Elder Ostler's Mission to Ukraine Donetsk: 2-27-2012

Hello family!!

This week we have started to see some good sucess from our efforts. We have just been finishing up our extensive list of in-actives in our area and on our last door for the night we were let in! I nice, middle aged woman named Maria who said she had lost track of the church years ago do to marriage to a nonmember and going inactive. She now has a young child and we look forward to meeting with them and helping them return to church. We also met with a new investigator who used to be an accountant but is now retired and pretty old. She is very nice but fairly emotional and gets drunk on a regular basis. This time she promised that she would stop drinking because she new it was bad for her. Our next step is to get a member to that lesson to help us determine how she is progressing. The last great miracle i wanted to share was about a former investigator family, another one of those last door's of the night that we found. The wife, a middle aged women let us in and was very nice and the husband came in from work soon there after. They both met with missionaries about 5 years ago but stopped due to other meetings they had been having with another church in the area. After they had had enough of that they quit going because they knew it wasnt right and just found themselves getting more confused by their teachings. We talked a little about the Book of Mormon and thier progress and they told us that they were interested to meet again soon when they would have time. They have a teenage son that was out for the night but we look forward to meeting with them all together. Such a Great blessing!!! Rarely do people get let in to former investigators like this. We are very excited to work with them. OH, i almost forgot another miracle! THis week we also tried meeting with a investigator and her inactive husband but it turned out that he was the only one there. We talked about his wife and how we can help her and it turned out to be a great blessing. Before, we had been struggling to figure out what to teach because she had been taught all of the lessons 3 time already. We also found out she adjusted her work and now has the day off on sunday!! The Lord is really opening up the way for them. I hope they choose to take this great oppurnity and reap the blessings that are in store. We continue our early morning efforts to find and teach and are learning how we must remained focused on our goal if we truly want to see the miracle happen. The Lord has blessed us so much thus far and we look forward to the new people we will teach in our future.

THe weather has been warming up lately and all of the recent snow is melting! Our region is the most notorious for mud in our mission so we are just getting the first tastes of it!:) Just as long as i dont slip and fall in it, i think i'll be ok!

Well family, thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. Thats especially mom and dad for advising me on that question i had last week. I'll do my best to apply those principles you spoke. The more i learn in the gospel, the more weakness's i seem to find! ahh!! but its ok! i feel like my consitent desire to change is starting to make a difference in my life and i am grateful that Lord has blessed me with this oppurtunity for spiritual growth. Thank you for all that you do for me!! I hope to attach some pictures now so i hope you enjoy them!

With Love,

Elder Ostler