Happy valentines day! I want all of you to be my Valentine :)!
This week we had Zone Training Meeting, and that was nice because I
got to see Elder Garver again. In ZTM we talked about our main goals
they are; Find, Teach, Baptize, Retain, and Reactivate! It is hard for
missionaries to do all of those things by themselves, if you can,
please help missionaries with referals, being a fellowshipper, or just
make them some food haha. I love the members in our YSA ward they're
really great to us. We ate with a family (Minchins) who is renting out
to a Chinese girl named Ziyi, she is really cool and the mom of the
family speaks Chinese from her mission in taiwain. The lesson was
great and they later came to our Chinese new year Fireside so
hopefully she can read and start progressing. Also I spoke a lot of
Chinese at that lesson so Elder Bird gave me a lot of good tips
after. He says my Chinese is getting better but its hard to notice!
Later in the week one of our Investigators Chris finished the Book of
Mormon. He finished reading it in like A WEEK AND A HALF.. it was
pretty insane when he told us that he finished it. We were going to
teach the word of wisdom since we know that he drinks tea but he had a
lot of questions about the Book of Mormon and the Bible, he has read
the bible 3 times but still doesn't really understand it and doesn't
even believe in eternal life. He says it would be weird because
everyone will be old and a guys son could be other than his father. We
tried to explain the resurrection more and stuff but I think he just
needs to feel the spirit and build his testimony of Jesus Christ
because once he has that and then a testimony of the BOM nothing else
matters, He will be able to keep the word of wisdom and believe all of
the teachings because he understands Christ's perfection and the
perfection of his teachings. "Christ is the gospel personified" -I
think that was Holland. It is hard trying to find wahts right to teach
chris but he is still reading and progressing so hopefully its just
time that he needs.
We ate dinner at one of our favorite memebers, Emma's house this week.
she always is fun and were trying to help her roommate to be more
active. It never fails that I say something extremely stupid when we
go over to her house... and its usually sacrilegious, racist, or
something just ridiculous. Oh well haha. There wasn't anything too bad
this time. I think im learning my lesson. She taught me the correct
way to say Gyro you have to roll the G a little.. its rough. she got
mad at me for saying it wrong at dinner.
Ping pong and English class went great this week, we are having good
numbers come almost every time now. Its nice to actually have people
to teach English to. It is a great finding activity. Also on Saturday
we had a huge Chinese New Year Fireside. There was an hour of talks at
the beginning by Chinese members and two missionaries, it was great to
sit back and listen and work on my Chinese. I can understand a lot of
church vocab and understood most of the talks. There were a lot of
former investigators and some current ones that made it out and I
think it was some great exposure for them. They can see that this
isn't just a white guy church. Plus there were lots a return
missionaries with great Chinese. Andrew Gibb is one of them and he won
a Chinese game show and got a freeride to any Chinese college he
wanted. Chinese people say that his Chinese is better than theres
because he has no accent at all. Most Chinese people have really bad
accents, being standard is a great thing and apparently his Chinese is
very very standard!
Sunday we met with Sean the lazy Taiwanese guy. Turns out he is not so
lazy anymore! He got a second job and is working really hard. He still
loves his League of Legends (an internet computer game) which he is
playing every time we go over. but he is becoming a really hard
worker. He had a super hard month, he wouldn't accept our calls or
texts, and was in a really dark place. We were able to bear strong
testimony that when you are in the hardest times in your life is often
when you can find and see Christs love and light the easiest. its when
we are stripped down to nothing that we look for things that are
immovable like Christ to rely on. Elder birds story really helped him(
about his near death experience in the car crash) he seemed to feel
better and always says that we are so convincing but we explained that
its the spirit that is convincing not us.
It was a great week, it snowed a lot and the roads were really scary a
few days, but we made it through!
Be safe, love you all! good luck on valentines day or Single awareness
day, whichever you prefer to call it :)!!
love, Elder Ostler
My name is Elder Ostler and I am currently serving an LDS mission in Edmonton, Canada, Mandarin Chinese speaking and loving it!
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
February 2, 2015
Transfers!
So this is the start of the second week of transfers. Last week we had
a few changes to our district and zone. One of our zone leaders that I
really loved elder Sears got Transferred but thats ok because his
replacement seems just as fun and great! Also Elder Silva a friend
from back home just got moved into the Spanish companionship in our
district! We played little league football together back in the day
and we have a lot of common friends! He is a year younger than me but
weve been out for just about the same amount of time. Its nice to see
a familiar face! I don't know him too well though so it'll be sweet to
get to know him better. Also we got an elder from the phliilpines!
Elder Cayabyab :) thats a fun name. Elder Bird also was made District
leader. I think thats going to be good because he needed a little
change and some more responsibility! He has been in the same area for
basically 16 months! That would be rough! Everything is going good so
far with the transfers.
We had dinner with Sister Minchin and her family this week, she is a
returned missionary form Taiwan. Her Chinese is pretty ok and they have
a Chinese student living with them nameed Ziyi. She is really nice and
were trying to practice the lesson with sister Minchin and we asked
her if she would like to sit in on them and she said sure. Its been
going well and were eating with them again this week! We have a good
friend Aaron who has been coming to church a little bit and is a
really cool guy. We met with him and his friend Lionel this week to
get to know them and their religious back grounds. Aaron has actually
been baptized and has been going to a bunch of different churches to
see what he likes. Also his English is very fluent, I thought he was
from Canada the first time I met him! His friend Lionel is also really
cool but polar opposite of Aaron in the sense that his English is not
very good at all and the only thing he knows about Christians is that
he heard his grandma say amen every once in a while when she would
pray. Wow haha its a little difficult teaching them but I think it
should work out ok in the end.
Chris Is still doing great. He is probably going to get baptized
sometime this month. He has a problem with putting his Chinese name on
the records because he thinks if china gets a hold of that he won't be
able to get a job because of some groups that he is in. We talked to
president about it and he said to tell chris that its totally
confidentialy and there is no way for them to get it. Hopefully it
helps because that was the only thing holding him back. Green tea
might also be a problem but were talking to him about that this week.
He invited us over for dinner and cooked us a super great Chinese
meal! He lives in the basement of a really tiny house and the ceiling
is only like 6 and a half feet tall... it made me a little sad for him
because he is 30 going to school, living in this really cheap place
and I think hoped to be in bigger better places than where he is at.
On the other hand im so excited for him, He has read the bible 3
times, and is almost done with Alma even though he only started 2
weeks ago! How crazy is that! I cant wait for the fullness of the
Gospel to bless his life more and more as he builds his testimony and
shows his faith in Christ!
Yiming our member friend took us out to lunch so that was nice, but he
drank green tea right in front of us so he obviously doesn't have a
very strong testimony of the word of wisdom but I hope he can build
his testimony! Most/all Chinese members struggle with understanding
and keeping a strong testimony even with fellowshippers and
missionaries following up. We are working hard on keeping our members
active but it is pretty hard!
Saturday we had 3 lessons fall through but we also met some new people
at our pingpong activity so it kind worked out.
That's basically all for this week! I hope everybody knows how awesome
they are :)!
Love U GUYS!!
So this is the start of the second week of transfers. Last week we had
a few changes to our district and zone. One of our zone leaders that I
really loved elder Sears got Transferred but thats ok because his
replacement seems just as fun and great! Also Elder Silva a friend
from back home just got moved into the Spanish companionship in our
district! We played little league football together back in the day
and we have a lot of common friends! He is a year younger than me but
weve been out for just about the same amount of time. Its nice to see
a familiar face! I don't know him too well though so it'll be sweet to
get to know him better. Also we got an elder from the phliilpines!
Elder Cayabyab :) thats a fun name. Elder Bird also was made District
leader. I think thats going to be good because he needed a little
change and some more responsibility! He has been in the same area for
basically 16 months! That would be rough! Everything is going good so
far with the transfers.
We had dinner with Sister Minchin and her family this week, she is a
returned missionary form Taiwan. Her Chinese is pretty ok and they have
a Chinese student living with them nameed Ziyi. She is really nice and
were trying to practice the lesson with sister Minchin and we asked
her if she would like to sit in on them and she said sure. Its been
going well and were eating with them again this week! We have a good
friend Aaron who has been coming to church a little bit and is a
really cool guy. We met with him and his friend Lionel this week to
get to know them and their religious back grounds. Aaron has actually
been baptized and has been going to a bunch of different churches to
see what he likes. Also his English is very fluent, I thought he was
from Canada the first time I met him! His friend Lionel is also really
cool but polar opposite of Aaron in the sense that his English is not
very good at all and the only thing he knows about Christians is that
he heard his grandma say amen every once in a while when she would
pray. Wow haha its a little difficult teaching them but I think it
should work out ok in the end.
Chris Is still doing great. He is probably going to get baptized
sometime this month. He has a problem with putting his Chinese name on
the records because he thinks if china gets a hold of that he won't be
able to get a job because of some groups that he is in. We talked to
president about it and he said to tell chris that its totally
confidentialy and there is no way for them to get it. Hopefully it
helps because that was the only thing holding him back. Green tea
might also be a problem but were talking to him about that this week.
He invited us over for dinner and cooked us a super great Chinese
meal! He lives in the basement of a really tiny house and the ceiling
is only like 6 and a half feet tall... it made me a little sad for him
because he is 30 going to school, living in this really cheap place
and I think hoped to be in bigger better places than where he is at.
On the other hand im so excited for him, He has read the bible 3
times, and is almost done with Alma even though he only started 2
weeks ago! How crazy is that! I cant wait for the fullness of the
Gospel to bless his life more and more as he builds his testimony and
shows his faith in Christ!
Yiming our member friend took us out to lunch so that was nice, but he
drank green tea right in front of us so he obviously doesn't have a
very strong testimony of the word of wisdom but I hope he can build
his testimony! Most/all Chinese members struggle with understanding
and keeping a strong testimony even with fellowshippers and
missionaries following up. We are working hard on keeping our members
active but it is pretty hard!
Saturday we had 3 lessons fall through but we also met some new people
at our pingpong activity so it kind worked out.
That's basically all for this week! I hope everybody knows how awesome
they are :)!
Love U GUYS!!
January 26, 2015
> We actually didnt have too many weird things happen last week.
>
> We met with our Investigator Chris this week after English class and
> he seems to be moving a long really well, he will most likely be
> baptized sometime in February and we also picked up a few new
> investigators over the last week that are progressing pretty well.
> Chris's main concern is that he is part of a Daoism group that helps
> him to get better jobs and/or promotions back in China and if they
> found out that he was baptized then they would take his name off of
> the list. It doesnt sound like that big of a deal to me but to him it
> is a big problem. We talked about how all of that is personal
> information and people can't just access it. He said that if he can put
> his English name then he will Gladly be baptized but the more we
> talked with other people it seemed like that isnt ok to do. We are
> going to talk to President Manion to see what would be the best thing
> to do.
>
> Also we met a guy names Aaron, he just showed up to English class with
> our friend Lionel. His English is already pretty amazing but he likes
> coming and seeing us. He has come to church the last two weeks and we
> are meeting with him this week. At church the speakers were talking
> about family history and temple work and he was kind of confused so i
> explained that we do temple work for the dead. I was worried at first
> because even though i tried to explain it to him with some tact it is
> still a pretty weird thing to hear for your first time. But as I
> explained it he kept saying how much sense that makes. He really asks
> the perfect questions that were leading to things we teach in our
> lessons so we set up a date to meet. I really think that he will move
> along really quickly. He is a great guy.
>
> A lady also brought a girl named Jessica to church with here to meet
> us. Her English is also really awesome but everyone needs to hear the
> gospel in their own native tongue. She isnt in our area though so we
> passed her off to the Elders in River bend area. They dont have very
> many investigators so its great when we can pass of a few
> investigators to them every once in a while.
>
> We did a booth called 21 tips for better grades at the University of
> Alberta and that went really well. We went on splits with the zone
> leaders so that we could have a chinese speaker at the booth the whole
> time. Elder Bird went with Elder Monks and I was with Elder Sears.
> Side note: we have like the best zone leaders in the mission, they're
> super great guys. Anyway Elder Sears and I did our studies and a few
> things together. It was nice to take a look at how other missionaries
> do their day to day tasks because i only have my experience with Elder
> Bird. We then went and got some lunch. We tried this thing called a
> "tombstone" Its a huge donair (kind of like a gyro) with poutine
> (french fries with gravy and cheese curd) in it! it was sooo good. But
> definitely not very good for you. Elder Sears and i split it since its
> so huge. I think ill try to eat a whole one some day :). So then went
> to go to take our turn at the booth. It was going great and we were
> talking to a ton of people. I just tried to say hello or hows your day
> going to everyone that walked passed. If someone stopped then we would
> tell them about our 21 tips for better grades and also our English
> class if they or some of their friends were interested. We got a whole
> bunch of English class sign ups but then this lady from the U of A
> came down and started getting really mad at us because we were
> "Soliciting" we had read the rules but she went back through and
> highlighted the No Soliciting section... it was pretty ridiculous. She
> told us that we had to sit behind the booth and we could even say hi
> to people..... If i wasnt a missionary i really would have just given
> it to her straight and probably went and talked to her supervisor. but
> we just listened to her and tried to gather as much information as we
> could and then said that we were sorry and wouldnt do it again. So we
> sat down and it was a complete waste of time after that. No one wants
> to just walk up and talk to us, especially chinese people! So
> hopefully we can get that figured out before next time since that
> booth is usually one of our greatest finding tools.
>
> In Canada they have speeding traps that just take pictures of your
> license plate if they catch you speeding. They are literally
> everywhere in Edmonton. It makes it even harder since all of the
> speeds are way slower than what they would be in the states. The main
> road we live on is only 50 k an hour which is about 30 miles per hour.
> Elder bird got flashed the other day for going 60 in a 50. He cant
> drive for a little bit so im going to be driving the whole time now.
> Its ok because i need to get to know the area better so that i can
> actually get some places without a GPS.
>
> Today Elder Bird got called as the new District Leader so thats gonna
> be pretty fun. Our district consists of one companionship of Spanish,
> Tagalog, and Mandarin Elders. Its pretty sweet being an all language
> district. Elder Silva ( a friend from little league football, he lived
> in Clearfield) is joining our district and he is going from an English
> missionary to Spanish so thats pretty sweet, I heard that his spanish
> is already pretty good though.
>
> Last thing, I started reading one random verse right before i got to
> sleep and right after i wake up. sometimes its a random dumb one that
> doesnt make any sense out of context, but sometimes i get a sweet one
> that is really applicable to me. Either way it helps me to start and
> end my day off really well. I like it a lot!
>
> Heres a normal day with Elder bird :)
>
> Elder Garver and I like a week ago
>
> and i also got a haircut the other day!
>
> We met with our Investigator Chris this week after English class and
> he seems to be moving a long really well, he will most likely be
> baptized sometime in February and we also picked up a few new
> investigators over the last week that are progressing pretty well.
> Chris's main concern is that he is part of a Daoism group that helps
> him to get better jobs and/or promotions back in China and if they
> found out that he was baptized then they would take his name off of
> the list. It doesnt sound like that big of a deal to me but to him it
> is a big problem. We talked about how all of that is personal
> information and people can't just access it. He said that if he can put
> his English name then he will Gladly be baptized but the more we
> talked with other people it seemed like that isnt ok to do. We are
> going to talk to President Manion to see what would be the best thing
> to do.
>
> Also we met a guy names Aaron, he just showed up to English class with
> our friend Lionel. His English is already pretty amazing but he likes
> coming and seeing us. He has come to church the last two weeks and we
> are meeting with him this week. At church the speakers were talking
> about family history and temple work and he was kind of confused so i
> explained that we do temple work for the dead. I was worried at first
> because even though i tried to explain it to him with some tact it is
> still a pretty weird thing to hear for your first time. But as I
> explained it he kept saying how much sense that makes. He really asks
> the perfect questions that were leading to things we teach in our
> lessons so we set up a date to meet. I really think that he will move
> along really quickly. He is a great guy.
>
> A lady also brought a girl named Jessica to church with here to meet
> us. Her English is also really awesome but everyone needs to hear the
> gospel in their own native tongue. She isnt in our area though so we
> passed her off to the Elders in River bend area. They dont have very
> many investigators so its great when we can pass of a few
> investigators to them every once in a while.
>
> We did a booth called 21 tips for better grades at the University of
> Alberta and that went really well. We went on splits with the zone
> leaders so that we could have a chinese speaker at the booth the whole
> time. Elder Bird went with Elder Monks and I was with Elder Sears.
> Side note: we have like the best zone leaders in the mission, they're
> super great guys. Anyway Elder Sears and I did our studies and a few
> things together. It was nice to take a look at how other missionaries
> do their day to day tasks because i only have my experience with Elder
> Bird. We then went and got some lunch. We tried this thing called a
> "tombstone" Its a huge donair (kind of like a gyro) with poutine
> (french fries with gravy and cheese curd) in it! it was sooo good. But
> definitely not very good for you. Elder Sears and i split it since its
> so huge. I think ill try to eat a whole one some day :). So then went
> to go to take our turn at the booth. It was going great and we were
> talking to a ton of people. I just tried to say hello or hows your day
> going to everyone that walked passed. If someone stopped then we would
> tell them about our 21 tips for better grades and also our English
> class if they or some of their friends were interested. We got a whole
> bunch of English class sign ups but then this lady from the U of A
> came down and started getting really mad at us because we were
> "Soliciting" we had read the rules but she went back through and
> highlighted the No Soliciting section... it was pretty ridiculous. She
> told us that we had to sit behind the booth and we could even say hi
> to people..... If i wasnt a missionary i really would have just given
> it to her straight and probably went and talked to her supervisor. but
> we just listened to her and tried to gather as much information as we
> could and then said that we were sorry and wouldnt do it again. So we
> sat down and it was a complete waste of time after that. No one wants
> to just walk up and talk to us, especially chinese people! So
> hopefully we can get that figured out before next time since that
> booth is usually one of our greatest finding tools.
>
> In Canada they have speeding traps that just take pictures of your
> license plate if they catch you speeding. They are literally
> everywhere in Edmonton. It makes it even harder since all of the
> speeds are way slower than what they would be in the states. The main
> road we live on is only 50 k an hour which is about 30 miles per hour.
> Elder bird got flashed the other day for going 60 in a 50. He cant
> drive for a little bit so im going to be driving the whole time now.
> Its ok because i need to get to know the area better so that i can
> actually get some places without a GPS.
>
> Today Elder Bird got called as the new District Leader so thats gonna
> be pretty fun. Our district consists of one companionship of Spanish,
> Tagalog, and Mandarin Elders. Its pretty sweet being an all language
> district. Elder Silva ( a friend from little league football, he lived
> in Clearfield) is joining our district and he is going from an English
> missionary to Spanish so thats pretty sweet, I heard that his spanish
> is already pretty good though.
>
> Last thing, I started reading one random verse right before i got to
> sleep and right after i wake up. sometimes its a random dumb one that
> doesnt make any sense out of context, but sometimes i get a sweet one
> that is really applicable to me. Either way it helps me to start and
> end my day off really well. I like it a lot!
>
> Heres a normal day with Elder bird :)
>
> Elder Garver and I like a week ago
>
> and i also got a haircut the other day!
January 19, 2015
This week was pretty dang busy, it was packed full of meetings and
lots of fun new things.
We got our recent convert named Lincoln a present since Wednesday was
his birthday and we saw him a few times this week and were able to go
out to dinner with him. He is soooo much help in our lessons. He comes
to at least 2 or 3 lessons a week and is really essential. Because
there aren't many Chinese members its hard to convince people that
this isn't like an all white thing, or sometimes its just that they
are more comfortable speaking to someone who isn't a missionary. He is
still learning a lot of things himself but his simple testimony is so
powerful. Sometimes in lessons we ask him a to tell his experience with
prayer or what the spirit world is to him or something and it takes
him a while to get all of his thoughts together. But every single time
he helps the investigator feel the spirit and helps them to understand
that he was in their shoes once, its the best. He is sooo important
and im so grateful for him.
We had a Language meeting where we found out that we are getting a new
missionary from china in the next few transfers. He lived in Canada
for a while and can speak Cantonese and Mandarin. He is going to be a
great asset! It had my comp Elder Bird on his toes though because now
he thinks either him or another one of the older missionaries is going
to be made zone leader and is going to have to give up mandarin for a
time.. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens this next
week. This is the last week of my first Transfer :)! its crazy that
I've already been in the field a month and a half! I think im actually
already around my 4 or 5 month mark with the MTC and everything.
That's super weird.
At the language meeting we always stand up and tell a miracle that
happened and these sisters in Garneua stood up and told a story about
how they met this Chinese girl outside of their area that they are
teaching and stuff.... there are 2 problems there, OUTSIDE of their
area AND SHE IS CHINESE!!!!!! holy cow that's what we call poaching
around here. So we ended up meeting with the sisters and shan shan and
had a good lesson. We're going to be taking over teaching her from now
on.. and turns out theyre teaching a whole mandarin family.. they said
they want to be taught in English and my comp turned to them and said
oh that's great I'm fluent in English we are gonna have a great time
teaching them. hahah I laughed my head off later. The sisters just
don't understand that even if they want to be taught in English some
words don't translate and it can be very confusing on certain
subjects.. Im still new at it but Elder bird thinks like a Chinese
person now and he knows exactly what to say.
We also taught our investigator Nick du who brought his girlfriend
Windy and that went really well. They're fellowshipper bore sweet
testimony of how he found the Book of Mormon to be true. Also we had
help from another missionary Elder Liu who is from Taiwan. He knows
nick really well and it went great!! This week we were really trying
to find some new investigators and although contacting didn't really
work we got two new investigators through other means! How crazy is
that! and hopefully we will start teaching that Chinese family soon.
We went to dinner with some great members the other night, Tyler
Bennett who was lincolns fellowshipper and is a returned missionary
that is a ton of help to us! Aaron and Lincoln were also there and
they are all great guys.
This week our activities were great our English classes were pretty
packed and we were able to give other areas a few new investigators
from it. Also were doing a thing now called 21 tips for better grades
to help all of the college students in the area. Apparently the church
did it in Texas and it was really successful. I think it will be yet
another asset to use to meet new people.
This week was great and busy. It showed me that if you make goals and
do your part to try and accomplish those goals.. God through other
means may bless you with exactly what you need even if your own
efforts are futile. we shared 1 nephi 17:36 with 4 members that we
visited last night and talked about how we all of these wildernesses
that we have to go through in order to reach our own personal promised
land. But God will give us a light, just like he gave nephi and his
family the liahona. This week seek to see what your light is and
humble yourself to use that light to guide you :).
Love you everyone! have a great week!
-Elder Ostler
lots of fun new things.
We got our recent convert named Lincoln a present since Wednesday was
his birthday and we saw him a few times this week and were able to go
out to dinner with him. He is soooo much help in our lessons. He comes
to at least 2 or 3 lessons a week and is really essential. Because
there aren't many Chinese members its hard to convince people that
this isn't like an all white thing, or sometimes its just that they
are more comfortable speaking to someone who isn't a missionary. He is
still learning a lot of things himself but his simple testimony is so
powerful. Sometimes in lessons we ask him a to tell his experience with
prayer or what the spirit world is to him or something and it takes
him a while to get all of his thoughts together. But every single time
he helps the investigator feel the spirit and helps them to understand
that he was in their shoes once, its the best. He is sooo important
and im so grateful for him.
We had a Language meeting where we found out that we are getting a new
missionary from china in the next few transfers. He lived in Canada
for a while and can speak Cantonese and Mandarin. He is going to be a
great asset! It had my comp Elder Bird on his toes though because now
he thinks either him or another one of the older missionaries is going
to be made zone leader and is going to have to give up mandarin for a
time.. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens this next
week. This is the last week of my first Transfer :)! its crazy that
I've already been in the field a month and a half! I think im actually
already around my 4 or 5 month mark with the MTC and everything.
That's super weird.
At the language meeting we always stand up and tell a miracle that
happened and these sisters in Garneua stood up and told a story about
how they met this Chinese girl outside of their area that they are
teaching and stuff.... there are 2 problems there, OUTSIDE of their
area AND SHE IS CHINESE!!!!!! holy cow that's what we call poaching
around here. So we ended up meeting with the sisters and shan shan and
had a good lesson. We're going to be taking over teaching her from now
on.. and turns out theyre teaching a whole mandarin family.. they said
they want to be taught in English and my comp turned to them and said
oh that's great I'm fluent in English we are gonna have a great time
teaching them. hahah I laughed my head off later. The sisters just
don't understand that even if they want to be taught in English some
words don't translate and it can be very confusing on certain
subjects.. Im still new at it but Elder bird thinks like a Chinese
person now and he knows exactly what to say.
We also taught our investigator Nick du who brought his girlfriend
Windy and that went really well. They're fellowshipper bore sweet
testimony of how he found the Book of Mormon to be true. Also we had
help from another missionary Elder Liu who is from Taiwan. He knows
nick really well and it went great!! This week we were really trying
to find some new investigators and although contacting didn't really
work we got two new investigators through other means! How crazy is
that! and hopefully we will start teaching that Chinese family soon.
We went to dinner with some great members the other night, Tyler
Bennett who was lincolns fellowshipper and is a returned missionary
that is a ton of help to us! Aaron and Lincoln were also there and
they are all great guys.
This week our activities were great our English classes were pretty
packed and we were able to give other areas a few new investigators
from it. Also were doing a thing now called 21 tips for better grades
to help all of the college students in the area. Apparently the church
did it in Texas and it was really successful. I think it will be yet
another asset to use to meet new people.
This week was great and busy. It showed me that if you make goals and
do your part to try and accomplish those goals.. God through other
means may bless you with exactly what you need even if your own
efforts are futile. we shared 1 nephi 17:36 with 4 members that we
visited last night and talked about how we all of these wildernesses
that we have to go through in order to reach our own personal promised
land. But God will give us a light, just like he gave nephi and his
family the liahona. This week seek to see what your light is and
humble yourself to use that light to guide you :).
Love you everyone! have a great week!
-Elder Ostler
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
January 13, 2015
This week was the craziest week ever! We were super low on food and out of money last month so last Preparation day we decided to go out Costco and load up! We bought so much food! The only bad part is we're like sick of all of it now haha.. we still have about 2 months of most of the food left to eat though... oh well. Then we Met with our investigator Sean and shared Elder Bednars Patterns of Light videos with him and he really like it. He seems to still be progressing. Tuesday was when things got really weird! We went to lunch with a member and she told us to meet her at a Japanese restaurant at 12:30 and she didn't get there till 1:15 or later and that was a pretty big waste of time but we ate lunch and caught up since she had been in china for the last month. She is super rich and has like 4 houses in china. Were trying to get her to come to church more but it kinda seemed like a lost cause. She is still living a good life but just wont come to church. That's something that seems particularly hard with Chinese people, getting them to give up 3 hours on sunday to come and listen to a bunch of people talk about the gospel. Especially since its in English.
We also traded our car for bus passes for the day and that helped a lot with contacting. We got onto the LRT and talked to tons of people! This is the really crazy part... So just before we were going to get off A TON of people got on the train. There was literally no room for anyone else on the train.. and i was on the wrong side of this giant crowd and my stop was coming up. I was talking to a member sitting next to me when we pulled up to our stop. I said goodbye and told her goodluck because her son is serving in eastern Canada. I started shuffling through the crowd and when i was about half way through all of these people more people stepped on and then the doors started closing!!! I wiggled my way as fast as i could and reached out my arm to stop the doors from closing. Literally an inch before my hand could reach far enough to stop the doors, they shut... I pushed the button to open them again but they would open. The Conductor came over the intercome and said step away we have to pull away right now, everyone step away we have to pull away right now there's another train behind us. My moral dropped... There was no way i was getting off and as soon as we started to pull away I saw Elder Bird had gotten off, we made eye contact and he said "Ill stay here". Just then a guy next to me said "you can be on splits with me". That made me feel a lot better. So i rode the train for a while and talked to this guy not thinking much of it. A few stops went by and since we only ever ride the LRT up and down and never ever get off it didn't even cross my mind to get off and get on a train going back the other way...... at least it didn't cross my mind until we were on our way to the very last stop at the end of the line... Im an idiot.. haha Everyone got off the train since its the last stop and it was really weird.. long story short i got back to Elder bird and we ended up being separated for about 25 minutes. We got back together and just laughed it off... I didn't think that was going to happen again any time soon but it almost happened again yesterday!! luckily this time i got off haha.. i guess weve got to be careful on the LRT!
Also a native told us to stick our bible somewhere it doesn't belong.. lots of drunk and high people on the LRT but there are also lots of Chinese people so its worth it. We had dinner with another member and she cooked us Gyros and Cheese cake. It was super good. The rest of our week wasn't too crazy. We had a few good lessons, a Zone Training Meeting where we got trained on facebook and how we use it. Im making a new one so if you could help me connect with old friends or anyone that might be interested in the gospel that would be great. We have an hour a day to use it but its really ineffective if we use it that long..
I got to see Elder Garver again at this ZTM and it is like a flash back to home everytime i see him! We always just say "dang, we are in Canada right now!" Im sure its even weirder for him since hes been out for like 18 months now! Elder Birds birthday was on the 10th and we went out to eat a lot this week because all of the members wanted to take him out for a treat. We went and got hotpots with yiming. Its a really fancy Chinese food where everyone has their own boiling water pot built into the table of really weird not edible things like roots, mushrooms, various parts of animals, fruits, and vegetables that you boil meat or vegetables in and they absorb the flavor. It was soooo good!! we ate a ton! They also have a bunch of weird things that we ate. Fish stomach, cow stomach, goat/lamb, chicken hearts, fish tofu, fish balls, squid, a bunch of weird mushrooms, and a bunch of regular meats and veges too. I am getting super used to weird Chinese food and everything tasted really good! i also had some whole deepfried fish today. We also had Dimsum yesterday and that was super great! The food here is pretty awesome but everything is super expensive. hotpots for 3 people was $100 dollars.. luckily the members paid for us.
Overall it was a great week, im learning a lot from the Book of Mormon and reading it everyday. We are working hard but during your mission ive come to find that even with a lot of hard work results are few and far between. At least that's what it seams like.. I know im making a difference in my life and hopefuly in others.. it just is very hard to see. But i know that when i look back at my mission life in 2 years i will be able to see how far ive come and how far others have come in their journeys in developing faith in our savior. You don't always see results but if you are working hard I know the lord will bless you. Even if it takes a while for us to notice how much he has changed our lives. We also had the great opportunity to go to the Temple today. Sooo great. I love the spirit there and being able to see our mission president. I hope all of your weeks are great and know that i really do love all of you and each of you have helped me in my journey to this point of my life in lots of different ways and all of you are invaluable! Love you! be safe -Elder Ostler
Monday, January 5, 2015
January 5, 2015
Happy new years! 2015 is here and thats super crazy. its weird that i
> graduated in 2013 and its been almost 2 full years since i
> graduated... crazy.
>
> This week was pretty great, we had to shovel a few times out in the
> freezing cold but if you cover up -40 isnt too bad. but if you dont
> cover up your skin can freeze in 5 minutes! Canadians honestly could
> care less that its getting cold. most of them are used to it and just
> carry on their days as usual just with more clothes on.
>
> We met with a few less actives this week, retention is really hard
> right now for the chinese people that we are teaching because there is
> no chinese ward. We are working on getting a Mandarin gospel
> Principles class started so that we can atleast have an hour of church
> devoted to helpilng them get to know the gospel and how important
> church is in a language that they can understand everything youre
> saying. Most of our investigators only understand about half of what
> is going on in sacramanet meeting so that is hard but the young adults
> are really good at being nice and fellowshipping. probably because
> most of them have been missionaries and understand how importnat that
> part of the conversion process really is. This sunday we made a huge
> mistake but im kinda just laughing it off now.. the past two weeks
> church has been at 10 because there were only a few wards meeting
> since most people went home for new years and Christmas. So when we
> invited people to church we told all of them that church started at
> 10... it would have been fine if we could have just gone to the 9
> oclcock sacrament or even an 11 oclock but the 9 oclock was just about
> over and there was no 11 so we had to tell everyone to go back and
> then to try to come back at 1. only like half of them actually did
> though.. were working on strengthening our Mandarin members so that
> theyre at all of the church activites and meetings so that our
> Investigators will have more friends and feel more accepted.
>
> On new years we had to be in 6 just to be safe in case someone was
> drinking and driving. we had a little party and had some snacks but we
> have like 0 food in our appartment right now.. were going to costco
> today to stock up! Anyway New years wasnt all that special but it does
> make for an easy contacting subject to break the ice with. This week
> we road the LRT (subway system) around for a bit and thats a quick way
> to just talk to people and ask them how there new years is going. we
> met quite a few chinese people and some people from all over the
> world. When youre on the LRT you also come in contact with some people
> that arent quite as friendly.. this week there was a guy who was on
> something and was rolling around on the seats and jumping around
> mumbling something about us having on "Tabernacle of Jesus Christ"
> T-shirts on... it was pretty weird.
>
> Our investigators are doing pretty good most all of them are
> progressing its just difficult for most chinese people to commit to
> something like this.. especially since it definitely seems like a
> "white person" church when we bring them to activities and or
> sacrament. Chris (Li ming yang) is probably our most solid
> investigator right now and i think that he really will be baptized. he
> believes in Christ keeps our commitments. He even brought two of his
> friends to one of our ping pong activites! Another investigator is
> Echo, she knows that this gospel is true but she cannot commit to it
> because Buddhism really helped her. She knows that baptism would help
> her and she wants to follow Jesus Christ. She even said that if she is
> baptized that she would stay strong and be faithful. the problem is
> that she doesnt although she wants to commit one way or the other she
> has a hard time giving up what she loves. we asked her this week to
> live the gospel to the best of her ability and I know that she will
> feel the spirit and hopefully she will be able to commit once she
> knows that living the gospel helps her feel better than her life right
> now. Its difficult but it is also a testimony to me that the only
> thing that truly converts someone unto Christ is the Spirit. If she
> does see a difference in her life i know that she will get baptized
> and that she will be a great member!
>
> I think thats it! hope everyone had a great new years!!
>
> -Love Elder Ostler
> graduated in 2013 and its been almost 2 full years since i
> graduated... crazy.
>
> This week was pretty great, we had to shovel a few times out in the
> freezing cold but if you cover up -40 isnt too bad. but if you dont
> cover up your skin can freeze in 5 minutes! Canadians honestly could
> care less that its getting cold. most of them are used to it and just
> carry on their days as usual just with more clothes on.
>
> We met with a few less actives this week, retention is really hard
> right now for the chinese people that we are teaching because there is
> no chinese ward. We are working on getting a Mandarin gospel
> Principles class started so that we can atleast have an hour of church
> devoted to helpilng them get to know the gospel and how important
> church is in a language that they can understand everything youre
> saying. Most of our investigators only understand about half of what
> is going on in sacramanet meeting so that is hard but the young adults
> are really good at being nice and fellowshipping. probably because
> most of them have been missionaries and understand how importnat that
> part of the conversion process really is. This sunday we made a huge
> mistake but im kinda just laughing it off now.. the past two weeks
> church has been at 10 because there were only a few wards meeting
> since most people went home for new years and Christmas. So when we
> invited people to church we told all of them that church started at
> 10... it would have been fine if we could have just gone to the 9
> oclcock sacrament or even an 11 oclock but the 9 oclock was just about
> over and there was no 11 so we had to tell everyone to go back and
> then to try to come back at 1. only like half of them actually did
> though.. were working on strengthening our Mandarin members so that
> theyre at all of the church activites and meetings so that our
> Investigators will have more friends and feel more accepted.
>
> On new years we had to be in 6 just to be safe in case someone was
> drinking and driving. we had a little party and had some snacks but we
> have like 0 food in our appartment right now.. were going to costco
> today to stock up! Anyway New years wasnt all that special but it does
> make for an easy contacting subject to break the ice with. This week
> we road the LRT (subway system) around for a bit and thats a quick way
> to just talk to people and ask them how there new years is going. we
> met quite a few chinese people and some people from all over the
> world. When youre on the LRT you also come in contact with some people
> that arent quite as friendly.. this week there was a guy who was on
> something and was rolling around on the seats and jumping around
> mumbling something about us having on "Tabernacle of Jesus Christ"
> T-shirts on... it was pretty weird.
>
> Our investigators are doing pretty good most all of them are
> progressing its just difficult for most chinese people to commit to
> something like this.. especially since it definitely seems like a
> "white person" church when we bring them to activities and or
> sacrament. Chris (Li ming yang) is probably our most solid
> investigator right now and i think that he really will be baptized. he
> believes in Christ keeps our commitments. He even brought two of his
> friends to one of our ping pong activites! Another investigator is
> Echo, she knows that this gospel is true but she cannot commit to it
> because Buddhism really helped her. She knows that baptism would help
> her and she wants to follow Jesus Christ. She even said that if she is
> baptized that she would stay strong and be faithful. the problem is
> that she doesnt although she wants to commit one way or the other she
> has a hard time giving up what she loves. we asked her this week to
> live the gospel to the best of her ability and I know that she will
> feel the spirit and hopefully she will be able to commit once she
> knows that living the gospel helps her feel better than her life right
> now. Its difficult but it is also a testimony to me that the only
> thing that truly converts someone unto Christ is the Spirit. If she
> does see a difference in her life i know that she will get baptized
> and that she will be a great member!
>
> I think thats it! hope everyone had a great new years!!
>
> -Love Elder Ostler
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)