Fishers of Men (Week 18)

Hello everyone! It has been a fantastic week here in Michigan! 

Early this week Elder Sorensen got himself a fine geetar. Both of my companions now have geetars from Facebook marketplace! We also had some really great lessons with some more amazing people early this week. We are so blessed to be teaching some of the most amazing people we have ever seen!

In preparation for Christmas day, we bought some gifts and some Christmas sweaters! We had a great time on Christmas eve! We sung at a couple of retirement homes here in Lansing which was super fun! We also met with one of our good friends and his family. This was our first real lesson with this friend and he had already done his studying of the Church and taken the initiative on his own to learn. Without us asking, he had already prayed about the Book of Mormon, the prophet Joseph Smith and other aspects of the Church and had received a witness and answer to his prayer that it was true. He believes what we know to be true, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's New Testament church restored. He couldn't have agreed any quicker to be baptized! We set a date for him, and hopefully soon his family for January 30th. He wanted to be baptized there and then! He is so prepared and amazing. We are so grateful for him and his family and this gospel and the life changing power it has. 

Last Christmas eve, with my father ice fishing, I caught the biggest trout of my life! I thought that there was no way I could ever have a better Christmas eve. But this year, I got my first "catch" as a fisher of men and it was amazing! So so grateful for that experience. I'm so humbled to be a servant of a loving God of Miracles.

Christmas day was amazing! The postal service here in Michigan has been ridiculously slow so none of the presents from home showed up until after Christmas. I definitely thought that I would have no presents Christmas morning which I was totally okay with. But the sisters here in Meridian went the extra mile! When they heard I had no presents, they went around their apartment wrapping random objects so I had something to open on Christmas. For example, I got a potato, a half used box of cereal, a dictionary from 1946, and some other awesome and random stuff! I'm so grateful for them and what they did and have done for me! Meridian might be the best area ever... We also had a gift exchange with our zone and the Jackson zone.

We also had an interesting experience on Sunday. We were sitting in our apartment just doing normal stuff and Elder Averill looks out the window and sees a full grown wild turkey strutting across the courtyard of our apartment. Out of nowhere. Keep in mind we are by some pretty decent patches of forested area, but we are also in the city of Lansing. It was kind of cool to see. 

We had a great finish to the week and it was truly an amazing week full of blessings and miracles. God is so good.

Thank you all and merry Christmas!

Elder Oswald

A Christmas sweater photo shoot





Christmas sweater cookies we decorated! Elder Sorensen did the baby yoda sweater. I spent over an hour on mine oops


My Christmas presents!

Caroling to the retirement homes


Our ward mission leader gave us MSU beanies!









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