The Winds of Change

Welp. Its official! I have officially made it a transfer in Argentina! It doesnt seem that long, i guess time flies!

So first off we had a baptism on sunday! Hes super awesome and our young single adult program in our ward is doing a great job of helping him feel comfortable! The baptism was great and right after the welcome from the elders quorum he randomly got up and just bore his testimony! It was so great. It was a great day

Also one of our other investigators is literally de diez. he cant get baptized for a bit because he is fixing his work schedule to be able to attend church BUT we were talking to him the other day and he was like yeah I have talked to people about religion but you guys are different. I just feel full when I talk to you guys. I dont know why but it just feels so good. Literally all i could think of is how in the bible jesus said drink of me and ye shall never thirst. THIS GOSPEL BLESSES LIVES!

Ok so now im going to rant about how great missionaries are. THeyre the best. Not like me but like other missionaries. We had a despedida for the missionaries going home this transfer and its basically like a conference on sunday where everyone comes and the leaving ones bear their testimonies and stuff. So the missionaries all invite their investigators and recent converts and its this missionwide conference. HOLY COW. THe spirit was so strong. You could just feel the power of the work of god. If you arent talking to the missionaries or have them somehow involved in your life GET THEM INVOLVED. Give them references, let them teach you, talk to them, feed them whatever. They will literally make your life so much better. Whenever Im around other missionaries (including my companion which i guess is always) i always feel so much better cause this is the work of the lord and they have so much power! They always fortilize my testimony.

And last off so yes it is darn windy but it must be because of the change! I have a new companion! Her name is HErmana Scarlett and she is from North Carolina. Cant tell you much more cause ive known her for a total of 3 hours. haha But yeah its stormy here. Apparently its this week long thing thats called Tormenta de Santa Rosa where its stormy and rainy..... And we were literally sweating bullets on saturday. i guess im not putting away my winter stuff just yet. }

I think thats about it for this week! I love you all!

Love

Hermana OStler

With Her Fellow Missionaries

 mtc reunion!

 ike mother like daughter! twinzies!

 our new cool argentine pants

part of our zone huddled around the heater. yes it gets that cold here

Being with and teaching the people

 us with some members

 chicken asado

 us with our investigators coffee and tea. yay word of wisdom lessons

throwing away the coffee and tea

JAS (Joven Adulto Solo) or YSA (Young Single Adults)

 us with the JAS program

 our convert and ward mission leader who baptized himbefore the baptism

 before the baptism

Around Town

 yep there was a theatre there :(

 the flooded road when it poured on sunday. (note the last picture was the day before when it was super hot)

 a pic from the train station in carupa

Field Trip

 outside puerto de frutos

 in front of the tigre river

 at puerto de frutos with chocolate dipped churros filled with dulce de leche

the argentine version of the jungle cruse on the tigre river

Encontrar, Enseñar, Bautisar

Wow so this week has been great. Yes i did have a pday yesterday but EVERY STORE IN THIS PROVINCE WAS CLOSED YESTERDAY. Yay random holidays where no one has to work. Its basically labor day but for no reason and literally nothing is open. haha So thats why im emailing on tuesday.

So this week I have learned 1. you have to make time for the gospel. no matter what. We were teaching this lady and her daughter and she is the sweetest most caring person ever. Whenever we taught her we could feel she spirit soooo much and were sure that she was going to progress. Well after a few lessons and a church attendance which she loved, she started working a LOT. She was almost never in her house and when she was she was exhausted (she is a caretaker for other people and cleans and cooks and whatnot for them so her schedule is flexable). We felt so bad for her but knew that this is something that she needs. So we kept trying and kept trying but was saying that she just didnt have time for it all. We eventually dropped her which broke my heart because she is so great. I know that Christ could give her support and strength if she let it happen but she just wouldnt make time to pray and read and develop a relationship with Jesus Christ. Just like any other relationship it takes work and you have to let him in. when life seems hard and you dont have time thats when you cant afford to not make time for Him. I could feel so much love for her and it was so hard to see her not do the thing that would help her the most.

Thing 2. dont judge a book by its cover. Ok so I think this is something that everyone is guilty of at some time or another but honestly its something that is sometimes really hard to do. So our new investigator actually found us. We were crossing the street to wait for a member on a corner to go to an appointment when he comes up to us and more or less is like hey so i talked to your friends a few months ago and they said theyd stop by but they never did and i still want to learn your message. I was a little bit wary of him just based off his looks and sometimes people do this just to get our attention cause my comp and i are both blonde haired and blue eyed. So we go on talking and set up an appointment which i still wasnt really sure of. Long story short we ended up going and wow. He is so prepared. He smokes a pack a day (20 cigarrettes) and committed him to drop the habit and smoke only 13 then 12 the next day and the day after. He proceeded to top that and only smoke 10 and 7. So as of now we are PRAYING PRAYING PRAYING that he can find a way to change his work schedule to be able to attend church.

Ok so now on to the other stories. SO we went to a young single adult play show thing that they put on for the primary of the stake so help out and support them. During the break they were playing kids music and this song comes on and my comp and i realize what it is at the same time and slowly turn to eachother and laugh. Barney music in spanish is a bit funny.

Now this one i am so sad about. So a member comes up to us last tuesday night and is like oh yeah this famous american died then said his name which i didnt understand cause people pronounce things different in spanish and my comp freaks out and im just like oh i don{t know who it is then she says robin williams. WHAT. ROBIN WILLIAMS DIED. So sad. there goes my childhood. Time to do his temple work. Moving on.

So this one happened in gospel principles this week where we were talking about commandments and the senior couple missionaries (office missionaries) are in our ward and attend that class. so the teacher asks robbing. what is robbing? to which the elder speaks up and is like something that happens to the missionaries every week. we cant go a week without someone being robbed! haha we kinda died laughing. apparently you cant be a real missionary in this mission without being robbed. I havent been yet thank the heavens but maybe some day

now i cant remember if i have talked about this or not but oh mate cocido. so mate is this tea drink thing that missionaries cant drink but we can drink the kind from the tea bag. And ALL THE MEMBERS TRY TO GIVE IT TO US. Which is fine cause most people love it. PErsonally it makes me gag. Its definitely an aquired taste haha which i am currently trying to aquire. haha

And finally, its starting to warm up down here! You can tell because a. its warmer and more humid and b because the sunrise is moving! what. the other day i looked out my window and i couldnt see the sunrise. hmm weird haha

Love you all!

Hermana Ostler

PS peruvian food is the bomb. we had some at a members house on sunday and i think i died and went to heaven. then for dessert they had this brownie type thing with dulce de leche and whipped cream. oh heavens

Feliz DIA DEL NIÑO

HOLA a TODO!

So down here in argentina apparently they have celebrations and days for

EVERYTHING. And theyre all a bigger deal than christmas. (apparently

christmas isn´t a huge celebration like in the states) but yeah so they

have mothers day and fathers day and the such, but they also supposably

have a animals day and kids day and whatever else and yesterday was the

kids day (dia del nino) basically everything shuts down and no one is in

their house and if they are theyre celebrating and don´t want to do

anything. also the day before is almost like black friday haha super

interesting.

The last few days have been great. We´ve been doing a lot of visiting less

actives this week. I guess its weird to think about it but there is so much

good you can do and you can help so many people that know about the church

and are baptized but then have just lost their way or have forgotten. Its

great to rekindle their hope that no matter what happens or what they do

they the savior loves them and will accept them  no matter what. We taught

this girl who got baptized about 4 years ago and is now 16 with a one year

old son. We randomly found her and discovered she was a member and it was

so amazing to see the hope that the message of christ was giving her. the

rest of our investigators are going great! although so many didn´t want to

come to church yesterday because of the holiday haha oh well

in other news: we went to a members house for lunch the other day and she

was TOTALLY watching little house on the prarie. (in spanish of course) it

was super wierd and super tempting to watch it cause i mean my childhood

but i didn´t haha

also apparently theres no word or translation for "baby shower". they just

say it like that. so its like spanish spanish spanish "baby shower" spanish

haha. it kinda cracks me up.

and for this week on the list of fun things hermana ostler has done on her

mission. so here there are a lot of peruvian immagrants who come here for

work and the food here is not spicy unlike the rest of the hispanic or

south american world. i also have a unspoken rule that if someone gives you

something or an opportunity to do something do it just so say you did. so

story time. we were at a members house last sunday and the mom is peruvian

and so they like "pecante" on some of their food which they just add on.

and they have their own homemade recipie of something that they add. so my

comp is like oh yeah ill try it and then offers it to me so i say sure

cause i mean i can take it. i put on a little bit which later my comp told

me was a ton for peruvian picante and eat some more of the rice and all the

sudden the heat of the sun is in my mouth. i almost died. everyone was

laughed and i couldn´t taste anything normally for about 10 minutes. whoo!

it was fun haha

welp thats it for this week! ill send some pics soon!

love hermana ostler

PS 

so tuesday because a bunch of people in the missions visas expire and the church wants us to obey honor and sustain the law they took 30 missionaries across the river to uruguay and back to renew their passports with another 90 day visa until they get their residencial and since were the only missionaries in the area who arent the aps my comp and i got to babysit the mission office! they prepared us well with things to do if people called or came with mail but at about 10 these people came to the gate saying they were switching the big table in the office for a newer better looking one and had it in a truck. they had NOT told us that this was happening today. so we opened the gate and sceptically locked ourselves in the building cause 4 random guys were coming in with this pickup truck. but then the driver gets out and wants to talk to us as were trying to go back inside to lock ourselves in and hes like ohhhh then startes fiddling with his wallet and continues to talk. so im like uhh what the heck do you need from your wallet. he then pulls out his temple recommend and is like oh you probably want to know that this is a real thing that were doing and shows it to us haha. Yay mormon identification! hahah

Pictures from Argentina

 my tags i got a new one last week

  me and my comp

3 generations daughter mom and grandma

 most of our zone at lunch last week for pday

 our zone after volleyball last pday

 this pie cake thing that a member got us. its so good! and weighs literally like 10 lbs. has this jelly in the middle

the pie cake thing pastaflora is what its called

Hola a todo!

This week has been great. A lot of turn overs with investagators aka dropping and finding others. We are basically no longer teaching anyone who came to church last week haha but the work moves on! the two girls (the sisters) who came last week, theyre parents don´t want them going to church with us then the boy and his mom that just showed up last week randomly it looks like were going to drop... but all is well in zion! we found a young adult that we have been teaching all week and wow. i don´t think i have seen someone so prepared. We taught him the word of wisdom and after a bit of a little like what? this is a thing? he was like yeah ill live it. the next day we came to visit him and asked him how it was going and he was just like yeah last night i was playing soccer and my friends offered me some alcohol and i said no and didn´t drink any. we then asked him if his friends thought he was weird for doing so and he said no it was weird but im glad it happened. haha hes so great and straight up just super awesome. so yeah thats our main investigator. we have a few more but nothing huge and a few more just possibilities. We are praying daily for miracles to reach our goal of 3 baptisms and 3 confirmations this month! so crazy. with god anything is possible! 

love 

hermana ostler

ps sorry for the short letter this week. not too much happened and we have some zone activities planned for today :D 

Miracles in San Fernando!

Alright so first I´ll give you all the great awesome things from this week then some of the chistes from the week.

I had to ask her what "chistes" were. Here is her response: 
"oh sorry jokes like if i said chiste chiste which i say all the time it means like joking joking or only joking"

So first off i cant remember if i talked about it while i was in the mtc but my companion and i came up with this in the mtc. Faith is like a spiritual trust fall. Basically if you have faith, you trust heavenly father to catch you if you fall and you submit his will to his. So thats from a few weeks ago that ive been thinking about for the past week. 
Second, so last sunday NONE of our investigators came to church. So we eventually came to the realization that none of them were progressing so we dropped them all. All 6 of them and started from scratch. We then proceeded to look and look and look. We made the decision to only proceed and begin to teach them if they accepted a baptismal date and or seemed receptive. That narrowed our search a lot. We then ended up fasting on friday, after 2 or 3 days of finding no one. It was a little discouraging to report our numbers because of our lack of success but everyone was so supportive cause it happens to everyone. So then on friday we found 3 people (one of which we cant count cause theyre out of our area)! Theyre so prepared and so great! One was a member reference and shes 12! SHes so adorable and very mature for her age! She came to church with us on sunday and we are so excited to teach her! SHe loved church. The second was the son of an inactive member and we thing hes really prepared as well! He couldn´t come to church though because everyone is on winter vacation right now and he was going somewhere with his family but he has a baptismal date! So the girl ended up bringing her little sister who is 10 and she loved church too and ended up committing her to baptism! You can totally see the light of christ in their eyes! Thats something that I have learned these past 2 weeks is in alma when it talks about countenance thats a real thing. You can tell when people are ready just by the light you can see in them. So we have 2 people coming to church with us and we had a goal for the week of 3. So before we leave the apt in the morning my companion prays for a miracle that somehow we will have 3. THen lo and behold we get to church with our 2 and the elders (were in a ward with the ap´s) come up to us saying that a little boy that lives in our area is coming to church today to see his cousin get baptised! WHAT. I cant even. ¨Such a blessing. So he comes and we commit him to baptism before the meeting even begins. He was just ready. So exciting. THEN HIS MOM SHOWS UP FOR THIRD HOUR. And were like oh hey. so we set up an appointment with her and oh man. so great we visited her last night and we taught the restoration and the spirit was SOOOO strong. She really liked thrid our and stayed for the baptism and liked that and is now going to pray about the restoration. And she has an unofficial date (she needs to get married first, shes been living with her "husband" for 25 years and have for kids the oldest is 21 and arent married). Such a miracle weekend. How fantastic. 
Ok so now the fun things for the week. So at our district meeting our district leader shows up with refreshments. How great. BUT he shows up with donuts. Mind you, american donuts are different than argentinian donuts so were like ok cool. but then someone grabs one and ITS AN AMERICAN DONUT! (supposably they didnt have them here) AND IT WAS FILLED WITH DULCE DE LECHE. it was magical. soooo good. 
So everyone here knows that im a foreigner but apparently no one thinks from the us. whenever they ask i know youre not argentinian but where are you from? we have them guess. its always first germany and second russia. haha 
Ok so its a shame we believe in baptism by immersion because of the amount of water you need for that haha. so on sunday the elders had a baptism but they go in to fill up the font during church and THE HOT WATER HEATER IS BROKEN. and the water is freezing. like ice cold. (its winter here) so everyone flips out and then we started to get buckets of water and fill them up in the sink in the kitchen (that uses a different water heater) and bring them to the font. oh man. what an experience. in the words of the AP "this is the mission" haha
Random thing that no one will probably know what im talking about BUT so theres this thing that all the missionaries do down here where you shake your hand and it makes this snapping clapping sound and it takes a super long time to figure out how to do it. like ususally months. BUT LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT I GOT IT WITHIN MY FIRST WEEK. just sayin
the other fun thing which i mentioned last week was that there are a bunch of dogs EVERYWHERE. so its normal for them to come up and sniff you like whatever. so saturday this one dog comes up to me sniffs me then lifts his leg and STARTS TO PEE ON ME! so i flip out and luckily nothing got on me so i shoo it away super quickly but then while im sitting there talking to our now investigator it comes back while my back is turned and did the same thing! i turned around to a puddle behind my shoe. by some miracle it wasn´t on me still. thank the heavens. the member we were with died of laughter
ANd finally last week we went to a members house for lunch and they have a little girl whos like 4 and she wasn´t eating her bread/roll and were like what do you not like bread? to which she responds no i don´t like bread... but yes i do like the bread of the sacrament! I died. super cute. oh and also yesterday we were eating with a different family who had a kid and hes about 5 and my comp asks him are you going to serve a mission? to which he reponds "... another day" so funny. 
Finally something that i came to realize today in my personal study. I read the devotional becoming a concecrated missionary which is super great. everyone should read it. and i started to think about the song army of helaman and how our generation is compared to them. I was thinking of how missions are difficult (in a unique indescribable way) and i thought you know, none of them died yes, but a lot of them were wounded, battered, and injured. This work isn´t easy, but it is so great and so worth it. It brings so much joy to everyone involved and in the words of elder holland salvation was never an easy experience. We need to give our all to the lord and he will bless us. and i bet you ANYTHING that the army of helaman came out of that so greatful for their experience and in rejoicing and thanking god. They can say,"yeah i was part of that generation. it was all a miracle. im thankful for my parents for teaching me what i know to be true and im thankful for god. i hope what i did gave hope and inspiration to those i worked with because I followed the spirit. I heeded the lords call and remained clean. i´m grateful for the lords hand in my life and the miracles he performed for me. he is all powerful and has made me stronger. it was a struggle and we had to give up things along the way but IT WAS ALL WORTH IT."thats how i feel right now and thats what i hope i can proudly say at the end of my mission. We are the lords missionaries and his servants. It is an honor to have this call. 
I hope everyone is doing well back in the united states! Chao from argentina!
les amo!
hermana ostler