We're Sister Chen's Daughter's. In Other Words: "We're AWESOME!"

Dear Family:

Too answer your questions.  I haven't received the Mexico letters, I did receive the box (Sister Howell said that's one of the only things she knew about me, that I received lots of packages and mail.  What a reputation to be known by!)  And I know you love me too.

That's so sad about Eli.  But I guess the Lord wanted him back.  My love goes out to the Barr family, even though I didn't know that family too well.  Now the questions in you letter...

The journal is the journal that everyone writes in.  Not my personal journal.

And for transfers...we all meet at Naperville, if you’re new or training you go to a meeting, if you’re not then you find your companion, and leave... but first you have to say hi and bye to everyone.  I said bye to Sister Mondelli like 40,000 times.  And Sister Chen goes home in a month :(  Sister Howell and I are super sad.  She's an amazing missionary with so much faith and is pretty much the energizer bunny.  She's going to be a legend in the mission... she really is.  And you can tell Sister Cameron whatever you want.  I love Rensselaer.  I really did leave my heart there.  Our area is pretty big.  It takes us 30 minutes to get to some places in a car.  But the town of DeKalb is a lot bigger than Renssy.  We can spend all day in it without running out of things to do.  And yeah we have a car, we just don't have miles.... long story, maybe some other time.  So like last Thursday when it was REALLY hot, we were riding bikes.  We came home before dinner to shower and change...fun fun!

I loved the pictures!  How is Leda doing?  I love her so much!  Tell her that!  And tell her to write me so I can have her address!  I want to tell her an awesome Book of Mormon story!  

I did receive the small shirts, they fit.  And no, we won't get to go to the temple... hopefully we'll convince President to let us go when Don, our soon to be convert, goes to do baptisms... but we'll see.

And yes, I do remember my first EFY.  It was fun and awkward.  My second year was loads better, and my third year was the celestial kingdom...in some ways...well in most...btw, tell David I think I saw a bell tower on NIU campus and just had to smile!  Also I learned how to throw and catch a football!  Kinda good.  Thanks to Elder Anderson and Roberts.  I miss Valpo :(

So now for my area...

OH DeKalb is NOTHING like Rensselaer, expect for the corn and soybeans out in the country.  I love them!  And the sky!  The sky is still really pretty, but too often the stupid trees get in the way.

The first week in DeKalb has been a long one.  It's been kind of hard to adjust from the country life to the college life, and to leave Rensselaer behind.  Sometimes I don't really know how I can love DeKalb as much as I loved Rensselaer.  But the Lord has shown to me that this is where I'm supposed to be.  Like when we we were driving from Rensselaer to Naperville Sister Mondelli asked me when we should go up to Wheatfield, so she asked that question and usually I can feel if we should go or not.  Well this time I couldn't.  I was drawing a blank.  I said, "Sister Mondelli, I'm no longer a missionary in Rensselaer anymore.  I don't have the authority in that area, you do now, and Sister Daley."  It made me sad.  Then last Thursday, during weekly planning, I knew none of the investigators, but I was getting inspiration of what we could teach these people, and what we could do to strengthen the wards and area.  It was a testimony to me that this is where the Lord wants me.

I know I’m supposed to take what I learned in Rensselaer and apply it here.  Like loving people.  No one hugs here.  I told Sister Howell that if we want the DeKalb Ward to get more unified, it needs to start with our example.  So we're going to start hugging the sisters on Sunday to show our love.  This whole handshaking thing doesn't work very well.  (So right now there's a police in the college library and is getting info from one of the former investigators here...don't know why...but whatever.  I love college towns!)

Sister Howell and I have some awesome ideas of how to better work with members, and we both want to go out and work and search for those miracles.

Saturday we were done tracting and heading back to our car, when we saw some boys sitting outside of a frat house (they're everywhere around here, and sorority houses too).  I told Sister Howell to contact them.  She told me to, so I did.  And we ended up teaching two of them a brief version of the L1.  One of them asked what else that book said after we explained that the Book of Mormon can answer questions like why we are here.  And the other boy, JD, looked like he wanted more, well Austin did too.  It looked like they were tired of the partying and really wanted to know more.  Hopefully they'll be there this Saturday!  And don't worry, it was in the middle of the day when we contacted them.  We're careful.

ps. Harrison will fit right in with the investigators when he leaves.  They all say 'yea' like he does, 'yeah.'  Makes me laugh everytime).  She's a hard worker, I never have to push her, she runs EVERY morning.  We run close to 2 miles.  And she eats healthy, and we just get along so well.  She's got a strong testimony and a love for the people here.  There are so many times when I feel so lost with everything going on, but she's there to pick up when I don't know what's going on.

And thank you so much for informing me of the heat wave!  I had no idea!  I only came home with soaking wet garments and shirts for that matter!

And Sister Howell and I want to try some new recipes every now and then.  Got any good ones?

This week has been a lot of me adjusting to the new area.  But we're both excited for Don's baptism.  He reminds me a lot of Kim, and some of the things that Sister Howell worries about concerning him are some of the same things I worried or noticed in Kim, so I've been able to tell her what we did with Kim in certain situations.

And then Jackie!  She's set for the 20th of August.  She really wants to get baptized, but can't because she's not married.  Sister Howell has been praying for her to get married by the 20th ever since they set her on date. When we went over to visit her she said her boyfriend had finally agreed to marry her!   Their wedding is on the 15th, so she can get baptized on the 20th. That was such an awesome miracle for Sister Howell, since she's been working with her for so long.

Our plan for the DeKalb Ward is to get baptisms, but to also really help the bishop out and get into less-active members homes and help with reactivation.  There are so many less-actives, and we really hope that we can be the means of bringing at least one soul or family back into the fold of God.

And it's kind of amazing how some missionaries get certain feeling regarding someone.  Sister Howell had been working with a part member family.  She said that the husband wasn't progressing and she was considering not meeting with them as often.  But when we went over there I saw a little potential in his wife who is a member, and I kinda felt that she could come back to church with a lot of love.  Hopefully that would motivate her husband to get a little wet.  It wasn't a strong impression at all, I just wanted to go and visit them every week.

Um...I forgot what I was going to say...oh, I'm mailing home my sd card this week.  I forgot to back it up...so PLEASE pray that it will get there!  I love you so much, and thank you for all the time you spend in trying, and succeeding in making me comfortable.  Tell Grammie happy birthday!  I haven't sent her a card yet...but I well...eventually.

Love,

Sister Ostler

Missions are all about change

Dear family:

Have fun reading this!  The space bar doesn't work very well!  And I'm not backspacing. I got 30 minutes to tell you all!  Oh how amazing it's all been!

On Wednesday, I got bit by a stupid dog named peewee at our investigators house. It was licking me earlier, so I pet it and boom!  It bit me!  At first I didn't think it broke the skin, but it did...just a little.  We went home and oh the pain!  It throbbed!  And it was on my finger.  It was just a little dog.  Alcoholed it, neosporined it and slapped a bandaid on it.  And I’m still alive and healthy!  Really healthy!  Love it!

Zone conference on Friday was edifying (look up what that word means in Spanish.  It'll bring new light to that word).  At zone meeting the elders gave me my missionary journal back, and as I was reading it that night something that Elder Anderson said popped out at me. He said, 'Expect and search for miracles."  I realized that I was no longer searching for them.  So we prayed mightily that we would start to see miracles.  And the next day it happened!  As a zone we also fasted for a few reasons...one was that peoples hearts would be softened.

Saturday morning we met with Jim, a potential.  Sister Clark and I had met him before.  He was walking down a street we were tracting and he came up to us and said we had come to his house in the fall.  Sister Clark remembered him and told me where he lived and that he wasn't interested.  So when Sister Mondelli and I tracted his street and came to his house I thought that he wouldn't be interested.  But he stayed outside and talked with us about the Book of Mormon and prophets and accepted a return appointment.

When we went back we taught him the lesson that we planned, and the Spirit filled in the gaps.  We opened the scriptures and expounded on them and taught to his needs. When the first vision was being quoted he actually started to cry!  The Spirit touched him, but he still said he wanted to do a lot of praying and reading.  He loved the idea that God's standards don't change with the world, and that a modern day prophet speaks those standards.  We are so excited for him to progress... hopefully I'll be seeing more miracles concerning him in the future.

Then we went to Kentaland...I've never been there before.  Well we went to see a former investigator taught by elders in 2006ish.  The progress record said that she had called and didn't want anything to do with the missionaries.  Well, we stopped by, and it turned out that her BROTHER said that, not her, and she was excited to see us again!  Didn't understand our purpose, but invited us back and said she'd read the BOM.

In Goodland, we got some good potentials.  And when we didn't think the Lord could bless us with much more, he did...

That night to top off our awesome day of miracles, we took a couple to Todd's house.  He was sick in bed, but his wife was there. She usually high tails it outta there when members come over.  She loves us, but not members. But this time she invited us in, and talked with us about Christ and relying on Him.  The members brought the subject around to the Book of Mormon and the church.  The members were perfect for her. One had a similar background, and they were bold in their testimonies and telling her that she needed to read the Book of Mormon.  She said she would try.  I know that usually means no, but it was truly a miracle.  Here was a lady who didn't really want anything to do with the church, and now she was considering reading the Book of Mormon!  The next time we went over there she was there and I bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and how I hoped that she felt that what was being said was true!  I hope that one day I’ll see hers and Todd's names on the "baptized" list!

The next day after church (and breaking our fast with Sister Cameron’s AMAZING CAKE!!!) we went to see Jay.  He’s so humble and wants to know the truth.  We taught him L1 and the spirit was strong, and he said he’d be baptized if he found out this was true!  So awesome!  That night we went to James’ house and his fiance Abby joined us!!!  She never had before.  We taught lesson 1 to James and Abby.  James, for the second time, Abby, the first.  James was going through a hard time and Abby said that since we had been coming over she's seen a change him.  He talks about God instead of taking His name in vain.  He reminds her to pray, and he prays at least once a day!  And she said that if we hadn't come over than he prolly wouldn’t be able to get through this hard time.

After the lesson she said she'd read and pray and they would hopefully come to church.  And then their friend came up.  He's randomly Todd’s neighbor!  I love small towns!  And he asked that if next time we came over, he could join us.  Hmm...nope I don't think so.  OF COURSE YOU CAN!  WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT?

We were just so happy and texted President Doll to tell him that he can't possibly move us because we're seeing so many miracles.  He called us the next day and asked about the miracles.  So we told him, and he was impressed!  Oh and that day we had an awesome meeting with President Cameron.  Rensselaer is going to be on fire!!!!!  I'm so excited for it!  The baptisms that will start to flow if the missionaries exercise their faith and expect miracles!

Tuesday came...yes it did, and with it transfer calls.  We got back from our 20 minute run in the humidity and saw that the APs had called.  We got it on video.  Not much to look at though.  Elder Roberts (the new AP) told me I'd be going to DeKalb, Illinois.  While he was telling Sister Mondelli that Sister Daley would be coming to Rensselaer, I sat on my bed and cried.  I didn't want to leave.  I felt that I had completed what I was sent to do, but that didn't mean that I wanted to leave.  Rensselaer  had shown me so much love, patience, long-suffering, everything.  Hardships, yes, there were many, but oh the joy I felt while there too!  The growing I did!  Like the corn!  I grew tall like the corn!  I loved every minute of it!

I stayed up til 12 packing, then read your letter mom, and cried.  Now you know what it's like being a missionary.  You grow to love these people so much and oh man when you leave all you want to do is go back.  I didn't sleep real well.  Went to bed at 1, got up at 5:30, and couldn't really sleep.

Elder Anderson had the same problem.  We both came to truly love our area and the people there.  I love Indiana and will never forget it.  It's the celestial kingdom of the mission!

Today we went to Naperville, and Sister Mondelli and I went our separate ways.  I love her and she taught me so much.  Sister Howell is my new companion.  She's younger than me on the mish, and she was trained by Sister Chen!  Cool huh?  She's hardworking but likes to have fun, like me.  What Sister Howell has told me about DeKalb, well it needs work and I'm willing to do it.  She denotes that this area needs a Sister Chen, but I think two missionaries that were trained by her will work just fine, especially because we're our own missionaries.

We'll be riding bikes a lot.  And she can drive!!  I"m so excited!  But this isn't Renssy.  No toads or turtles, or hick accents...every house is too perfect, and there are swans here.  What's up with that?  We cover two wards.  DeKalb and Sycamore.

It's gonna be a hard start here cuz we're going to change things here and the members might not be thrilled, but it's for the better.  We'll of course check with the Lord.  There's some stuff that I learned in one zone conference about working with members that I really want to implement here.

Man, I'm just gonna work here.  I don't know if I can love as much as I did in Rensselaer.  There, it was so easy to love, because they loved you.  You were apart of their branch family.  When I told the branch I was going, Sister Outzen texted me and said, "We'll miss you and you'll always be a part of our branch family."  I cried AGAIN!

In the pics, Sister Howell is the one right of Sister Chen.  Sister Russon trained Sister Chen, who trained me, Sister Howell, Sister Brown, and I trained Sister Mondelli.  Oh and Sister Russon trained Sister Pome'e.  We are a happy family!

The other pic... me, Elder Dearinger and Anderson.  Love those two elders even if I wanted to smack Elder Dearinger from time to time...well every 5 minutes more like.  Elder Anderson is one awesome guy!  He came out with me.

I love you all, thanks for all your love!

Love,

Sister Ostler

Well I guess God did!

Dear Mom and Dad:

It was so nice to hear from you!  I actually did get mail this week!  Grammie sent an awesome letter about her conversion, Amy sent something, and I got a letter from Danica too!  She's training and doing really well.  She says the mission is changing her so much and she's discovering who she really is, which is just awesome!  I so needed her letter!

And I did get the vitamins.  I already have a multi vitamin that I try to take everyday.  Sister Mondelli says that it's not a good idea since both vitamins have some of the same vitamins in them and it's not good to "overdose" on vitamins.  Does that make sense?  She said to take one, one day, and the other the next day.  And I trust Sister Mondelli's opinion.  She's a college graduate in Crime Investigation and she is a science math type of person.  She's just smart all around.  Me on the other hand?  "A really good book you would like is, ‘I'd Tell you I Love you But Then I'd Have To Kill You.' "  Not very useful info.

And the only reason I went to the hospital was because all the doctors offices were closed.  And yes, I'm taking that stuff (I don't know what it's called).  And Dad, raw veggies really aren't my favorite...can I at least cook them or something?

I'm glad y'all had fun in Mexico.  I want to hear all about it!  And what about Elder Ostler?  What's up with him?  He didn't tell me anything in his email about transfers.

But yes, I'm feeling a lot better, most of the time.  I can't eat a lot, especially being in this heat, or else I’ll start to not feel good.  But I'm really tired of all this, just cuz I'm so emotional.  Monday I was so happy, and it was a great day.  Tuesday night I was bored out of my mind while talking to this one guy, and then that night at Stacey's, was depressed and felt like crying!  So went home and ate a whole bunch of chocolate pb m&ms.  What the heck is wrong with me?  I think I just might have to live this out, work hard, and not worry about it, then things might go back to normal, but I won't count on it.  I don't know, but I do know that the Lord blesses those that diligently serve Him!

Sister Clark came back, and we had dinner at the Hokansons.  Oh the Shepherds Pie was sooo good!  So reminded me of home!  And Sister Clark and I talked about life after the mission, and how I'm worrying about some school stuff, and how I just need to leave it in the Lord's hands, and when the time comes for me to decide some stuff, then He'll let me know.  She told me how she was worried about some stuff too, but on her trip here some stuff worked out for her.  So I just need to work hard now and worry about that other stuff later.  Talking with Sister Clark was amazing!  She's so amazing!  We're different missionaries, that's for sure!

Transfers are next week, and I think I'm getting booted.  I hope I go to the city!  That would be so fun!   I could do so much more on pday rather than go to Valpo!  But I’m gonna miss Rensselaer!  Sister Mondelli doesn't want me to leave cuz I'm her GPS.  She would be a good missionary here, but I think she would do better in the suburbs.  She loves tracting, and there's not a lot of places to tract here.

So a fun adventure we had this week!  We were tracting in Roselawn, way up north, and this old couple invited us in (he was born in the late 20s) and the first thing that popped out of my mouth was "Can we do anything for you?"

"This house is a mess!"  the old lady, Barbra said.

"Well we can help you clean it!"

So she put us to work in the bathroom!  Of all places the bathroom!  Sister Mondelli cleaned houses for a living at one point in her life.  She was good with it.  She took the shower, and toilet, I did the sink, made the bed and swept!  It was great!  And hot.  They were very thankful.  We shared a message with them, said a prayer and left.  Great experience though!  I'll never forget it!  Eventually the old man asked if someone had given us their name.  Well I guess God did.

I've found that sometimes God places us in peoples paths that aren't ready for baptism at that time, but need something else, a message on Christ, a hug, a word of encouragement, a bathroom cleaned.  Whatever, He places His missionaries there cuz there's not a lot of members in this area.

Later that day we gave marriage counsel to one of our investigators.  She's prolly your guys’ age and been married for 2 years.  Oh how this gospel will help both of them!  But I doubt he'll accept it.  He's not a church person.  I hope she accepts it though!  We also met someone who believes that we lived before we came here and Satan and Jesus are brothers!  But that Bible is more of just a guide...whatever!

One investigator ended up in the Lafayette hospital this week.  They thought he was having a heart attack.  But he wasn't.  He's on a lot of meds now, and he quit smoking!  Well he was forced to.  He was in the hospital for fourishcuz I’ve been saved."  How often I want to, as Jackson would say, condemn them!  Or keeping the sabbath day holy.  I don't need to go to church to worship God.  Um. . . yes actually you do!  It's two fold.  Personal worship at home, prayer, scripture study, service, etc, and going to church to strengthen one another and of course the sacrament!  People these days really need to listen to a prophet!

So we visited Cindy again this week.  Guess what?  When we went over there she said she had found a BOM in her house!  We hadn't given her one cuz she said the print was too small, so she was reading it on the computer.  She showed it to us and it was a quad!  At first we were like, "Awesome!"  Then we were like, "Cindy has a quad!  Crap!" But she's reading now and has questions.  Ridiculous questions, but still.

The last lesson was cool cuz I used Harrison as an example of being positive through a trial.  We were talking about how we need to be happy in life even when things don't go our way.  She couldn't argue that what Harrison had gone through was easy, and that his positive attitude was fake or that he didn't know what was going on.  It was really awesome to use my own brother as an example of someone LIVING the gospel!

We also met with this guy our age who's thinking about going into the "Priesthood"  like in the Catholic priesthood.  He asked us questions about our religion, and oh man the Spirit was with us, cuz there were several times that he didn't have anything to say back.  Like one time he said, "In your religion praying to Mary and the Saints is a no, no?"  And I very simply and fervently said, "The first commandment is that we should have no other Gods before Him, and Christ instructed us to pray to the Father in His name." He went off on how he liked praying to the saints and what not.  Whatever.

But this other time he couldn't get off the fact that Joseph couldn't be a prophet because of polygamy.  We abandoned the BOM approach cuz he wasn't getting it, and Sister Mondelli brought up Abraham and Jacob and how they had multiple wives.

Then I came in and quoted Isaiah 55 and said, "We don't know the ways of God.  Why did Jacob have four wives?  Why?  We don't know.  God's ways are higher than our ways.  We don't know why He tells us to do certain things, but they're all for a reason."  Yeah, he didn't have anything to say about polygamy after that.

At one point he brought up Padre Pio who bleed from his hands and had a wound in his side and was like, "He performed miracles and was like Christ."  Later Sister Mondelli and I were like, well that’s blasphemy!  There is but one Christ!  And he also said that Peter was the first pope!  We almost laughed out loud while we were talking to him about that!  We let a lot of false doctrine slide when we're talking to people cuz we know that the BOM is the key to squelching it.

We had an investigator, Celso say, after L1 that he needed to know if this was true so that when he got to Heaven and it was true, God wouldn't say, "I gave you the chance to know if this was true and you didn't take it."  It was cool!  His wife only reads the bible, but we think she'll read the BOM too with her husband!

Okay, it's past time!

The pics!

S'mores at Stacey's

I love you all and miss you too! 

Tell Miss Leda I love her!  She served well, I'm sure of it!

Love Sister Ostler

Say eight, say eight!

Dear Family:

Yesterday we stopped by a less active member, Sister Shelton, and she asked, "So was your Fourth interesting?"

"That's a good word for it,"  Sister Mondelli said.

It all started Friday...I think.  We went to Kim's for "lunch" and to see Kendra and her grandparents.

She and I talked a lot, and it helped me.  I was really tired afterwards though, prolly because for lunch we got cherries (eww) and watermelon (I have yet to taste one that's as good as Hermiston watermelon).  Plus Kim asked me another hard questions, "Are we more under grace or the law, or a mixture of the two?"  Both.

Well that day we had hardly any success in Roselawn/Lake Village.  And I was feeling yucky.  I was miserable and discouraged, and wanted to cry.  That night I went to sleep freezing cold.  I was wrapped in a blanket and had my sweats and sweatshirt on.  I woke up the next morning with a fever of 101.  I wasn't too concerned.  Sister Mondelli said it was prolly stress.  It was 100ish degrees outside and humid outside, so we didn't go out and tract, because that made me feel worse.  I took a rest, but we did go out and teach and stuff.  We found a good new investigator, Marty, who thought it was so neat that Christ appeared to the people in American and how we have an account of that.

I woke up Sunday feeling better, but by noon my stomach wasn't feeling good, and I thought it was because I was hungry.  But this pain was different.  It was in my upper abdomen and my upper left side and just felt different.  I was in a ton of pain and so Sister Mondelli had me call sister Doll.  She told me to stick to clear liquids.

That night was soooooooo miserable.  I prolly got 20ish minutes of "sleep" at a time.  It was the worst amount of pain I had been in...that I could think of, and I did quite a bit of moaning!

In the morning I called Sister Doll and told her.  The pain did lessen a little, or either I was getting used to it.  Sister Doll ordered me to stay in that day and cancel all our appointments.  We only had one appointment with the Camerons that night.  Lucky I got sick on the fourth huh?

That was the longest afternoon of my life!!!  At 2:30ish Sister Doll called, and I told her that I really hadn't gotten any better.  She told me to go see a doctor.  The doctor’s offices were closed, so I went to the emergency room.  I was thinking I should prolly call an ambulance, "Yeah, can you come pick me up?  I'll just be lying here on the floor waiting for you."

But then again, the hospital was only 2.5 miles away.  Good thing there wasn't a lot of traffic, cuz I would not have said, "Merge, everybody merge!  I'm only imploding!"

Well we got there, they asked me a whole bunch of questions, gave me a sheet with a hole in it for my head, did some testing...the nurse that took a blood sample wasn't very good.  I have a bruise now.  The doctor said all the tests came back fine, except for that I was dehydrated.  So I got an IV.  And every time they asked how my pain was, I of course said 8!  (I made sure there was no femur bone patients or labor patients around me:)  And it really was.  They took some x-rays but he was concerned that with the amount of pain I was in, there was something else going on too.  So they took a CAT scan.  It came back fine.  So they gave me some hard-core pain meds, told me to up liquids, and told me to take Tylenol for the mild pain.

I drove myself to the pharmacy and then back home.  Man, no one was outside at all, and it was around 8pm!  Rensselaer doesn't have a firework show.  Brook does, and I think Demont, and Wolcott...except Wolcott isn't in our area.  Stacey wanted to take us to go see them, but I was like, “Well we're just leaving the hospital, so I don't think that's a good idea.”

That night I took one of those pills, and it put me out!  I also had two spoonfuls of applesauce.  But I just didn't feel like eating, which was weird since the last time I ate was Sunday at 1ish pm.  I woke up in the middle of the night, ate a piece of toast plain...not the best thing in the world! and took another pill.  I woke up at 6:30 the next morning still sleeping.  I slept in 'til 7:30, got out of bed, attempted to do my personal study, fell asleep, had about 20 minutes to get ready, was late for district meeting, and had Elder Dearinger lecture me on being happy because people see that.  Oh man I was't happy at him AT ALL!!!  I told Sister Mondelli later and she said, "Yeah, he didn't know the whole situation, he shouldn't have done that."  Cuz that day I was still in a lot of pain.  It had lessened, but still, I was in pain.  In fact I was in so much pain that I hardly ate.  And I was so tired!  I'm surprised we didn't die with me driving!

We didn't get a brake the whole day either.  We had appointments to go to, and I felt bad cuz Saturday, Sunday and Monday we didn't do a lot.  And I could tell Sister Mondelli wanted to go do stuff.  We didn't tract though.  She taught the most.  And she likes it when people try to bible bash us!  She's like, "they might feel the spirit when we share a scripture with them."  I think of 2 Nephi 28:11-12, 24-29.  I don't like getting into "bible discussions" with people, it just stresses me out.  I mean I used to get mean when people bible bashed me, and used to pull scriptures out, now I don't.  I just bear testimony and leave, but Sister Mondelli likes to stay there and discuss it.

And yesterday...I thought I was gonna die!  We were at a potentials house and the mom came to pick up her kids (the potentials were babysitting).  She was a J Dub (way to go Jackson for confounding one!)  She started to say what she believed and we found that we had some stuff in common (I was in a lot of pain at this point, so Sister Mondelli did most of the talking).  The J Dub was like "Actually we don't have a lot in common."  And the way she said it was like she wanted to pick a fight.  She started bible bashing us without us even asking, and every scripture she used was so . . . ugh!  She totally misinterpreted them!  Like there was one that said there will be no prophets and apostles...yeah!  In the apostasy!  And then there's one that says our sole will die...yeah if we sin!  I just bore my testimony and hoped beyond hope that she would just leave so we could actually teach.  She finally did.  But it was like the whole time she was putting herself above us.  "We go on a mission for our whole lives...God's word are in the scriptures...you shouldn't add anything to the bible."  Crazy crazy crazy!!!!  And I was in SO MUCH PAIN.

Last night after most of our appointments fell through, I was able to go home and get something to eat, rice with toast.  It's actually good together.  I took another pill and was out of it til 3 am.  I got up and had apple sauce and toast together.  The apple sauce was like jam...it was good.

I'm feeling better today, not 100%, but better.  I'm just gonna take it easy so hopefully I can go out and work tomorrow.  I miss working with all my heart, might, mind and strength.  I'm just so tired of being sick!  I just want to go to work!  I think this really will build me up.  You can't build something up unless you tear it down.  And that's what the Lord did.  What doesn't kill us will make us stronger.

I've been wondering for a few weeks how I can help Sister Mondelli lead more with things like handling the schedule, calling people, and even inviting, committing, and promising blessings.  I've started to notice that during lessons I'm usually the one who does the committing and promising of blessings.  I talked with her about it a couple days ago and we agreed that she would be the one to do it that this week.  Well with me getting sick and not feeling like doing anything she's had to do everything.  She's had to rearrange our schedule, tell me where we are going, what we are teaching people, and she even taught for most of the lessons when I was too out of it to even care.  I've really seen the leader come out in her these past couple of days.  If it wasn't for her, nothing would have gotten done these past couple of days.  Plus the day that I was the worst was the 4th, a day that would have been horrible for proselyting.  When we drove through town later that day there wasn't even anyone on the streets, well hardly anyone.  So Sister Mondelli and I feel as if it really wasn't a day wasted.

Hope you have fun in Mexico!!!!  The Rodriguezs are there for several weeks too!  Alfredo said that Tequisquiapan wasn't in the same state or something as they were going to be in.  But I would love for you guys to meet them...especially Harrison and Jefferson meeting Ulysses!

Okay, well that's all! 

Don't worry about me, I'll be fine!  I just need to rest...which I have been doing.  It's just hard knowing my companion wants to go out and work.

I love you all!  Thanks for everything!

Love,

Sister Ostler

ps. Duane, none of those cities are in my ares :(