Hey so this week was good. 

We were able to meet with Miguel and have a very good lesson with him.
He's doing really well and is reading the Book of Mormon. He seems
very interested and always has good questions for us. 

Isabel is doing really bad because she's having problems with her
marriage. However she's still interested in the church and still wants
to meet with us. I'm glad that we could have the opportunity to teach
her. Hopefully she'll start feeling better. 

So I found out who I'm going to get as a new companion. His name is
elder Rohas. I haven't met him yet but I've heard about him.
Apparently he's very funny but also very weird. So it'll be very
different from Elder Fonseca. But I heard that he's a very hard
worker. 

I'll be staying in my area so at least I won't be changing areas
before Christmas. I have really good members that I know I'll be
staying with for Christmas which will be fun.

I don't really have anything else to talk about but I'm sure I'll have
more next week. 

 Hope everyone is doing well, Elder Austin

Nov, 23, 2015

Hey everyone, 

So Isabel has been going through a rough time. She's our only
progressing investigator with a baptism date on the 28th. However life
for her has only been getting worse. Last Sunday she didn't come to
church because of her job so she is now off date but we're going to
try to get her to come next Sunday and get her baptized on the 29th
instead. We'll see what happens. 

Miguel our other investigator is never home now. We haven't been able
to meet with him again but we have a lesson scheduled with him later
this week. So hopefully we'll be able to meet with him.

We did however get an investigator to church this week. His name is
Brian Noguera and he's married to a member. They're very good to us
and they're turning out to be my favorite family. 

Anyways yesterday was insane! We get to branch council and we're half
way through when they say "oh by the way elders I know this is sudden
but we put you on the program for giving talks today." I won't lie I
was pretty upset mostly because I don't know Spanish. Also I had only
30 minutes to write it. But it all worked out. What I did was I wrote
it in English, translated it using google translate, then used my
companion to revise it. That was probably the fastest I've ever wrote
a talk. 

Anyways other than that this week has been really uneventful.
Hope you're all doing well, 

Elder Austin

Nov 16, 2015

Hey!

So this week was crazy!!! Here's what happened Tuesday:

As you can see it snowed....a lot!!!! It's also suppose to snow again tomorrow. 

Thursday my companion apologized to me all of a sudden because he was being so lazy and he wants his last two weeks to be full of work and miracles. This lasted for about two days and now we're back to the way things were before but I think it'll happen at least one more time before he goes home. 

Friday my companion was sick so I spent the entire day with Elder Armantrout and Schunk. 

Saturday we picked up a new investigator. His name is Miguel. His stepson just recently committed suicide so he's been going through a really rough time. We taught him the first lesson and throughout my companion was being extremely bold. He told him that he knows that the lord has been preparing him for this meeting with us and the Book of Mormon is what he needs in his life. We also used some new stuff from some recent trainings which is that we had him not only say a prayer after the lesson but we also had him take time to feel the spirit and break the silence afterwards. This lesson went extremely well because he's reading the Book of Mormon without us regularly or as regularly as you can in two days and he's definitely putting in effort to find out if this is true or not. 

Sunday we went over to Miguel's house to see how he was doing and ended up teaching him another lesson. We read through 1Nephi 1 with him and taught him about prophets and revelation. Afterwards we committed him to the normal read, pray, and come to church. It was a very good lesson and we'll be seeing him again on Wednesday. We also met with Isabel today as well. We read with her in 3 Nephi 27 and taught her about the gospel of Christ. Towards the end she started to cry and we stopped the lesson. We waited a moment and my companion asked her if she believed that all of this was true. She said yes. He also asked her if she still wanted to get baptized on the 28th. She said yes. The rest of the lesson went very well and I'm pretty sure she'll actually go through with being baptized. She's changed a lot since our first lesson. Our first lesson she didn't seem all that interested but now up she is our most progressing investigator. Sunday was a pretty good day. 

Today we are going to be playing soda can baseball (sister's idea). So that's going to be interesting. We also received an email today that Elder Bednar will be visiting our mission on Dec. 5 which I'm really excited for! 

My Spanish is terrible and now it's messing with my English. I'm starting to have trouble pronouncing words I've been saying my entire life. So now instead of being bi-lingual I can't speak anything. Also I have two more Sundays until that talk I have to give in Spanish branch so planning on being sick then. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes. 

Tell everyone I said hi.

Elder Austin

Hey,

Isabel is still progressing and still reading the Book of Mormon. Her
baptism date is the last Saturday of this month so everybody pray for
her so that she can have faith. If she decides to get baptized then
she will be my first baptism in the mission. Of course that means
nothing. What matters is that she makes a covenant with God that
allows her to be washed clean and have a way to return to her Heavenly
Father. 

Also mom you're not the only giving a talk soon. I'm giving a talk in
Spanish Branch the last Sunday of this month. It's on missionary work.
My companions giving a talk on the same subject to mine will be a more
broken and childish version of his talk because he can actually speak
Spanish. So yeah very scary stuff.

I am very happy to hear that Amechie is still a strong member. I'm
also glad that she wants to share her testimony with everyone. It
sounds like she's taking her baptism covenant very seriously. Not only
her but Udy too. Passing the sacrament for the first time is very
exciting. But it also gets very boring very fast though. What doesn't
change is the importance of the job however. Passing the sacrament is
a very sacred privilege because you are carrying what is necessary for
other to be able to access the atonement and renew their covenants
with the lord. I hope that he understands that when he passes for the
first time. 

So for my personal study I've been studying faith in the topical guide
and keeping a journal on what I've learned. Right now I have five
pages written and not even Half way through the faith section on the
topical guide. I've learned a lot and I've been able to apply a lot of
it. Once I'm done with faith I'm going to go into hope then charity.
Exciting stuff! 

Our other investigators have been struggling a lot with just keeping
commitments. Isabel is the only investigator we have progressing right
now. Also my companion is going home in a couple of weeks and he is
getting really trunky. He never wants to do anything anymore. Also my
Spanish has stayed the same it was last week. People still say that I
speak really well for someone who has only been out for 3 months but I
feel like I could have been better. Hopefully I can find a way to get
my companion more involved his last couple of weeks.

Anyways I hope everyone is doing well and yeah that's pretty much it. 

Elder Austin

Hi guys,

This week has been pretty normal. I can't even remember most of the
week.....uug it's all bending together!!!!! What did I do????

I went on exchanges with the newest greeny in the
district Elder Schunk. He's from Kansas and is really good with
computers. He's fluent in 3 different programming languages and wants
to go into a career of cyber security. I can't even remember if I said
that in the last email. Wow this is getting bad. My memory is really
failing me.

Anyways the most exciting news I received this week was the news that
Amechie was baptized. It looked like a whole zone was there. Anyways
very happy to hear that she was baptized and I hope she stays a strong
member of the church.

Isabel is going through a divorce right now but still wants her
ex/current husband to baptize him if she does decide to join the
church. All of our lessons with her a great! She's definitely a solid
investigator. She didn't come to church today because of work but I
know that she would have if she could.

Christian decided that he's going to stay in Lyndin (I think that's
hoe you spell it) which is definitely outside the mission so we had to
give him up unfortunately. We gave a referral to the elders in his
area but they have yet to contact us.

Jose and margarita haven't made any progress. They're in California
right now and right before they left we all fasted so that margarita
could receive an answer during her prayers. We're hoping that she will
accept another baptism date next time we see her.

Saturday everyone in the mission had the opportunity to go to the
temple. I did not because I was sick. So instead I read 30 chapters in
Alma and it was AWESOME!!!!!! Moroni is such a BOSS!!!!! So cool!!!!
So yeah that was my weekend.

Today is P-day and we are going to airborne as a district activity.
It's like sky zone but much cooler and much more fun!!! I am very
excited.

Also I am now officially a Mexican!!!!! We had dinner at a Mexican
house yesterday and they served something that they said was an 8 on
their spicy scale. It was too spicy for they wife to handle. I ate it
and yeah it was spicy but I was completely fine. It was just warm.
Tasted really good though.

Anyways hope everyone is doing well,

Elder Austin