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
