Wow.... I just spent a good 2 mins just starring at that picture.... ahhhh. My family is the best. I miss you guys a ton and it would be awesome to be there with your guys..... but I´m not homesick. If that makes sense. I know I need to be here and I love being a missionary and I can’t imagine my life not being one. Yesterday me and Elder Sirdão took off out plaques and looked in the mirror.... it was weird..... too weird.... So I´m loving being a missionary:) And I had no idea that Jackson and Kind Katie were up there with you guys... talk about fun!
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| This is the picture Elder Ostler is referring to above |
So let's start out with Elder Maynes....... let´s just say I have a new favorite apostle....well he is almost in the quorum of the 12. He was with Elder Mazzugardi. He is in the brasil presidency. Before they spoke we got to go up on the stand and shake their hands. As I was about to shake Sister Maynes hand she looked at me and said "we know you!" I was so thrilled that they remembered me. Elder Maynes said he still remembers the day that I went over to the Hansens house to do hometeaching and he was there. He kept saying "you look great!" to me. It was sweet.
Elder Maynes talk was absolutely amazing! He talked about a couple of things with us. (I wrote it all down in my notebook, let´s see how much I remember). He talked about how as God´s children, God has high expectations for us. We are expected to someday inherit kingdoms. The part that I liked the most is when he talked about baptism. His wife is a convert. She called herself a "seeker of the truth." Elder Maynes converted her. Elder Maynes told us that we need to be looking for these seekers of truth. He said that anybody here is open enough and will let us in to talk to them because every body loves to hear the word of God. True. But he said that we need to find the people who are READY for our message and who will accept and keep compromissos. That was one of his big points was about commitments. That is the word in english. People who will do what we invite them to do. He said that not everyone is ready for baptism or even wants to be baptized. When he said that I thought of what a lot of missionaries here say, "everybody needs baptism. We have to baptize everyone." We have to find the seekers of truth. He said we can´t just convince people to be baptized but we have to convert people to be baptized. He gave an example. He said something like "You can´t trick people into getting baptized. That is wrong. You can´t say 'Do you love your mom?' 'Yes' 'Then you should get baptized' OR 'Do you love Jesus?' 'Yes' 'Then you should get baptized' That is wrong" I know missionaries that have done that...He is truly inspired and knew exactly what to say.
Afterwards he grabbed me and we took a picture real quick. He is so awesome. He is truly called of God. He also was speaking spanish for parts of it and I understood all of it! But he had a translator who translated in Portuguese and the translator was the translator for Pres Monson for General Conference! So that was the conference.
This week I did a division with my district leader. He is from colombia but lives in canada so he is fluent in english, but we spoke Portuguese. It is hard for me to speak english. He taught O* at our last lesson. He was one of the Milagres that happened last week. He was the one that just randomly showed up at church. He is 19. When we went to teach him for the first time this is what he said "I want to be a mormon, I want to be baptized and I want to serve a mission!" This guy was heaven sent. We taught the restoration and the spirit was so strong as we told him of Joseph Smith.
As we were walking home afterwards, Elder R kept saying "oh my, the spirit was so strong.... did you feel the spirit?" and stuff like that. When we got home and after planning I asked him what he thought of the division. He told me that being with me that day was one of the first times in 3 months that he has felt the spirit. He told me that he liked being with me and he was able to feel the spirit. It was really awesome to hear that from him. It let me know that I’m doing alright as a missionary and as a leader.
Before I forget Feliz aniversário Benson and Saydi!!! and Feliz Aniversário MOM and DAD!! I hope your wildest dreams came true.
One thing that I love about Elder Sidrão is that he has no fear!! One day we made a goal to do 6 contacts each in a day. Elder Sidraõ had 2 and I had 0. We were walking down the street and there were two girls sitting on the sidewalk. He looked at me and said... your turn. I said.... ahhhh, I´ll talk to someone else. He said Ok and walked up to the girls and did a contact!!! No fear this guy. He is really teaching me a lot!
So like I mentioned last week we are now teaching the atonement as the second lesson and boy is it awesome! I love teaching about the atonement! It is helping me see how I can use the atonement more in my life as well. I don´t really know how to explain it. It is just really awesome. The spirit is always really strong when we teach about it.
We have 4 dates marked for this Saturday. O* & L*.... the two people that showed up randomly at church last week. And Lu* and C*. Lu* is friends with the other rapazes that we are baptizing and C* has been to church alot. His siblings are inactive so we are going to try to activate them. In the photo is the baptism of JR. A priest in our ward did the baptism. It was his first one. He is Yl*´s son. C* and Lu* are on the far right. The baptism was great.
So we are putting a bigger emphasis on family history work. Pres Castro asked us to do our own family history work by asking our families to send us names to take to the temple. Sooooo, I would love if I could get some names for the temple. This is mainly a job for Jefferson Benson and Wilson. I would love some family names to do the endowment session. Also I´m filling out one of those "my family" pamphlets so I need a few dados:
I know that Wilson and Jackson were both born in March but I don´t know the day. I also need the full names and birth date and place of all of your siblings mom and dad. So there is your homework for the week:) All the missionaries are filling out these pamphlets so that when we give a pamphlet to a recent convert they can look at ours and see how it is to be done:)
Love you all
Elder Ostler
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