Ending the Mission Strong and Faithfuly

Hello family and friends!!!

I have got some news to tell all of you. A couple weeks ago I got sick, and spent a little over a week in the hospital here. We found out I have a mosquito borne illness thats pretty rare, and mission headquarters has decided to send me home. I am being medically released from my mission, and I will get back in Utah on Wednesday. 

I want you all to know that I am doing fine, and that I am getting better, so dont worry about me. I would like to share my testimony with you all.

I have learned and grown so much on my mission. These last 8 months have been some of the best and hardest of my life, but I wouldn't change a thing about the experiences I have had. I have seen may miracles, and many lives changed through the saviors atonement. My testimony has grown of the Atonement. 

Elder Holland gave a talk once about missionary work, and the atonement, and I have tried to apply its principles in my mission.

"Missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him?" 

We need to look at our trials as a way to gain a testimony of the atonement. To maybe gain a tiny bit of understanding of what Christ went through for us. I know that the things that I went through on my mission made me a better person, and that throughout my life, the trials that I will have will continue to strengthen me and my testimony. 

In all reality missionary work is easy. It is easy to spend every day focused on the Lord and on serving other people. I love Brazil, and the people of Brazil are some of the most selfless people that I know.I will always be grateful for the things that I have learned here, and Brazil will always have a special place in my heart.

Well thats all for now. I love you all, thank you for helping me through this journey, and I will see you all real soon. 

Sister Ostler 

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Sister Ostler

New transfer, new companion, and new adventures soon to come!

I am finally getting transferred! Tomorrow I am going to Lemme, new companion Sister Silva (different than my first companion sister silva) 

I am so excited to have a new start and get to know different parts of Brazil, but I am so grateful that I had this experience and I am grateful that I had an area that is so amazing that is is so hard to say goodbye. The things I have learned here in hortolandia I will carry through the rest of my mission, and my life.

I dont have a lot to say, because I wrote on Friday, but I love and miss you all!!

amo vocês 

Kenzie got to go to the temple!!

Sorry!!!! I know I didnt write on monday. But I have a good reason!!!! But I will start off by just telling yall about my week!! 

Monday: Went on exchanges!!! I learned so much it was great.

Thursday: We had interviews with president. Then after the interviews my companion and I rode with president in his car to piracicaba, because my companion needed to renew her visa. We stayed that night at presidents house and had waffled, and popcorn, and played uno!! It was very fun!

Friday: Woke up at the crack of dawn to go to the police station, but when we got there it was closed all day!!! soooooo awkward. We took a bus (3 hours) back to our area. We will have to return to piracicaba tuesday

Saturday: We taught Iris (remember her??) about temples!! She was so interested and really wanted to go to the temple.the temple here is in Campinas, and about 2 hours from my area, but its not in my mission, and we are not allowed to go. But iris wanted to go with us. So when we left we called president and asked for permission to do baptisms with her. HE LET US GO!!!!!! He gave us permission but said we had to use the day we go as our P day (which is why I didnt write) He also wanted us to try to help her find names to bring

Sunday: Iris got her temple interview done and passed!!! Woot woot!! I also said the prayer in sacrament which was nerve wracking

Monday: Normal work day. We planned to meet with one of the women in the ward at the church with iris to try to find her names. but we were all waiting at the church and iris never showed up or answered her phone!!! Very frustrating

Tuesday: Went to iris house in the morning to see what happened. She was in the hospital and her phone died and thats why she never showed up! But all is well and we started to gather the information from her documents to baptize her grandma and her husband who passed away. She didnt have any information on her grandma, and the only way to get the information was to go to the cemetery (about 2 hours away walking REALLY FAST) and iris couldnt go, so obviously we volunteered to go find all the information. I have never walked so fast in my life. I was dying. But we got there! It was in the middle of no where and we went and found the grave. One of the weirder things I have done on my mission thus far. Then about 5 we went again to piracicaba. this time we sayed at a hotel! Very cool

Wednesday: I woke up in Piracicaba with a really high fever and I was really sick, so I stayed in the hotel all day with a different sister. Then at the end of the day we got back to our area about 9:30 and My fever was at 102.8 so we called a member and I went to the hospital. I was there until 2 am, and they gave me some sort of shot and some sort of medicine and sent me home. I was able to sleep thankfully

Thursday: Woke up and felt a little better, but still just felt crappy. We took it easy and rested, then went out at night and taught some awesome investigators. The bishop was supposed to bring the temple recommend of iris to us at our house but he never showed up. We called him and he said he wasnt able to print it because the mission hadnt put her into the system yet!!! talk about stressful but at this point it was 10:40 at night and we couldnt call anyone to enter her in until the morning

Friday (today): Woke up feeling kinda sick, but today is the day we planned to go to the temple. we planned to leave at 7:30. We called the mission office at 6:40 am and made them run to the office and enter her in. THen called the bishop and he filled it all out, printed it, and brought it to us at our house. everything worked out and we went to the temple his morning. it was so amazing. Iris has a little bit of fear of the water so sister ramirez and I did the baptisms and iris did the confirmations, but I have missed the temple so much. It was such a spiritual experience. We were the only ones in the baptistery and the temple workers made it really special for iris. It was amazing. 

That was my week!!!! i how I didnt loose anyone, sorry it was such a long email

My challenge to you all for the week. Dont take the temple for granted!!! You are so close, take advatage of it. it is a blessing

com muito amor

Sister Ostler

IRIS GOT BAPTIZED.... quite an experience for kenzie!

Hello family and friends!!!!

This week has been such an amazing week. 

IRIS GOT BAPTIZED!!!

Buckle up because this week was so crazy with her and I want to tell you guys the whole story

So everything was going great, we had taught almost all the lessons but still needed to teach about chastity. We got there to teach her and after we taught the lesson she just burst into tears. It was heartbreaking. She apparently has this abusive boyfriend we didnt know about and she wants to get baptized but she was certain he wont accept the law of chastity. And she said she cant break up with him because she Is afraid he would kill her!! He tried to kill his own dad already!! And she wouldnt let us talk to him because she was afraid that he would try to kill us too!!!! SO then she said that she had to think and make a choice between him and the church. So we left her house with a horrible taste in our mouths. Right when we left we started a fast, and called our DL and scheduled for him to come with us the next day. 

The next day we showed up and I cant even tell you how big of a miracle this was. She chose the church!!! She wouldnt explain the situation with her Boy Friend but she said it got taken care of!!!

Saturday we went to her house early to help her clean so she wouldnt feel stressed with her baptism that evening. Then we helped her pick out her clothes. She is so adorable she picked like this fancy evening gown because she wanted to look nice for her baptism. Then we left and carried all her stuff to the church for her that night. At the church we went to go clean the font. When we got there the font had about two feet of nasty water in it. We pulled the plug and waited.... IT WOULDNT DRAIN!!! We then spent the next two hours emptying it by hand with buckets. My body was so sore but it finally got empty, we cleaned, and it all worked out in the end!! She was baptized that night and she was so happy, and after she shared her testimony with us about how we changed her life by finding her. THIS WORK IS SO AMAZING!!!!!!

That pretty much sums up my week. We spend every day at her house so this next week we will find some new elate people to baptize!!

This church is true, and I love you all!!!

Sister Ostler

Kenzie recieves an award!

Ola minha familia e meu amigos!!!

This week has been a great one!!! 

We had a multi zone conference where we were taught how to baptize every week!! I am very excited to put the things I learned to use. I also received my missionary in excellence award!! It is a program through our mission where you have to memorize a bunch of scriptures and principles and then you pass all these things off with a leader and you are then eligible for the award, and I got it!!!! they are also starting to do our conferences in english!! My president wants all the Brazilians to learn english so this is a way to make them do it!

I have a baptism this saturday. Iris! she is so awesome. It was a miracle how we found her. It was through a contact on the street that the person didnt want anything to do with us but then we asked if there was anyone that he knew that needed a prayer and he pointed to this one house and said that a lady was sick there and she needed help, so we went, and here we are!! Shes getting baptized!!!

I finally bought luggage! We went to Campinas last week and bought it there. It was a fun trip outside of the mission!!

I had a funny experience there some guy I went to visit started praying in a crazy language that was not Portuguese and I almost burst into laughter. But it was like 10 minutes and he yelled the whole thing and all i could feel was sorry for him that he doesnt have the true church in his like, and that he has to have prayers like that to try to feel the spirit in his life. 

I talked to my family yesterday because I wasnt able to for mothers day. It was so good to see them and know that they are all okay.

Until next week!! I love you all and I just want to remind you all to keep doing the little things

PRAY 

GO TO CHURCH

READ THE WORD OF GOD

This is true happiness my friends

Sister Ostler

Kenzie marked a baptismal date!

Another week has come and gone!!!

This week has been really great! 

First........ WE MARKED A BAPTISMAL DATE WITH IRIS!!!!!!! She is so awesome, but has problems still, so please keep her in your prayers that she can stop drinking coffee. But shes so awesome

My English class on Saturdays is so successful!!! We had  almost 20 new people come this week! We ran out of chairs!! It is kind of scary teaching english when I dont even know Portuguese but everyone just laughs at me and its really light hearted an fun. FUN FACT in the schools here when they teach the days of the week in english they pronounce Firday as free day. Everyone was so shocked when i told them thats not how people say it hahahahahaha

I have been struggling with the language this week. I am able to understand a lot but speaking is still a struggle. I was teaching a lesson and I taught the first vision and I thought it went really good but when I finished our investigator said he didnt understand anything, so I got really discouraged, But I know this is how I will learn and grow, and when I look at my progress it is immeasurable.

The atonement is real. Use it in your lives. If you leet it, it will not only help you, but carry you through your life.

Thats all I got!!! Love you all

BUGS IN HER SUITCASE

Bom Diaaaaa!!!!!!!!! Todo Bem gente???

How are you all doing?? I have been doing great!! This week was crazy!

We have been really trying to just find new people to teach, we dont have very good people to teach right now. But we will get them!!! 

We have started to work in new areas of my area so that has been fun.

Sooooo friday It was really cold. I wanted to wear some of my warmer clothes that were in my suitcase because I dont use them much. So I got out my suitcase and opened it and there were THOUSANDS of bugs in it. And then hundreds and hundreds of white tiny eggs. I dont know how it happened but we spent the next two hours trying to clean my bags. I lost some of my stuff that I had kept in my suitcase. But right when it was finally clean we go to unzip the liner and the plastic shell has hundreds more eggs laid underneath it. there was literally no way to clean it. we had to throw away my luggage. Just one of the luxuries of Brazil!!! It was definable an interesting and unexpected day. And to top it off later that friday (it was raining a ton) and I slipped and hurt my knee and broke my umbrella! haha My companion says that fridays are my unlucky days because bad things always happen to me haha

But I have learned a lot this week! Its weird because on a mission you dont realize the way that you change. Day to day you dont notice a diffrence. But when I look at who I am now and who I was 5 months ago I barely even recognize myself! Its an amazing thing. Missions are really life changing and I am happy I still have one year to go!

I also am loving my personal study. I am starting to understand the BOM in Portuguese!! Thats way cool. Eventually I will stop studying English all together. 

READ THE SCRIPTURES!!!! You will receive so many blessings!

Thats all for this week, ate mais!!!

Kenzie