Exchanges with the professional missionary

These couple days have been amazing.  I'm on exchanges with Sister Ika, the professional missionary.  She goes home at the end of this month, which is sad.  I've learned so much being with her.  She's taught me how to get people talking.  Oh man, yesterday we knocked on a Catholic's door, and he wasn't interested.  Sister Ika started talking about families forever, and I could see that it wasn't going anywhere.  I thought it was a lost cause.  Then out of the blue she said, "Did you know that Christ came to the America's?"  He kinda stopped and just looked at us.  Then she started to explain about the Book of Mormon, and set up a return appointment.  It was awesome.

Afterwards she was like, "What did I say to him that made him want to listen to me?  I forgot!"  It was great!

My sweet gloves!  I'm getting ready for winter.

And my back is better.  I'm sometimes in pain.  But not all the time. 
So for thanksgiving.  Yeah, it's not my holiday, you're right.  Sister Chen didn't understand what it was, even though I tried to explain it to her often.  I had to explain to her like three times that it would be a bad idea to go tracting that day.  And she set up a lunch and dinner appointment too.  Oh man, I've never been fuller in my life!  I think she felt bad for doing that after she saw how much food there was.  And she likes eating.  She loves food and NEVER turns it down.  There has been nothing here that she doesn't like, and she can't waste food either.  Me?  I can turn food down soooooo easily!  But yeah, Thanksgiving was hard I think.

Also with this exchange, Sister Ika has taught me to balance out my time.  Sister Chen and I just go, go, go.  But with Sister Ika, we took a 10 minute break and sat in the car and talked about the POS.  Or we stopped back at home to use the bathroom, or we stayed in a members home for 15 minutes longer and had pizza with them.  Or we went and saw this AWESOME house after our last appointment.  It has thousands of lights on it, and it's somehow connected to a radio station that plays Christmas music and so the lights go along with the Christmas music.  Oh my gosh, it's so awesome!  We could have sat there all day and watched it.  But with Sister Ika it's about having fun.  She showed me that missionary work is fun, not all work all the time, every second of the day.  So I like that.  She kept saying I'm going to train soon.  I laughed at her.  She also kept saying that I"m gonna serve in the city.  I laughed at her again.

And Sister Chen is really sick.  And it's hard for me to get her to rest her body.  I think she would continue to work until she tracted herself into her grave.  No joke.  I talked to Sister Ika about it, and she said she was just like that.  No one could stop her from working, so the Lord humbled and stopped her by breaking her ankle.  She said that Sister Chen will slow down eventually.  But I don't see any improvement in her health, and I'm worried about her.

Oh, something that I would like are talks.  I love listening to talks.  Any talks by GA's.  I love them. I love them.  And Saydi is the only one that has sent me any pictures.  I LOVE PICTURES!  Oh, Amy sent me one, actually.

Oh and also can you mention to people like on the blog, that if they write me I might not write back, but I still so appreciate their letters.  Pdays are short here, and there's only so much I can get done.  And I want to start having fun on pdays, not worrying about who I need to write.  I hope that doesn't sound mean.  But I do appreciate everyone who has written me.  Letters mean so much out here!  I love reading them!

Okay, times up.  I love you all!  Have a wonderful week!  I will.
Love Sister Ostler