Elder Kallin Austin

Hey!

The key to happiness is not when you become
important but when others become important to you. 

I'm doing fine here. People feed me a lot. I'm still struggling with Spanish but I can teach the first two lessons pretty well now. I can understand certain types of conversations now. Certain key words let me know what the topic is about. However if the conversation strays
from anything gospel related then I have no clue what's being said. My vocabulary isn't that extensive.

We finally met our landlord this week. His name is Ben. He is a pretty interesting guy because he's 32 and lives in the Stone Age. My grandparents are more advanced than he is. He doesn't own a computer, t.v., he steals wifi from the neighbors, he collects his own honey, and he makes some pretty good salsa. Honesty he's a pretty interesting guy and is very fun to talk to. He works at his own radio sports station and talks mostly about BYU and U of U football.  My companion told him that we need wifi (because we don't get any in his basement) for my language study and missionary training. (We actually don't because we usually just drive to our ward building and just use the church's wifi. However I did not know my companion
told him this). And so all I know at the time is that Ben is considering getting Comcast and asked us to print off the papers and advertisements for him since he doesn't own a printer. We do this at the family history center, bring the papers back to him, and he calls Comcast. The fist thing Comcast does to him is pull a bait and switch and raise the advertised $40 a month to $50 a month. Ben does not like this at all. This is when we learned that Ben has a temper because he just completely loses it. He starts yelling at this poor Indian man on
the phone calling him many MANY names that I cannot write in this email and politely says goodbye and hangs up. He looks at me and says "sorry Austin I was probably really mean to that stupid Indian and it probably was uncalled for but don't worry I'll get you wifi. I know a
guy. I know that learning your language is really important and I get that. Just hang in there with me a couple more days. Can you do that for my bud?" This caught me completely off guard because I've never once mentioned my language needs to him before. So with the most
confused look you can imagine I said "it's fine I'm good?" But he's determined about getting wifi for me because if I don't get my wifi I'll apparently "be so far behind the other missionaries." This is what my companion used as an excuse.

That reminds me I haven't really introduced my companion yet.

This is my companion Elder Fonseca. He tells everyone that he is from Costa Rica but he is actually from West Palm Beach, Florida. He speaks Spanish fluently so he really helps me out. He hates exercising but loves eating. He's pretty friendly and knows pretty much everyone in the mission. He is leaving in 7 more weeks and he calls me "my only begotten son" because I am the first greeny he has ever trained. So apparently that makes him my "dad." I don't come up with the names. Apparently it's a missionary thing. We get along pretty well. He likes to work but he's also pretty lazy because he's really ready to go home. He'll probably be my companion for the rest of his time here so I guess it's a pretty good thing that we get along pretty well. 

I am sorry I do not have any pictures of me but I'll try to get some for next week. My iPad case isn't good for pictures and so I would have to take my iPad out of my case every time I take a picture. 

As for conference we watched it at our next door neighbors house. His name is Paul and he is probably the nicest guy in the world. He would do anything for anyone just because he wants to help others. I've never met anyone this nice. He reminds me a lot of Dave my last boss in Lehi. They could be twins. Anyways we watched the entire conference at his house. 

As for my investigators we still have the same 3 preparing for baptism. Kimberly is the 12 year old girl who has the maturity of a 20 year old because her mother is really disabled physically so she's having to take on the responsibility of caring for the family. She knows what baptism is about but she doesn't really know the commandments. She knows that one of the things we promise to do during baptism is to keep the commandments but she said that she doesn't know what the commandments are. Our next lesson with her will be over the commandments and the sacrament. Hopefully she'll feel more comfortable with the idea of baptism after this lesson. Her mother fully supports her in investigating the church and she would become a member too but she is currently getting a divorce and living with someone she is not married to so she would have a little bit to do before we could even consider extending her a baptism date. 

José and Margarita are in the same state as always. If it were up to Margarita she would be baptized tomorrow but she still wants to wait for José to be ready.we're trying to get them to temple square and have a lesson there. We're also going to talk about modern day prophets with José to try help him better understand the importance of prophets. Right now it's all about getting José reading the Book of Mormon and praying. 

Vania is the one who was getting attacked by her family. Fortunately her family is gone for the moment and she is still up for meeting with us. We gave her the talk "My Words... Never Cease" to help her with her doubts about Joseph Smith. We are also trying to get her to go to temple square with us. 

Today for P-day me, my companion, Elder Fonseca, this guy my district leader Elder McCarthy and this guy, Elder Armantrout  are going to wallabies for Elder Armantrout's birthday.

It's an Australian restaurant. Afterwards we're going to a place called airborne which is like sky zone only cooler. So yeah that's pretty much what I do during P-days.

Concerning Christmas send me everything sweet and delicious and minty that you can find. Also letters from everyone would be nice. Also maybe a cool piano book.

Anyways I hope everyone is doing well,

Love, Elder Austin