December 7, 2015

We are going ice skating today as a zone for our zone activity so I'm getting my emails off early today so you don't have to wait around until later for me to send them!

I'll run down my week! It was another pretty good week here! 

On Tuesday I got to go to lunch at the famous Sister Mayes house. She's this older African American sister in the College Park Ward that LOVES missionaries. Example being her license plate cover which says "I love missionaries" that some Elders got custom made for her haha. Plus she has missionaries over every Tuesday for lunch. She's awesome! The only not awesome thing is your first time at her house you have to eat a scotch bonnet pepper. That pepper is like the second hottest naturally occurring pepper in the world. Yeah.. So this Crazy Jamaican lady makes all the Elders eat one then sit for 5 minutes until we get a huge bowl of ice cream. It was a terrible experience Haha. But at least I got the worst form of mission hazing I've heard of out of the way haha. I'll try and get my hands on the video of me eating it and send it!

Then Wednesday I got to go to the temple. Can I just say how much I love being in a mission with a temple so I can once a transfer! I love the temple so much and it's so nice to go. Plus I get to meet up with all the missionaries I don't get to see as much. So I got to sit next to my boy Elder McDonald for the season. I've sat next to him every time I've been in the temple as a missionary so far, so there fun. Hopefully we can keep the streak going until we come home! I leaned over before our session started and whispered to him, "I hope you realize that today makes it that I've been in the temple with you the same amount of times I have with my own Mom" He about lost it laughing. But it was a funny thing for us to realize together! Then after we got to go to our usually lunch with everyone at a nearby mall food court which is always fun to see everyone try and figure out why there is like 40+ guys in shirts and ties eating together!

A pretty cool experience we had was on Thursday! So remember that lady we kind of Bible bashed with last week? Yeah so she invited us over again. So Elder Williams and I show up and basically come to find out she brought her nephew, Justin, who is an assistant minister for her church to talk (bash) with us. Come to find out he's actually way interested in learning about our church. So he took a BOM and asked us tons of questions! It was honestly one of the best lessons I have had as a missionary! At the end he turned to me and asked for my email so we could keep in contact and talk about things! It was awesome! Then the best part was when Michelle (who was conveniently not able to come all of a sudden) shows up to see us still at her house. She was not happy but acted like she was fine. So we share the new Christmas video which Justin and her daughters loved! They were pumped about coming to the Festival of Lights! So hopefully they come. Plus we got to be apart of another hand holding loud Pentecostal prayer again and those are always fun. 

Then all day Friday I was on exchange with Elder Collins one of our Zone Leaders down in the College Park Ward. Nothing that great happened but I scored going to their wards Christmas party that night so that was pretty sweet. I love getting to be with other missionaries and learning from them. Everyone has their own way of doing things and teaching and it's nice to pick up on things from older missionaries here and there now that I no longer have an experienced comp to learn from. 

Sunday night we went to the visitors center for the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I thought it was super good! Plus I got to sit next to Coombs. I love that guy so much!! Also just getting to see other missionaries I miss tons. Plus there are other missionaries that look out for me lots, like Elder Coombs and Elder Parker/Tanner will call me some nights just so we can talk. But things are going good! We do get transfer call out this Saturday (I know! Crazy it's already that time again!) so that should be interesting!

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

Love, 

Austin

Thought you guys would enjoy seeing Ismael! Plus he asked me if I would baptize him!! So nothing is set in stone but it looks like as of right now I'm going to be the one who gets to baptize him! 

So the story behind this picture. So I was at the College Park Ward Christmas Party and they had this set up for family photos. So of course us as missionaries decided to take one together. And attempted to make it an awkward family photo. 

Me, Elder Collins (ZL), Then 2 French elders, Elder DeMill and Tatuaapua. Elder Tatuaapua is from Tahiti so he pretty much hates life right now in the cold haha