November 29, 2010

Hello Family!!

Well we had our first snow here in Sumy!! The temperature outside is at about 2 Celsius so its getting pretty chilly! Earlier this we my companion and I went and got some clothing to keep us warm. I got a pretty good coat thats been keeping me warm. I also wear a beany and gloves to keep my ears and hands from freezing. SO, this week has been AWESOME!! On Wednesday we went out to a city about two hours by train called лебедин were we visited a very faithful member of the church, a deaf man in his 40's. He actually  had a wife and daughter but since he lost his hearing from swimming in cold water and infection, his wife left him. He is a great guy though and takes the 2 hour ride to Sumy each sunday for church. He's great!! On thursday we went out in theh same direction by train to the branch presidents farm about an hour from Sumy. It was Thanksgiving so we had mashed potatoes and chicken and compote ( homemade juice that is pretty good).  We also went to the tiny log shed in the yard and chopped some wood for their fire which was great fun as we all took our turns chopping these frozen logs. It always amazed me how self sufficient our branch president was. He has a huge farm and does pretty much all the work himself! He's a great man. After that, we went home and cooked some more pies and potatoes for district meeting where the senior couple made the chicken and we had another HUGE meal!! it was great:) This week with our investigator we also made some great progress! We started teaching a Nigerian man named Ken here studying finances at the university. It has really amazed me thus far at how open the african people we meet here are about religion and just love everything we have to tell them. It is really a nice break to be able to teach them because there hearts are open to the truth and have been taught from their childhood to believe Christ. He is making great progress and just this sunday, our second meeting, he was saying that this is probably the reason why he is here in Ukraine and not somewhere else, to hear the gospel!! He is doing great!! Just last night we had a lesson with a great family where the mother was an English teacher and the father was a translator at the local banking academy. It really has been a tender mercy of the lord to have so many people to teach in english. Its helped release alot of the stress i feel from trying to get this language. Anyways, this is also our second meeting with them and the father Con (Constantine) and wife Ena are golden! Con told us he felt like we were messengers from God and that we just glowed. He said there was so much darkness here in ukraine but for the first time he could see the light that radiated from us. When he said this i knew we needed to extend the commitment to be baptized. I looked him square in the eye and asked him that when he received the answer he had been looking for, would he be baptized. He staired at me for some time and i could tell he was thinking very hard about what i had just asked him. After about 15 seconds of us staring at eachother, he slowly started nodding and said yes!! At that moment was probably the happiest moment of my life!! Our prayers have been full of thanks to God for blessing us with his spirit and guiding us to that family. This work is so wonderful and i am so glad that God has allowed me to be a part of it!

It sounds like you all are having so much fun at home having sing alongs and going to the cabin and making forts!! I'd love to see some pictures of all of those fun things you've been doing. You all must be very busy! Keep up the good work their at home. I know that the Lord blesses the pure in heart and those who exhaust themselves in His service. From the looks of it, i think you are all doing really well:) thanks for sharing those inspiring stories about those pioneers Mom. It really is amazing how much they sacrificed and its helped me realized that this work is relatively easy compared to what they had to do. I've definitely been counting my blessings this past week! Well, i love you all and i hope you have a wonderful week ahead of you. Oh, I got the two packages you sent!! Thankyou SOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!! Its so nice to have those spices and treats here to cook with. Its hard because the money they give us monthly really isnt enough to eat all that healthily. They've kept our funds the same for the last couple years but since then prices have inflated nearly to 4 times what they had been on some products just a year ago. I'm trying to budget my money now so i dont end up having to using my own. Thanks again for all of that food! My companions also say great job!:)

~Elder Ostler

November 22, 2010

Hello Family!!

Things are going pretty well up here in Ukraine! We had a really great sacrament meeting where some of our less active families came with there children. It was amazing how much more friendly of an environment there was during all three hours of church as a result of all of these younger children with boundless love for everyone. The scriptures really came alive to me where it talks about how we need to become more like children if we want to be the best disciples of Christ. It was a great blessing to have them all there. We also had another great experience just a few days ago with a new family we found a couple weeks back but didnt have a chance to meet with yet. The wife is an English teacher and the husband is a translator at the Banking University just right across from our church. They have a little daughter who is really shy but reminds me a little bit of Nicole and how tall she is for her age. It was amazing to talk to them about the gospel. Their countenances were different than all of the people i have seen here. They agreed with pretty much everything we said and it was amazing to see the insight of the father and how he could see how much good the gospel could do in peoples lives. They kept telling us how great we were and that we were doing the right thing by coming out here and helping people find light and happiness in their lives. It was such a great lesson and he even prayed at the end, even with no previous experience with prayer. His heart was sincere and willing and i really hope that they will come around to feel and know this gospel is true and find safety in Jesus Christ. He could easily be our next branch president he is so great! Anyways, to answer a few questions that you had Mom, things are getting colder here and soon it should be snowing, perhaps this week. We have a few winter coats but i still need to find one that will work well enough since the ones we have are fairly old. As far as food goes, we make all sorts of interesting stuff. For the last couple weeks we have been  eating this stuff called Gretchka, which supposedly is the equivalent of chicken feed in America. Its pretty cheap but probably not all that good when it comes to vitamins and minerals. Missionaries buy it because its cheap and not all that terrible if you cook other stuff into it but it didnt take to long for me to switch over to cereal and fruit in the mornings. So far i have only eaten once at a members house which was pretty good. We also have been eating at the mother of a member's house who cooks this soup-like stuff called Borshe that is really good!! we've been there a few times and every time are amazed by how good it is. We also love to go buy this things called Bleenok which is basically a crape with whatever kinds of meats or fruits you want in it. Its pretty good! There are also Sharma stands where they have those big rotating things of mystery meet that they will slice pieces off and put it with a ton of mayo and cabbage inside a tortilla. Its ok but its basically a heart attack just waiting to happen so im not the biggest fan. Well, my time is about up but thanks again for all of the emails family. I really do appreciate hearing from you and seeing pictures from what you are doing. I love you all and i cant wait to hear more from you!

Love,

~Elder Ostler

November 2010 Mission Pictures

November 15, 2010

Hello Family!

It was so good to hear about all that is going on in in your lives! I really do appreciate the time that you spend to write me and let my know how you are doing. Things are going well here in Sumy. After getting back from Kharkov late Tuesday night after a 5 hour train ride, we were pretty exhausted. We were able to make up for some of the lost sleep with president's permission which was really good. It has been kinda of strange this week as we have had a good about of time to think about the progress that has been made here in Sumy over the last 10 years. As we studied over the member records we realized that there was alot to be done in updating records or adding to them which had never been written. Because Sumy is a "satellite city" in the mission, the Elders that were here before didn't always do what they were supposed to and stay up to date with their investigator and member records. We found as we went to find less active members, the people who lived in the apartments would tell us the people we were looking for had moved away, even up to 5 years ago and know one ever new or recorded it. Some apartments we looked for had wrong Apt numbers written and some we couldn't even find. So, this week we spent alot of time typing up records and searching for less actives. We have had a hard time getting in contact with any of them, but with the few we have, we have had some good experiences. We have also had some great experiences with our investigators! Just last night we had a talk with the man who had addiction problems. I think he has finally gotten to the point where he is humble enough to accept that he is nothing by himself and that is only through submitting to God's will that he can overcome his serious problem. It was amazing to watch his eagerness to listen to our words. He wrote them down as fast as he could and was so open to what we had to say, it amazed us. After i said the closing prayer we all looked up at each other. We all knew that we had been feeling the spirit and the man was even crying a little bit. The Atonement is such an amazing blessing. I am so grateful that Jesus Christ did that for us and suffered for each of us and our individual sins. Even as i write this i get a little choked up...man..the Spirit is so amazing and we would be so ineffective here without it. That is one thing that sets us apart here and people can see that. I am so grateful for the God's plan and this gospel and how it has changed my life and my heart for the best. We also had the chance to meet with a younger man who we have been teaching for a little while and he has finally started to really open up to us. He is coming to church each Sunday now and we can see how it is opening his eyes. Just yesterday though he told us he had to leave right after sacrament because his parents were angry that he was there. If you have the time, we would really appreciate it prayers on his behalf, that his parents hearts will be softened. Our other strong investigator has also been struggling with coming to church. He didn't answer he phone all yesterday and we are not exactly sure what is going on so we are praying for him too. There are so many great people here who are all so close to receiving the promised blessings for them. Satan is working hard on them though which means we need to step it up and help them make it all the way through there hard times. Well, time is about up but i wanted to thank you mom and dad for your emails and just let you know how much they have helped me. I really do appreciate the those spiritual experiences you share with me. Well, i love you all and i hope that you have a wonderful week ahead of you! cant wait to hear from you!

~Elder Ostler

Daniel's First Companion- Elder Koefed

Daniel with President and Sister Fry in Ukraine

This picture was just taken yesterday!!!

November 8, 2010

Dear Family,

Wow! You all have so much going on back at home! sounds like your staying busy which is great! Keep up the good work! So, this week i've spent about 20 hours on trains going to and from Sumy to Harkov! This week we had training and we are just about to have zone meeting tomorrow. Training was awesome with President Fry where he taught us all about planning effectively. It was really great and we are are trying to include his counseling into our planning sessions. Its amazing how much more effective planning can be when you have focus. That is something we struggled with since there was always one more investigator to talk about. Now we make sure to end on time so we can get to work as soon as possible. We got 3 of our investigators to church on sunday which was so great! We also got the man we have been praying for for the last while to come and he really liked it. I think he will get baptized soon because he really is doing great and understands and likes what we have taught him thus far. With the little time we had this week we were able to find a family with the parents who speak english!! they are really great and told us that they want to hear more and were really excited. I cant wait to teach them this upcoming week! Things are going well here. Thanks for all of the encouraging emails. I love you all and i'll cant to wait to hear from you!

~Elder Ostler

November 1, 2010

Hello Familly!


Sounds like you are all having so much fun back at home with halloween, school, and friends. I really enjoyed the pictures you sent. I need to figure out how to send pictures from here. I think i may just do it through our Senior couple who has a labtop so if you get a random email like that, that may be the pictures. Things are going great here! We have had so many great experiences i'll just try to list a few in the time we have. The man named Nikoly came to us and said he wants to serve in the church and that by doing that he will gain the answer he needs to get baptized. It was so neat to see the light in his eyes and the real change that had come over him since the last time we had seen him. He didnt make it to church which was a little dissapointing but we think he will come this next time if we help him get there. We met a few others this week and are helping a man get over some of the addictions he has. He is such a good man but has struggled with this addiction for a long time now. We showed him the great talk from conference about addictions by Elder Ballard and he really liked that. We are getting him on the churchs program for addiction recovery and we are excited to see the great progress he will make. We were also able to meet with a young man from Iraq and teach him a little about the gospel and book of Mormon. He told us all about what was going on back in his home town and how horrible it is there. It was amazing to hear about just how blessed we are to live in such a safe place. It trully is such a great blessing. We also just met with a to other young men from Nigeria who just got here and wanted to worship with us. We showed them around our church and they thought it was very interesting. They seem like to great guys with great potential.

Alright, so to answer a few questions you had about our living conditions and what not, we live in good size apartments that are pretty old but work just fine. It overlooks the river right next door and has a great view from its windows when fireworks from weddings across the river light up the sky at night. Its beautiful! In general, the buildings here are not terribly beautiful but the people here are really great. Its getting colder and colder here and the tree's have all lost there leaves. We take little buses every where we go and the roads in general are ok but a little bumping in less traveled routes. My companion is a great guy from Utah from some tiny town. He played a bunch of sports in high school and is pretty athletic. He really wants to work hard and help the branch here so its been great learning from him. I'll try to get some pictures of us together soon. The branch has slowly been getting back to its regular size after a little lull in attendance. The door to the building is extremely hard to find the outside of the building doesnt look so good but we cant upgrade until we have better attendance of at least 60 each sunday. Its been really hard but we are slowly making progress towards that goal. Went from about 36 to 44 this last sunday which was great! We had 4 of our investigators show up to sacrament meeting and less actives are slowly but surely coming back. Prayers for our little branch would be greatly appreciated. Thats about it for this week but thanks for everything you are doing at home that is helping this work along. The Lord trully blesses us when we put forth that extra effort to just find that one in our lives who needs the gospel more than anything in there lives. Love you all and i cant wait to hear from you!

Elder Ostler