Hello Family!
Sounds like pretty much everyone is having an amazing week!! I was so excited to hear about the baby being born! Congrats Megan and Joe! I was so glad to hear that Josh found a good job too with Goldman Sachs. If i remember right thats a pretty solid company! Koffords going to London, Jim opening another office, Jenica's first concert, its just been a great week of life changing events. Sounds like so much fun! This week went pretty well. We struggled to meet with our investigators this week so we met with a bunch of less actives. We also were able to meet with one of our eternal investigators for the first time which was good. She has a good friend who was baptized a while back who moved to Russia soon after and went inactive. She happened to be visiting at the time and we were there so we had a good lesson with her too. We are hoping she will start coming to church again soon. This upcoming week i think our focus will be on finding new investigators. We will keep working with the older ones but will spend more time contacting and tracting, finding people who are really willing to make changes in their lives and sacrifice for what they know is right. As a district of 4 in Makeebka, we've been trying to focus on our goals and try to reach the "standards of excellence" established by our mission president. Right now there are no companionships reaching them. We are hoping as a district to achieve these goals soon and break into the 'miracle zone' running. We have been setting smaller goals that will build up to the success we want to see. It was so great to see those pictures from the baptism Elder Oldroyd had the opportunity to perform! That is so exciting to see. Some times you get so caught up in the work you dont take a step back and look at God's hand working this great work all across the world. It is so great to be a part of it all! Thanks for all the support that you all give to me. It really means the world too me when times get discouraging and you feel like you dont know what to do. The Lord is always their to comfort his children, we just have to accept his help and not resist. Change has never been something easy for me but since coming here, its felt like a new change every day. The Lord knows our weakness's and knows our potential. Just like the scripture says that we have our weakness's and are given trials that we may be humble. Then once we have endured, those week things become strong. We are hoping to find great success here soon! the church has already bought land about 5 min from our apartment for a new building but we just need to have a steady attendance of about 65 to receive that blessing. Please pray for the members here. I was looking through our branch list and it says that we have something like 250 members but only about 40-50 come to church right now. I pray every day that those people will return to activity. If only they knew how important it was that they attend! Spring is hopefully coming soon which hopefully means more members at church! We are almost there! Its so great! Well i need to write President Fry but I hope you all have a great week and i hope you all know that i love and miss you! Hope to hear more from you soon!
With Love,
Elder Ostler
