A family to church

My Dearest Family,

Well, we taught some good lessons and some...ok...lessons, but a whole family came to church this Sunday! Ya-hoo! The Evans family joined us to church and wanted a lesson on the restored gospel, so we taught it to them. It was great! We'll also be meeting with them later this week and hopefully they can come to a session of General Conference. We have another investigator, Keiko, that would really like to see General Conference, but she's got family things this weekend. Her husband dropped us and is no longer interested in learning, but Keiko is bound to find out if its true and has set goals to finish the Book of Mormon and is reading it every night. I hope it doesn't hinder too much with her family by taking the lessons on her own now. I'm sure when she finds out its truth things will start coming around. Her husband is just too comfortable with life right now to want to make changes. We also got a great new investigator, Alicia, from a member. Alicia lives next door to the Bushman's (member). A few weeks ago, Sister Bushman told us about someone we could do service for because she is recently separated and the yard is a little much to try and keep up with, so we step into the picture. Last week, the Bushmans had us and Alicia over for dinner...and now we are teaching her the restored gospel and she is eating it up. We told her about Jesus Christ coming to America and her jaw dropped and gave her just the motivation to read the Book of Mormon. Pretty good week I'd say.Well, it was great to hear from you all. Thanks for the updates about your lives! I love you all!Oh yeah! the picture is because I haven't used my camera in a while and I thought is was time to give it a new picture, so there's my goofy self for you all.

Love ya, -Elder Osness

One to church!

Hey family,

the picture is of my old companion, Elder Farnsworth, and I. He didn't get a picture of us together, so he wanted one at the Zone conference we had a couple weeks ago. He's a great missionary!Well, we didn't teach as many lessons as I'd like to have this past week, but an investigator did come to church. It was Keiko. Her husband didn't come or her oldest daughter, but she brought her two younger kids they seemed to enjoy it. Keiko has a pretty strong desire to find out if the church is true and would want to be a part of it, but her husband Tod doesn't want to know if its true and is perfectly comfortable where he's at. Tell you what, when Keiko comes to know the truth and becomes a member, things aren't going to be as comfortable. He placing a small hinderment on her progress though because he doesn't want to do anything more than listen to the missionaries, so church, reading, and prayer doesn't occur as often as it should. She'll find out some day and I hope that will trigger something, so her whole family comes to that same knowledge. Yesterday we got a new investigator. It was co-senior day (once a week my greenie gets an opportunity to lead the area) and we had planned on seeing someone who I don't ever think about going to see because I've never met him the whole time I've been in the area, he's never home and I'm pretty sure he moved, but we went to see him. Now I know why the Lord directed us to that area. A guy was sitting on some apartment stairs, so while my companion is putting on his helmet and getting on his bike I started talking to him. Little did I know he would be interested. I began talking about what I was and why I was here and he said before I could finish, "Well, lets hear it." So, Elder Kleinman and I taught him about the restoration. It was an awesome lesson! Its really great when you meet someone that is really intrigued by our message. When I was talking about "dispensations" and "apostacy" I asked him if he had ever wondered why the bible stops...why there are nomore prophets and revelations and prophecies. His responce was awesome! He said, "yeah, why did it stop? Is there an answer to that question?" We smiled and said yeah and instantly he said, "well, tell me. I want to know. You're leaving me in the dark here, come on." So, we told him about the Great Apostacy and the Restoration (Joseph Smith). We also talked about Jesus Christ coming to America and he asked us why he's never heard this before, so I went back to why we are out here on missions and scheduled a return appointment and are seeing him later this week. He couldn't wait to start reading from the Book of Mormon. He want me to mark the section where Christ came to America, so he could read it after is meeting. Its a good week so far.So, I noticed you've done some work on the house, Jeff and Heather. I wish I could be there for the project. The more and more I'm out here the more and more I want to use my hands and do some real labor. It looks like Sarah is ready to help you paint when you're ready to. She's got some great masterpieces that Roger sent pictures of to me.Well, I love you guys. Make sure I don't miss too much while I'm out here.-Elder Onsess

Sunsets and Spiders and Transfers

Dear Family,

This week some non-members came to church, but none of which are investigators...yet:) All the people we've been teaching haven't been coming to church, but to our surprise five non-members came to sacrament meeting and three stayed for all three hours! Some good things are begining.Transfers are Wednesday and I was sure I was going, but the call came last night that I'll be staying with my greenie another transfer. I'm excited to be here for all the good that is becoming of this floundering area, but I do feel ready to leave. I guess I just haven't accomplished what the Lord has for me here. I saw our mission president this morning as well and he had in his mind that I was going too, then he had a puzzled look on his face and said, "oh wait, you're staying, aren't you?"Our district leader's greenie went home today. He felt like he needed to be home for family support (less-active brother). He doesn't understand that this work is the best family support he can offer. If it wasn't, he wouldn't have been called to the work.Well, I bet you're wondering what the Sunsets and Spiders are about since I told you about transfers. The sunsets here are crazy. Oklahoma skies are pretty cool. I seem to always just miss the sun when I want to take a picture though, so it doesn't turn out as awesome as they really are. So, to the spiders. Nancy and Randy might recognize the spider picture a little. If you remember when we went to see Natalie in Georgia last summer then went to Florida for a while and on the walkway to the beach there were these big spiders lining the way in the weird bushes, they're in Oklahoma too! this one was crazy cool though. Its web was probably 10 ft. tall and 6 ft. wide. It spanned from the trunk of a tree to the road up to some of the branches of the tree. The spider wasn't as big as I've seen them, but the web was amazing. They're smart too. I threw a small stick in the web and it stuck, so the spider went and clipped the web so the stick fell off and then went to work repairing the web.So, back to some spiritual matters. We got a couple new investigators that have been in the potentials list for about three months or more and finally got to teach them. They are Drew and Gatlin. Drew's biggest concern isn't what you'd expect. Its not Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon...or Apastacy, or authority, but a real understanding of Jesus Christ. His concern, I bet a ton of people really have, but don't know it. He told us straight forward, what does it mean "He died for us." I thought to myself, I know what that means, but his concern is deeper than that. Many people probably know what "He died for us" means, but don't really understand it. Its an honest concern...a REAL concern. How does somebody die for our sins? How do you comprehend that? Its not doctrine or a "my ways right, your way is wrong" concern. Its the real purpose of why we go on missions and why we have the gospel...to help others understand the Atonement. Here comes the plan of salvation...and then the gospel of Jesus Christ, which makes it all work out. Its exciting to meet someone that has a real concern. Does it matter if there are prophets, or bibles, or churches, if you don't know why?Thanks for the e-mails and updates I received from ya'll!:) And thanks for your talk, Rog. Its a great spirit building talk on our families.

Love you!-Elder Osness

Slowly but Surely

Dear family,

This past week we had a few good things happen. One of our investigators we've been seeing lately hasn't been keeping his commitments to read and pray. His interest seemed to be that he wanted to know what our beliefs were and he admired our devotion to the work, so he would let us teach him. Last week we decided to drop by his home and see how he was doing and I asked him if he had been reading and he said, "you know..." (ahh, here it is. He still isn't keeping his commitments). "I've been reading. I want to know." That was pretty cool to see someone take a step to progression. In our last meeting we talked about baptism and he really liked the fact that we do them at an age of accountabilily and not infantcy. His church does and he's very against that because children are not capable of making sin and made clean through the atonement of Christ. I think we'll see him come through, now we just need to get his family listening and coming to church. We were also able to meet with the Wrights, who we haven't been able to teach in three weeks. We just decided to stop by and they asked us if we were going to teach them a lesson, so we did. They are struggling with some of the things we've taught and we've been able to clear most of them. They just can't see the importance of authority and the husband isn't very motivated to church because they have their church to go to, but it will work itself out once a few other things happen...like a testimony. We've got some great investigators, but its taking them a lot longer to progress than I thought. I hope I get to see them make the full commitment to be baptized.Those and the package I received last week made it pretty great! Thanks for all the love you send me! How are things back home, anything new and exciting? The weathers starting to cool down. I bet thats nice. I know I'm loving it here. I just wish it would stay around 70 for the rest of my mission. haha! probably won't happen, tribulation is a requirment.pictures: The District-Elder Remington (District Leader/trainer) Elder Underhill (Remington's greenie) Me (trainer) Elder Kleinman (my greenie) Sister Lolesi (trainer) Sister Reed (Lolesi's greenie)WoW...a really really GREEN district:)

Love ya,Elder Osness

The church is true...still!

My Dearest Family,

Well, Things went pretty well last week. We were able to teach alot of people, but nobody came to church. We've been going to Langston University, in the edge of our area, once a week. There's a bunch of nothing there, but now that school's in, there are a bunch of students there. Its a really secluded University, so when we go there we usually stay most the day and try to talk to and teach as many students as we can. In between classes there is nowhere to go, so they just hang around campus to wait for their next class. So far there isn't anything real promising, but we'll keep working at it and soon enough the entire campus will no about the Mormon Missionaries on campus. We got some great new potential investigators last week too. One guy's name is Rod. He's a fireman and has a couple kids, I think. We went by to see if we could teach, but he was at the fire department, but his wife was home and we spoke with her for a while. Her name is heather...oh, that sounds familiar! Ha!One of the lessons we had wasn't so good. This guy wasn't going to accept anything we told him. My companion asked him a good question because the guy needs so much proof of the Book of Mormon, he said, if their was no proof of a man, Christ, that was crucified, would you beleive in the bible. The guy thought for a moment, and said, no....sign seekers drive me crazy. He says he knows the spirit works in his life and he feels it, but he must have never felt the spirit witness to him of Jesus Christ because he even needs physical proof of that. oh yeah, he's an Elder in the Evangelist church...False Faith. The spirit testifies to me of truth and they don't have it.So, the week was pretty eventfull, but not much progression came of it...yet.A renter in your own home? That seems strange. Is it a student or something? A litte extra income isn't so bad though to fix up those household projects.Hey, thanks for the package! It came a while ago, but because of the flood thing that occured in our appartment we were at a member's home for a while and I didn't find out about it until last week. I had to wait tell today to get it because it was at the post office and the post office is out of my area, so I haven't gotten to check it out yet. Thanks a bunch for all the love and support!

Love ya!-Elder Osness