Me and Elder G were giving it all we had!

Família!

Wow I loved that email, it sounds like you guys had a great week. Jefferson emailed me and told me all about the camp too.

So you watched the Manaus game!  Sweet!  I´m about a long way away from the stadium.  By bus a little less than an hour, car... 20 to 30 mins.  And if they showed an above shot of the stadium, then you definitely saw the mission office.  It is 2 blocks away.

So this week was good.  In order to understand this next part I need to explain something.  In my district it is me and Elder Galvan with one other companionship.  On Monday the ZLs called me and said that the other companionship (or ward) would be receiving two new elders.  One ward with 4 elders, 2 companionships.  They arrived on Tuesday morning.  It was weird because transfers are in a week.  But you will never guess who one of the missionaries is?!? Elder O! The one I was with in Candeias!  I don´t know if I told you but he went home after the surgery and was home for 3 months and now he just came back!  I was so happy to see him and he was happy to see me.  He is telling everybody how good my brownies and pancakes are.  I think I will make a big batch of brownies today and take them to zone training amanhã.   This picture is of our zone on Tuesday at the temple:)  I love that place:)  So now my district has 6 elders and it is great!

On Wednesday the power went out at 3 in the afternoon.  As we were walking home that night on a busy street we saw three guys pushing a car in the middle of the street.  So we ran out to help them.  One of them was drunk...shocker.  We helped them push.  It was out of gas and the station near their house was out of energy so they had to go to a different one.  We got to a hill.  We jumped in the bed (it was like a car and a truck mixed because it had a bed) and rode down the hill... we were booking!!  When we got to the bottom we got out and pushed again... this time, up hill.  There were 5 of us, one of them was drunk and the other two were doing very little.  Me and Elder G were giving it all we had!!  I was dripping in sweat.  But it was super fun.  We hit another downhill and coasted to the gas station.  Then they drove us home.. it was pretty fun.  We gave them our number and a restoration pamphlet.  The power was still out when we got home.  In the closing prayer of our planning session the lights flickered on.  Everybody in the streets started cheering:)   If the power wouldn´t have come back on that would have been one miserable night.  No AC and no fans.. hot hot humid and hot.

Thursday we watched Brasil and Croatia.  The other 4 elders came to our area and watched with us in the house of the Elders Q Pres. He is crazy!  and funny.  I will admit that that yellow card was trash but even with out the penalty kick Brasil still would have won 2-1.   They play Mexico tomorrow so we get to watch again!  woohoo!

This is what all of the streets here look like!!! Go BRASIL!!!!!
Oh I forgot to tell you!! We got liberaed to watch the jogos de Brasil!!!!!  I´m so excited!

Halftime of the Brasil game

Last week on Monday night we did a FHE with a family that is returning to activity and invited Is*, the one we baptized last week. It was good, we taught the lesson on agency and standing firm in these last days.  Brasilans love to talk and talk and talk so we lost control at some points but in the end it was good.  We are trying to work with Is* more.  We are also teaching his brother, he has two younger brothers.  But his dad, everytime we go there just ignores us.  He is from another church.

Yesterday we woke up and left at 7 to go get people for church.  We passed by 7 houses and got one person.  It was a little disappointing but we got one:)  

One thing that I´ve been having a hard time with this week is numbers.  Here we are expected to get high numbers.  On Wednesday when we passed that numbers to the ZLs they told us we needed to invite more people to be baptized and mark dates and find news.. sometimes stuff like that just gets me down.. it is partly because I´m still prideful and I think that I´m doing fine and then when somebody tells me I´m not.  I'm just trying to be more humble and not worry about our numbers too much.

Another thing I´m trying to do is make my WILL God´s will.  Sometimes as a missionary I have an internal battle between the mission and home. Let me explain.  I know that it is God´s will for me to be here and it is my will too but sometimes I still want to be home with you guys, but that is not God´s will.  It is this struggle between wanting to be home and wanting to be on the mission. I´m not saying I´m homesick or anything, (unlike you mom, hours go by with out me thinking about you guys:) sometimes a day:) but I always remember you guys in my prayers at night)  So I´m trying to make my will Gods will.  A perfect example of this is Mateus 26:39, one of my favorite Scriptures.  It´s when Jesus Prays to the Father and says that he doesn´t want to do the Atonement but that he WILL because he wanted to do the will of the Father and not his own will.

So last week I told you about getting my camera fixed... well it didn´t happen, the place didn´t have the right piece. So now I will just wait for that battery:)  Ilovebrasilmail...  and MY PICTURES ARE HERE!!! What happened is that the lady transferred the pictures to the computer but not the flash drive!!! When we went back she found them on the comp and put them on the flash drive and the memory card.  So now.... I have 2 copies of them.

So that was my week. Oh one more thing.  So Elder Galván mixes in a little spanish with his português like he says "voy" instead of "vou" and just little stuff like that.  It still gives to understand him but it is just that now I´m starting to do that!!  kakakakaka.  Every once in a while I will say a whole phrase in spanish.. I´m pretty good like that.  trilingual.  Well have a great week mowing lawns and riding 4 wheelers:)  Amo vocês

Elder Ostler

Brasil Campeão!!

Rumo ao Hexa!!!