11-28-2011

Hello family!
SO glad to hear from you all!! It was amazing to hear about all of those miracle having to do with the clothing washer. I'm sure that whole process took lots of patience to endure also:) It is amazing just how God watches over all of his children, even when we may have no idea why we are going through such trials and what we had done to deserve it. The Lord truly is molding us all to become what He wants of us. This work is God's work, and it is real. This week, our investigator went off date due to him not showing up to church services when he said he would this past two Sundays. He also struggles to learn the principles that we teach. We have struggled to get a member on lessons with him because of work schedules so we plan to make it happen this week as a last effort before moving on. We got dogged for half of our lessons this week but had a great Thanksgiving with the missionaries all stationed in Donetsk with 4 turkeys provided by our senior couple the Hatchs. They are so great and provided a great time for the missionaries to enjoy together. To end this week, we almost got dogged by the family of a counselor in our district presidency but luckily everything worked out and we were able to have a great lesson with them. We focused on helping them build their Zions. Their faith was so amazing and the mother just kept writing and writing names down, people she had been thinking of but hadn't yet given to the missionaries. We look forward to working with this family, they just have returned from being mission presidents in Russia. Their family set a goal to have 6 baptisms from their family alone within the next year. What a great goal!! Their faith alone with help them reach that goal and even surpass it! This family, the Podvodovs, are just like any family that you'd find at home, just trying their best, loving each other like our Father in Heaven loves us. We hope to find even more families of such strength and capacity in the following months as a result of the refferals we will recieve and teach.  

Thanks so much for all of the pictures! I think I got all of the emails you sent also which were great to read!
I hope all is well at home! Keep up the good missionary work at home! Do something nice for the missionaries for me while I'm not there!:) even the smallest of things make the biggest of differences in the lives of missionaries. Love you all!!


With Love,
Elder Ostler

11-21-2011

Hello Family!!

How's going?! for some reason I didn't get your email this week so there must be some hitch in the email system. I can't wait to hear how everything is going! This week was a great week! We have a new investigator named Roman who was referred to us from a member girl in the central Donetsk region. We had a lesson at her house which went great! We didn't have time to cover the whole restoration but we did explain to him the importance of the Book of Mormon and prayer. He was very excited and was asking us for some kind of commitment, a very rare occurrence among investigators. He is 17 years old but had an open heart to what we have told him thus far. There is such a huge difference between those who hunger after truth as opposed to those who have just a passing interest, mostly in Americans. It is such a great feeling when teaching such people with honest desires. They are such great examples to us, how we, too, should be honest seekers of truth, wherever it can be found. We, as members of God's church, have such a great advantage and in turn, responsibility to seek out all good things and to learn from what God has given us through His prophets. There is so much to learn, so much that we can all do better. I'm so grateful for an understanding Father in Heaven who is willing to share this knowledge that He has with His children, not holding anything back. I was just reading through the Bible where it speaks of Saul and David's reigns as kings, and it was amazing to read of these kingdoms and other kingdoms that suffered greatly because of selfishness and power-hungry leaders that held back their people, even encouraging unrighteous deeds. It just came to my mind that we all are so truly blessed to have a perfect God, a perfect King, in whom we can trust to give us the wisdom that we so desperately need to survive this life here on earth. He has given us prophets, holy scriptures, prayer, even his own son, so that we could all return to him if we would just trust in his plan. 

I learned another good lesson just last night on a bus going home that i shared with Alyssa which I thought I'd share with all of you also.We were on a large trolley bus coming home from a lesson and the conductor approached us to take our money and in exchange for passage. She looked very closely at our badges as she approached and she seemed to light up as we told her that we were missionaries.  We offered our money but she refused to take it and gave us our tickets. We offered again but she just wouldn't take the money. Finally, we gave up and she just smiled at us and said that great people like us shouldn't have to pay and walked down the aisle. Just reflecting on that experience made me think about all the small acts of kindness we render, whether great or small, that can have a great impact on the lives of many. It was interesting to think that perhaps there had been some positive experience between her and the missionaries, maybe years ago, who knows. Maybe the missionaries didn't even realize what they had done. Kind of like Abinidi and Alma the priest. He had no idea if anybody would listen to his message, but he still gave it and ended up sacrificing his life for what he knew to be true. What great examples. This experience was definitely a testimony to me of what we can do, even with the little we can do. It made we want to make sure I spoke up or tried to help others at every opportunity I had. The Lord is aware of all of His children. It is such a comfort to know that. Well my dear family, my time is ending so I'll be wrapping up but just curious if any of you had any requests from Ukraine? I want to send the family a package for Christmas so just let me know if there are any Ukrainian things that you just happened to be craving:)...maybe..Milka chocolate?!?!  I know its German but it is definitely a tender mercy that just happens to be found here in Ukraine:)  I love you all and I hope you each have a great week!

With Love,

Elder Ostler 

11-14-2011

Note:  This week, one of the missionaries from Daniel's mission came to visit.  He had been home one week.  He was an AP in the mission and was able to tell us a lot about the area and the people in the Donetsk Mission.  He said Daniel is very quiet :) and that he is still singing at a lot of the meetings.  He said Daniel is a good and faithful missionary.

Hello Family!!
Glad to hear all is well!! I'm was also very glad to hear that Elder Niel made it to our house. He is such a great guy! He worked very hard on his mission and went out strong as an assistant to our mission president. I don't know if he told you but we were in the same choir at Stapley before he went to Westwood for high school. He is missed here in Ukraine. It also looks like everyone had a great time helping Benjamin with answering. Though I did have a question... who was that ninja man in black?! He looked pretty stealthy :) I hope all of Brandon's tests went well. That sounds like it was pretty intense.
This week was a good but very exausting one. This area really is great, though we seem to have less oppurtunity to teach because of the distance we must travel just to reach our investigators and members. I think we are going to plan a little more strategically as to make it more convient to meet by setting up our lessons all near eachother as to minimize travel time and spend more time teaching. We had a great split this week where my companion and another elder in our district put a man on date for the 10th of December. He seems to except everything he was taugh,t but still has some different challenges to overcome, so we will see if we can baptize him at least by the time this year comes to an end. I would love to see another baptism!! We are also teaching a young man  who is a good friend of a great family in our branch. He still isn't quite sure what to think of Jesus Christ but he has a great heart and will come around to it as he is futher exposed to the blessings of living the Gospel. We plan to put him on date as soon as he feels he is ready. We also had a chance to have a lesson with President Compero. He really took the reins and showed us how to get refferals from our members. He was concise, making every word count, bolding telling them what was expected of them and backed it up by a strong scriptural base. He chose one to pray in the middle of the lesson to help each of them be inspired as to whom on their lists of possible investigators would be ready. We will be following up this next week to recieve these referrals and began teaching them. This work is great! The branch was great this Sunday, everyone involved with people other than themselves, really reaching out to other members and investigators. And, for the first time on my mission, we sang our sacrament music  with an organ! Our building is old but it was great to see we have a working organ. Many of our buildings have nice organs that must have just been a little misused because now nearly all of them have really strange problems that make them unsusable.(I'm not sure if unusable is a word but it sounded good :) Well, the mission continues to be a great experience, filled with challenges but cleary all for my good and the good of others. I hope that all of you are doing fine and in good health. The Lord is so good to us! To be born into a country were belief in God is not something abnormal or radical. The people here are so strongly tempted in all things, I really look upon those parents who manage to raise their kids and have them turn out normal with great admiration.  I can't wait for you all to meet them when you come this next summer! Well, times about up. I love you all! Keep up the good work at home and let your examples shine so that others will see your good works and desire to come unto Christ and our Father in Heaven.


With Love,

Elder Ostler

11-07-2011

Hello Family!!
Thanks sooo much for all the pictures!! It was fun to see how everyone is growing up and having such a great time. All these new children being born must also be fun and keeping you all pretty busy! I'm so glad that all is going so well back at home! I pray for you all each night and hope all is going well. Sounds like Caleb had a great party! I'm fairly certain he's grown another foot or so since the last time i saw a picture of him!:) And Benjamin is gearing up for yet another dance!!! I remember the feeling of time flying during the school year. Right when you feel you've finished one dance, it's on to the next one. And between that, choir festivals, and tennis matches, the year is suddenly already over! Time flies when your having fun, right?!

Time has also been flying out here too! last transfer just finished and I am now in a city named Petrovsky, right out of Donestk with an Elder Bangerter. He's  a very enthusiatic missionary with great desires to find some success in our area. He's from Melba, Idaho and is from one of those families that is related to nearly every person in the church in one way shape or form! We'll have to find out how we are related. He also knows Soelbergs. SO, I'm sure we will see some baptisms this transfer. This branch is also the second strongest in the Donetsk Mission with so many great families that love the missionaries and could fill most any position or calling in the church and fufill it well. We already met with one great family, and they were so good to us. These families have been hard to come by in other areas, but as far as I can see, and what my companion has told me, nearly our whole branch is made up of these strong families. I feel this will greatly improve our possibilities for success and really help investigators be truly converted. We had a district conference, a broadcast from Salt Lake City by Elder Clayton, Oaks, Uchtdorf, and a sister whose name I can't think of right now. It was really great and exactly what the members needed to hear in helping the missionary work move forward. The night before, we had a few meetings where we reinacted what a branch correlation meeting should be like because of the many misunderstadings of how one should be run. I think it really helped our leadership understand, and I look forward to the great change it will bring. We also had Zone Leaders Council where we began setting goals for the year and talking about a few new resources we are learning how to use. We had a great experience stretching our faith, preparing to blow away the results of the past and the lack of baptisms we have had here in the Donetsk Mission. Most of us still had a few doubts as to how we would get four times the result we had this last year. It will take much faith because most feel that they have been working as hard as they could this last year. Now we plan to use our resources more effectively and work as hard as we can to reach this goal. We had the chance to all kneel down there in President's apartment  and listen as the AP's offered prayers as well as President. The feeling was very strong in that room that it was possible and would come to pass if we would continue to trust in the Lord. We then all had the chance to share our feelings as to whether we felt it was possible. This brought such a great spirit to the meeting and really helped us as we continued our meeting. This Church is God's church and  is led by inspired servants of God. I am so grateful for the truths we have that can lead and guide us through the darkness of this world. Well, that's all my time for now, but I hope you all have a great week ahead of you! Stay safe and have a great day!

With Love,

Elder Ostler