Ready To Go To The Field

Hey Family!! I am going to shred this keyboard because I don’t have much time to write today but that is okay because mom you will just have to translate Egyptian. This week was a different one spiritually speaking at least. I felt a lot of friction and temptation and growth. It was weird. My spiritual growth this week really came from temptation and thoughts and I don’t know how to explain it. Like last night I was in bed at 10:30 and the lights just shut off and I heard elders across the hall talking and out of bed so I was troubled in my spirit if I should go over there and tell them to more like invite them to go to bed. So I was constrained by the spirit to go and I was a little nervous and didn’t know what to say. I open their door and there are four latinos out of bed. I invite them to get in bed and one of them tells me that I am the one that should be in bed. I was like what? But in my head I said that. They pretty much said that I was the sinner. This is in Spanish and it was mostly just one of them doing the talking. He used the command form of Spanish and wasn’t nice. So I felt courageous and left them and walked back in my room and fell to the floor and prayed. I learned alot. That is how a lot of my week went. Confusion and figuring it out. I loved it and learned much!!

Soooo really bad news for you as I laughed and read about all of the info for how to call you from the airport. We are busing to El Salvador. 6 hours on a bus or 6 hours total of fly travel time is the same plus busing 19 elders to El Salvador is a loooottt cheaper. So I’m sorry to burst your bubble! We’ll just wait till Christmas and that will be an even better reunion. By that time I’ll be fluent in the language mostly and that will be fun!

So I have known for three weeks that Elder Nelson of the quorum of the 12 was coming today to our mission but I could not tell you that we were going to go and meet him and see him. Soooo we were all looking for forward to that and yesterday Presidente Cox comes in while we are eating lunch and tells us that he has bad news. We all freeze. He begins to tell us that the vice president of Guatemala has been arrested and the president is in hiding and there are a lot of things going on in the country that would be dangerous for an apostle of the Lord to be in. So he proceeds to let us know that there will be no President Nelson coming to Guatemala and we will no longer have the opportunity to meet him and shake his hand. We were devastated!!! I was going to shake the most senior apostles hand!!! That would have been sooo sick. We were going to go to a devo this morning at some stake center here in the Guatemala but nope not anymore. I was sad but I am over it now. I mean that would have been cool but its all good!

My Jesus the Christ reading is going good! I was not able to read a ton ton this week so I’m really gonna have to fly to finish this week. I am on page like 470 or something. It is an incredible book. I love it sooo much. Christ was and is amazing!!

So as DL I had the responsibility of directing our district meetings, we had one every Sunday night and one on Tuesday. One we set goals and talk about district stuff and I shared a little lesson each time but on Tuesday we discuss the devotional of that night. It was really awesome the two weeks I was DL and I could feel the extra responsibility. They switch the dls of the districts every two weeks. So I was released or whatever on Sunday and replaced.

I am seeing myself being more courageous and it is soooo evident that some of the elders just don’t understand how important the rules are and whatnot. I have exhorted them to always be wearing shirts and shorts in the hallway some of them will not. And it is annoying but I have to understand that I cannot control them. So it is a process of learning how to be a leader!!

I am sooo overly excited to be leaving here in a week. I feel ready to go to field and know I will have hard times and everything but I am soo ready to teach and share to real investigators and people on the street the things I know to be true, to share the truth. Because that is basically it. It is just the truth. Some will hear and others won’t but we have agency and I have been called to find the chosen and prepared. God has prepared many to hear the word, after all the field is white is it not?

This week our schedule was changed to have sports at the night time so like 4 districts have sports at night during the time I do and it is sooo much better because the sun is not killing you and we go into the dorms at like 8:30 and have an extra hour every night to chill, so I have spent that time writing allllll of you letters!!! I have a letter for everyone so be expecting them in a week!!

Everybody is amazed at how much I have written home. I am a family guy, what can I say. They always ask me how I have time to write and read Jesus the Christ and I tell them I just make time and that just confuses them. There is sooooo much time during everyday to find and use for something productive. I love being able to teach others how to use time better and how to really push yourself. I love challenges soo much and am excited for the field to even push me beyond what I even know I can do, because our Father in Heaven knows us better than we know ourselves.

The new elders got here this week which has been fun being able to see what we were like but this batch of 40....btw that is an absolute ton, is not that excited like I remember my group was. They just are not really wanting to be here and that is evident. I mean of course some are but the overall vibe is like they don’t really want to be here, so that is lame and I am trying to talk with them and get them stoked for the mission because it is awesome.

I cannot believe school starts this week and Jackson and Katie are there. That is sooo fun!!! I remember school. Good days of life. Love it Benson and Wilsdog. It is fun!! Even if you hate it, it is still fun in the end. Make good friends and get rid of the crappy ones. Seriously. Don’t let anyone drag you down. It is not worth the trouble. This week has just been the same old same old stuff in the class. More investigators teaching and stuff, language study and all. Oh a funny experience. Elder A and I were outside ....crap I don’t have time. Anyways it was how I told pres one of my new words and that he just got pumped. kk gotta go love you all!!!!!!!
Your brother and son and brother in law and uncle.

Elder Jefferson Ostler