September 26, 2016

Baptism!!!
This week has been an amazing last week of the transfer!!!!!! We had a baptism of an amazing young man named Joseph Sanchez! Here is a picture! 

Joseph has been taking lessons from the missionaries for almost a year now. He has never wanted to learn about the gospel until after a couple times that his girlfriend invited him to sit down with the missionaries. He eventually agreed and that's where it all started. For many months he never wanted to keep a commitment. He just doesn't like doing things that other people tell him. He was taught for many months when I arrived in the area with Elder Mason and he was still the same. After I received Elder Rojas we decided to do something a little different. We decided to set everything up through his girlfriend. Every lesson, every leader assignment, every prayer, we would do it through her. She was amazing! She would even call him and read and pray with him over the phone. Eventually he felt something really wrong and wanted to meet with us immediately. We did and we taught him the restoration. At the end we told him that he could receive and answer right then and there and we invited him to kneel with us and pray for that answer. He did and we stayed silent afterwards. It was about 5 minutes of silence and the Spirit was extremely strong. Many people were crying by the time he broke the silence. He said that he felt completely at peace and all the things that worried him didn't worry him anymore. I then invited him to be baptized. He said "I think it's finally time." We set a date and the rest is history! He was confirmed yesterday by one of his friends and we were able to give him tickets for general conference for him and his girlfriend. He's very excited. 

Also I got transferred. I will be going back to the Mountain View 4th Ward tomorrow and I will be with an Elder Sewell. They did something that they've never done before which was create a Spanish zone. Now every Spanish missionary in the mission with be in one zone all together. I'm super excited for this change and I hope that it will bring about the purposes of the Lord. 

I bore my testimony yesterday and when I did that the last time in my last area I was transferred so I guess I saw that coming. It was so nice being able to train Elder Rojas and I will miss him greatly. But I made sure that he had a good start and now he'll have a great mission! 

This will be my last night in Westland 5th and I plan on working my heart out!!!! I hope to find many people who have been prepared by the Lord before I leave so the missionaries coming will have a lot of work to do. 

Also just as a description of the other pictures, one is of me and Elder Cunningham making a zone email where we invited the zone to smile more. The other is us at a zone activity together. The last one is our district's final day together. 

September 19, 2016

Miracles!
This week we had many miracles happen to us.

Some exciting news is that we will have a baptism this Saturday! His
name is Joseph Sanchez and it's been a long time coming. He has been
taught now for about 6 or 7 months and last week we had the lesson
that changed everything. It was the first lesson that Joseph has had
in a while and we decided to teach the restoration. He was at the home
of a member family and the setting was perfect. By the end of the
lesson we had him say a prayer to ask God is everything we just told
him is true. He did so and after we finished we gave him some time to
feel the Spirit. We all stayed quiet and many people started crying at
this point. When he was ready I asked him to describe how he felt. He
said that he felt really good and very peaceful. We told him that it
was God that gave him those feelings. I then invited him to be
baptized and he said "I finally think it's time to do it." He chose
the date of this Saturday and we're really excited for him. All of his
friends have been invited and his family is going to attend.

In other news we have been teaching a man named José for a while now
and he's gone through some pretty rough things in his life. But now
he's doing much better and actually said that he wants to be baptized
in the last lesson we had with him. We're going to stop by later today
and invite him to be baptized and give him a date to work on. We're
really excited for him as well and he'll probably be the second person
baptized after Joseph. If everyone can pray for José he really needs
it.

The weather is finally cooling down and things are picking up in the
area. Everything is going well with Elder Rojas and I and we're
working like crazy! This will be the last week of the transfer so it
will be exciting to see where I go after this. I'm hoping that I can
stay but you never know.

Anyways here's some pictures of us with the Toro family. They're a
wonderful family and I cooked dinner for them this day.

I hope everyone has a great week!

September 12, 2016

This week was great! A lot of things have happened and we've seen much success.

This past Monday the entire mission did a temple to temple run. We
started at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple and we ran to the Jordan River
Temple. It was a crazy run and I was able to do it in a good time.
Elder Rojas and I made shirts for the event and the talked to as many
people as we could. We were hoping to find someone who wasn't a member
but all we found were members. However we had some wonderful
opportunities to bear our testimonies and show Salt Lake City that
there are representatives of Christ in West Jordan!

August 29, 2016

The craziest Sunday ever...
Well training is proving to be very hard. I've been so used to
following my other companion but now that I'm in charge I'm having to
stay on my toes and work hard. It's really different being in charge
and it's not as fun as someone might think. I'm keeping diligent
though. We're working hard and making sure that we're not wasting one
second. We've found some new people and two of hem accepted baptism
dates in the first lesson so things are starting to pick up. My goal
is that Elder Rojas will be able to have a baptism this transfer and
this week is the last week to find people so I could use all the
prayers you're willing to offer.

Anyways the title suggests that this past Sunday was absolutely insane
which it was. After companionship study in the morning, while we're
getting ready to go to Ward council, we get a phone call from the
Elders Quorum President asking me if I can teach the class today. Of
course I say yes and he tells me that it's on the talk "to the rescue,
we can do it!" by Elder Arnold. This talk is one of my favorites and
so I get really scared to teach the class. After the morning meetings
and visits we're sitting in the Sacrament meeting room and I'm about
to start planning the lesson when someone asks me to help them find a
song they're looking for in the hymn book. So I find it and then I'm
asked by the bishop to play the piano for sacrament meeting. I tell
him that the hymns they chose were too hard for me so what we did was
we connected my I-pad to the speakers in the chapel through an
auxiliary cable and listened to the hymns through the iPad. It was
weird but it was the only option we had. During the opening hymn I
noticed that there was only one priest at the sacrament table so I
joined him. It was my first time blessing the sacrament in Spanish and
it was a wonderful experience. After sacrament meeting they asked us
to teach gospel principles and so we did. The lesson in Elders quorum
went well and everything ended on time. But I've never had to do so
many things at church before. I was completely exhausted afterwards!!!
But we had in total 4 investigators at church so it was really good.

Elder Rojas is getting much better at teaching and taught in gospel
principles really well. He's becoming more bold and a much better
missionary. This week I'm going to really help him learn the lessons
in preach my gospel. I'm hoping that this will help him follow along
in lessons more. But he's a great missionary and I love him to death!

Elder Mason sent me an email. He's already started school and has
already taught many of his peers the restoration. They call him "the
Mormon" already. But he's doing great. Here's a picture he sent me:

Aug 22, 2016

Training

Well I am now a trainer. I received a new missionary last Tuesday.
Elder Mason completed his mission and it was really sad to say
goodbye. He was my best companion and I will miss him a lot but we
still keep in touch and we're going to see each other after I finish.
I'm excited for that day.

My new companion is Elder Rojas and I'm going to attach a picture.
There's also,someone else in the picture that you might recognize as
well.

Elder Rojas is from Delaware and he went to school at Stanford right
before the mission. He is very smart and already is a very good
missionary. I'm very humbled to be his trainer. I'm using everything
that Elder Mason had taught me before he left and right now I feel
like I'm just trying to stay above water. But the Lord is helping me
and I have survived thus far. I finally feel like I'm getting the hang
of what I'm doing and everything is great again. We met some new
people last week and we're really excited with the lessons that we
have set up this week.

We had a rough week teaching lessons which isn't the way I wanted
Elder Rojas' first week to go but when I asked him how he liked it he
said that he absolutely loved it. I'm glad because it's only going to
get better from here on. We made a goal of 3 baptisms for this
transfer so if everyone could pray for us that would be great. We're
going to need the prayers.

Elder Lyons (one of my best friends) also left and finished his
mission part week. That leaves Elder Stout and Elder Kelley as my
other two friends. It's not going to be the same without Parker
(Elder Lyons) but we'll see each other again. He's going to go to UVU
which is right next to BYU so we already have plans to keep in
contact. He taught me many things about being a trainer that I've
already put into use. One of them was about service. He told me to
serve my companion to death. And so I did.

The very first morning of the new transfer I took a shower first and
he did after me. I noticed that when he left to go to the bathroom
that he hadn't made his bed just yet so I made it for him. I also
polished his shoes. When he got out I was at my desk reading my study
journal acting like nothing had happened. But he got me back! A couple
days ago the alarm went off 30 minutes late and I ran to the shower.
When I got back I noticed my bed was made and Elder Rojas was on his
bed acting as if nothing had happened. I looked at him and said while
pointing at my bed "I'll get you back for this!" Let the service wars
begin haha!!!!

Anyways I love you all and hope that everyone has a great week! Ether 12:27

Elder Kallin James Austin 
Utah SLC South Mission

left - Elder Plauche from GA.  

Aug 15, 2016

Well it finally came. elder Mason has finished his mission. He will be
leaving tomorrow and I will be getting a new missionary straight from
the MTC. I'm nervous and excited at the same time!!! It will be a new
experience for me but I am very excited for it. I could use all the
prayers I can get so everyone who is willing be sure to pray for me.
I'm going to need it.

This week has been the best week of my mission!!!! We have been in a
trio due to some emergency transfers last Monday. So we had Elder
Cunningham with us. He is an amazing missionary and so we had some
wonderful lessons! We ended the week with 7 people on date to be
baptized which is more than I've ever had before. This area is doing
amazingly and I'm so excited to see it grow. There's some pictures at
the bottom of us three together.

So my time in the mission is getting harder and harder to manage so my
emailing is being affected.

Anyways we had an amazing week and some of the most amazing times we
had were in lessons when the investigators got their answer about the
truth of the gospel. We do this thing where we promise that they can
receive an answer whenever they want even then and there. So we help
them pray and we just wait silently for the spirit to answer them. The
times we've done it it worked. This message is completely true and it
is supported by God. Because of this the Holy Spirit will answer every
time of the truthfulness of this message. You just have to let Him in
your heart.

Well I'm finding myself running out of time again. I love you all and
I wish you the best.

Elder Kallin James Austin
Utah SLC South Mission

Aug 1, 2016

Well as the subject suggests....we had another baptism. This baptism
was very special to me because it happened because of an earlier
baptism Elder Jiménez and I had. It was the baptism of Jorge's dad,
Jorge Sr. It was a very special baptism for me because Jorge received
the priesthood and was the one that performed the ordinance. He will
forever remember the first person he baptized and he'll be able to
tell that story to many people it was also nice seeing his entire
family again especially his mom who was baptized at the same time as
him. Not only was Jorge Sr. baptized but so was the wife of Alfredo,
Monica. She decided to get baptized because of the change she saw in
her husband. That was just as special. Because of that they will have
the opportunity to be sealed as a family in a year from now. I am so
excited for them both. I have the pictures at the bottom.

That day was the best day of my mission so far. I was able to see all of my favorite people in one day. It started out with breakfast at the stake president's house. He invited President and sister Lansing (mission president and wife) along with his assistance so I was able to see Elder Kelley!!!!! It's been too long since I've seen him and it was really nice to see him. Afterwards we had a hard day of work until the baptism. At the baptism I saw Elders Stout and Lyons (my two best friends in the mission) and we were all excited to be together again. Then the Chaparro family who is in the pictures and Elder Jiménez. Days like that are very rare.

Also Elder Mason has been my one of my favorite companions. He is one of the most incredible. We have a great trust for each other and we work hard. We are expecting these next two weeks to be two weeks full of miracles. 

Also we have an amazing family in the Ward who had recently gotten baptized before I got here. They are the Toro family. This is a picture of us in their house eating some Colombian food.
Also Elder Mason drew a picture to represent the mission. The mission I'm in has more temples than any other mission in the world and so this picture has a representation of each temple within the mission.
I hope everyone has a great week! 

Elder Kallin James Austin 
Utah SLC South Mission