary. Some of the ideas I have as of right now are: home teaching with dad, coming out to the kitchen every morning and interrupting dad's scripture studies, working with Dad out in the yard, going on camp outs, hmmm and that's all I got for now. I'm still in the brainstorming phase. But I'll probably start writing it out a little better tomorrow. Hopefully that helps a little bit! But even with all those ideas, the best advice I could give you is to pray. Every time I get asked to speak I pray that I can think of and prepare the message that Heavenly Father would want the people I'm addressing to hear. It always works. Good luck dude!
You might have noticed a cash withdraw i made this past week? It was because my bike needed some work done on it and the bike store i have here close to the apartment only accepts cash.
WOW!!! That is CRAZY! How long was Jacob out of action for? Was it just an overnight hospital stay? Or are we talking several days?!?! Craziness!
Well, this week had a slow slow start. It was mostly on account of bike trouble. but we were able to turn it around and end pretty strong by the weekend. During prime time we had bike issues come up which killed some of our plans. The bike issues are all resolved now I hope though. One of the many problems we had was 5 flat tires over 4 days. It was a real bummer. I hate it when things like that slow us down. ON most of the days we were able to still get some prime time (prime time simply refers to the evening times when more people are at home) proselyting done, but there was one night where it wiped our ENTIRE evening! That is a whole story in and of itself. this middle age nice Mexican man who likes to bike a lot and has a tool case and his bike in the back of his car was driving by and decided to stop to help when he saw us fixing the tire. I guess because of his age he was rather set in his ways and convinced that there is only one right way to change a tire and that it includes taking apart the ENTIRE bike and putting it back together again. (OK...I must admit that i am exaggerating a little bit, he didn't take EVERYTHING apart....but a good part of the bike was taken apart before we got any real progress on the flat tire). From the moment he stopped to help until the moment he left, was around 2 and 1/2 hours. And it could have easily been longer had i not been pushing the process along. The good news though is that we didn't have any set appointments that night. Instead of set appointments we just had some people to pass by. But it was still somewhat frustrating for me because I treat even my pass by plans as if they were set. I always just expect them to work out. So that was a little disappointing. I was hopeful that we would be able to give an awesome contact to the Spanish missionaries out of it at the least, but he wasn't having any of it. He even told me that he liked living in his sinful ways and that when he decides it's time to change he will stop some missionaries and tell them he is ready. When and if he does so, he will be a prepared investigator. So hopefully he does it someday. Basically he blames all his sins on what we would describe as the great apostasy. He argues that because one can't find the same rules or commandments in all churches that he is just too confused to know which commandments were made up by man and which ones were made by God. But in reality he knows. That was plain for me to understand in our bike repair visit with him. He is simply trying to fool himself so that he can live in sin without so much guilt. He is trying so hard to fool himself though even to the point that he knows he will someday have to change. But for now, he has some sins that are just "too thrilling" to leave. There was a point where i was beginning to wonder if I was talking with a crazy or if the man was just trying to make a mockery out of everything we do as he wastes our time all in the disguise of his daily good turn. It was a pretty interesting experience.
So that was the "interesting" experience of the week. But we also had some awesome things happen! We picked up 4 new investigators last week (which is the best I have done so far in this area) and we are really excited about all of them.
One lady pretty much taught us the entire restoration. We just asked her questions and presented some pictures and key phrases and she taught the whole thing to herself. It was an amazing experience. She taught me things about the Restoration of the Gospel that I had forgotten and even on a few moments overlooked all together!
We also met a super cool couple last night who are just full of jokes. They are a very strong Christian family. They are so strong in their faith that i actually find it surprising we were let into their home to teach! I believe though that Our meeting with them is at a perfect time. It came at a moment in which they needed to accept an offer we made to help them out with some projects in their house (most people never accept our offers to help out). But they did! They are a wonderful family.
Everything else continues wonderfully!
Can't think of anything else at the moment right now so I'm gonna close it up for this week!
I LOVE MY FAMILY!
Elder Ostler
P.S.
Oh wow...I almost forgot two weeks in a row! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARA! I didn't realize last week on Monday that it was already June. I think it was tuesday morning when i realized and then made the next realization that I hadn't wished you a happy birthday! Whoops! Better Late than never right? You are 19!!!! WOW! That is crazy! You are officially mission age! Well, Love you Kara! Hope your birthday was great! See ya later!
