Special Blessings

Dear Family and Friends,

So this week, I was talking with my Zone Leaders, Elder Smith (my trainer), and I told him about the situation here in Crows Landing (what with all of the bautismos and stuff). His suggestion - call President Gonzalez. So, after a couple deep breaths and mustering up the courage, I made the call. Right off the bat, I was telling him about all the reasons for which I needed to stay (which, in my opinion, ranged between satisfactory and excellent) to which he replied, "Uh Huh?" and "Ok...?".

After my raging torrent of argument, he paused and then said, "Well Elder Ostler... do you feel that transfer calls are inspired of the Lord?"

At this point, I will tell you... I felt lower than dirt. Haha... it definitely deflated my head, that is for sure. "Yes President" I peeped.

"Great! Well, is there anything else that I can do for ya?"

"uhh.. no that's about it."

 

Anyway, so I was kinda scared about what was going to be happening for transfers, but then at some point I just figured that it was out of my hands and so I had better just deal with whatever happened.

 

So, Saturday evening we were ANXIOUSLY waiting for transfer calls... and we waited and waited and waited. Finally, I took the phone from my companion around 9:30 and it said that we had voicemail. I called, and what do you know but it was transfer calls.

The news is... I AM STAYING IN CROWS LANDING! YES!!!!

I knew it. Well, I hoped it. Either way, I will be here for another transfer. =)

I am super happy. Oh, and I will be staying with my companion, Elder Boekweg.

 

So Justin Rosales had his baptismal interview and it went well, so he is getting baptized on the 18 June.

Lisa Rivera said that she wants to be baptized 25 June.

The Bolton's want to be baptized 2 & 3 July. (They are waiting for Johnny to get back from Corcoran).

So that is that.

We are working with Richard and Luisa. He is super ready to be baptized although he needs to get married to Luisa. He is excited though!

 

Anyway,

I think that is about it.

 

I love you all, (yes... even you, dearest fans)

Love,

Elder Ostler

 

Oh by the way, I haven't received many letters from any of you (both friends or family... so yeah. Write me!

A Very Rewarding Week

Dear family,

this week has been... well to put it simply, awesome. We have been bonding well with our Branch Mission Leader, Bro. Wharff, who has helped us enormously.

Anyway, you must be wondering, what has made this week so awesome? Well, dear readers, I will tell you. This last week, do you remember how we were talking about the very amazing/spiritual lesson that we had with the Bolton family? Well, we passed by their home again that Saturday night and invited them to church. We didn't get to have a lesson with them because she was so tired, but it was nice that we were able to do that. Anyway, Sunday morning came around and while we were in the car, my companion and I discussed who would probably come for Sacrament Meeting. Well, in walked Richard and Luisa (and older couple that we have been working with) who had never come before. That was awesome. Then 5 minutes into the meeting, Sister Bolton walked in! It was really great. Oh, and then it was a very spiritual meeting because it was fast and testimony meeting. Afterward, while we were herding our investigators over to Gospel Principles class, Sister Bolton told me, "So Johnny and I have decided that we are getting baptized." I did something of a double-take. She then continued, "We want to get baptized in the beginning of next month - July. By you." 

Then I said, "But Sister Bolton, what if I'm transferred out of the area?" 

"Well," she replied, "You better pull some strings because we want you to baptize us. In fact, I'm not getting baptized unless you baptize us!"

Well, except for that last part, WHOOOO HOOO!!! YES!!!!! That is so awesome! Ahhh, this is so amazing! I am so happy that this is finally happening and that I will be here to see it!

 

Hopefully you kind of understand how happy I am at this time. I think I am a bit overwhelmed right now actually. You might say that I am in shock right now. You see, yesterday (Monday) we had a ward party in the English Branch. It was amazing! We definitely need to be having more of those. I think that the attendance there was more than double what we normally have at sacrament meeting. And of course, we had investigators there. Brother and Sister Bolton as well as a lady by the name of Lisa Rivera. She is amazing. She is basically a member but her husband won't let us teach over at there home while he is there (which is the weekends) and they work in the bay area (about an hour outside of our mission) Monday thru Friday. To put in a nutshell - frustrating. Actually, incredibly frustrating because she actually came looking for us and we can't help her progress. But. BUT... she comes to church. Almost every week for the last two months without fail, she has come to church. And she loves it. She knows the doctrine as well if not better than many members.

And so, I guess that the point I am making with all of this is that, last night after the party, she called us. She told us how as of last July, she had talked to her husband who had told her that he wasn't in agreement with her being baptized until she went to church for a year. Last night, she told us that the year was up, and that she was ready to be baptized so we needed to get everything ready so that she could be.

Wow!!!! I strongly feel that the service we rendered with Bro. Wharff and his 2 sons the other day to Roberto Rivera (Lisa Rivera's husband) was highly influential to this.

So anyway, that is happening as soon as possible.

 

Well, now you might be wondering, "Well, that's all great and dandy Elder Ostler, but weren't you called on a Spanish Speaking mission?"

Hold your horses, I'm getting there. This afternoon (around 3:00 pm), we received a call from somebody in the Spanish Branch. A lady by the name of Hermana Rosales. She is a member who is married to a non-member, Carlos Rosales, and they have a 12 year old son named Justin Rosales. Carlos isn't really too accepting to the Church, however, Justin goes to church every Sunday without fail, and every YM/Scouting activity. He is a smart (though slightly goofy) kid, that reads all of the material that we give him and does those things that we tell him to do through the urging of his mom. However, the hold up for him is that his dad would not give him permission. What Carlos had said was that "he wanted to hear it from Justin's lips that he wanted to be baptized." Well, last night, Justin received permission. After months and months of waiting and working, he received it. What is more, they are moving and want to do it within the next week.

 

Awesome? Yes. Crazy? Incredibly. Had I not heard about all of these things myself, I wouldn't believe it if somebody told me. But it is true. And I am so happy for it. I am so thankful that the Lord is helping us in this wonderful work. If ever I have seen miracles, it is here in the mission. This is true and when people make those decisions that get them on that strait and narrow path, it is a beautiful thing to behold.

 

Well, This is sooo cool! I have other stories, but none quite so great. I have pictures but I haven't the time to upload them. But I hope that you have read these things and felt something like what I have. This is an amazing work. I am... happy.

 

Love you,

Elder Ostler

Our Week

Hmmm... well this week was rather interesting. When I say "rather" I mean that they border on both the AWESOME side as well as the CRAZY side of this spectrum.

 

This week - we were teaching the Bolton family. Sometimes it has proven to be difficult to teach at their home because our investigators - Erica and her son Johnny - are who we are trying to focus on, but Bro. Bolton - our member - has a way of... distracting that focus.

So this week, we were teaching there, Friday to be exact, and we were talking about how she felt about everything. Now bear in mind that this lesson has happened several times before. They know when we are about to invite them to be baptized. There isn't anything that is really holding them back!! (At least, from our perspective, we hadn't yet discerned her underlying question.)

But this time something was different. We had asked her in our previous lesson how she felt toward Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon to which she had told us that she knew that they were true.

This lesson, we had to pick up from there. This time, we asked if we might be able to watch the first episode of Preach My Gospel with them. Some of the reasons that prompted this feeling are that we felt that her seeing those investigators make good decisions and having those blessings in her life would perhaps help aleviate her fears toward setting a date to be baptized.

 

After we watched the episode, we were talking and Bro. Bolton began say how he knew that the Church was true because none of the other churches were doing the good things that we are doing and then he began to rant and rail on the Catholic Church. This is not what we want. This had to be stopped. Putting investigators in Defense Mode is not a good thing because they stop talking about those deeper concerns that they might have.

Then we told her that we weren't here to advertise our church's "Plan" as if it was some sort of "cell phone package plan". The reason that we were there was because it was true and we knew it. 

 

I can't really write the things that we said after that because - quite honestly, I'm not really too sure and more so than the words that were said was the spirit that which was felt. But what happened is that Sister Bolton began to cry and tell us how she hadn't ever felt any of these feelings before and that she felt that this was right, and that she wanted her Aunt who lives in Utah (and is also a member) to be able to come to her baptism.

 

Because of those reasons, she didn't want to accept a date, and we didn't feel prompted to ask her to commit to one. We did say, "Sister Bolton, will you prepare yourself to be baptized in June?"

She asked what we meant, and we responded that this was to do those things that we commited them to do. She accepted.

 

 

------------------ Now, contrast that with this next investigator. --------------------------

 

We met a lady at church by the name of Sharron (pronounced "Shuh-Ron" with an emphasis on "Ron"). She is one of our more colorful (yes - this means she is black, but more than just that) investigators with a truly...abnormal perspective on life and an especially eccentric personality. She came to us and asked us if we might come to her house and teach her. We went over with our new Branch Mission Leader (who is AMAZING by the way), and she told us about how she had been in the military and had gone over seas and seen some sad, terrible, and strange things which had completely changed her life.

 

She then told us a lot of her beliefs that were, amazingly close to some of our more profound parts of the Doctrine and aren't really apparent to the everyday Christian. And then... things got weird.

She began to tell us how she was God and then she was Jesus Christ. I wasn't too sure what to say to that but she seemed OK. Then our BML had something to say (he likes to talk - sometimes a bit too much). But it all went over well and we made a follow-up appointment and left.

A few days passed and we came back with another member for her follow-up lesson. She was nowhere to be seen. Her car wasn't parked in front of her house....nothing. We called her several times and waited for about 15-20 minutes, hoping that she might have been late, but when that passed and there was no indication of her returning that evening, we left.

Throughout the following 2-3 weeks we called, left pass-along cards at her door, but we heard nothing from her - no calls, no texts (yes - we can text OUR people), complete radio silence. And then one night it happened. In the dead of night. Actually, it was in that time between the dead of night and the crack of dawn that it happened. We received a voicemail from Sharron, asking us where we were and when we were going to come back. We waited and then called her back at a more reasonable hour (around 10:00 am). No answer. Ugh.

 Another week passed by and then again we received a voicemail of when we were going to come over. Well, I wasn't about to let the opportunity pass us by again, so I called her back right then. She ANSWERED!

She then told us about how she had just gotten out of a mental facility after staying there for 72 hours.

 

The following lesson occurred between 8:00 PM and 9:30 PM.

 

Unfortunately, I do not have time to write just how weird this lesson was, but let me assure you, it was WEIRD. She nearly NEARLY kicked us out of her garage (we were giving a lesson in her garage with the door open because we didn't have a team-up).

 

But then she didn't. My diagnosis - I believe she is suffering from a powerful case of Schizophrenia - as in she is suffering from both Delusions of Gradeur and Delusions of Persecution. Oh, she told us again during our lesson that she was Jesus Christ and that inter-racial marriage was a horrible thing, and that... oh and that she knows everything. I mean, she doesn't KNOW everything,  but she knows everything. (This came up when we were reading with her in the beginning of the Book of Mormon and explaining the meaning of a few words to her - such as "iniquity") 

 

I'm not too sure what help we might be able to do for her, but yeah... we will do our best and leave the rest to the Lord. All I know is that next time, we need to go with a member because she is... you know... of a crazier sort.

 

Well, I'm not sure what else to say. Oh, thanks Dad for my Card info.

 

 

I love you all!

Elder Ostler

P.S. - OH, so last Sunday was the easiest I have had on the mission. I didn't give a talk (en la rama Hispana), or play the hymns (en la rama Hispana), or teach a lesson (en la rama Hispana or the English Branch).

 

Weird.

 

But quite enjoyable.

 

Well, I will talk to you later.