Jan 25, 2016

Well this was an interesting week.

The week started off really slow. We spent most of our time trying to
find a new investigator. 

We found one Friday who's name is Cubé. We
talked to him on his porch and taught him parts of the restoration.
Then we invited him to be baptized and he accepted. He isn't solid but
he told us to come back in a week so we'll see what happens next
Friday. 

We also have a less active that we're working with named Moroni.
Moroni is near and dear to us and we do everything we can to keep him
out of trouble but he had a pretty bad week. Just a little background
on Moroni. Moroni started his first job as a hardcore drug dealer when
he was 9 years old. He became addicted to ummm a certain drug (I
probably shouldn't tell which one) when he was 14. Moroni was clean
for 5 months when I came into the area. Last Tuesday he relapsed and
spent the entire day with us. I barely knew Moroni when it happened
but my companion was devastated. We looked up a location of an
addiction recovery program and took him to one that day. We're going
to keep taking him until he can do the steps on his own. If anyone
doesn't know the 12 steps of addiction recovery then they should look
them up on the addiction recovery website. The 12 steps encompass
repentance completely and everyone could benefit through the 12 step
program whether they're an addict or not. 

In other news yesterday was my 20th birthday and it just so happened
to be the best day of the mission yet!

Yesterday morning was pretty terrible. I was just tired and not
feeling it that day. This kind of lasted until after lunch. Around
that time I was scheduled to have a meeting with President Chambers.
The meeting helped a lot to cheer me up and I came out of that meeting
better than ever. After that we went to church. My companion needed to
leave because the stake president was doing youth meetings and wanted
the missionaries to come and talk about missionary work. Elder
Montgomery was going but he wanted me to stay so I could get to know
the members better. During church our investigator Rashid wasn't
feeling good. He said he just wanted to be alone so after sacrament
meeting he left to go home and sleep. However we had 5 non-members
just decide to come to our church. Why? No idea. But I talked to all
of them in Spanish! 4 of them live in Kearns which is outside of the
mission but one of them lived across the street. So I asked him if we
could come over and now we have an appointment with him today at 6:00!
After church we stopped by Rashid to see how he was doing. This is
what I told president min my letter to him yesterday:

Some exciting news. We have an investigator named Rashid. He is Muslum
so he doesn't know much about Christ. So we've been really emphasizing
prayer and revelation and how he can know that Jesus was the Son of
God. He really liked the idea of personal revelation and in fact he
knew that he would receive an answer. However he wanted a dream to be
his answer. At first I was skeptical but after I prayed about it I
somehow knew that a dream would be his answer. Another thing, I have
never seen anyone with so much faith as Rashid. He has complete trust
in God. Well today after church he wanted to leave because he wanted
to be alone. He went to a restaurant to eat and then planned to go
home and sleep. He was waiting for his food when he fell asleep. He
woke up,and was very excited. We saw him after church at 4:15 at his
house when he told us his dream. In his dream he saw his grandfather,
father, aunt, and brother who are all dead. His grandfather told him
that God loved him very much and that he didn't answer his prayer
immediately because it was the first time God was able to hear his
voice and God wanted to hear his voice more and allow himself to
become closer to him before he answered his prayers. He then told him
that he needed to be baptized and that the man who gave the powerful
talk in sacrament meeting needs to be the one to baptize you.

I was pretty shocked. This is the first time I've seen someone get
their answer through a dream. Now Rashid wants to be baptized and the
man who has to do it is apparently named Hermano Bravo. If it were up
to Rashid he would be baptized tomorrow but we still have a lot to
teach him. The only thing we have taught him is the plan of salvation.
So we are meeting with him today, tomorrow, and Friday every week so
we can teach him everything. He will probably be my first baptism. 

After that we had dinner with a family I don't know that well. At 6:00
we went to the Riveras for the birthday of their son that we were
invited to. When we got there I found out that the celebration was for
my birthday as well. They even had one of my favorite families from
Sandy visiting which was really nice. Hispanics make really amazing
cake so I had a very good time. Afterwards we went to a less active
named Hermana Veronica who gave me another cake and some ice cream. I
had eaten so much that I wanted to throw up but it's rude not to
finish food in Hispanic culture so I finished absolutely everything.

So that was my week. Hope everyone is doing great!

Elder Austin

Jan 18, 2016

How are still in the hospital. I though it was only going to take a
few weeks? Was there something else wrong?

I'm doing fine but I did get transferred. I'm in West Jordan right
now. I'm in the best Ward in the mission according to everyone and
I've seen a huge difference between this Ward and the Galena Branch.
All the members are so willing to help us work and everyone is so nice
here. However I replaced Elder Creig who was completely loved here so
everyone is comparing me to him but that's okay. I'm doing my best and
they recognize that.

My new companion is Elder Montgomery and he is the first companion
that I've had who is willing to help me with my Spanish. He is younger
than me but is about to go home in 4 months. He's the first companion
who has been younger than me so it's kind of weird. He's a great guy
though. He's very outgoing and friendly. He's the best companion I've
had yet.

So during the week we've been teaching many less-actives and 2
investigators. We just picked up a new investigator yesterday who is
an exchange student from Qatar. Yes he is Muslin and yes he is
completely awesome!!!! He's probably going to be baptized on the 13th
of next month. He also has religious freedom in Qatar so he won't be
punished for switching religions which is good.

Well my absolute favorite chapter in preach my gospel right now is
chapter 6: How Do I Develop Christlike Attributes? Right now I'm
working on the attribute of diligence and afterwards I'm going to
study on faith. It's really change how I teach and how I work every
day. I can see myself getting better. It's really a,along how much the
Gospel changes you on the mission.

Also something I forgot to mention is that Elder Montgomery is from
Atlanta as well. He lives on the North East side so I never met him
before the mission but I just thought it was cool nonetheless.

Well that's pretty much everything. I hope you and Mikelle will be
home soon. Have a good week

Elder Austin

Jan 11, 2016

Well it's been a crazy week. My family's new home is the hospital and
I hate it but hopefully it'll go back to normal soon enough.

This week we were mainly planning for a wedding for one of our
investigators. Her name is Valerie and she's been an investigator for
a while. The day of the wedding we arrived at the church building at
8:30 with the cake and started setting up. By 9:20 we had everything
ready and we were just waiting for people to show up. We had about 25
people at their wedding which was more than I expected and even some
people who weren't members showed up. I played the piano for them
before, during, and after the ceremony. This is them:

The girl on the far right is not part of their family and they have one more daughter who is 12 who is not in the picture. The parents and the 12 year old daughter are all on date to be baptized on the 30th of this month. They will join the church as a family. 

Other exciting news is that I found a better way to fellowship less actives back into the Branch. We're going to call it "noche de jugar." The first one will be on the 18th of February. It's pretty much like a huge family home evening. So right now I'm focusing on finding all of the less actives in the area and inviting them to this event on the 18th. I'm also giving them food assignments to help encourage them to show up. What's go to happen there is that we're going to have music and games for the first part and then we'll end with a spiritual thought. It will probably be the plan of salvation. We're going to try to make this a monthly event or maybe even weekly but I've only heard good things about events like this. The sister missionaries in our district have something similar which is their Book of Mormon Club. It's pretty much just a fun night with food and friends and the Book of Mormon and they've been having more success than anyone! So hopefully my "noche de jugar" will be just as successful. 

Yesterday at church we had Valerie and her daughter Kimberly at church. We also had 2 less active families return to the branch. One of them was be jade we visited them and invited them to come back. This is pretty big for the branch because I was talking to the Young men and Young women presidents yesterday and they told me that the leadership in the branch are drowning in work. There aren't enough people willing to do their callings because of work and too many people in the branch to work for. So now that we're deactivating members, they can receive callings and help the struggling leadership. This is what needs to happen before we start getting non members into the branch otherwise we would just be baptizing people into a branch that doesn't want them. It's sad but it's what I was told by quite a few of the leadership. So I'm really hoping this "noche de jugar" will help with fellowship ping the less actives back to church. 

Well that's pretty much everything with me. Hope everyone is doing well. 

Elder Austin

Dec 28, 2015

Well this week had a lot of ups and downs. My favorite part was the
Christmas calls of course. I was finally able to talk to my family
which was great! The worst part was that my landlord decided that he
didn't want missionaries living in his house anymore. So we had to
move all of our stuff yesterday. Right now we're living with the zone
leaders which is terrible because it's 4 guys to a bathroom. Also I
learned that there is a hidden rule book other than the white
handbook. It's called the President Chamber Policies. Is there anyway
to get this book? No it doesn't exist. Only the AP's and zone leaders
know all these secret rules. Is there any way to find out the secret
rules before you break them? No of course not they're secret!!! So
that's been pretty annoying. Living with zone leaders is not fun.

I also learned that doing my personal study in Spanish has really
helped me with the language. Many people in the branch always tell my
how I have really good Spanish for someone who has only been learning
for 5 months. "I've been studying English for 9 years and I'm still
terrible at it!" That's what many of them will say as well.

Isabel is getting a schedule change at the end of this month so she
will be able to start coming to church with us. If everything works
out and she keeps her commitments then she will be able to get
baptized on the 9th of January. I'm very excited for her.

Valery is another investigator that we have who's only problem is that
she's not married to the man she is living with. This is a problem
because she can't be a member unless they either get married or they
split apart which probably won't happen because they've had 3 kids
together. We're taking a marriage specialist with us to our
appointment with her today. His name is Elder Dale but he goes by
Elder Guapo. So we'll see how that goes.

Transfers are coming up in about two weeks so we'll see if I'm going
to be in the same area for my birthday or not. It would be nice if I
stayed her but it would also be nice if I was able to go somewhere
else for a change.

Well that's about it. Hope everyone is doing well.

Elder Austin

P.s. This is something I was able to eat for the first time. They're
called sopas.

They are very good and I really really want some right now but that might be the only time I have some on my mission. Also here is my companion:

Dec 21, 2015

So this week was full of events and progress and Spanish.

First off we accomplished our Goal of 70 OYM's this week which was
great! Our goal next week is 100.

Isabel is our most solid investigator. We had a lesson with her on
Thursday this week and Hermano Sanchez (our Branch mission leader)
accompanied us. We enter the house, sit down, and Hermano Sanchez
starts talking and giving his conversion story which he always does.
Or that's what I thought. You see Hermano Sanchez and Isabel are the
two people I understand the least when it comes to their Spanish.
Sanchez because he talked so fast. Isabel because of her accent. So I
thought he was sharing his conversion story but wishing 5 minutes
Isabel was crying and I was freaking out because Sanchez is saying
something I don't understand and it's making Isabel cry. So I'm just
looking at my companion in horror waiting for him to explain what's
going on. He looks at me and says "everything's going great." Turns
out that Hermano Sanchez really got Isabel to open up and she said " I
used to turn the missionaries away because I'm Catholic but not that
things in my life are going terrible I need them in my life because
they're the only ones keeping me connected to God." So I guess the
lesson went well after all. We invited her to come to our Branch
Christmas party and she said yes and she's still on date for the 2nd
of January.

Marisa is a less active who we've been trying to meet with for a
while. On Wednesday I had exchanges. I was with Elder Schunk:

That guy and he doesn't speak any Spanish. This was also the day we met Marisa. I've met Marisa before but it's been about 2 months and I was just about to invite her to the Branch Christmas party when she started asking how my Spanish was going and if I had any investigators. At the time Isabel was our only investigator so I started talking about her. Now I usually don't divulge anything about my investigators to others but this time I decided to tell Marisa about the hard times Isabel was going through mostly because Marisa had to go through the same stuff in the last. So she better than anyone else knows what it's like. I told her that Isabel would be going to the Branch Christmas party and that I would like for them to meet. She agreed to go and said that she can't wait to meet Isabel. There's something about helping another person that can change you for the better. I'm hoping that by helping Isabel come to church that it will reactivate her as well. 

This brings us the the Branch Christmas party. We get there and Marisa is already there with one of her friends sitting just outside the gym near the front doors. I invited her to come inside the gym where the party was but she said that she wanted to wait for Isabel so they could sit together. Isabel comes and they meet. Everything was perfect. They stick together the entire night and when Marisa was leaving she old me thank you for inviting me and thank you for telling me about Isabel. She wouldn't have come to the dinner otherwise. Isabel also had a good time and next time we meet with Isabel we're going to start talking about the arrangements for her baptism. This is going to become a real thing now that the 2nd is only 12 days away. We're going to do everything we can to make sure she's ready. 

Now back to exchanges. Elder Schunk doesn't know any Spanish whatsoever. Luckily we didn't have any lessons scheduled that day but that didn't stop us from working. We were able to get 10 OYM's and we also did some tracting. One of the people we tracked into spoke Spanish. Not any English. So I started the basic "how to begin teaching" from Preach My Gospel and he invited us in. Usually they never invite us in. So at this point I was freaking out. He could tell that I didn't know Spanish well so he spoke slow using simple words which I really appreciated. The lesson actually went really well. It was the best lesson I've ever given. I taught that God is out loving Heavenly Father and that he answers prayers. I taught him how to pray and we prayed at the end. I asked if we could come again and he said that his work schedule is really unpredictable but if he's ever home then we should knock on the door and he will always let us in. We're usually around his area so we're probably going to see him again. 

We also found two new investigators named Arellano and Esperanza. We had a lesson with them the week before but a drunk Mexican named José Comacho came in uninvited and ruined the entire lesson. We were able to meet with them again without José being there and taught them the first lesson. They both accepted a baptism date on January 9th but we're still pretty skeptical. We've experienced many times where people will accept a date and act golden and then the next day tell us they're not interested and just drop us. So we didn't know what to think. 2 days later we met with Arellano and read chapter 1 of 1 Nephi with him. He doesn't read well so we gave him a CD with the first 23 chapters on it. Then he told us that he doesn't have a CD player. My companion then opened his bag and pulled out a CD player that he bought at DI for $3 and gave it to him. Then he told us he doesn't have headphones. My companion always has one of those mini speakers that you can buy at Walmart so I told my companion that if he gives Arellano the speakers that I would buy him new ones. So now I owe my companion $20. But it's all good. It's for the investigators!!! 

So yeah that was pretty much my week. Hope everyone is doing well. Merry Christmas 

Elder Austin

Pues entonces este semana fue mío bueno. 

So we really improved on a lot of things this week. One of them was
OYM's or Opening Your Mouth to random people on the street. Usually we
just get about 10 a week. But this week we really focused on getting
more and we had a lot of success. This week we had 69 OYM's. Almost
all of them were English so no new investigators for us but we did
find two new investigators for the English Elders. 

The best thing that happened this week was our lesson with Isabel. She
is having a hard time with her marriage and is currently going through
a divorce. She asked us for a priesthood blessing and before we gave
her the blessing we wanted to explain the priesthood and what a
blessing can do as long as the recipient has faith.  She said that she
knows it will help her because she received one from other Elders
before us and it helped her then. So we gave her a blessing of comfort
and taught her about prayer. We told her that the next step for her is
to be baptized and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost so she can be
sanctified and have that guidance in her life. She agreed and she is
going to be baptized on the second of January. 

The worst part of this week happened the next day. It was late and we
didn't have any lessons planned so we went to an apartment complex in
which we knew everyone was Hispanic and just knocked on every door. By
our 17th door we had someone invite us in. We started to teach them
the restoration. They seemed really interested and right when we got
to the Joseph Smith part of the lesson a drunk Mexican stumbled into
the apartment. He sat down and listened to the Joseph Smith story.
Before we could get to the Book of Mormon the drunk guy says "why do
we need Joseph Smith's church? I have faith in Christ and what is a
prophet?" So we tried to explain who a prophet was to this guy and we
asked him if he knew who Abraham was and we showed him a picture.
"Yeah that's Jesus and he built an ark and Jesus was born on top of
the ark and killed a bunch of people with water." After that we just
left. The other people weren't paying attention anymore anyways so we
said thank you and left. That was about an hour wasted. 

During personal study this week I learned more about the definition of
faith, which is an action, and it's changed pretty much everything I do
especially what I pray for. It's also changed the way I teach and
work.

I hope everyone is doing well, Elder Austin

This week was very eventful and very exciting. As existing as
missionary work gets. 

This week I received my new companion Elder Rojas. He would describe
himself as brown and charismatic. I personally think he's weird and
completely mad...but in a good way. He's a very hard worker and really
pushes me. He is also helping me with my Spanish as best as he can but
he gets really frustrated a lot. What can I say I have really bad
language skills. 

Anyways my favorite part and probably the most spiritual part of this
week is that we had Elder David A. Bednar and Elder Dale G. Renlund
come and speak to all of us this last Wednesday. We talked a lot about
some of the social norms among members and how stupid and faithless
they are. Those were Elder Bednar's exact words. We also talked about
faith and agency. One of the most important things I have ever learned
is that faith is action. Bednar really stressed that. It's changed a
lot of the way I do things as a missionary and the way I pray also. 

Me and Elder Rojas were able to put two people on date this week.
Kimberly who is 12 and Miguel who is in his 40's. We worked really
hard to get them there and to solidify them for baptism throughout the
week. We sent texts and stopped by and did everything we possibly
could. However neither of them came to church. According to the
standards of the mission, if they are not keeping commitments then
they are not allowed to be baptized. And so they are no longer on
date. So that happened. However something I learned is that even
though you're working hard, sometimes the blessings of your labors are
not always immediately apparent. 

Something we did do is find about 10 potential investigators and set
up lessons with almost all of this for this coming week so I am very
excited to see how that goes! 

Today I received a blessing for being obedient that wasn't apparent at
first. Today we were scheduled to have dinner at an Italian family's
house who's father is a professional chief. However he lived barely
outside of the mission so we were left with a choice. Either call the
zone leaders and ask for permission or head there anyways and no one
would have probably found out. However we decided to call and ask for
permission. Once the zone leaders heard that it was outside of the
mission the maybe became an absolute "no you cannot go." And so we
didn't get any Italian food tonight. Bummed and hating leadership, we
went out and started looking for less active families we could bring
back to the church. One of these families we stumbled upon turned out
to be an active family that went to a different ward. They invited us
in and asked us if we had eaten that night. We said no and they said
"well we just made a bunch of Philippino food and we'd love for you to
have some!" Philippino food trumps Italian food every time in my book.
BLESSINGS!!!!!!!! 

Also today while we were talking to random people on the streets, my
companion started hiccuping violently. I don't speak good enough
Spanish to carry on the conversation so he had to keep talking while
hiccuping. It didn't go so well because I started laughing at him
because he sounded completely ridiculous!!! And this caused the person
we were talking to laugh. And this is what missionary work is usually
like. 

My Spanish study has improved and I am getting better. I think the
main thing for me is that I just need to practice 24/7 and not speak
any English with my companion. Even if he gets frustrated or not. 

Well anyways I hope everyone is doing well, Elder Austin