December 19, 26, 2007

• Hello hello and merry christmas. So I did get my early christmas present. i put it up on the ironing board. It looks very nice. My new companion is very pleased with it. He doesnt quite understand why im so stoked about displaying a large brown wrapped box. But hey, some people just never understand. ha, Just kidding i opened it. It is very flashy! Thank you mama. I also got some things from grandma lois and aunt kimi and uncle craig. I opened uncles craigs, but all of grandmas were wrapped up nice so i figured i should wait till christmas or something...well see how long that lasts. I put them under the ironing board tree. So lizabeth told me that her brother got home and that you texted her and stuff. I didnt know that you could text people? That surprised me. yes i still have my calling card. I dont really know what time I will be calling yet. I think I will call dads cell phone in case you guys arent at home. Im asuming it will be around noon here. But it all depends when the members want us to come over. The christmas party is on monday. we are having a little talent show, and my district is singing the primary song "armies of helamen" in spanish. it should be fun. We were going to do popcorn poping on the apricot tree, but the presidents wife said that it was too lighthearted for the meeting the wanted to have. I was kinda bummeb, I would rather be funny than spiritual. I guess im lucky to have leaders who keep me in line. I thought I told you this last time but my new companion is a new missionary as well. Thats right i finished training elder wells and started training elder Beatty from american fork, UT. He was the only elder who came into the mission last transfer. I am really blessed to have been given the opportunity to train two missionaries so early along in my mission. It is a really great experience. I Love you so much and am really looking forward to talking this tuesday, I hope you have alot to say and I will listen. ;)Love Elder osterloh
  
  Tell aunt denice yes that i did get her package. It was lots of fun. Christmas eve my companion and I made the gingerbread house and I got the cd, that you asked me about. So yes i did tell you about it. Yesterday was really fun. After i finished talking to you guys the families house that we were at had a white elephant, so we got to participate in that. It was really fun. Its pretty nice to have pday right after christmas too. So upon leaving the house this morning I came across a little box. It had my name on it, but it was so small i figured it was nothing important so i will probably open it when i get home...Love Elder Osterloh

November 21,28,Dec 5, 2007

There is a baptism planned for this sunday. I have never met her boyfriend, and their is a reason, because they dont live together. which is great, because she is committed to living the Law of Chastity and so she doesnt have to be married before her baptism. We are however still trying to get her married, because that is what she wants, even though her boyfriend of 15 years doesnt want to get married. Interesting how that works. We also have a baptism schechuled for DEc. 1 Eloy is the 12 year old son of a less active member we are trying to get back to church, she was sick this sunday, but eloy still came and loved church. They live right by some really active members from samoa. well the mom is samoan the dad is puertoriquenen. He is an awesome kid though, we are trying to get his 19 year old brother to come to, he accidently slept in on sunday. thats basically what we are working with right now. THings are going really well. Elder wells got some kind of virus last week. Headaches and dizzines, so we stayed inside for the most part of three days. he bought monopoly to help pass the time. Im already sick of that game. its no fun when theres only two people. we started the cold stone cup. Its a seven game series. we are tied at 3-3. the winner gets a free cold stone. We just barely found a cold stone on the border of our area and so we have really been wanting to go out there.

I heard that there were some wet turkeys after the Holy war, that makes me so happy. And thats all I need to say.Yes yes, Eloy santos is still getting baptized. His baptism is scheduled for this Saturday morning, so we have been busy preparing him for that. We are also trying to get maria to be baptized on the same day, so that they can have that in common.Lately for my spanish study I have been translating the letters that I have recieved. Its really hard, but Hopefully I will become a better translater so that If im at any more funerals I can translate to spanish for them.

Well, once again, no baptism. Maria played her disappearing act, and Eloysmom changed her mind about letting him get baptized at the last minute. It was not a very happy hour. But Eloy is still coming to church, and Maria still wants to be baptized, I just dont know when that will be. We have been finding some cool new people lately. Everybody is so nice to us. Aunt Kimi sent me a picture of the BYU UTAH game. It was hilarious. Perfect timing. Ive heard some rumors that we are supposed to be having a christmas party for the mission. But im not really sure how much of a party it will be. On the 24th we have zone conference and I heard that they are going to have a little christmas twist,like a talent show or something, and thats what the party will be. We are supposed to be getting transfer calls this Sunday, so next week I will probably know where Im going. IM pretty sure that pday will be on tuesday next week, because transfers are on wednesday. So either tuesday or thursday will be Pday. But Im leaning towards tuesday. Hopefully It wont snow very much this year, and it will all just save up for next year. Then the ski resorts will have plenty of snow for Jan 2009. So I guess Sachi is looking at about two months now. I'm so excited for her. Its still crazy to me that she is leaving the 30th, because i left the 31st.Mom, you know that i cant tell you anything that i want for christmas, that would make it far to easy on you. But if you wanted you could send me a 1)psp and a 2)portable dvd player, and 3)some movies. Ive been looking for a 4)new swim suit, but I cant find any that I like down here. The 5)new David Banner cd would be nice, talk to ryan about it. 6)coffee would be great to wake up to in the morning, and 7)a laptop would be great so I dont have to leave home to write you eveyweek.Love youI know you will do well(see list above)Elder OsterlohPs I wrote santa and told him that I had been a good boy this year, but I dont think he knows where I live. So if you could give him the heads up that would be great.

(Such a funny boy!!!)

October 22, Nov 6,13, 2007

Mission update...Canovanas is treating me well. We have a few investigators. Our best investigator at the moment is Epi. She reads a lot in the Book of Mormon. She has a lot of catholic background, and since she is like 80 years old it is hard for her to change her old habits. She loves learning and meeting with us. Theres always some histarical moment that happens when we are there. Like this one time there was a little kitten trying to crawl in through her fence and she has dogs. So she got super scared the dogs were going to eat it, and she was trying to push the cat back through but the cat held on and started hissing and swinging claws. It was great. She knows that she needs to make some changes in here life, but it takes a lot of encouragement from us to make her realize she can actually do it. Love Elder Osterloh

Ma mama ma--maYes yes i got both boxes of sugar highs. Loved every minute of it. I dont know if you should give me credit for their 4.o Its not like i can transfer my brain power to them, they just go to an easier school.I didnt even know that another hurricane passed by. It did rain for three days straight, but thats basically normal to me now. Well Well Well, look who is the big 2...0. My companion was really nice and baked me a cake. Then that night he took me out to chilis. What a nice kid. I have recently been flooded with candy. I dont know what to do with it all. The ants that invade our apartment really liked it. So I through it all in the fridge so that they couldnt get to it. Score 1-0 me. Its a constant battle to keep the apartment clean so that the ants dont scurry in after some food. Those things are vicious. They will tear your flesh off. In the mission life, we have a baptismal date. Her name is Maria Diaz. Awesome lady. She is supposed to be baptized the 17 of november, but we just found out she is not married to her boyfriend that supposedly lives with her, but we have never even seen. So I might be having another wedding as well. Those things stress me out, and im not even the one getting married. We are also working with some really cool less active members. One Is named Evalyn Santos. Basically what happened with her was that the missionaries left, she got sad, and so she stopped coming. She has two kids who we are now working with and hoping to get baptized. They live really close to some way active, really cool members, so we are going to get them a ride to Mutual, and church, and I believe that will be a really good start back to their activity in the church.Im loving the missionThank you so much for all of your supportand the great example that you give meLove Elder Osterloh
There is a baptism planned for this sunday. I have never met her boyfriend, and their is a reason, because they dont live together. which is great, because she is committed to living the Law of Chastity and so she doesnt have to be married before her baptism. We are however still trying to get her married, because that is what she wants, even though her boyfriend of 15 years doesnt want to get married. Interesting how that works. We also have a baptism schechuled for DEc. 1 Eloy is the 12 year old son of a less active member we are trying to get back to church, she was sick this sunday, but eloy still came and loved church. They live right by some really active members from samoa. well the mom is samoan the dad is puertoriquenen. He is an awesome kid though, we are trying to get his 19 year old brother to come to, he accidently slept in on sunday. thats basically what we are working with right now. THings are going really well. Elder wells got some kind of virus last week. Headaches and dizzines, so we stayed inside for the most part of three days. he bought monopoly to help pass the time. Im already sick of that game. its no fun when theres only two people. we started the cold stone cup. Its a seven game series. we are tied at 3-3. the winner gets a free cold stone. We just barely found a cold stone on the border of our area and so we have really been wanting to go out there.

October 8, 2007

Ya, conference was great. we watched every session in english. The lady we were expecting to come had to watch a 1 and 1/2 year old, so she wouldnt travel out there. actually, i did profitize that it would be henry b eyring. He looks the smartest to me, so that was my guess. Before conference we went to a walgreens and picked up some goodies, so i was snaking well all thoughout the meetings.my streak is over. I got rained on for the first time this week. It wasnt so bad though. The back of my shirt got a little muddy from the bike though. Any hints on cleaning that would be helpful. We scrubbed them with water and then put some stain stuff on them. If you get to talk to alonso before he goes tell him that i think he is great. Hes going to be an awesome missionary. My comp is still struggling a little with spanish, but i dont blame him, spanish is hard. He had no spanish before the mission and was really not excited to have to learn it. He really just wanted to go to an english speaking mission. Complete opposite of what I wanted to do.I dont know how you can drink diet coke anyways, it tastes nasty. Regular coke is by far the way to go.I really still dont know many of the members. Most of the active members live in the area of rio grande. But there are a couple who are really nice to us. The owner of our apartment randomly gives us food almost everyother day. So thats nice to come home to. Its usually some variation of rice and beans. We kinda have a rule like Kory's, but less strict. We can only eat the same members house once a month. because there were areas that would have a dinner appointment every night of the week.

September 25, 2007

Well I guess I'll start off with info aqbout my new companion. His name is Elder Logan Wells. He comes from Mesa Arizona. I would say that he reminds me alot of Jacob. (looks wise, blond hair, ect.) The new apartment is alright. My last one pampered me. We have mostly all the necesities. NO air conditioning :( . The city here is pretty cool. There are a lot of cool people that we have already met. We have found a lot of new investigators so far, but none of them stick, so we just keep on cycling through them until we find the prepared.We are going to share the car. And yes, i brought my bike. The church here is a branch, but from what i observed and have heard it is soon to become a ward. We didnt get any investigators in church this last week, which made me a little sad, but i have hopes for this next week. Um, theres no walmart in my area, we do our shopping at a place called Econo. Its a big grocery store. I'd say its similar to a smiths.I wouldnt send the video, because i really dont have anything to watch it on.I am excited for alonso. He is going to be a great missionary. Hopefully his investigators dont think that he is FBI. Ya he told me that the CTR ring he gave me was from his Grandpas mine in peru.speaking of peru, i was reading the church news the other day, and they had a huge earthquake hit there. I dont know where im going with that. but anyway thats about it for now.Love, Elder Osterloh

August/September 2007

Hey there. Its Elder Osterloh here. I'm writing you an email right now. Right now I am teaching two grandkids of a recent convert. Their names are Carmelo and Christian. They are 12 and 11 years old, respectively. Basically they are golden. They have been coming to church for about 5 months now, but we just barely were able to get their mothers permission. We have been really focused on them. Things are going really well. My companion and I are striving to work the best that we can. I'm learning new and great things everyday. Its amazing what a little study time in the morning can do for you. This week I have been studying a lot about hope. What I have learned, Hope is the anchor to our souls. Hope comes before faith and drives our faith. For example, we have the hope that through Christ's atonement we can become heirs to the kingdom of God. This hope drives us to repent so that this hope becomes a reality.


Im doing well. In case you were wondering. Transfers are around the 20th so in a couple weeks. We are finding some more people to teach, and I'm hoping that they will be able to progress, because our branch really could use some more solid members.We had a stake activity that we were allowed to go to yesterday. It was way fun. I played baseball in my shirt and tie. I would have gone in different clothes but we didnt know there would be baseball. I stayed clean, but my companion did a couple slides. Im not quite sure if hes going to be able to get them clean. hehe.Thats whats going on in my world.Love Elder Osterloh

Ya, um this last week was really slow in finding new investigators. We only found one, and we had one investigator come to church. She is really cool, her name is Lizandra. She brought her 7 year old son, Onix, and he loved the primary. Transfer calls are next Sunday. I'm pretty sure they will be moving me. We will see.

Anyway maybe right now you are getting pretty upset that I still haven't told you whether I am staying in arroyo or leaving for different horizons. Well i am leaving. Im going up towards san juan to an area called canovanas. I have also been asked to be a trainer. so there will be a new missionary with me. We'll see how that goes. PS mission office adress is PRSJ East mission; urb jardines de caparra; 500 calle marginal norte; bayamon, PR 00959. send things there(letters/packages)So how is everything going at home? Is Max still behaving? Whenever i see a black cat around here i always think about max. And there are a lot of black cats.

July 30, 2007

The Weather is fine mom, dont worry about it. You know that I havent been rained on once. Ya it rains all the time, but it seams that whenever it starts to pour somebody lets us come into their house on on their porch to teach them. And the rain storms only last a couple minutes. The Interviews went well. He is an awesome guys and really sounds like he knows what to do. I was scared because he was a general in the army, but he is really a nice guy. I guess he was in the mission presidency of the salt lake mission. My comp goes home on the eighth. He is dyeing. That is the day of transfers. Also I think I might be going senior companion nest transfer because of some of the stuff that was discussed in interviews. Thats would be scary.I dont know about the whole, Missy promising to wait for coleman thing, but she definately promised letters. Ya you told me about taylor. Is he excited to go. Have they moved yet?You just want pictures so that you can show them off to the other moms, but i'll try anyways. You already have all the ones from the 1st memory card.You think that i would get fat. Ha. Im getting more and more muscular. (in my dreams). No i'm staying about the same. Dont worry about me. My companion and I even go to the track sometimes and run.The baptism was awesome. I said creap because ya, he can walk. He takes little baby steps and his right foot is always in front of the left one.Love yaElder Michael R Osterloh

Monday July 9, 2007

So, Things are pretty calm in Arroyo. Basically like always. Its Kanepa season, so that’s good. Kanepa’s are these little grape sized fruits, but the skin is a little thicker. You bite the skin and take it off then suck on the inside until the pit. And then you’re on to another Kanepa.Not many investigators, we had to drop Eddie and Annie, they just weren’t progressing, awesome people, just not quite ready. There is another family that we met out in Maunabo. The moms name is Chave. We will see how that goes. This Chave lady said that she has always seen the missionaries walking around but never had the opportunity to talk to them. So she always wondered exactly where we were all trying to go. I always get a little kick out of what people think of us.Well that’s about it. The ward here is taking really good care of me. They give us food almost every day. Its sweet!Elder OsterlohPS Tenga un buen dia.

Monday June 25, 2007

So the mission is now officially split. We will be getting our new mission President on Friday. I am in the East mission so my mission presidents name is president Dewsnup. Both sides of the mission are getting new presidents, but I don’t remember the name of the other side’s.Arroyo is going fine. My Spanish is really improving a lot. People always ask us where we learn our Spanish from, and we usually reply “a la caňona” which basically means at gunpoint. It’s kind of like saying that we are forced to speak it, because that’s what people speak here.

July, 2007

Investigator wise, we found this really cool new guy out in maunabo. His name is Ivan. He came to church this Sunday and loved it. He is physically handicap, because he can’t bend at the waist. But we got him there and the members made it an awesome experience for him. We went over to his place last night and gave him a haircut. He had a pretty long hair dew going on. Now he looks awesome. We also taught him the message of the restauration again, and whenever I would be explaining something, a little complex, he would complete my sentences. It was really clicking for him. I am really hoping the best.

Well the people we are working with in Maunabo are going pretty slow. Except for Ivan. He is just awesome. And has a baptismal date for the 29th. Its going to be interesting though considering the fact that hi is unable to use any stairs, because he cant bend his hips, so we have to find a place (like the Beach(: ...)where he can creap in. He is so excited to get baptized, and is ready to do whatever we ask, sucha s stop smoking cigars and drinking coffee.

Monday June 18, 2007

Ya Pres. Dewsnup will be in the East, with me. You will have to tell me the names of craig and kimis freinds so that i can impress him with all the people i know. Like grandma.
So this week was kind of slow. We don’t have many investigators, but we’re working on it. There’s this one guy named Felix. He is an old investigator, from like three years ago, that we picked back up. He came to church this Sunday and loved it. But he just kind of seamed a little out of it the whole time. We are working with him; he’s got a little bit of a smoking problem though. He says that he wants to quit, that would be great if he does. We are also teaching this couple in Maunabo. We have been going out there a lot more, because we feel like there is potential out there. They are really cool. The wife is way interested and loves to read the stuff we give her. They weren’t able to make it to church this Sunday, because they already had plans for father’s day.Love Elder O

June 11, 2007

ya so i saw colby. i didnt think that he was coming on saturday, and then we were walking around down by the plaza(park thing in middle of town) and some people that we have never met before come racing up to us and say "are you the missionaries that live in jardines x 1-b?" we were like what the freak is going on. and they said that there were some americans in front of our house who didnt speak any spanish. that was around 5:30. so we ran back to the house in the car. NObody there. But there was a note from them. at 6 we had to be in the church to go out with some of the members. and right as we pull out with the members, our neighbors pulled out in front of us and said that the americans were in front of our house again. so i went over there and talked with colby for like 10 minutes because we had to go, the members were waiting for me. It was awesome to see him though. I didnt get to talk to dave and kandy, but appearantly they saw me. Then when we came home at the end of the day we found two snickers sitting by our door. so we guzzled them up. It was good.Right now we are having some trouble finding people to teach, but all is well. We have this one guy, but he has a doubt and we are trying to resolve it.puerto rico is getting really hot! I mean hot. When i was in the DR i bought some hankerchiefs(I know i cant spell) but they are coming in handy as my new sweat rags.Love you,Elder O

May 29, 2007

Well, only a few things to report, I will be in the East mission for sure. At zone conference last week Pres Crane told us that he could no longer move missionaries from one side of the mission to the other. Sweet! Remember that 10 year old girl that we baptized last transfer, well we have been teaching her father, and he really accepted the gospel, and made a lot of big changes in his life so that he could be baptized. Thats right baptized. He is an awesome guy, and their family has really been coming together in the last couple of weeks. His son Fernando is the one who baptized him. Their whole family was inactive as of about a month and a half ago.We begin the search again for more people to teach. Right now we really dont have anybody...again. But, we are on the prowl.Love you, and thanks for all the supportElder OsterlohPS Yesterday was a holiday so pday was moved to tues. so we could do our shopping and such. So Im still not dead, if you were worried.

Monday April 23, 2007

The food here is fairly american. We eat a lot of fast food. But i do still eat a lot of rice and beans. It is good though I like it. Ha, everybody in puerto rico is scared of the rain. Whenever it rains, nobody comes outside. It rained last night and nobody went to school this morning. Puerto Ricans are crazy. But ya, we have another wedding comming up, and then next sunday both of them are going to be baptised. we are having a lot of success. but we need to find some more investigators, because after this baptism there isnt really anybody solid left. hope all is well at home. take care of max for me. I just got the pictures that ryan sent me of max's prey. Thats funny. So you know that care packages are always welcome. And I dont have a picture of our family. How could you let me leave without one of those? Other than that everything is going great.Love,Elder O

Monday April 9, 2007

Hey so this is like my first email to you guys. I am in puerto rico right now in case you didnt know that. I'm down south in Arroyo. It is really hot here. I am like sweating just sitting here. My spanish language skills are coming along really fast. My trainers name is Elder Lucas, he is from North Carolina, and he is awesome. He's been out for about a year now. I'm doing great and the work is coming along. We already have our first baptismal date set for next Sunday. So hopefully everything works out, because that will be awesome. The lady, Gladis, just needs to get married on wednesday and then she wants to be baptised. Apearantly she has been waiting thirty years to get baptised, but she was never married.Yesterday at church we had eight investigators come, which is awesome. and then we have a car to drive 4 days out of the week because we share with another area, and yesterday my comp lost the keys at church. We arent sure if they are locked in the car or if somebody picked them up. all we know is that we don't have them. And it has been really really hot the last two days so it has been a little unpleasant, but thats okay, we are still working hard.My mission presidents are way nice. It's kinda sad because when the mission splits into east and west in the summer, they will be going home. I am almost positive that I will be in the East mission, because that is where i am at right now, and i probably wont be moved after my first transfer. and the mission splits during my second transfer. Thats just my best guess though, anything could happen.

January 31, 2007

I am late starting this blog, so will be doing some catch up prior to staying current with his info. Michael entered the MTC in Provo, UT on January 31, 2007 where he spent 3 weeks. He then went to the MTC in the Dominican Republic where he spent 6 more weeks. He learned Spanish while there. He then flew to Puerto Rico where his first area was Arroyo, on the Southeastern side of the island.