From the Middle of the Place where Nobody Lives

Hello again Family,
I was really happy to get all of your emails. I got all the packages that I was supposed to!! YES! =D Needless to say I was super excited to get those. I always look forward to talking to all of you. Some missionaries say that they get tired of writing home, but honestly, I can't believe that this would ever come to pass with me, because... well, to steal a quote from 'A Beautiful Mind', "You are all of my reasons." I love you all so much and I am trying to be the Elder that I need to be. This has been incredibly difficult. Nevertheless, I am trying to learn strength in responsibility.

In the days antedating my mission, (yes - "antedating", a Talmage word) I never understood the importance of the scriptures. I mean, not that I have all answers and all knowledge, but rather, since entering the mission, I have begun to realize their worth in my own life and how it applies instead of their importance from a purely philisophical perspective. Something that I realized in the MTC was this... (James 1:27) "Pure religion and undefiled before God is..." becoming like Christ. I guess that I had never connected the dots. Before, I thought of the Gospel as a bunch of random morals that help you become a better person. But when you glimpse the goal, that we are - we exist here -  to become like Christ, all of it makes sense in a beautiful pattern and the plainness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is made manifest. If you get a chance, ask your missionaries to give you a "The Gospel of Jesus Christ" pamphlet. It is so simple and yet so plain. No mystery. No hard words. No telEvangelist Preacher teaching the Doctrine of Jesus Christ mingled with the philosophies of men to confuse you.
It was really interesting when we were reading with the Lopez Family (less active), I think we were reading in 1 Nephi 6 or 7 (I'm not sure, I don't have my scriptures with me), but it was talking about Laman and Lemuel murmuring and Nephi asked, "How is it that you can be so hard in your hearts and blind in your minds?" After Sister Lopez finished reading that, she looked up and asked, "What does that mean?" It was so cool because at that VERY moment is when the answer came to me (I guess the prophecy is true, ehh?). I told her that the Lord promises us that when we receive these things, we will know in our mind and in our heart. Because their minds and hearts were hardened and blinded, they refused to accept the gentle promptings of the Spirit. So that was a cool experience that we had.

Ok, I'm kinda stuck in missionary mode. Hmm... so we are doing fine. One of our part member families spent $60 on us in those Fusion Gillette 5 Blade razors at Costco. Needless to say, we were slightly uncomfortable accepting this gift, however he was insistent and we have been shaving like millionaires. So many people have been giving us goodies. The thing is that Elder Sanchez and I are trying to get into our "Jason Bourne" weight as Presidente Gonzalez calls it. The thing with this candy is it consists of these incredibly delicious homemade cookies/...other good stuff. So I came up with a plan. Now... if you are eating, you may not want to read this next part... but, I have HONED a skill. I have short-circuited the body. This skill makes all the Bulimics out there look like idiots.
What I do is... I eat it. Everything that I want to have... I do. I pop it in my mouth, chew it, savor it, LOVE it. Then, right as I am about to swallow it (this is the genius part) I spit it out. Did you catch that? I spit it all out like rotten cheese. Heck, I don't want all that stuff in my body. It'll make me sick! The plan is completely ingenius, has zero side effects that I have yet seen, and makes me feel smart and healthy while confusing my body into thinking I'm gonna go diabetic by age 25.  Oh, and zero calories. All of the joy, none of the side-effects.

Well, I am happy. If you dislike the pictures, well, the one in the car was just random but...yeah. Anyway, oh I'm not sure that I told you but we had a baptism my first week we were here. I may or may not have forgotten to mention that. It was great. Sister Madison (the mom in the picture) was an amazing person who was going through some REALLY REALLY tough times. It was crazy. And it was so incredible to see her as she exercised her faith has best as she could, we saw the hand of God bring her through it. It is one of those things that I cannot imagine you'd forget.

Well, I need to go. Oh by the way, the T-Shirt was a gift from Elder Sanchez. He's a great guy with an....interesting character.

Os amo.

Elder Ostler

Week 1: Transfer 2

Hola Familia,

Ok so I have uploaded a few pictures and I there are a few stories behind them. I'm not sure if you know this, but here in California, they grow oranges. You know, the nice big ones with the really thick skins but have a lot of juice. Entonces, las naranjas que tengo es las primeras imagenes fueron...pues... robado.

(Espanish) Este es la historia. Ok. Un dia, el companero y yo estabamos manejando en nuestro carro y vimos un arbol que tuvo frutas bonitas. El companero salio el carro y tomo dos frutas (como los dos que estan en el imagen). Pero, cuando rompimos las frutas para comerlos, ellos fueron frutas de mentiras (is that how you spell lies?). Ellos fueron limas! >={

Thus, we reaped the fruits of our labors.

For those of you who don't speak Espanish... phone a friend or babelfish.

So the next story was interesting. So do you remember how I told you how my last companion, Elder Smith, would get upset if I wasn't careful with the dogs? Well two days ago, we went to the Fuentes family's house (around 7:30 or so) and upon arriving and knocking on the door, we heard barking emanating from the backyard, followed by the scream of yelping dogs. I looked at the fence and it was one of those 6 ft wooden fences. We then heard loud banging against the fence, after which a large dog (aka - midsized pitbull) jumped over the fence. Oh, then Elder Sanchez (who is from El Salvador...I won't tell him that you thought he was Mexican...he might flip) said, "Oh, by the way, their pitbull can jump over the fence. =)" Well, I was rather astonished as free jumping over a six foot anything is a difficult feat for most creatures. Well, I thought that this was rather cool and started petting this really nice dog. I decided that I will show this picture to Elder Smith at district meeting. I might be a rather funny experience.

 

About the Mp3 player.... sigh... they strictly prohibited by the Missionary Handbook. =\  I truly feel that I could ask but the thing is, I would have to go through the District Leader, he would say 'No', the Zone Leaders would agree, and the Mission President would say that too because if he justified it for me, he would have to justify it for everyone else. Then, there would be missionaries (are there are sadly a lot of them) who would go out and buy an Ipod Touch, and download blah blah blah... so... I feel that I have lost the battle on that front, even though I would be completely true with it, many would not. It turns out that there are many missionaries who just haven't come out here prepared for the work. They haven't locked their hearts and in turn, it gets them as well as the mission, into trouble.

As far as biking goes, yes, it is very wet, but we bike around in the cold anyway because Elder Sanchez and want to get into our James Bond weight. But as far as driving goes, because we cover such a large area (which includes Crow's Landing, Newman, and Gustine... some of our members are even in Patterson, but we don't cover them), we are allowed to have unlimited miles. Well, it is due to that, and also Elder Sanchez has had some medical problems which give him that privilege (biker's crotch) <=/.

I am still awaiting the awesome package that should arrive tomorrow at District Meeting from the Zone Leaders. I am really quite excited. I feel that Christmas hasn't really ended yet.

Thank you Steve for the "Chronicles of Narnia" vignette. That is really cool. I will try to watch that if possible... next year. =]

I truly felt that the phone call was way too short and I didn't even have time to say Happy Birthday to Rachel, Cristina, or Mom!

Well, Happy Birthday!

I love you very much!

I shall write you letters.

Gotta go now.

I love you all.

Elder Ostler