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