Happy Birthday to Daniel again!
I should probably start by answering your transfer questions. Yep, I'm still here in Claremont 1st Ward. It's still Elder R. and I. But now we have another companion. Elder C. is his name. He is from Florida. So we are in a trio! Woot Woot! (the cool thing about being in a trio is that EVERY HOME becomes accessible because we already have the 3rd man present that is necessary to enter a house!) I think that the office is going to get us another bed over here before we get too far into the week. But until then, I'm sleeping on the floor (which is actually something I volunteered for because I'd imagine it will be good for my back to do so for a few days).
Both Elder C. and Elder R. are pretty good at the Ukulele. So now I have had 3 companions in a row that play the Ukulele! (playing the Ukulele seems to be something that a lot of the English Elders pick up on the mission). Currently we have "I hope they call me on a mission" going on in spurts in between the moments of "focused" email time. It's pretty fun! I'd imagine that we are going to have fun with the Ukuleles with our investigators too! It would be awesome to teach some of our families some of the most popular primary songs.
Hmmm Well, everything in the area is going really really well. We are seeing little miracles all over the place! It's wonderful!
I think one of the biggest miracles we have going on right now is R. R. is AMAZING! Her faith and ability to discern the Lord's will for her and guiding influence of the spirit in her life is inspiring to me. She is constantly seeking for confirmations from The Lord that she is heading in the right direction. And she always finds them!
This past week at work she was talking to some of her co-workers about the church she went to on Sunday. She loved her experience at church and desired to share what she could with her co-workers. She explained how there was a first "big class" for the whole family followed by a second class and a third class. One co-worker overheard her conversation and said, "You must have gone to the LDS church huh?" When R. replied, "Yes, how did you know?", Her co-worker explained that she was a Mormon too! A wonderful conversation ensued between the two of them in which R. came to the realization "Wow! so that explains why you always seem so happy! I can't believe I never realized it before! I can't wait till I get baptized and I'm an official member too so I can have that fresh start happiness and rejuvenation that you guys all seem to have!"
As R. unfolded to us this experience with great excitement at having yet another witness that she is heading in the right direction, she also mentioned, "I can't believe that never came out sooner! I have worked with her for YEARS without ever knowing! You would think that something as important as church would have been mentioned at some point in all that time right? But I guess The Lord helped me realize it now so that He could help me know I'm doing the right thing."
It is AMAZING that she notices such an experience as a witness from The Lord of His guidance. Many many people would call such an experience coincidental. But not R.! I think that speaks to her preparedness for the gospel.
As inspiring as this experience is to hear about from R., there also seems to be a flip side. My thought is, "Wow! Even the non-members who have no idea who we are can see a difference in us!" This causes me to realize that there is much we should do to live up to that great trust and privilege of His happiness that The Lord has blessed us with. Obviously there is much we can and should do, but one of the least of these things just might possibly be to simply ensure that those with whom we associate know who we are. R. even mentioned that she believes she would have already become a member had she known that this individual had been a member of the church and had she received an invitation to go to church with her or "even if it was just to do some other type of fellowshipping activity". She explained that she feels deep down that she has been waiting and searching for "this" (her baptism and membership in the church) for a long long time. It causes me to wonder how many of those who surround me (and have surrounded me at other times in my life) are in the same situation as R. ...."wandering to and fro to seek the word of The Lord" Amos 8:12 and could have been blessed by the gospel had I only made it known where to find it.
Well, I wish that I could have written a bit more today, but the time is up. I had to write a bit of a longer letter to president today with a question about one of our investigators in relation to their upcoming baptism. President Villanueva is bilingual but speaks better Spanish than English. So I have used it as my personal excuse to justify the extra time it takes for me to write my letters to president in Spanish rather than English for the last little bit of my mission. Cool Huh?!?! (I haven't done a ton of writing in Spanish on my mission so it takes a bit longer to write than it probably should for someone who sounds as component in the language as I fool people into believing I am). So anyways, the longer letter and the fact that it was in Spanish is part of the reason why I am short on time today. President Villanueva is awesome by the way!
Hasta Luego!
Elder Ostler
