holy cow I made it to Canada Finally! im so excited! this first week
out here has been great! it was rough at first but once I finally got
a little bit caught up on sleep it got a lot better! my first day
proselyting I committed Chris (li min yang) to baptism so that was
awesome. My Chinese is not anywhere near my Trainers but I can usually
hold my own in a conversation and am pretty good at understanding and
teaching in the lessons. Its pretty 30/30/30 between my comp, the
investigator, and I. I really like that.
Its like -1 degrees Celsius everyday up here haha but apparently
that's really warm for this time of year. Its usually in the -30's or
something by now... so its gonna get a lot colder very soon!!!! Its
already too cold to go street contacting. We get most of our
Investigators through activities and English class. We teach English
class every Wednesday and Friday. It goes really great.
Canada is not at all what I expected. There is soooo much diversity
in Edmonton it is unreal! there are people from Isreal, Bangladesh,
ghanna, China, Korea, Japan, Philipines, Europe, Taiwan, Mexico,
Natives, and probably like 20 other cultures that I see every single
day! probably 1/8 or so of the people I see are Chinese. Its seriously
great! A lot of different types of people come to our English class
and its really fun to get to know different cultures.
Being a foreign speaking missionary in a primarily English speaking
area has some great benefits; we get a car all to ourselves and have
no limit to how many kilo's we can drive. most elders have to share a
car and are limited on k's. Because we are not immersed in Chinese we
can also listen to Chinese music in the car and some things like that,
it really helps with my listening skills. We also have close to
quadruple the amount of investigators that other missionaries have.
The church and Chinese people are making leaps and bounds it is great!
My day usually goes like this; wake up, work out, breakfast, study for
4 hours, eat lunch, study some more, go out to a lesson or
activity/prepare for English class, teach a lesson, eat dinner, and go
to the institute building to teach another lesson or have an activity.
It seems like we are no really doing a whole lot to me but our entire
day is full! A mission is not at all what I expected but I love it so
far!
We had a Christmas meeting where we all got a letter from our parents
and a card from the first presidency and watched meet the Mormons
because most of the Elders in the mission haven't seen it yet. There
are about 230 missionaries in the Edmonton Canada Mission, 9 Spanish,
7 taglog, and 9 Chinese. There are a few people that can also speak
their native language to people but their comp is English speaking. We
are some of the few Mandarin Elders but the Church is growing a lot
with Chinese people.
I really love it out here and I love My Companion Elder Bird, He is
amazing at Chinese and has been out for like a year and 4 months, ill
be with him for 3 months while he trains me. I would have gotten out
here a little bit after he did if I had left the MTC last year so its
crazy that his Chinese is already so good! he can talk to anyone about
most anything that comes up. It is really impressive. He is from
Oklahoma and our personalities get a long really well. He has a great
conversion story about how he got in a really bad Motorcycle accident
and is lucky to even be alive let alone walk and be totally normal.
While he was in the Hospital a general authority came to see him and
once he heard his story he told him that the lord had spared him in
order for him to serve a mission. I am so grateful that he did
everything he needed to do to get out here! He is a great man and
companion. Ill send you pictures of his leg next week if I have time.
I love serving the Lord, Especially during the Christmas Season. I
hope that all of us can feel Christs love and understand the magnitude
of his gift for us. It is amazing. I know we can all give a little bit
more to Christ. Whether that be serving others and helping out others
in ways that they cannot help themselves, or recommitting to serving
the lord and having complete faith in him. I am trying to work on both
of those and I know that Christ will help me achieve those goals if I
really put my mind to it.
I wish everyone a very very Merry Christmas, a Happy New year, and a
happy birthday to a few of ya!
Love,
-Elder Ostler
I also got to talk to Elder Garver for a few hours and it was great to
catch up and see him. Its crazy that we ended up in the same mission.
It took a lot to get us both here but we are here now and both loving
life! :) He is my best friend!
