Trials of Faith‏

Dear Family,

Things are going good down yonder. I forgot to pull out my camera this week so...no pictures sorry, but thanks for all the e-mails! It was great to hear from you all! I need to do better with that camera thing.Life at home seems happy and the pictures were great! It was weird to see former "Elder" Barnum in a photo at home...eeek...time keeps slippin'. On top of that on Sunday at church I could have swore I saw someone I worked with before the mission. I was greeting people as they came into the chapel and I turn around and...FLASHBACK...oof! It seems like distractions are on my doorstep. Thanks for your encouragement! Its a good thing and a bad thing that I'm back in Norman. Everyday I'm reminded how old I am in the mission and everyday I'm reminded of when I first came to Oklahoma...which really just reminds me of how long ago that was. (distractions=trials of faith)The week was good except for a few of our great investigators are giving in to push from the influence of another and begining to flounder. Just yesterday we dropped three investigators...well, they dropped us and another is going to start attending another church because his girlfriend wants to become more spiritual and doesn't like the mormon church. Lee's mom is very against him coming to the mormon church as well and especially with his choice to get baptized, so she has been playing an active role in getting him to the baptist church early so he misses ours. All this trial of faith all at once must mean a blessing is near. (investigators slipping=trials of faith)Kaleb is doing great and will be getting baptized on the 12th of September! Good news there, but we really need to build our teaching pool again.We had a stake leadership meeting this weekend which was good. Some emphasis on organizing ward missionary work will help out. It was good to see where we and the ward are doing well and what we can do to improve the work.Answer to a trial of faith=Hard Work, Prayer...and More Faith Well, I love you all!-

Elder Osness