October 19, 2015

Hi everyone!

I know it is pretty crazy how fast the month is flying. I'm glad it was a great week for everyone back home! Are the leaves really changing back home? We are starting to get some color but I've been told the coming weeks is really when the change will happen so I will make sure to send pictures!

I'm glad you guy got to the Corner game! We drove past on of the local schools on Friday and I was like dang the guys are getting ready for kick off at home then I remembered it was on Wednesday because of fall break.I can't wait to go to a game or two when I get home! Plus more than a few BYU games! The Ward members keep us updated but it's not quite like watching the game and it's defiantly not like being in LES!

I'm glad it was a fun weekend with all the extended family! It was so fun to see all the pictures of all the little cousins that aren't looking so little anymore haha. I'm glad you guys got to Corn Bellies! It was always a fun date to go down there! All the family time probably was sure great! That's awesome about Jannali and Ryan's house! I'm sure it will be a little work but it will be awesome to have their own place! I've done my fair share of home improvement out here. We have gone to help a Ward member prime and now paint his new fix up home a few times now. 

So this week was a pretty good one. It felt a little but more like back in the swing of things. I still miss Elder Coombs, he and I worked hard! I kinda have to push for us to get really working and it's always easier when you can feed off of your companies energy. I saw Coombs up at Why I Believe last night and it was so nice! 

So I got to teach my first sit down first discussion this past week. Remember Felice? The one who said she was praying 5 min before we showed up on her porch.. Anyways so we stopped by this week honestly because we were probably going to drop her. But she answered and let us in. We taught the Restoration lesson and she was totally all for it! She kept saying how the restoration made sense and it just all felt right! She prayed with us, said she wanted to get baptized when she came to know if it was all true and that she would come to church and the Why I Believe! She even talked about the spirit she could feel when we were around. She was golden! She said nothing would come up on Sunday........... And she didn't show up yesterday. So yeah that was kinda a let down... It was rough. One of the biggest let downs of the week is when you're standing there I'm the foyer waiting for the people you invited and no one shows up. There's an awesome talk by Elder Holland at a missionary leadership training that's circulated around missionaries that's awesome. He talks about when missionaries ask, why is this so hard, the answer is it has to be hard. If we are a representative of Jesus Christ we must stand shoulder to shoulder with Christ in the salvation of souls. In no way saying we experience anything close to what Christ did, but saying salvation isn't easy, therefor missions won't always be easy. It's an awesome talk that Elder Holland says way better than I can.. 

White Plaines is still doing good.. Convert work is kinda slow so we are working with Ward members and helping them out. They are awesome! Other than Felice it was a pretty run of the mill week.. We did a ton of service on Saturday helping a kid in our Ward with his eagle project then going and helping paint that house. Then like I said yesterday was a Why I Believe which are always awesome!

I wanna be down here in WP2 for 2 more transfers so I can spent the holidays down here and actually get fed by members haha. And I think that's probably what will happen, spend 1 more with Redmond then he is going home. So I would do one more with a new Elder who I would pass the area off to.. 

I love you all! I hope you all have great weeks!

Love,

Austin

Here's Elder McDonald, Elder Lee and me. We are the guys from my group
that are super close. Elder Lee was in the MTC with us but we never
met him until the flight out. He's from Australia and he's super cool!
We are all in the same Zone so we see each other lots. We are way tight!