Hello Family!
I resent my last 3 emails hoping you would get at least one of them. I hope all is going well back at home. I didnt get an email yet so the system probably just has problems right now. This has been another very fast week and we had great chances to meet with many new investigators and pick up 3 new investigators. It was great! Its a breath of fresh air to have a fresh batch of new investigators when many of our older ones run against the wall of deciding whether or not they want to change their lives. One of our english speaking investigators, Sasha, brought a friend who had lived in the US for two years and it was fun to talk to her and we hope that she will help him get to church to really start to experience what the spirit feels like. In one of our recent trainings with Pres. Compero, he showed us a graph showing that we had a good number of about 23 new investigators being reported each week in the mission. The next step was getting them to sacrament meeting, which dropped to an average of 6 of those new investigators actually attending. It became very apparent that that was the main issue. All of this led to 1 baptism this last week in the mission. It was apparent that raising the number in church attendance would raise the number of baptisms in the mission significantly. We switched our focus to that and really pounded it with our investigators but they still struggle to make this relatively small descision. Its also hard not to have any control over it as a missionary besides reminded them and doing all you can to get them to go. So, we hope that we will see that progress with Sasha and his friend Marina soon. They're great! We also had a great experience with another person wanting to learn english who just walking in on one of our lessons. It was a final lesson with a couple we had been teaching and hoping would baptize but they lost their spiritual desirea and really just want english. It was really sad to lose them but great to pick up a new younger investigator. We hope to meet with her soon. Their was also a little drama in the branch regarding someone who had spread a rumor that the missionaries had recieved permission from the branch president to baptize an investigator who was drinking and smoking. I spent an hour or two just talking to the people involved after church, reassuring them that everything was alright and that nothing like that had ever been said. Sometimes the things that you end up doing on your mission are things that you never thought you would have to do. I'm sure it will be helpful down the road but looking back on it, i never thought i would be having to counsel people like that, especially in Russian. The Lord is so great to bless us with such experiences. Thanks for all of your prayers family! We desperatly need them out here and every single one counts, im a firm believer of that! I love you all and i look forward to hearing from you!
With Love,
Elder Ostler
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
7-11-2011
Hello Family,
This week we had the oppurtunity to go into Donetsk to have interviews with our new mission president, President Compero. He is a very nice man, trying so hard to help us become a better mission. He is a few inches shorter than my last president President Fry. We look forward to a training we have later this next week we will be able to attend to really get to know him a little better because our time was so rushed during our interviews. I'll make sure to keep you all informed. We had a few times to meet with our investigators this week and it was great because we have some very close to baptism, but its also difficult because it is THEIR choice to put forth the effort to find the truth and not ours to force:) This week we took our second counsellor sign boarding with us and it seemed to go really well, give him a better taste of what we go through and missionary life in general. It was really neat to see how the next sunday, everything in the branch seemed to run so much more smoothly. I had the oppurtunity to speak on the liahona article The Lord Needs Missionaries from President Monson. We then had Gospel principles on the importance of Sabbath day worship which was also great for our investigators since that is usually what they struggle with as far as commitments go. We have two investigators at church, and one is doing great, moving through his problems to find more happiness and wisdom through baptism. We then had priesthood two which we had 2 investigators, talking about member missionary work. It was really great!! Many of the brethern bore witness to the purpose of our callings and the purpose of thier callings as member missionaries. It was really great and i feel like we are slowly getting turned back in the right direction to where we can find true success. We also had a chance to meet with our secretary afterwards and show him some new tools found on LDS.org as far as calendar making and map making goes. He had no idea it was there and we all think this will also greatly help the branch be more organized and ready to accept new members of the church. I showed him ours at home and he was amazed at how much we had going on on our calendar and how cool it was that everyone was mapped out already with all of their information. Do you know if this is new technology that just hasnt been taught in training yet? We were not quite sure why no one knew about this and im thinking it will also be a great help to other branchs too in our mission. Well, my times up. I hope you all have a great week and i look forward to hearing from you!
With Love,
Elder Ostler
i got the ring! thanks mom! it only fits on my pinky but it works just fine! i guess my fingers must have gained some weight... :)
This week we had the oppurtunity to go into Donetsk to have interviews with our new mission president, President Compero. He is a very nice man, trying so hard to help us become a better mission. He is a few inches shorter than my last president President Fry. We look forward to a training we have later this next week we will be able to attend to really get to know him a little better because our time was so rushed during our interviews. I'll make sure to keep you all informed. We had a few times to meet with our investigators this week and it was great because we have some very close to baptism, but its also difficult because it is THEIR choice to put forth the effort to find the truth and not ours to force:) This week we took our second counsellor sign boarding with us and it seemed to go really well, give him a better taste of what we go through and missionary life in general. It was really neat to see how the next sunday, everything in the branch seemed to run so much more smoothly. I had the oppurtunity to speak on the liahona article The Lord Needs Missionaries from President Monson. We then had Gospel principles on the importance of Sabbath day worship which was also great for our investigators since that is usually what they struggle with as far as commitments go. We have two investigators at church, and one is doing great, moving through his problems to find more happiness and wisdom through baptism. We then had priesthood two which we had 2 investigators, talking about member missionary work. It was really great!! Many of the brethern bore witness to the purpose of our callings and the purpose of thier callings as member missionaries. It was really great and i feel like we are slowly getting turned back in the right direction to where we can find true success. We also had a chance to meet with our secretary afterwards and show him some new tools found on LDS.org as far as calendar making and map making goes. He had no idea it was there and we all think this will also greatly help the branch be more organized and ready to accept new members of the church. I showed him ours at home and he was amazed at how much we had going on on our calendar and how cool it was that everyone was mapped out already with all of their information. Do you know if this is new technology that just hasnt been taught in training yet? We were not quite sure why no one knew about this and im thinking it will also be a great help to other branchs too in our mission. Well, my times up. I hope you all have a great week and i look forward to hearing from you!
With Love,
Elder Ostler
i got the ring! thanks mom! it only fits on my pinky but it works just fine! i guess my fingers must have gained some weight... :)
Monday, July 4, 2011
7-4-2011
Hello Family!
That picture of Elder Oldroyd got me laughing pretty good. :) I guess we're both going through our mid-mission crises :) This week has been another great week. This week we had 20 quality lessons all planned out. We called and got ahold of nearly every person to which they agreed to meet. By the end of the week we ended with a total of 7 qualities because of lessons cancelling. This is a pretty regular occurence unless you get a week of pure miracles like we had a while back. Something about all the planning and preparation and then the cancelling is VERY tiring and i find my self exhausted every night. I am thoroughly convinced like i have never been before that the mission is made to be one big, humbling experience. We saw the blessing of this last month's work this last sunday, having 10 more people attending sacrament meeting than the average, even with some of our regular members not in attendance. It was great! We also had 3 investigators at church which was another miracle! then, during the next two hours following sacrament, we had two more new investigators show up wanting to meet! We were basically in heaven! a busy sunday at church is always a great sunday, expecially after a drought of investigators not being willing to come for a few weeks. We so grateful for how the lord has blessed us! You learn more and more that it is the Lord sending these people to you and not really yourself at all, just the efforts you put forth that matters. Another fun 'miracle' we had yesterday was when we got on the but to go to church their was a seat beside me. At the next stop a girl got on and before even sitting down she reached out, shaking my hand saying 'preevet' (friendly hello). For anyone thats been on marshutka's in ukraine, you would realize that this is not a normal experience and i was immediatly very confused. We got talking and i soon found out that she was a member from russia here visiting a friend. She and her friend had no idea where the church building was and were very grateful that they had decided to get on our bus and not on one of maybe 100 other buses. Its just small random things like that that just let you know that God is mindful of all his children, even with the small details like that. I also had an interesting learning experience a while back that I'm not sure if I shared yet that I thought you would like. We were at the church building which is located in the middle of a bunch of flats, apartment buildings. We were in a room waiting for our investigator when a grandma came shuffling up to the door, very distraught. She told to help quickly, that some kid was trying to wreck our gate to the fence that surrounds our building. Sure enough there was a teenager on our gate swinging back and forth on it. I immediatly started walking toward the 17-18 yr old with confindence to which i think he might have been a little frightened, maybe thinking i wanted to fight. I had no idea was i was going to say or what i was supposed to do. The young man quickly got off the gate and kind of hid around the side of it keeping it between us. When i reached the first thing i did was reach out my hand to shake is asking what his name was. I dont know if it was the missionary that was in me or what but thinking back about it, it was kinda an interesting way to react. We soon had a friendly conversation going and soon some of his friends slowly walked over to us, trying to figure out what i was talking to him about. They were soon all asking questions about what our building was and what american were doing here. It was surprising to hear these questions, these kids living right across from the church but not having any knowledge of what it was and who we were. Soon our investigator walked up and joined in the converstion, also explaining the functions of our building, confirming that he had actually been listening intently to what we had taught him which was great. It is amazing how the spirit can help you in instances like that, when the culture here would be to come out, swearing and yelling at the kid to get off the fence. I am so grateful for how the spirit helped handle that experience with love and it was very apparent that all of those teenagers were very surprised at our reaction and how we treated them like adults. Its amazing how much God loves his children and it is a great blessing to have such experiences that help that testimony grow. Well, my time is about up but i hope that all is going well at home. Thanks for keeping me filled in on what is going on. It is always great to hear! Have a great week!
With love,
Elder Ostler
I think the package arrived at the office a while back but i should be recieveing it tomorrow. I'll let you know. Thanks!!:)
That picture of Elder Oldroyd got me laughing pretty good. :) I guess we're both going through our mid-mission crises :) This week has been another great week. This week we had 20 quality lessons all planned out. We called and got ahold of nearly every person to which they agreed to meet. By the end of the week we ended with a total of 7 qualities because of lessons cancelling. This is a pretty regular occurence unless you get a week of pure miracles like we had a while back. Something about all the planning and preparation and then the cancelling is VERY tiring and i find my self exhausted every night. I am thoroughly convinced like i have never been before that the mission is made to be one big, humbling experience. We saw the blessing of this last month's work this last sunday, having 10 more people attending sacrament meeting than the average, even with some of our regular members not in attendance. It was great! We also had 3 investigators at church which was another miracle! then, during the next two hours following sacrament, we had two more new investigators show up wanting to meet! We were basically in heaven! a busy sunday at church is always a great sunday, expecially after a drought of investigators not being willing to come for a few weeks. We so grateful for how the lord has blessed us! You learn more and more that it is the Lord sending these people to you and not really yourself at all, just the efforts you put forth that matters. Another fun 'miracle' we had yesterday was when we got on the but to go to church their was a seat beside me. At the next stop a girl got on and before even sitting down she reached out, shaking my hand saying 'preevet' (friendly hello). For anyone thats been on marshutka's in ukraine, you would realize that this is not a normal experience and i was immediatly very confused. We got talking and i soon found out that she was a member from russia here visiting a friend. She and her friend had no idea where the church building was and were very grateful that they had decided to get on our bus and not on one of maybe 100 other buses. Its just small random things like that that just let you know that God is mindful of all his children, even with the small details like that. I also had an interesting learning experience a while back that I'm not sure if I shared yet that I thought you would like. We were at the church building which is located in the middle of a bunch of flats, apartment buildings. We were in a room waiting for our investigator when a grandma came shuffling up to the door, very distraught. She told to help quickly, that some kid was trying to wreck our gate to the fence that surrounds our building. Sure enough there was a teenager on our gate swinging back and forth on it. I immediatly started walking toward the 17-18 yr old with confindence to which i think he might have been a little frightened, maybe thinking i wanted to fight. I had no idea was i was going to say or what i was supposed to do. The young man quickly got off the gate and kind of hid around the side of it keeping it between us. When i reached the first thing i did was reach out my hand to shake is asking what his name was. I dont know if it was the missionary that was in me or what but thinking back about it, it was kinda an interesting way to react. We soon had a friendly conversation going and soon some of his friends slowly walked over to us, trying to figure out what i was talking to him about. They were soon all asking questions about what our building was and what american were doing here. It was surprising to hear these questions, these kids living right across from the church but not having any knowledge of what it was and who we were. Soon our investigator walked up and joined in the converstion, also explaining the functions of our building, confirming that he had actually been listening intently to what we had taught him which was great. It is amazing how the spirit can help you in instances like that, when the culture here would be to come out, swearing and yelling at the kid to get off the fence. I am so grateful for how the spirit helped handle that experience with love and it was very apparent that all of those teenagers were very surprised at our reaction and how we treated them like adults. Its amazing how much God loves his children and it is a great blessing to have such experiences that help that testimony grow. Well, my time is about up but i hope that all is going well at home. Thanks for keeping me filled in on what is going on. It is always great to hear! Have a great week!
With love,
Elder Ostler
I think the package arrived at the office a while back but i should be recieveing it tomorrow. I'll let you know. Thanks!!:)
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